Blackhawks: Lose more than just a hockey game on Tuesday
The Chicago Blackhawks took a massive loss to the Vegas Golden Knights but they lost more than just the hockey game in this one.
The Chicago Blackhawks were dominated in a hockey game once again. This time the loss came to the Vegas Golden Knights by a final score of 5-1. The Golden Knights severely outplayed Chicago in this game as they outshot them 37-29. The Blackhawks are always going to allow a bunch of chances and shots to their opponents but they need to keep up with the number of shots in order to have a shot at winning.
The Golden Knights were kept at bay by the Blackhawks for about half the game until Reilly Smith opened the scoring seven minutes into the second period. It was a power-play goal allowed by the Hawks once again. They have a serious penalty issue and they’re not very good at killing off penalties when they take them. They also allowed a short-handed goal to William Karlsson so special teams played a big role in this game.
The loss on the scoreboard hurts but the loss of Calvin de Haan to injury is worse. He is a very good defenseman and you can make a claim that he is the best on the team from the back end. He can be that shutdown guy that the Hawks severely lack so that is a major loss. Jeremy Colliton didn’t sugar coat things when the game was over as he said that the injury was “not good”. If he is out for a long period of time that could be a disaster for the Blackhawks chances at going on a little run.
They called up Adam Boqvist ahead of this game in the absence of Duncan Keith but if de Haan is out long term he is probably going to be in the NHL for longer than anticipated. There is also a slight chance that he has already played his last game in the American Hockey League. The Blackhawks only scored one goal against Vegas but that goal by Dominik Kubalik was assisted by Boqvist. That is in the books as his first career NHL assist.
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Losing de Haan is bad news but the team needs to find a way to try and work around it. They will get another chance to do so as they make a stop in Glendale to take on the Arizona Coyotes. They just played them back in Chicago on Sunday so they will have a chance here to avenge a shootout loss. The Coyotes have been good this season as you know so this is another great challenge.