DALLAS — One of the questions that popped as Tyler Bertuzzi battled inconsistency last season with the Chicago Blackhawks was whether he’d still be with the team by the end of his four-year contract.

If he couldn’t live up to it early on, what would it look like if he wasn’t producing a few seasons down the line? The Blackhawks do plan for more high-end prospects to arrive to the NHL in the coming years, and it wouldn’t be difficult to envision Bertuzzi being pushed out if he wasn’t doing his part. He best fits a top-six role, but he has to be producing to warrant it.

A season later, Bertuzzi has completely altered that outlook. Outside of Connor Bedard, no Blackhawks player has been as consistent on offense as Bertuzzi. He’s limited his droughts and expanded his production. If he stays that course, it’s much more realistic to see him as a factor in the Blackhawks turning the corner on their rebuild.

Bertuzzi proved his worth again Saturday, scoring twice in the Blackhawks’ 4-3 shootout win at the Dallas Stars, helping Chicago snap a six-game losing streak.

Bertuzzi hadn’t scored in six games, his longest scoreless streak of the season, though a far cry from the double-digit stretches he endured last year. The way he’s remained consistent this season is by making sure he achieves one constant every game: getting to the net. It’s what worked again Saturday.

“Just me finding (the) right spots,” Bertuzzi explained. “Obviously, 17 of my 18 goals are right in the crease. I’ll keep going there and hopefully keep getting rewarded for getting to the paint.”

Bertuzzi’s first goal Saturday wasn’t directly in the crease, but it wasn’t far out. He entered the zone with the puck in the first period and saw he had Alex Vlasic trailing behind him. He shoveled the puck back to Vlasic and broke to the lower-right circle as Vlasic carried the puck deep in the left circle. Vlasic swung the puck back to Bertuzzi, who easily scored with the right of net open to put the Blackhawks up, 1-0.

Tyler Bertuzzi leads the NHL in goals on the road with 14 goals this season🔥 pic.twitter.com/c00K9rzyxE

— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 28, 2025

Bertuzzi’s second goal was classic Bertuzzi. He knocked down a shot by Vlasic, got to it first and scored within a few feet of the net.

“I think one of the things Bert relies on is guys to shoot the puck,” Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “I don’t know if you guys could hear it, but on that tying goal, he yelled, ‘Shoot early.’ The whole bench heard it. He gets himself to that net front, that’s where he’s great, that’s where he’s special in the league. He needs guys to have that shooting mentality. I think sometimes if guys aren’t getting pucks through or aren’t shooting them, it takes away sometimes his ability to score those goals. If he does get opportunities to tip pucks or get rebounds, he’s really good around the net.”

Additionally, there has also seemed to be a positive effect in Bertuzzi’s reunion with Blashill, who coached him in the AHL and NHL with the Detroit Red Wings organization.

“I’d be interested to see why he wasn’t consistent,” Blashill said. “Him and I spoke about that in the summer. He was frustrated with some of the large stretches he went without scoring and wanted to make sure we kept an eye on it as a coaching staff. When I had him previously, I don’t remember it being anything from a consistent thing because his effort is pretty much the same every night.”

Goaltender Arvid Söderblom wasn’t completely down on himself after his last handful of starts. He was well aware of the goals that piled up, but felt his game didn’t match that.

After five straight starts that ended in losses, Söderblom, who hadn’t been in the net for a Blackhawks win since Nov. 18, was hoping for a different outcome.

He delivered, and got the win. The Stars’ chances got better and better as the game went along, but Söderblom denied nearly all of them. In the third period alone, Jamie Benn and Mikko Rantanen had breakaways that could have decided the game, and Söderblom saved them. He stopped 12 of 13 shots in the third period, two in overtime and three of four in the shootout. He finished with 28 saves on 31 shots.

“I felt great,” Söderblom said. “I’ve been working on breakaways and one-on-one situations, so to play those like I did today in the game felt really (good) to have that confidence and not back up too much, stay out there and challenge the shooters, take away net. I think I played a good game and that was a big part of it.”

Söderblom also came up big on the Stars’ four power plays. The Stars are among the league’s best, but didn’t score despite having 10 power-play shots on goal.

“One of the things with the PK is you have to have great goaltending,” Blashill said. “I thought Sody was excellent tonight. Especially as the game went along, he got better and better and better. I thought he was a big piece of the kill late, some of the late kills for sure.”

The Blackhawks weren’t allowed to travel to Dallas until Saturday because of the NHL’s rules during its holiday break. Blashill’s options on how to approach that were to hold a morning skate in Chicago and then depart, leave early Saturday morning and skate in Dallas, or, as he decided, abandon the morning skate and return to the ice during warmups after three days off.

“Listen, these are hard days,” Blashill said. “I’ve done it a lot of different ways and it hasn’t been great, and I thought, let’s try this. I know we didn’t skate, but sometimes that morning skate is enough to really get yourself (ready). I just thought this was the right move. I thought we played fairly well throughout the game.

“After two periods, we had the chances pretty even. They had more chances than us in the third; some of that is power-play related, obviously. But I thought our guys, we had four lines, we needed to play four lines, we played four lines. So overall, it was a good team win.”

Analytically, the Blackhawks’ fourth line of Nick Lardis, Dominic Toninato and Sam Lafferty was arguably their best. With the line on the ice for 7:49 at five-on-five, the Blackhawks had a 15-7 advantage in shot attempts, 9-2 in shots on goal and 7-5 in scoring chances.

Lardis also got a shift in overtime and provided the game-winning goal in the shootout.

“I thought that line with Toni and Laffs was pretty good,” Blashill said. “They did a pretty good job, so we put them out a little bit more. Ultimately, in overtime, (Lardis) and (Ryan Greene) got a shift there, and I thought it was a good shift, to be honest with you. He’s been in our shootout mix. That’s obviously a specialty, and he’s a goal scorer. We thought he could give us a chance, especially in the situation to win it. It’s two different pressures, whether you got a chance to win it or whether you’re kind of keeping your team alive. For a young player, putting them in a spot where they have a chance to win it is important.”

NHL GameScore Impact Card for Chicago Blackhawks on 2025-12-27 pic.twitter.com/Zr6ZiApNfP

— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) December 28, 2025

Ilya Mikheyev missed Saturday’s game after the recent birth of his child. The Blackhawks decided to recall Landon Slaggert from Rockford for the game, and Blashill put him on the top line with Jason Dickinson and Bertuzzi.

“If you think about the lines, I was trying to keep some continuity from the last game,” Blashill said. “I don’t like moving lines around every game. We tried to keep the (Ryan) Donato line the same, and we just took Mikheyev out and put another guy in that skates pretty well in Slaggs. I thought Slaggs came up and did a pretty good job. Him and Mickey aren’t exactly the same player, but he does bring energy, he does skate, he brings that line some speed, which I thought was important.”

Blashill wasn’t sure whether Mikheyev would play against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday. Nick Foligno also remained out of the lineup Saturday, but could return Sunday.