Blackhawks: New Jersey embarrasses them into holiday break
The Chicago Blackhawks were dominated by the New Jersey Devils at home. They are going into the holiday break after being run out of their own building.
The Chicago Blackhawks should be embarrassed by their performance on Monday night. They were smoked at home by the New Jersey Devils by a final score of 7-1. Both teams are in the last place so you can’t say one is better than the other but this game wasn’t even close. It was pure domination by the Devils from the second period onward. They were run out of their own building as they head into the 2019 holiday break.
The Blackhawks went up 1-0 Zack Smith scored just 3:21 seconds into the first period. It looked like it was going to be a high scoring game as each team was getting their chances but it went south quickly. The Devils tied the game with about five minutes left in the period when Jack Hughes made a sweet play to roof the puck top shelf on Corey Crawford. P.K. Subban scored 51 seconds into the second period to give the Devils the lead for good.
The Devils had seven different goal scorers en route to their win. They just traded away a superstar forward named Taylor Hall to the Arizona Coyotes a week ago but they figured out a way to get their scoring depth going in this one. It was not a good showing by Chicago in any way you try to spin it. They started off fine but the let New Jersey take over and you just can’t let that happen if you want to climb out of the dweller of the standings.
Another issue was the special teams’ play. New Jersey didn’t score a power-play goal so the penalty kill group was fine but the Hawks went 0/7 on the power play. That is not good enough. They need to score on the power play, especially when they have players like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Alex DeBrincat, and Dylan Strome amongst others to their disposal. They need to be better in all areas. Being outshot 44-33 is not a recipe for success in this league.
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The National Hockey League will be idle for the next three days as they celebrate the holidays. The Blackhawks are back in action following the break on Friday night when the New York Islanders come to town. They play a very different style of game than the New Jersey Devils. They play a game that traps up the neutral zone which makes it really hard to generate offense. It is a good chance for the Blackhawks to redeem themselves against a good team.