The Chicago Blackhawks had no answer for the Carolina Hurricanes

We came into the 2022-23 NHL season knowing that the Chicago Blackhawks were going to have a rough go of it on the ice. Kyle Davidson made it clear that a long-term rebuild (the right way) was taking place and that people needed to be patient.

Nobody really had an issue with that. A similar approach helped them win three Stanley Cups in six years about a decade ago. That’s not to say that they will win three or even one but they will be in the mix if they do things the right way again.

Things got off to a surprisingly nice start though. New head coach Luke Richardson has gotten these guys to play a certain way and it has led to them getting more wins in the early going than we would have thought.

It is exciting because now we know that if they play like this once they have more talent, they might be a really hard team to beat. However, when this group plays against an elite team like the Carolina Hurricanes, it isn’t going to be pretty most of the time.

The Chicago Blackhawks had no chance against the Carolina Hurricanes.

On Monday night, they lost 3-0 and it could have even been worse than that if it weren’t for some good play from Petr Mrazek in the net. He made 29 saves on 32 shots and his offense didn’t score a single goal.

One of the three goals he gave up was also a horrid giveaway by Caleb Jones. From behind the Blackhawks’ net, he tried to make a stretch pass but it deflected off the stick of Jesper Fast and landed on the stick of Andrei Svechnikov right in front of the goal mouth.

Svechnikov didn’t miss a snipe with that much time on his hands which was good for his 12th of the season. If anyone on the Carolina Hurricanes were to get the puck on their stick for free like that, they would choose Svechnikov as he is becoming one of the best snipers in the league now.

Most goalies would have given that up so you can’t fault Mrazek for this game. The rest of the team was shut down hard by Carolina and their goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov who earned his first career shutout.

Carolina just outclassed the Blackhawks in every way and they had no answer. There are going to be plenty of more games like this but at least we know that there is a chance that they will be competitive in certain games.

Their next chance to play is a Wednesday night game against the St. Louis Blues in Chicago. A rivalry game like that is always fun even though both teams are near the bottom of the Central Division standings.

It should be very interesting to see how it plays out. No matter what, the Blackhawks want to have a better showing than they did against these Carolina Hurricanes. Expect some big performances from Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane against St. Louis.