After a solid first period that suggested a competitive night, the Chicago Blackhawks were buried by a four-goal second period and ultimately lost 6-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night..
The Blackhawks opened the scoring 9:32 into the first period. Ryan Greene found Connor Murphy in the high slot, and Murphy snapped a wrist shot through traffic to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.
#5 is right on target🎯 pic.twitter.com/VL7tsAoFBI
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) January 30, 2026
The Penguins answered just over two minutes later. Connor Dewar collected a rebound in the slot created by Noel Acciari and beat Arvid Söderblom with a quick wrist shot to tie the game 1-1. The refs did miss a blatant trip on Alex Vlasic during the battle for the puck ahead of the goal.
HOW DEW YOU LIKE THAT FOURTH LINE?! 💪 pic.twitter.com/zN4c4SV0na
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 30, 2026
Ben Kindel put the Penguins ahead about six minutes into the second period. After the Blackhawks were unable to get the puck out of the zone, Anthony Mantha sent a slick pass up to an open Kindel, who scored five-hole from the left faceoff circle to make it 2-1.
TEENAGE TALENT. pic.twitter.com/UwKth573ca
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 30, 2026
The Penguins then blew the game open late in the period, scoring twice in a 31-second span. First, at 15:30, Egor Chinakhov took a spinning backhand feed from Evgeni Malkin, made an impressive move around Artyom Levshunov, and finished with a wrist shot to push the lead to 3-1.
EGOR = ELECTRIC. pic.twitter.com/3EwqHp4Qfe
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 30, 2026
Just 31 seconds later, Mantha made it 4-1 with a backhand on a breakaway. The chance came after Wyatt Kaiser got turned around and fell trying to prevent a zone exit and Levshunov over-committed to a player on the opposite side of the ice, leaving Mantha alone behind the defense.
A BLAST FROM MO 💥 pic.twitter.com/8iwLDVkqnv
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 30, 2026
Ryan Shea — a Blackhawks draftee in 2015! — added another before the intermission, extending the Penguins’ lead to 5-1 with 30 seconds left in the second. Shea one-timed a cross-ice pass from Ilya Solovyov from the top of the right circle.
It was a Royal Rumble in Front of the Net then Ryan Shea settles things down with the Goal. Pens have more work to do in the Third as The Pens lead the Blackhawks 5 to 1 at the Start of the Third. #LetsGoPens pic.twitter.com/cmJceRDmOU
— JK4 From Pittsburgh. Let’s Go Pens! (@Joek72) January 30, 2026
Dewar scored his second of the game about six minutes into the third period, jamming the puck home after a brief scramble in front to make it 6-1 — yet another goal after the Blackhawks allowed a scrum in front and couldn’t come up with possession.
TOUCHDOWN. pic.twitter.com/SWZdOBo6vj
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 30, 2026
The Blackhawks did get one back late with 5:31 left in the game. Connor Bedard entered the zone, slammed on the brakes to create space, and scored from one knee in the right circle. However, that would be the last goal of the game and the Blackhawks fell 6-2.
what a shot😮💨 pic.twitter.com/wFdpBijzwW
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) January 30, 2026
Notes
The Blackhawks didn’t exactly come out flying, but they had a nice start in the first period. The transition game was mostly clean, puck retrievals were going well, and the defensive structure held together. Special teams tilted the ice time away from 5-on-5 with only 14 minutes played there, and the period itself was fairly low-event. Still, where that script has hurt them in recent games, the Blackhawks actually came out ahead this time, owning 52.38 percent of the shot attempts and 53.92 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5. It honestly felt like they deserved another goal, but offense has been hard to come by lately, and the Penguins did a solid job limiting actual shots against, allowing just six shots on goal at 5-on-5.
A lot to like on this long O-zone shift: pic.twitter.com/M1HGDIzKh5
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
Unfortunately, the Blackhawks followed that up with an all-too-familiar disaster of a second period — and that might be underselling it. Whether it was the Penguins’ veteran core finally flipping the switch or the Blackhawks completely losing the plot, Pittsburgh looked like an elite strike team, forcing mistakes and punishing every one of them. The numbers were brutal: the Blackhawks were out-attempted 33–11, outshot 18–5, out-chanced 18–6, and managed just 18.36 percent of the expected goals. Soderblom wasn’t at his best during the onslaught, but the breakdowns in front of him were just as glaring, making it no surprise that the Penguins scored four unanswered goals.
The third period picked up right where the second left off, with the Blackhawks barely hanging on as the Penguins ran all over them. There isn’t much need to dive deep here, because the shot metrics tell the story clearly: the Blackhawks were once again on the losing side of attempts (30-12), shots on goal (13-5), chances (16-9), and expected goals (29.08 percent) by a fairly wide margin.
