The Chicago Blackhawks, to put it kindly, are not very good.
That’s before they had a rash of injuries, including a broken jaw for Vancouver wunderkind Connor Bedard, that led to them scrambling for warm bodies to put in the lineup, like Rem Pitlick, Zach Sanford, and Jaycob Megna.
The Blackhawks have $29.25 million in cap hits on injured reserve right now and that’s with Bedard only taking up $950,000 on his entry-level contract. That’s left them with a lot of AHL-caliber players in their NHL lineup.
They’re exactly the type of team that the Vancouver Canucks would be at risk of taking too lightly. After all, the Canucks are first in the NHL, with five players heading to the All-Star Game. It wouldn’t be too surprising to see them turn up their noses at the lowly, Bedard-less Blackhawks and fall victim to a classic trap game.
Head coach Rick Tocchet, however, wasn’t too worried about that.
“I would be more concerned if we didn't have the second period we did it against the Leafs,” said Tocchet after Monday’s morning skate. “Maybe a little too cocky. I think we got a little humble pie in that second period against Toronto. So, that got our antennas up.”
The second period against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday was ugly, as the Canucks coughed up a 3-0 lead while getting badly out-shot.
“There should be no reason to think we're anybody,” said Tocchet. “I don't care if we're in first place or not — I think that second period just kind of woke us up a little bit: 'Hey, we’ve got to be ready to play.' That's what I think.”
The Canucks were ready to play to start the game, playing a fast-paced, aggressive first period that staked them to a 2-0 lead. Their second period, however, was nearly as bad as their second period against the Leafs. The difference is that the Leafs have a lot of offensive talent and the Blackhawks, again to put it as kindly as possible, don’t.
To put it unkindly would require a great deal of asterisks.
So, the Canucks, with help from an excellent performance by Thatcher Demko, kept the Blackhawks off the scoreboard. To continue the trend of putting things kindly, it wasn’t the most inspiring performance.
“I thought we were just okay,” said Tocchet. “It was like we got the two goals and I think we just kind of coasted it in. It’s good we got the two points but it wasn’t a pretty game for us.”
That said, Tocchet was pretty pleased with the end result.
“I love shutouts,” he said. “I’d rather win two-nothing than eight-four any day of the week. It gets you in the game, it means that you’re tracking, you’re doing the right things most times when you get a shutout.”
I love shutouts too but I’ll be honest: from a pure entertainment perspective, I would have preferred an eight-four win when I watched this game.
- After Monday’s morning skate, I had a conversation with Pius Suter about his line’s lack of scoring even as the team as a whole has been racking up wins. So, of course, they were the Canucks’ best line on the night, as they dominated puck possession, with Suter scoring one goal, Ilya Mikheyev picking up an assist, and Andrei Kuzmenko tallying two assists. I’m not saying I made this happen, but I’m not not saying that either.
- “There was more triangles, more holding onto pucks — they were closer together, so even if a guy lost it, there was another guy there to pick the loose puck up,” said Tocchet of Suter’s line playing a more connected game. “Hopefully, that’s a good start. They did a lot of video sessions the last couple of days and I think it worked for them.”
- All game, Kuzmenko had the confidence of a man attempting to correct a woman online and it paid off on the first goal. He picked up a puck that Noah Juulsen banked off the boards, faked a shot, then curled behind the net. He had an easy pass available to the point that every Blackhawk on the ice thought he was going to make; instead, he sent a blind, spinning, backhand pass through the slot to a wide-open Suter at the backdoor, who slid the puck five-hole to open the scoring.
- Shortly after the goal, Nils Åman had his stick launched into orbit by a Reese Johnston stick lift that might have been mildly overzealous. I thought Johnston attaching rockets to his stick was a little much.
- Quinn Hughes was absolutely dominant in the shift leading up to the 2-0 goal. He performed a series of spins and dekes to escape Johnston while holding the blue line and helped the fourth line keep the Blackhawks hemmed into the offensive zone long enough for the Canucks to perform a full line change and get the Suter line back on the ice. It was a dazzling display that demonstrates why he leads all defencemen in offensive zone puck possession by a ridiculous margin.
