The Blackhawks had no chance to beat the Utah Hockey Club last night

There’s no doubt the Chicago Blackhawks are a better hockey team with a plethora of interesting storylines surrounding them. But last night, they weren’t winning that game, serving mainly as the stooges for the Utah Hockey Club while the latter earned its first-ever win in front of a home crowd.

It would be one thing if Utah was truly an expansion team, but they’re not, despite their 2024-25 founding. This team is basically the NHL’s Baltimore Ravens, one founded as an expansion team but with the same players and personnel from a previous team. 

It all means that Utah is far more talented than your typical expansion team, and playing in front of that crowd, even the Florida Panthers would have had a tough time skating away from Salt Lake City with a win. 

That said, I’m not going to be too tough on the Blackhawks, who are still a far cry talent-wise from the Panthers. And for the time, they also look like they’re well behind Utah, but after one game, let’s not get overly concerned here. 

Blackhawks did not look like the same team we’ve gotten to know

Within the game’s first 30 minutes, the Blackhawks found themselves down by three goals, and for a while, they looked like a team that didn’t even improve. But Teuvo Teravainen and Nick Foligno scored the next two goals, drawing the Hawks back to within one before Utah scored a pair in the game’s final minute. 

It showed us this Blackhawks team had more fight in it than last year’s version, judging from the preseason, and now, a one-game sample. Overall, it wasn’t an impressive performance, but given the circumstances surrounding this game, I didn’t like their chances of escaping Salt Lake City with the W. 

Utah was too good of a team to let that happen, and they already have too good of a fanbase to fill an arena roughly halfway so early in the team’s existence. This isn’t saying the Blackhawks were set up to fail last night, but the odds were more than against them. 

So now, the real 2024-25 season begins with 81 games left now that they got the game few thought they’d win out of the way. Considering the fight they showed to claw back into and make this a game, it foreshadows a fun season ahead, even if they don’t look like a potential contender at the moment.