Blackhawks sleepwalk themselves into a blowout by the Golden Knights

The Chicago Blackhawks have played pretty good hockey since returning from the Olympic break. They’ve been in every game and have seen some of the young core players step up after the entire leadership group was traded at the deadline.

None of the things they had been doing right over the past few outings showed up in a 4-0 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. After a lousy first period, the Golden Knights cruised for the rest of the night, as they regained first place in the Pacific Division.

"I know they've been grinding out a little bit here, but they played a really, really good game,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “They were on top of it. And I didn't think we were quite on top of our game. Execution certainly wasn't there, so then you don't have the puck enough, and you have to defend, and they're a good hockey team. And then you lose the special teams battle. All those things add up."

Game Ended Early

Tonight’s game was over before half the players even broke a sweat. The Blackhawks got an early power play, but instead of gaining early momentum, they fumbled around and didn’t get a single shot on goal. Four minutes later, Pavel Dorofeyev scored the first of his two power-play goals. Three minutes later, they got goals from Rasmus Andersson and Keegan Kolesar 25 seconds apart, and the game was over.

The Blackhawks were stuck in neutral the entire first period. They weren’t moving their feet, they were not engaged on the forecheck, they were losing every puck battle, and they made life far too easy for the Golden Knights. The crisp zone exits we’ve seen over the last few games were non-existent.

The Golden Knights outshot the Blackhawks 12-6 in the opening frame, while holding an 11-5 advantage in scoring chances and 5-2 in high-danger scoring chances.

“They jumped on his quick,” defenseman Alex Vlasic said. "A good team like that, they’re hard to compete with once they get a lead. We’ve been doing a good job, but tonight wasn’t our best.”

Greene’s Rough Night

Ryan Greene might have trouble sleeping tonight after a couple of miscues that might have helped the Blackhawks get back into the game. On the opening shift of the second period, he was gifted the puck by goaltender Adin Hill and had a wide-open cage to shoot into, but he was unable to bury the chance.

Early in the third period, Artyom Levshunov looked like he’d scored his third goal of the season with a nice shot from the point. However, Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy challenged the play for a missed hand pass. When you watch the replay in slow motion, Greene does hit the puck with the back of his hand, and Connor Bedard is the next player to touch it. By the rule, it is a hand pass, but having to go frame-by-frame to take a goal off the board for that is one of the many reasons why replay is bad.

Nuggets & Tidbits

• Special teams failed the Blackhawks tonight. The penalty kill allowed two goals in a game for the first time since Dec. 7 against the Anaheim Ducks. To be fair, the Golden Knights have one of the best power plays in the league. Dorofeyev and Tomas Hertl have combined for 31 power-play goals this season, which is more than the St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers, Calgary Flames, and Mammoth have as a team.

• Vegas also boasts the NHL’s seventh-best penalty kill, which caused the Blackhawks’ power play all kinds of trouble tonight. In 6:27 of power-play time, the Blackhawks only had seven shot attempts, two shots on goal, and two scoring chances. That’s not good enough.

• Ehtan Del Mastro was back in the lineup with Wyatt Kaiser out with a shoulder injury. He was on the ice for the Golden Knights’ third goal in the opening frame. The Blackhawks had a 38.89 Corsi for percentage (CF%) with him on the ice at 5-on-5, and allowed eight scoring chances, with half of them being high-danger. Del Matro’s evening ended early when he got a 10-minute misconduct midway through the third period for standing up for Bedard.

• In one of the only positives to take out of this game, the Blackhawks won 58% of the faceoffs (32 for 55). Bedard and Nazar led the way, winning 19 of their 31 combined draws. Everyone who took more than one draw finished at least 50%.

• It was good to see Ilya Mikheyev return to the game after taking a slap shot to the knee late in the first period. He hobbled his way back to the locker room but returned to action for the second period. He finished the game with three shots on goal, tied with two others for the most on the team.

• One of those players Mikheyev was tied with was Andrew Mangiapane. Any time gets out of hand early, I always pay attention to who is still engaged and who mails it in. Mangiapane was more than just engaged; he did all he could to get his team going when they were down 3-0. He did not take a single shift off, as he kept driving to the net and mixing it up after the whistle. Late in the game, he was still playing hard, but hit the crossbar on an open net because it was just one of those nights. There is nothing flashy about his game, but his style of play is contagious and will endear him to the fanbase.