Chicago Blackhawks grab just one of eight points on Florida trip
The Chicago Blackhawks only grabbed one point out of eight on their Florida trip.
The National Hockey League made travel a little bit easier to deal with this year due to COVID-19 protocols. That means that it is more of a “baseball-like” schedule and teams are going to play back-to-backs against the same teams in the same buildings. The Chicago Blackhawks started their season dealing with that in the Sunshine State. Two games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and two against the Florida Panthers started their season and they are already in a hole.
They have earned one point out of eight. The Tampa Bay Lightning swept the two-game set at Amalie Arena and they scored ten goals in two games. Well, they went down to Sunrise and played the Florida Panthers and gave up another ten goals in two games. In the most recent game, Tuesday night, they got the game to overtime to earn a point but Frank Vatrano scored to give the Cats the victory.
It is a tough scene for the Chicago Blackhawks right now at 0-3-1. They have one point out of eight, as mentioned before and things look like they are very bleak for this season. They gave up five goals in all four games and that is not a recipe for success.
Their forward lines are very thin without Jonathan Toews and Kirby Dach. Their only good line is made up of Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome, and Patrick Kane. A lot of things, like a perfect entry, need to go right for that line to have success anyway so things are not great right now. Kane is still one of the best players in the world but he is being wasted away on a line that doesn’t have a hard worker to get him the puck.
The Blackhawks are so bad right now that their bad defense is probably the best part of their team. There are a few good pieces there going forward but they won’t be getting the job done this year. Duncan Keith is still an okay defenseman but he is getting older now. Ian Mitchell is a rookie. Connor Murphy and Calvin de Haan are pretty good but Adam Boqvist is awful on his own end. On this Florida trip, they showed that they aren’t going to win with this group.
Corey Crawford and Robin Lehner aren’t there to save the day anymore either. They started all three of Kevin Lankinen, Collin Delia, and Malcolm Subban and they have all had terrible games. They might have the worst trio of goalies in the NHL and not one that you can win with. Stan Bowman has claimed that they believe they can win but there is no way he wasn’t lying when he allowed this roster to hit the ice on Opening Night.
light. Hot. Corey Crawford is one of the best Blackhawks ever
It was cool to see them show some fight against the Panthers on Tuesday night but it wasn’t good enough to get the win. They will try again on Friday night in their Home Opener. The United Center will host the Detroit Red Wings vs the Chicago Blackhawks. It is a long storied rivalry but both teams have a long way to go before they are Stanley Cup contenders again. Hopefully, the Hawks will have an effort good enough to capture their first win of the season.