Save Your Tears: Maple Leafs 5, Blackhawks 2

A second defeat in as many nights for the Hawks.

The Chicago Blackhawks dropped their second straight game since returning from the 4 Nations break, falling 5-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday night at the United Center.

The Blackhawks opened the scoring on the power play with 11 seconds left in the first period. A shot from Ryan Donato hit Tyler Bertuzzi in front of the net and the latter knocked the puck to Teuvo Teravainen, who fired it home. Credit Teravainen for the behind-the-back pass to set up Donato’s initial shot, too.

The Leafs tied the game 1-1 about seven minutes into the second period. With a quick pass, Max Domi set up Nicholas Robertson in the slot and the latter one-timed the puck into the back of the net.

Jake McCabe gave the Leafs a 2-1 lead at 9:45 in the middle frame. Auston Matthews won the faceoff, Chris Tanev got the puck back to McCabe, and a McCabe one-timer through traffic beat Arvid Soderblom.

Robertson got his second of the game with 15 seconds left in the second, extending the Maple Leafs’ lead to 3-1. Domi beat Seth Jones in a foot race for the puck along the right-wing boards before sending a backhand pass to a streaking Robertson in front, who put the puck up and over Soderblom.

The Blackhawks got back within one quickly, scoring with seven seconds left in the middle frame. Frank Nazar carried the puck into the zone, undressed Domi with a neat toe drag move, and got a feed across to Philipp Kurashev, who scored while going down to one knee.

The Leafs got their two-goal lead back at 12:07 in the third. A rebound from Christopher Tanev’s shot from the top of the circle rebounded off Soderblom and then hit the skate of TJ Brodie, ricocheting into the net.

An empty-netter by Pontus Holmberg with 1:32 left in the game put this one away at 5-2.

Notes

The Blackhawks started the first period off pretty well, having solid puck control and getting into the offensive zone regularly. The issue was that the Blackhawks didn’t do a great job getting off many shots (just 6), as they were unable to break through the Leafs collapsing defense once in their zone. The Leafs ended up taking over a bit at the end of the period, so it was a bit lucky the Blackhawks got the lone goal on the power play. Chicago was better defensively, at least, keeping the Big 4 of the Leafs to limited activity for basically the entire period — a good strategy to have, considering how top-heavy the Leafs are. So really, not a bad period for Blackhawks, but the 5-on-5 shot metrics did all favor the Leafs: shot attempts were 21-17 and shots on goal 9-6 while the Blackhawks had just 26.4 percent of the expected goals.

During the second period is when it started to go poorly for the Blackhawks, as it so often does. The Blackhawks had a little push to start but the Leafs took over: they dominated until they got their power play and first goal, then continued to pour it on well after scoring their second. The Blackhawks finally started to respond with about six minutes left in the period, but the Leafs capitalized on a defensive breakdown before the Blackhawks could pot their own goal. Still, to be down only one goal going into the third with how dominant the Leafs were for long periods in the second — the Blackhawks had just 37.78 percent of the shot attempts and 34.54 of the expected goals — was ideal.

The Blackhawks carried some momentum into the third period and didn’t let the Leafs power play deter them, but it felt too little, too late in a way. Kind of like last night, there wasn’t much of a sense that the Blackhawks could come back even though it was only a one-goal deficit. The skate goal was a real bummer too, but the Blackhawks at least didn’t let that knock the wind completely out of their sails — they just also didn’t really mount a legit comeback at any time. The team is neither good nor lucky at this point. The period ended with the Blackhawks having an edge in shot attempts (58.82 percent), shots on goal (55.56) but quality wasn’t in their favor (41.86 percent expected goals) and they only got five actual shots on goal.

Not that I think it would have made a difference in the game’s outcome, but I really don’t know what offsides is anymore. I understand the reasoning given why this is onside and maybe even agree, yet it’s ruled that so inconsistently that it’s hard to really follow from game to game. The issue isn’t necessarily with this particular call, it’s that it feels like a coin flip on whether or not the rules will be enforced.

