Chicago Blackhawks: Dominik Kubalik’s 30th helps Florida trip sweep
The Chicago Blackhawks swept their two-game trip to Florida thanks to a big weekend from their rookie stud Dominik Kubalik.
The Chicago Blackhawks earned a sweep over the two Florida teams this weekend. They defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday before earning the sweep by a defeat of Joel Quenneville‘s Florida Panthers on Saturday night. It was a solid display of hockey by the road team in each game. Each game saw the Hawks battle back from different versions of adversity.
The biggest key to the wins was rookie forward Dominik Kubalik. He had a hat trick to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday. It was the first hat trick of his career to bring him to 29 goals. Only four other players in franchise history have ever scored 30 goals for them in their rookie year. Well, against the Florida Panthers, Kubalik joined Eric Daze, Artemi Panarin, Darryl Sutter, and Steve Larmer as the only 30 goal scoring rookies.
It is fair to assume that the weekend might have propelled him into the conversation of being nominated for the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie. It is pretty much a two-horse race between Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche and Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks at this point, but seeing Kubalik be nominated would still be sweet.
The cool thing is that there is still just over a month left before the season comes to an end. It is going to be fun to watch and see how many goals Kubalik can get. He has an outside chance at 40 goals but he would need to keep up his red hot streak. This kid has a bright future and the Blackhawks are lucky to have him going forward. They should be looking at him as a key piece to retooling this team.
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Kubalik and the Blackhawks are coming home. They are back in action on Tuesday night when the Anaheim Ducks come to town. This rivalry isn’t what it once was because neither of them is an elite Western Conference team anymore. It is still going to be fun to watch these two teams, regardless of where they are in the standings.