The Blackhawks have already let several decent efforts go to waste early this season, and their 3-2 loss to the Predators on Friday certainly falls into the tough-to-swallow category.
Led by an eye-opening effort by Lukas Reichel, the Hawks dominated the first period and thought they had taken a 3-0 lead halfway through the second. But a successful offside challenge kept things within reach for the Predators, and they responded by rallying to tie the game before the intermission and pressuring the Hawks onto their heels in the third period.
Brady Skjei eventually scored the game-winning power-play goal for the Predators with 6:53 left, and goalie Juuse Saros continued his historical domination of this matchup by making some big late saves to send the Hawks to their third straight regulation loss.
“Something we have to take away from this game is how we played for the first half of the game from our zone to the neutral zone,” coach Luke Richardson said. “The second half of the game was not as smooth, so it put us in the ‘D’-zone way too much. And that leads to penalties, as well.”
The Hawks have now finished five of their eight games with an expected-goals share above 50%; they finished at 50.3% on Friday after posting a 63.2% mark in the first period. They have only two wins to show for those efforts, though. Their 2-5-1 record is actually worse than at this point last year, when they were playing far worse and with far less talent.
Richardson said he’ll encourage the Hawks to replicate their reaction to their Oct. 11 loss to the Jets, their best effort that didn’t lead to a win. The very next night, they beat the Oilers — a similar situation to what they’ll encounter Saturday against the Stars.
Note: As expected, Chicago Sports Network announced a carriage agreement Friday with the streaming platform Fubo TV, which began airing the Hawks, Bulls and White Sox’s embattled new channel immediately. Comcast still isn’t carrying CHSN as their negotiation stalemate continues.