ST. LOUIS — Days before Jason Dickinson got injured, the veteran forward opened up about his morale hitting a multi-year low on these struggling Blackhawks.
“It’s not hopeless — that’s not the word — but what’s coming to mind is that sense,” Dickinson said this past week. “No matter what we do, it feels like we’re just outmatched.
“You play the hardest, best game you could possibly put out there on a night, and it feels like sometimes you still come up short. Futile is a good way to put it. I can’t speak for anybody else, but for myself, it feels like that.”
Dickinson was referring largely to the Hawks’ home losses Jan. 20 and 24, in which they played well against the Hurricanes and Lightning, respectively, but still fell in overtime. There have been plenty of other losses this season in which they didn’t put out anything close to their hardest, best game — such as the Winter Classic, for example.
The Hawks’ wacky 6-5 shootout loss Saturday against the Blues in their Winter Classic rematch, meanwhile, represented yet another excruciatingly-close-but-not-quite missed opportunity. Dickinson wasn’t in the lineup to experience it, but it surely would’ve frustrated him.
After falling in the 10th round of the shootout, the Hawks enter the NHL’s two-week international break with a 3-3-5 record in their last 11 games and a 17-31-7 overall record this season, ranking second-to-last in the league.
They’ve lost six consecutive overtime/shootout games, and they’ve lost 15 of their last 18 meetings against their rival Blues dating back to December 2019. The painful stats are plentiful, and they all quantify the same sense of futility that Dickinson referenced.
“This has been a taxing year on everybody,” captain Nick Foligno said. “We’re all looking forward to a break where we can reset our minds.”
The Winter Classic was a total disaster on the ice, and it has lingered as an embarrassing memory for many Hawks. That shame was on everyone’s minds entering Saturday, especially since they showcased at Enterprise Center the same special — and beautiful — throwback jerseys that they donned at Wrigley Field back on New Year’s Eve.
For one period, the Hawks seemed to demonstrate some growth. They sliced through the Blues’ 1-2-2 neutral-zone defense with confident one-touch passes, made smart puck-management decisions and took a 2-0 lead on goals by Craig Smith and scorching-hot Ryan Donato.
Then the second period arrived and the Hawks’ structure disintegrated, as it has so often in second periods this season. The Blues outshot the Hawks 17-3 in the frame, capitalized on brutal turnovers by defensemen Seth Jones and Ethan Del Mastro and scored three times to take the lead, hitting posts three other times.
“We can’t be that one team and then, next period, be that next team,” Foligno said. “It’s not going to be sustainable, and [it’s] not what we’re trying to do here.
“I thought we were leaning away as opposed to leaning into battles. Guys were…not really engaging. Our ‘D’ are under fire, [goalie Arvid Soderblom] is under fire, and then of course they’re going to get momentum from it.”
Earlier this season, the Hawks would’ve wilted after a lopsided period like that. They didn’t Saturday, which also possibly demonstrates growth. Interim coach Anders Sorensen was “not sure exactly how,” but they battled back and actually took a 5-4 lead for a brief moment during the third period — on an Ilya Mikheyev rush — before the Blues equalized.
Soderblom struggled in regulation and has historically struggled in NHL shootouts, but he kept the Hawks alive throughout a marathon of a skills competition. Teuvo Teravainen was the only one of 10 Hawks shooters to score, though, and a save on Tyler Bertuzzi ultimately sealed the defeat.