- The build-up to the 2-0 goal was all about the Suter line. Suter held the blue line after coming off the bench and fed the puck down low to Kuzmenko, who momentarily lost possession behind the net but then battled back from his knees to free the puck up for Mikheyev — there’s that connectedness Tocchet talked about. Mikheyev cut into the slot and drew defenders with him in his wake while dropping the puck to Hughes, giving him room to cut to the net.
- To cap it off, Hughes scored on an absurdly good shot. He attacked with speed and took advantage of Petr Mrazek going down early to roof the puck top corner on the short side. It was an obscenely perfect shot that honestly looked like it came out of a Connor Bedard highlight reel, so maybe the fans who paid top dollar for Bedard’s first game in Vancouver still got to sort of see a piece of him.
- “I think he’s had about five of those goals in that same spot top shelf short side,” said Tocchet. “That’s probably the hardest shot in hockey to hit, to hit that short side, and he’s hit five of them. Some guys, it’ll take three years to hit that and he’s had five this year. That’s credit for how hard he worked on his shot this summer. I bet you he’s added 10 or 15 miles more per hour than it was last year.”
- The Blackhawks pushed back hard and created some chances in the first and into the second, but Thatcher Demko came up with save after save, even if some of them got a little bit scrambly at times. Demko made 31 saves on 31 shots for his fifth shutout of the season, tying him for the league lead, because this team didn’t have enough league leaders.
- “I’m happy for [Demko] because I feel like he’s been one of the best in the league for a while now but that position has to do a lot with statistics and with how loose we’ve been the last two years, he probably didn’t get the recognition he deserves,” said Hughes. “But obviously now, we’re starting to clean some stuff up and you guys are seeing his numbers.”
- I cannot emphasize enough that the second period was just plain bad. I did not like it. Even when Hughes tried to inject some excitement by dangling around his empty net on a delayed penalty, it only gave me anxiety seeing as I’d just seen highlights — or lowlights, rather — of the Pittsburgh Penguins scoring an own goal in that situation earlier in the night.
- The second period wasn’t helped by a series of penalties that led to brief stretches of 4-on-4 and quick power plays that didn’t give either team much time to work with. It made for a discombobulated period of hockey and I don’t want to think or write about it anymore, but I’ll at least drop this quote from Tocchet, where he excoriated his team for yet another too many men penalty.
- “The puck was at the hash, our D can’t change,” said Tocchet firmly. “I think Mysey jumped, it was kind of a brain — you know the word I’m going to say — by three guys. You cannot change when the puck’s at the hashmark. You can’t do it.”
- The third period saw Mrazek goofily put his glove in front of Conor Garland’s face, trying to make like Shane Battier to block his view of the puck behind the net. It was ten times more entertaining than anything that happened in the second period.
- The Lotto Line was thoroughly mediocre in this game, perhaps falling victim to the trap game mentality, especially after the Canucks were staked to the 2-0 lead. Tocchet gave them the extremely harsh criticism of a Travis-Green-esque, "They were just okay. You know, they got...they were just okay."
- Probably the biggest indication of how well Mikheyev, Suter, and Kuzmenko played is that Tocchet sent them out onto the ice in the final minute to not only close out the win but to close out the shutout. That shows a lot of confidence given how frequently Kuzmenko has been benched in the third period in close games.
- “I wanted [Kuzmenko] to understand the last minute and see how he reacted, how he went through the neutral zone,” said Tocchet. “He did a good job surfing the guy really fast. I think maybe that will give him confidence, knowing that if he does that — not so much that he’ll get on the ice but that it works. I saw a little pep there when he surfed over that guy, it was actually something that we’ve talked about.”
- You can see what Tocchet means by “surfing” in the clip below: right after Kuzmenko came over the boards, instead of skating straight at the puck carrier, Ryan Donato, Kuzmenko took a curving path along the Chicago blue line, like a surfer carving into a wave. That cut off Donato’s passing options cross-ice and forced Donato to dump in the puck, where Ian Cole was able to retrieve it.
- This neutral zone surfing also allowed Kuzmeno to keep his momentum as he skated alongside Donato back into the defensive zone instead of having to stop and start if he tried to take a more direct line. It’s one of those staples of the game that Tocchet is trying to kachunk into Kuzmenko and this was a good sign that some of those staples are finally finding purchase and sticking in.
