Chicago Blackhawks get a win in German preseason finale

The Chicago Blackhawks have had a decent preseason and their final dress rehearsal of the preseason in Germany ended in a win.

The Chicago Blackhawks were selected to be a part of the 2019 NHL Global Series and play a few games overseas. That began on Sunday afternoon when they took on Eisbaren Berlin in a preseason game. It was a fantastic game between two very different teams, and it showed that other leagues in the world are still pretty good and have players who at one point were good enough to compete for NHL jobs. That was evident in the Blackhawks 3-1 victory over Berlin.

You would think that the Blackhawks would go in there and dominate them, but that wasn’t the case and you should never expect it to be. 10 years ago, the Blackhawks lost to a non-NHL team in a preseason tilt, and they went on to win the Stanley Cup that season. The Blackhawks did control a majority of the play and made things difficult on the checkers of the Berlin squad though, and although the game was competitive, the Hawks were able to prevail. Jonathan Toews, Alexander Nylander, and David Kampf scored for the Blackhawks.

Eisbaren goalie Sebastian Dahm played amazing in the game. The Hawks outshot the Eisbaren by . a wide margin of 40-28 and Dahm only gave up two goals on the day. The third Blackhawks goal was an empty netter to put the game out of reach late for Chicago. It was a respectable game for Berlin as a non-NHL team and they can thank Dahm for his efforts. He will get to live the rest of his life saying that he played really well against a couple of legends like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in preseason action.

Now the preseason is over. The Blackhawks will remain in Europe as they head to the Czech Republic, where they will face the Philadelphia Flyers in their season opener. It is an overseas game but the two points are officially up for grabs. It will count as a road game for Chicago, and both teams are going to be looking to bounce back after down years in 2018-19. The season is officially back and there is a good amount of excitement around this team for a lot of reasons.

This should be a much-improved team in 2019-20 and one that should be a borderline playoff team all year long. A good showing in Prague would do a lot of good for them before they come back to Chicago for their home opener.