5 Quick Chicago Blackhawks Thoughts On Blowout Loss To Islanders

The Chicago Blackhawks came off their bye week and scored pretty quickly, but in the end it was a blowout loss to the New York Islanders which is pretty deflating. So, here are 5 quick thoughts on the loss tonight from the United Center.

5. Put Vinnie Hinostroza Back On The Top Line

No I don’t think Vinnie is an elite scorer, but he had some chemistry with Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad so it doesn’t make any sense that Joel Quenneville would decide to put Anthony Duclair on the top line. Vinnie can play a bit out of control, but he also can create for other which he was doing for both Saad and Toews. Duclair isn’t a playmaker so I don’t like this combination and it was obvious all night long with the top line being pretty quiet outside of one good shift.

4. Alex DeBrincat Has Gone Silent

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on DeBrincat. I think this is on Coach Q for his lines having the Cat with David Kampf. DeBrincat should be playing with offensive players and maybe he will be on the same line with Artem Anisimov on Monday night. One of my worries is that DeBrincat will disappear in the 2nd half, and I hope this game isn’t an ominous cloud over #12 for the rest of the season.

3. Jan Rutta Had A Horrible Game

When you are on the ice for 6 of the first 7 goals it’s fair to say it was a bad night. This again points to chemistry with there being no need to carry 8 defenseman. The defensive pairings are always getting changed up which doesn’t help all these young defenseman. Rutta was just plain bad and I would expect him to be sitting on Monday night. It’s nice that the Hawks defenseman are active on the offensive end, but they need to play defense and not let the opposition set up shop right in front of Anton Forsberg or Jeff Glass or whoever is in net.