Chicago Blackhawks finally have first win under Luke Richardson

The Chicago Blackhawks aren’t going to have anything come easy to them this season. They are a very bad team on paper that is going to have to grind all season long to get a few wins. On Saturday night, their final game of the season-opening road trip came to a close.

It didn’t start off their way as they went down 2-0 to the San Jose Sharks in the first period. They looked flat and slow to start which made life very easy for San Jose.

It looked like another game that the Hawks were going to be dominated in but this time it was against the Sharks who are significantly worse than the Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche. They might be looking at a top-five draft pick in 2023 as well.

Luckily, the Hawks were able to find their skating legs later in the game to give themselves a chance to win. In the second period, Jonathan Toews scored his second of the season which got them on the board for the first time since the first game of the year.

The Chicago Blackhawks started to play well at one point in Saturday’s game.

Following that, they scored back-to-back shorthanded goals. Both of them came off the stick of Sam Lafferty who was set up both times by Jason Dickinson. The Blackhawks were then winning 3-2 which is the score they took into the third period.

Taylor Raddysh scored and Dickinson added one of his own (yes, it was assisted by Lafferty) to make it 5-2. The Hawks carried that score to the final whistle and won their first game of the season. It wasn’t as easy as the score might indicate but they did it.

This was also the first win in the head coaching career of Luke Richardson. Although they came into this game 0-2-0, there were some things to like and they brought a lot of it out against the Sharks.

It is nice to see the new coach finally get that first win. You didn’t want to see it become something that evades him for too long. This team isn’t going to win a lot but they certainly wanted to get their first out of the way as soon as they could.

Connor Bedard is on the mind of hockey fans in Chicago but winning this game won’t mean much in that race. This is a long season that will have many ups and downs.

Their first win is out of the way before they come back to Chicago. They have some time off now before their home opener next Friday against the Detroit Red Wings.

There is plenty of time to rest, learn, and be ready for this big match upcoming in front of the home crowd. Congrats to coach Richardson on his first win as an NHL head coach. We can only hope that it is the first of many with Chicago.