Embarrassing effort in second period leads to Blackhawks blow out

The Chicago Blackhawks’ five-game road point streak was snapped at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins. After their 6-1 win tonight, the Penguins swept the two-game season series by outscoring the Blackhawks 13-4.

The night started off well as the Blackhawks scored the opening goal and headed into the first intermission tied 1-1. It had been a while since the Blackhawks had a bad second period, and tonight’s middle frame was one of the worst of the season.

One of the biggest reasons the Blackhawks built a 3-0 lead against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday was because of their clean zone breakouts. Those types of breakouts were non-existent in the second period tonight. The Blackhawks were outscored 4-0 with three of the goals coming in the final 4:30 of the period. The Penguins had a 23-6 advantage in shots on goal, 44-12 in shot attempts, 24-7 in scoring chances, and 11-4 in high-danger scoring chances. The 23 shots were the second-most the Blackhawks have allowed in a period this season.

“The second was bad,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “I thought we were fine in the first. But then in the second, we didn’t compete hard enough, to be honest with you. We lost too many stick battles. We ended up defending way, way, way too much. You know, when you lose stick battles, lose races, and turn pucks over at the blue, you defend a bunch. They spread us out and won battles in front. Too many guys weren’t good enough.”

Those are telling words….

Nightmare Outing for Second Pairing

Arytom Levshunov and Wyatt Kaiser have done more good than bad this season, but tonight was by far the Blackhawks’ second defensive pair’s worst game of the season. They were on the ice for all four goals against in the second period.

The first Penguins goal of the period came on one of Levshunov’s worst shifts of the year. He looked lost the entire sequence, starting by going up to cover the high man just inside the blue line after a defensive zone faceoff loss. Then, he had a chance to clear the puck and completely missed it.

The second scoring play started with an ill-advised turnover by Tyler Bertuzzi at the Penguins’ blue line. The Blackhawk looked in good shape with numbers back into the defensive zone until Levshunov lost Egor Chinakhov, who took advantage of the young defenseman’s poor gap control to score his sixth goal since arriving in Pittsburgh.

The Penguins' third goal was a complete team defensive breakdown. The Blackhawks allowed too easy a breakout from the Pittsburgh zone, then Teuvo Teravainen, Levshunov, and Kaiser all let Anthony Mantha streak right up the middle of the ice for an easy goal.

The fourth goal of the period can’t be pinned on one particular player or play. The Penguins were able to take advantage of the defense collapsing for a scramble in front of the net, but not a single white sweater could corral the puck.

Levshunov was outmuscled on the Penguins' sixth and final goal in the third period. He took some frustrations out by getting into a shoving match with Noel Acciari after the play. He and Kaiser finished the night as a minus-5. With this pairing on the ice, the Blackhawks were outshot 13-5, had a 15-6 disadvantage in scoring chances, and 2-10 in high-danger scoring chances. It will be interesting to see how Levshunov bounces back against the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow night. He’s in need of a positive effort….and the Olympic break.

“I didn’t think he played good,” Blashill said of Levshunov. “For the pairing, it was a tough night. He’s got to rebound and play better than that. That’s part of the roller coaster that we expected to see.”

Ryan Greene, A Rare Bright Spot

Ryan Greene has been one of the most pleasant surprises this season. He’s gone from being slated to start the season in the American Hockey League to playing every game with the Blackhawks and being one of Jeff Blashill’s most dependable players.

Greene started his night by picking up his 13th assist of the season on the game’s opening goal. The key to this play was Frank Nazar skating to the net and drawing two defenders with him. This gave Greene the time and space to find Connor Murphy trailing the play and caused traffic in front to aid his shot into the net.

Late in the first period, he created a scoring chance for himself by keeping the puck in the zone, then weaving through traffic. I really loved how he kept skating towards the net after he got his shot off and had a chance off the rebound. A lot of guys would have peeled off, but he kept going straight to the net.

Greene had another highlight by starting a 2-on-1 rush during the Blackhawks’ only penalty kill of the night. He finished with three shots on goal and created four individual scoring chances, one of which was high-danger. His 72 scoring chances are the fourth-most on the team and three behind Ryan Donato for third. His 36 high-danger scoring chances are also fourth on the team, and he’s just one behind Andre Burakovsky for third. Not bad for a guy who was a Landon Slaggert injury away from being a Rockford IceHog in October.

Nuggets & Tidbits

• Nick Foligno only took two shifts in the first period and was not on the bench for the rest of the night. This left the Blackhawks with 11 forwards for the final 50 minutes of the game, which is rough considering they play again tomorrow. Blashill did a good job with the ice time, as no forward played 20 minutes. It was easier to spread out the minutes when the game was out of hand in the third period. Blashill did not have an update on Foligno’s condition after the game.

• Arvid Soderblom was tagged for six goals, but still came up with 38 saves, the third-most he’s made in a game this season. I thought he played well, especially early in the second period before the wheels came off. He looked confident in the crease. He was pushing to the top of the blue paint and made himself big. However, it’s hard to ask any goaltender to keep bailing out his team when the defense made life far too easy for the Penguins. He faced 16 high-danger shots and stopped 12 of them. To put that into perspective, Arturs Silovs faced only six high-danger shots all night.

• The power play went 0-for-2 and is now 0-for-24 over the last nine games. They looked the most dangerous they have in weeks on their first opportunity. Teuvo Teravainen nearly scored on a jam play, and Connor Bedard rang a shot off the crossbar. They spent nearly the whole two minutes in the offensive zone and produced eight shot attempts, three shots on goal, five scoring chances, and three high-danger scoring chances. However, they were unable to build off a good showing as they had only one shot attempt in their second power play later in the first period.

• The Blackhawks are now 18-9-5 when scoring first, but are 0-2-1 in the last three games they held a 1-0 lead.

• Bedard scored his second goal since returning from his shoulder injury, and his first with a goalie in the net. While it didn’t make any difference in the outcome, it was still a thing of beauty. He played great against the Wild on Tuesday, producing some prime scoring chances. Hopefully, this is the goal that gets him going again and starts him piling up the points. This was the 66th goal of his career, breaking Eddie Olczyk’s team record for the most goals scored before turning 21.