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3 Takeaways From The Chicago Blackhawks Road Victory Over The Arizona Coyotes

The Chicago Blackhawks snapped their 22-game road losing streak with a 5-2 victory.

By Todd Welter |
/ Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
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A bunch of losing streaks were snapped as the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Arizona Coyotes 5-2 at Mullett Arena.

The Blackhawks snapped a franchise record 22-game road losing streak. The victory also snapped a seven-game losing streak the Hawks had that included getting shut out twice by Colorado and being drubbed by Columbus. Finally, backup goalie Arvid Sodeblom picked up his first victory since November 24th (we will address his performance later).

The victory looked like it would drop the Blackhawks out of the top spot in the Tankathon.com/NHL standings.

Thankfully, San Jose picked up a point in the standings with a shootout loss to the Dallas Stars. Talk about a great night as the Hawks got a win and still have the lead for the best odds in the NHL Draft Lottery.

Here are three takeaways from that victory...

Seth Jones had a great game.

The Blackhawks' highest-paid player is having a rough season in the traditional stat categories. He had one goal on the season heading into the game. Plus, he had been terrible against the Blue Jackets two games ago--his former team.

Jones snapped out of his funk with two goals and two blocked shots in 24:40 of ice time.

Seth scored the Hawks' first goal on a two-man advantage (we will address the power play shortly).

It was only Jones' second goal of the season. He has been going through a rough patch on the ice recently, so it was good to see him rifle a shot off the defenseman's stick that was redirected into the goal. Jones also scored the team's final goal on an empty netter.

The man gets a lot of scorn for being paid like he won multiple Norris Trophies when he might just be at best the No. 2 defenseman on a good team. You must remember that was the previous management who lavished that contract on him. He showed at least for one night why he is still a No. 1 defenseman--albeit one who is overpaid.

The power play was amazing.

Four of the Hawks' five games came on the power play. That's right, the Blackhawks scored four power-play goals. I did not know that was possible since the Hawks have the third-worst power-play percentage in the NHL.

In addition to Jones' goal, the Hawks' second goal came on the man advantage when Connor Bedard slipped an absolute dime to his figurative hockey dad, Nick Foligno for the goal.

Bedard finished with two assists on the night which was good to see as teams have been giving him his "Welcome to the NHL" hits. He even took one in this game.

Anyways back to the power play. The Coyotes tied the game at two, but the Hawks broke the gridlock with another power-play goal.

This time it was rookie defenseman Kevin Korchinski who slipped a nice pass to Jason Dickinson who flicked a shot into the back of the net.

It was fantastic to see Korchinski come up with the assist as he is going through the rookie struggles big time right now.

The Blackhawks added to their lead with another power-play goal late in the second when Phillip Kurashev blasted a shot into the net.

That is right people. The Blackhawks scored four power-play goals in this economy. The next step is scoring four goals when it is five-on-five. Hey, the Hawks won on the road for the first time since early November so no need to be picky.

Arvid Soderblom was outstanding in goal.

You do not get to write that about Soderblom often. The backup netminder stopped 37 of 39 shots. He even made a critical save to keep the Hawks in the game. That is something he rarely does.

There were some glimpses of the terrible goalie we have seen all season. The first goal he gave up was a typical Soderblom gets beat.

The second goal he also overplayed which left the net open even though Korchinski tried to help him.

Otherwise, Soderblom was outstanding in goal. It was the type of performance the Hawks had hoped to see out of the goalie all year. Instead, he has been one of the worst goalies this season in the NHL. He was not in this one.

It was his first victory since around Thanksgiving. That is a long time to go without a win. More importantly, he returned to his house of horrors and came out a winner. The last time Soderblom started at Mullet Arena; he gave up seven goals in late October. He looked nothing like that shelled goalie.

That was good to see just like it was nice to see the Hawks get a road victory.

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