Chicago Blackhawks Sleepwalking In 5-2 Loss At St. Louis

The Chicago Blackhawks’ battle with the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night gave horrific flashbacks to the first-round playoff sweep against the Nashville Predators last spring

Last week, I wrote a post about why we needed to curb our enthusiasm a bit over the Chicago Blackhawks’ hot start, as there were some underlying stats that were still worrisome through the first few games.

While many, rightfully, commented and tweeted back to us that we should just have fun with the season and enjoy the hot start the ‘Hawks were having, these concerns reared their ugly head over the last three games, but specifically last night against the St. Louis Blues.

The Blackhawks sleepwalked through the first two periods of their game in St. Louis, getting only eight shots on goal in the first 40 minutes and surrendering three goals to a Blues team that was much more up to the task.

This lackluster set of periods included five tripping penalties, none of which lead to a goal, but all of which killed any sort of momentum or energy the team was trying to build.

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Corey Crawford made 28 saves on 32 shots, and while he did get caught in no man’s land on the second goal, he was actually one of the only bright spots in the game for the Blackhawks.

Crawford made a couple of fabulous saves that kept the team in the game. Well, I guess it kept the score lower, but it never really did feel like the ‘Hawks were in this one.

Eventually the ‘Hawks would score two late powerplay goals to try and save some face and to skew the numbers of what has been an atrocious powerplay to start the year, but the game was already over. Richard Panik’s goal was the fourth of the year for him, and Patrick Kane (who assisted on Panik’s goal) now has seven helpers in 2017-18.

What to take away from the loss

Last night’s game when coupled with the Predators and Wild bouts have revealed there are some kinks the Blackhawks are going to need to work through to be a successful overall unit. Increased production on the powerplay (a problem seemingly every year) will be very important for the ‘Hawks, as well as playing a full 60 minutes and sustaining offensive pressure throughout the game.

If we are to take some positives out of the game, Nick Schmaltz’s return, while not very productive, started to get better as the game went along. He may have been getting his skates back under him early on after missing four contests.

Meanwhile, the penalty-killing unit was able to kill five Blues powerplays, increasing its penalty-kill percentage to 85.7, good enough for seventh in the NHL thus far this year.

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Tonight, the Blackhawks welcome Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers to the United Center. Hopefully, the team is a little more awake and ready to go when the game begins.