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3 takeaways from the Chicago Blackhawks road victory over the Philadelphia Flyers

The Blackhawks won 5-1 in Philly.

By Todd Welter |
/ Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
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The Chicago Blackhawks are playing their best hockey. Who cares if it is coming at the end of a lost season?

The Hawks have won seven of their last 12 games after beating the Philadelphia Flyers 5-1. The Blackhawks went 3-14-3 before this strong stretch, so you can see how well this team is playing lately on most nights.

This was probably the team we were supposed to see all season before injuries ravaged the roster through most of December through February. Now that the Blackhawks are mostly healthy, you can see that while the team was probably not going to be in the playoff picture, they would have been competitive through most of the winter.

Hey, the Hawks won a regular season game in Philadelphia for the second straight year after they won just one over the past 17 contests.

Here are three takeaways from the victories...

Lukas Reichel and Joey Anderson had multi-point games.

Reichel has had a rough first full NHL season. It got so bad that he was demoted to the Hawks' AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs, in February. He is back in the NHL now and has been playing much better. That is good to see from a player who at one time was one of the team's top prospects.

Reichel snapped a goal drought when he got the Hawks on the board first with a rebound shot that found the back of the net off his wrap-around attempt.

Reichel later picked up his first multi-point game of the season when he set up Joey Anderson for the Blackhawks fourth goal of the game in the third period.

Anderson picked up a primary assist a few minutes later on MacKenzie Entwistle's fourth goal of the year. Anderson and Reichel had a strong game as they finished one-two in the Hawks' impact stat ratings.

Philipp Kurashev benefited from Connor Bedard moving to wing.

Head coach Luke Richardson has been experimenting all year with his line combinations, mostly out of necessity with all the injury issues. The other reason he keeps tinkering is because the Hawks are in the middle of a massive rebuild, so he is trying to figure out what will work in the long run.

Bedard and Kurashev have established tremendous chemistry, but Richardson plugged Jason Dickinson as the first-line center and moved Bedard to the wing. The idea was Dickinson is a much better defensive forward, so have him focus on playing the entire ice and let Bedard focus on creating offense.

Well, the experiment worked at least for one night when Bedard fed Kurashev a slick pass and Philipp blasted the shot past the Flyers' netminder for the team's second goal with three minutes left in the first.

Kurashev joined Anderson and Reichel as the other Hawk with a multi-point game when he picked up the primary assist on Nick Foligno's power-play goal late in the second period.

It was good to see the Blackhawks' offense come up with a barrage of goals after they were previously shut out by Ottawa. The effort was so poor that former Blackhawks backup goalie Anton Forsberg barely had to break a sweat to blank Chicago.

Arvid Soderblom was good in goal for the Chicago Blackhawks.

The backup netminder has had a poor first full season in the NHL. It has gotten to the point that the Hawks really should consider moving on from him in the offseason by loaning him to a European club since he still has a year left on his deal.

Then he gives you a moment for pause when he has a game like he did against the Flyers. Soderblom had one of his best games of the season when he blocked 30 of 31 shots.

However, he got beat early in the second period on a save he should have made--something that has plagued him all season.

Still, he saved 1.92 goals above expected, per Natural Stat Trick. That is pretty impressive considering overall he is the worst netminder in that statistic among any goalie that has played in 20 or more games.

You would have to go back to October for the last time Soderblom has held a team to just one goal. Not making key saves has been another major issue for the backup netminder all year. He made them in this contest, and along with Kurashev, Anderson, and Reichel having a big scoring night, it allowed the Hawks to pick up a victory.

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