Even the the Leafs’ players don’t know what what will be called on or offsides:

It was a very split performance for the Blackhawks lines tonight: the middle-six were great, the top and bottom lines the exact opposite. Nazar, Kurashev, and Tyler Bertuzzi owned 68.18 percent of the shot attempts and 67.47 percent of the expected goals while Teravainen, Nick Foligno, and Ilya Mikheyev owned 66.67 and 75.88 percent in the same categories, respectively. The Nazar line did get the softer minutes against the Leafs third and fourth lines in high offensive deployment, so it was expected they’d have favorable stats. But credit to Nazar in particular for taking advantage: he led the team with six shot attempts, three scoring chances, and generally used his speed to play-drive most of the game. This was also Bertuzzi’s best game in a while — hard nosed and smart –and he got two assists to show for it. The Foligno line mostly matched against the Tavares line and in the defensive zone, so kudos to them for flipping the ice in the Blackhawks favor.

I can’t take Soresen seriously when he does and says stuff like the below when he allows veterans to pile up terrible games. Do I think Reichel had a particularly good game? Nope. Do I think he was the worst on the team? Also no — I don’t even think he was the worst on his line. I’m not sure why Sorensen singled out Reichel when both Pat Maroon and Craig Smith had terrible individual games tonight. Maroon’s lack of speed in particular was an issue for the line. The trio was absolutely murdered at 5-on-5 — shot attempts were 21-3 and shots on goal 10-1 in favor of the Leafs and the Blackhawks had just 2.08 percent of the expected goals — but the lone shot was Reichel’s and he set up his linemates for two whiffs in the first that frustrated me.

We’re just back to the coach inconsistently holding some players, usually young guys, to a higher standard than veterans and it’s so very tiring at this point. Grow a pair, Sorensen, and call out a veteran every once in a while.

The other line that got absolutely worked by the Leafs was the top line of Connor Bedard, Landon Slaggert, and Ryan Donato. It was lower event hockey for the line with shot attempts but the Leafs still had 12-7 and 5-3 edges in attempts and shots on goal, respectively, while the Blackhawks had just 11.44 percent of the expected goals. Neither Bedard and Slaggert had a shot attempt at 5-on-5 and Donato had just one on goal. The Leafs are top-heavy, but the Blackhawks don’t usually have a chance of winning games if Bedard is shut down, and that’s what happened tonight.

The defensemen all had rocky moments this game too, though Connor Murphy and Nolan Allan had the best defensive moments, in my opinion. Alex Vlasic and Alec Martinez were both fine but not particularly good, TJ Brodie was just kind of there like a statue on the ice, and Seth Jones made the most individual mistakes, especially defensively among the defense core. I don’t think any of the mistakes by Jones were overly egregious, but he got beat to pucks a handful of times, his coverage was sloppy, and he wasn’t as engaged physically as usual.

Speaking of Jones, the elephant in the room is of course the report that the defender wants to be traded, initially brought to us by Ben Pope of the Sun-Times. Since then, a couple of other reporters have echoed the story, including Kevin Weekes tonight during the intermission, though Weekes added that the Blackhawks likely will need a third team to help make the deal happen. While Jones has never been worth his current contract, he is still a top-four defender and the Blackhawks do not have to trade Jones, so they should only do so if it does not hamstring them in the future. If another team can help make Jones’ contract more palatable for another team to take on without the Blackhawks retaining more than a small percentage (at most, $2M), then great — but it needs to be a good move for the Blackhawks as an organization, not just a cap dump.

In quick prospect news, there is good and bad from tonight. First, the good: Nick Lardis had a hat trick tonight, making it seven on the season. Kid just can’t stop scoring at this point.

And now the bad: Aryom Levshunov received a game misconduct for cross-checking an opposing player in the face, and while it did not look intentional — like, I don’t think he meant to get the kid in the face, just do a normal cross-check/shove — and there was instant regret from Levshunov, he is likely looking at a suspension.