Blackhawks lose to Senators on bizarre goal, continuing overtime struggles

Overtime has not been friendly to the Blackhawks this season.

A 4-3 overtime loss to the Senators on Wednesday — the Hawks’ seventh consecutive loss in games that have gone past regulation — marked the strangest ending yet.

Senators star Tim Stutzle capitalized a neutral-zone turnover by Hawks defenseman Wyatt Kaiser, raced down the wing and crashed toward the goal. Kaiser tied up Stutzle and sent him careening into goalie Arvid Soderblom. In the process, the puck went off Stutzle’s skate and across the line.

The goal was upheld after a brief league-initiated review, prompting a chorus of boos from a United Center crowd of 17,432 and preventing the Hawks from potentially earning their second three-game winning streak of the season.

Hawks interim coach Anders Sorensen later said he believed it was goaltender interference, but there was nothing he could do. There was also arguably a kicking motion. But there seems to be an increasingly consistent pattern around the league that if a player is pushed into the crease, pretty much anything goes.

“If they call it a goal on the ice, it doesn’t seem to come back very often,” Sorensen added.

Said Hawks forward Pat Maroon: “The boys played hard tonight. We battled back. We stuck in there. But…those calls can go either way, and it seems like they’re not going our way this year, for some reason.”

The Hawks are now 1-6 in games decided in overtime and 1-2 in shootouts this season. Last season, despite an even worse overall record, they were 5-5 in overtimes and 1-1 in shootouts.

Maroon made one of his best plays of the season to set up Craig Smith for an equalizing goal early in the third period. Otherwise, it was a fairly tight-checking game.

The Hawks have held up well defensively since trading Seth Jones, with young defenseman Ethan Del Mastro’s sudden emergence as a major minutes-muncher — he played 21:22 on Wednesday — being a key reason why.

“[Del Mastro has] the poise,” Sorensen said. “He’s willing to absorb a hit, hang onto [the puck] and spin off and make a play out of it. He sees the ice real well. [And he makes] a lot of stops defensively.”

Mrazek not in rotation

Despite having three goalies on the roster, Sorensen said the Hawks will exclusively use a two-man goaltending rotation moving forward with Soderblom and Spencer Knight, who will make his second Hawks start Friday against Utah.

“It’s tough when you have three, [so] you have to find some type of rotation,” Sorensen said. “You can’t play three goalies. We’re going to go with those two right now. Things can change, but those are the two guys.”

That leaves Petr Mrazek stuck in no man’s land. The Hawks will try to trade him, but his $4.25 million salary-cap hit through next season will make that difficult. Sorensen shook his head when asked if the Hawks might try to place him on waivers and send him to Rockford.

Hawks notes

All eyes are currently focused on the NHL trade deadline Friday, but the Hawks will still have 20 games left to play after the deadline passes — 10 at home and 10 on the road.

The Utah game Friday will mark the Hawks’ first deadline-day game since 2021. That can lead to some complicated logistics when it comes to setting the lineup.

Andreas Athanasiou was benched for the entire third period Wednesday. Sorensen said “several things” contributed to that decision, but Athanasiou’s frequent turnovers were surely one of them.

Gaudette’s journey

Adam Gaudette’s Hawks tenure in 2021 has probably been forgotten by most fans. He made just 15 appearances across two seasons, recording six points, before getting claimed off waivers by the Senators.

Away from the rink, however, Gaudette was very memorable because he differed so much from typical hockey players. During his one offseason in Chicago, he switched to a largely vegan diet to overcome some lifelong digestive problems. He later opened up about carrying crystals with him and doing saging rituals with herbs.

For that reason, it’s interesting and heartening to see Gaudette, now 28, experiencing some long-awaited success with the Senators this season — in his second stint with their franchise after several years on the Maple Leafs and Blues’ AHL affiliates.

He’s tied for fourth on the Senators with 16 goals, ahead of guys like Shane Pinto and Claude Giroux. Granted, only three of those goals have come in his last 34 games, and he has averaged less than 11 minutes of ice time per game, but even sticking in the NHL for a whole season is an accomplishment for Gaudette.