NEWSLETTER
With the Golden Knights still having playoff positioning to play for, the Blackhawks could have easily been boat raced out of the barn. They weren’t; in fact, they came out with the better speed in the opening half of the first period. The young guys were getting some run together and Petr Mrazek was doing his thing — he stopped all 11 Vegas shots in the opening 20 minutes.
Mrazek stopped every shot he saw in the second period. Unfortunately, he never got a look at one, and Brayden McNabb put it in thru a lot of traffic to give the Knights a lead. The Blackhawks were out-shot 10-5 in the second period. The shots on net were pretty much even for most of the third period, but the only one that went in over the first 16 minutes was from Vegas. That was until Jason Dickinson threw a puck on net and a Vegas-on-Vegas collision pushed the puck into the net. Unfortunately, the Hawks pulled Mrazek with two minutes left and gave up an empty-net goal.
Star 1: Petr Mrazek
As was the case on Sunday evening, the Blackhawks were facing one of the better teams in the NHL with postseason implications. On paper, this game favored the Golden Knights by a ton. But Mrazek kept his team in the game as long as he could.
Star 2: Jason Dickinson
The Blackhawks desperately didn’t want to get shutout again. And there were four minutes away from another doughnut. But Dickinson went to the dirty area and put a puck on net that wound up behind the goaltender for his 22nd of the season. Pretty? No. Counts? Absolutely.
Star 3: Frank Nazar
Nazar came out firing in the first period. He started the game on a line with Landon Slaggert and Joey Anderson, but saw a couple shifts with Connor Bedard and Philipp Kurashev before the end of the first period. He also replaced Tyler Johnson on the top power play unit (THANK YOU LUKE!). He was officially credited with one shot on net and won two of five faceoffs in 5:48 in the first period.
Yeah, he lost a puck battle that ultimately led to Vegas’ second goal and he was minus-three on the night. But he was also Chicago’s most noticeable offensive player most of the game. For his second career NHL game, I’ll take it. Learning moments are gonna happen.
