3 Takeaways From the Blackhawks’ 2-1 OT Win Over the Ducks

This line has the potential to be dangerous moving forward. But it does come at the expense of the second line of Teuvo Teravainen, Nazar and Ilya Mikheyev, who were only credited with four shot attempts while giving up 17. But this is only one game, and things could click with more time together. Besides, elite players always seem to find a way to make an impact, which leads me to my next segment.

Nazar Continues to Shine

After two and a half periods without any scoring on either side, Nazar finally broke through to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.

Credit to Nazar for his nifty pass to defenseman Wyatt Kaiser, and then sticking with the play to corral the rebound for a goal. He also fell down earlier in this sequence, but jumped right up and got back into the play.

Nazar’s stats on the night were impressive; he contributed this goal, three shots on goal, four shot attempts, one hit and two blocked shots in 21:21 minutes of ice time. Oh, and he went 10-of-17 in the faceoff circle for a 59% success rate. The 21-year-old continues to be more and more comfortable at the dot, which is an encouraging sign for the young center.

Spencer’s Night

Blackhawks’ goaltender Spencer Knight was named the No. 1 Star of the game after stopping 38-of-39 shots, including nine high danger chances, for a stellar .974 save percentage on this night. Fittingly, this was also his 100th NHL game. Knight has suited up for five of the Blackhawks’ first seven games, stopping 148-of-158 shots for an overall .937 SV% and a 2.22 goals against average. He’s definitely off to a hot start this season as the Blackhawk’s No. 1 goaltender.

Knight also brings a playoff mentality to the table, having come from a very successful franchise in the Florida Panthers. He doesn’t put much stock in the fact that the Blackhawks aren’t supposed to be very good this year. Said Knight,

It’s a privilege to be in positions we’re going into close games. So I think that’s important for us to realize too. You could say, like we’re losing these games. We’re so close, we’re so close. But that’s what the NHL is. You get to the playoffs, it’s not going to be 7-0, 6-1, 5-1 games. It’s 3-2, maybe 4-3, 5-4; they’re gonna be one goal games.

So it’s a privilege to be in that situation, and I think it’s good for us just to be in those situation where it means something in the end, playing all the way to the buzzer in the third period.

Well, the Blackhawks were “so close” in this one, and they came away with the win. It’s a positive step and something they can carry with them moving forward.

Other Blackhawks’ Tidbits

Here’s a few other points of interest from this matchup between the Hawks and the Ducks.

• Ryan Donato had a good game, scoring the overtime winner and registering the secondary assist on Nazar’s goal for a two-point outing. This puts him on a four-game point streak, with three goals and one assist in that span. Against the Ducks, Donato also contributed two shots on goal, five shot attempts, one hit and went 3-of-4 in the faceoff circle in a healthy 14:06 minutes of ice time. He was named the No. 2 Star of the game for his troubles.

The highly competitive veteran had some interesting insight on the 11 forwards/7 defenseman lineup Coach Blashill is currently favoring, mostly due to the inexperience of his D-core. Here’s Donato’s perspective from the side of the forwards,

There’s challenges with it. But I think at the same time, we’re such a young team that we’ve played with so many different guys … if you can get chemistry with more than two guys, all the better for the team, right?

• Forward Landon Slaggert returned from a nagging lower body injury that’s been plaguing him since training camp to make his season debut for this contest. It was also his 50th NHL game. Coach Blashill obviously wanted to ease the depth forward back into game action; he only logged 7:32 minutes of ice time. Nonetheless, Slaggert was credited with one shot on goal, two shot attempts and one hit. Hopefully the 23-year-old is fully healthy and can continue to be part of the lineup.

• The Blackhawk’s power play continues to struggle. They seem to have trouble entering the zone and then maintaining any sort of cohesion once they get there. They were 0-for-3 against Anaheim and only managed three shots on goal. Overall, the team has converted four times out of 22 opportunities for an 18.2% success rate. This currently ranks 18th in the league. Not terrible, but there’s certainly room for improvement.

The Blackhawks have now improved to 3-2-2 on the season. They will enjoy a few days off before heading south to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, Oct. 23. It will be a homecoming of sorts for Blackhawks’ head coach Jeff Blashill, as he was previously the assistant coach in Tampa for three years.

Can Nazar, Knight and the rest of the team stay hot?! There’s lots more improvement to be had, but the Blackhawks seem to be headed in the right direction.