The poor Moms, having to witness this tonight. Gross.
As for my positives and negatives from the night, I’m going to lean a bit more on the few good moments since I feel like we could all use a bit of that after a game like tonight.
Obviously, Bedard scoring in the final minutes didn’t matter for the outcome of the game, but it did carry some significance given that he’s still working his way back to form since returning from injury. He’s been doing a lot of good things lately, like finding open ice and getting shots off consistently over the past few games, but the elite finishing we’re accustomed to seeing from him has been just a touch off. That’s fairly understandable, considering it was his shoulder that was injured. Hopefully, this goal helps open the floodgates for Bedard going forward. He finished the night with seven shot attempts, four shots on goal, and three scoring chances in just under 20 minutes of ice time. Other good moments from him below:
Bedard off the bar on a one-timer as the Blackhawks just can’t snap the 0-for-23 power-play skid 😭 pic.twitter.com/Gf8093Jr0Z
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
Bedard splits two Penguins to get a good shot off pic.twitter.com/b7obwb5aXS
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
Greene had another night where his intelligence was on full display, playing an elevated defensive game while knowing where to be on the ice in the offensive zone to help generate chances for himself and others, as seen especially on the Murphy goal. It’s still unlikely he’ll ever been a high-offense type of player but you can’t help but be enamored with his smart, utilitarian approach to the game. He was just behind Bedard in attempts (5), tied with shots (4), and led the team in scoring chances (5) in 15:15.
Greene with a nice look: pic.twitter.com/vl3aMf8qPU
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
To a lesser degree, Frank Nazar had a solid game as well and feel like he’s been getting better since his return from injury, too. The defensive zone takeaway to start the sequence for the Murphy goal was just one of a handful of heads-up moments for Nazar where he flipped the ice — just not many resulted in chances, beyond that goal.
GOAL: Frank Nazar with the D-zone takeaway setting up a Connor Murphy SNIPE pic.twitter.com/nuHzeOTN0v
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
As seen in the clips above, most of the positive moments came in the first period, which also happened to be the last time the Blackhawks looked particularly competent as a team. The positives could probably be summed up as: first period, good — everything else, bad. Shoutout to the penalty kill too, for another impressive game even if they were not tested as much this game. But it obviously went off the rails hard in the second. This is where there isn’t much need to linger, because we all saw what happened, and frankly, I don’t want to have to think about it anymore too much. Transition became a major issue as the game wore on, the inability to win puck battles — along the boards and in front of the net — showed up repeatedly, and miscommunication and miscues were constant, among plenty of other problems.
Jeff Blashill rightly called out the Blackhawks’ compete level.
“You know, when you lose stick battles, lose races and turn pucks over at the blue, you defend a bunch. They spread us out and won battles in front. Too many guys weren’t good enough.”
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 30, 2026
Still, it would be remiss not to point out that Wyatt Kaiser and Artyom Levshunov turned in one of the worst outings by any defensive pair this season — technically the worst, if you’re going by Dom Luszczyszyn’s Game Score. In roughly 14 minutes together, they were out-attempted 25–11, outshot 16–3, outscored 5–0, and posted an expected goals share of just 30.91 percent.
That said, this is less about singling out two players and more about acknowledging how quickly things snowballed during a brutal stretch of the game. Kaiser has put together a run of good-to-excellent performances recently, but this was a clear miss. He lacked his usual poise both with and without the puck, his defensive reads were late, and everything felt noticeably more scrambly than normal. Levshunov hasn’t been trending well lately either, and those issues were magnified here — repeated puck miscues, loose coverage, and a general sense that he was acting before thinking. These are the type of games where you question Levshunov’s hockey IQ, but you also hope his instincts can be shaped/trained to be more right than wrong, especially considering he’s still young (he turns 21 later this year). Maybe going back to sheltering Levshunov would be good for a bit, giving him some lower-stakes minutes just to get his groove back.
Blashill on Levshunov: “I didn’t think he played good. For the pairing, it was a tough night. He’s got to rebound and play better than that. That’s part of the roller coaster that we expected to see.”
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 30, 2026
It’s also worth noting that once the game tilted, just about everyone was underwater, and this pairing happened to be on the ice for the worst of it. The numbers are ugly, but they’re pretty representative of a team-wide collapse than a definitive statement on either player.
I don’t think Levshunov saw Kaiser fall, which is why he played the rush like he had another man back. Tough break. https://t.co/VD2mEjD0Ku pic.twitter.com/3MKjl1IAuB
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 30, 2026
Game Charts
Three Stars
Anthony Mantha (PIT) — 1 goal, 2 assists
Connor Dewar (PIT) — 2 goals
Ben Kindel (PIT) — 1 goals, 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks have no time to rest, heading back to the United Center to face the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday at 7:30 p.m.