Chicago Blackhawks: 1 player shined against the Pittsburgh Penguins

The Chicago Blackhawks look like a completely different team under Derek King. They won their first game under him on Sunday night with an overtime win over the Nashville Predators. Now, on Tuesday, they defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in a shootout to start the Derek King era 2-0-0.

It was a great game that saw the team play mostly well. The Penguins erased a 2-0 deficit to force overtime at all thanks to two goals from Jeff Carter. He has been a Chicago enemy for a long time going back to his days with the Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings. A few weeks ago, the Hawks might have lost the game but they hung in there and took the two points.

One player shined above the rest in this game. Seth Jones has been taking some heat lately for his play but he was clearly a disaster in Jeremy Colliton’s system. Since this new coach has come in, he has looked like a completely different player. We know how dominant he can be as we once saw with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Well, he was all over the place in this win. On the offensive side of things, he scored his first goal of the season in the win. It put the Hawks up 2-0 and gave them a good chance to win. Leading up to the goal, he skated around the offensive zone with and without the puck before Patrick Kane found him for a good shot. He didn’t miss it.

The Chicago Blackhawks need the best out of Seth Jones in every game.

If the Hawks can get this version of Jones for most of his time with the team, they are going to be very happy. He has the ability to drive play from the back end and make a difference in all three zones. It was good to see him have a game like that on home ice. As a result of his play, he was named the first start of the game.

Of course, Jones wasn’t the only player to score his first Blackhawks goal in this game. Jujhar Khaira scored his first with the Blackhawks as well. This was a goal that put the team up 1-0 and started things off.

These new additions to the team need to perform like this in order for the group to have a chance. Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Alex DeBrincat, and Dominik Kubalik all had assists but they didn’t score. They need other forwards to take advantage of the opportunities that the elite players create for them and Khaira is one of the forwards that can benefit from this idea.

Speaking of new players that need to have an impact, Marc-Andre Fleury is all the way back. He won the Vezina Trophy in 2020-21 with the Vegas Golden Knights but had a tough start to this season (largely because the team was a disaster).

Now he seems to be back to form as he made 42 saves on 44 shots. His old team peppered him with shots in the third period and he only allowed two. It could have gotten ugly if Fleury didn’t hold the fort in the final minutes of regulation, overtime, and the shootout.

We can only hope that Seth Jones and company keep this up. He was sensational in this game and so were some of the other players mentioned. This team is not as bad as their 3-9-2 record says they are but they have to keep going out there to prove it.