We need to take a deep breath and look at the box score for this game and look at the names in the lineup for Chicago. This game was a collection of players who really haven’t spent much time with each other thus far in the preseason, starting with the Blackhawks’ top line of Andreas Athanasiou, Connor Bedard and Taylor Raddysh. There were some young players in the Blackhawks’ lineup who likely know their tickets to either Rockford or back to junior are waiting for them when they get back to Chicago. And the result was an ugly loss.
The Blackhawks’ power play was 0-5 after two periods and they trailed by five goals. Their defensemen weren’t clearing screens and the forwards weren’t creating much traffic in front of the Detroit net. This might be a tape the coaches use some clips from to teach individual moments, but it’s a throwaway when we wake up in the morning.
Star 1: Connor Bedard
Bedard wasn’t as good at the dot in this game (he won 5 of 13) as he was against St. Louis, but he had the one legit holy $#!+ moment for the Blackhawks that didn’t result in a goal. He was clearly frustrated by missing a few passes and shots that didn’t find the mark, but also provided a screen on the Blackhawks’ first goal of the night (from Louis Crevier — see the takeaways). That’s going to be the learning curve for a rookie in the league. He’s special and we got some more glimpses of that ability on Sunday night.
Star 2: Lukas Reichel
Reichel’s first preseason performance left us wanting more. He was much better on Sunday night. He improved a ton at the dot (he won 9 of 16) and still tried to facilitate the offense even though he was usually skating with younger, less experienced players/prospects. This shift (below) was the best individual shift from a Blackhawks’ skater in the entire first period.
Star 3: Wyatt Kaiser
Kaiser and Alex Vlasic might have been the only defensemen in the lineup for the Blackhawks tonight who you want to see in the lineup most nights in the NHL this season. Kaiser was asked to skate the heaviest minutes on the team (23:10) and he did it fairly well. He started next to Ethan Del Mastro, who skated over 20 minutes on Saturday night in Minnesota and almost 20 more on Sunday night. He didn’t do anything to knock your socks off in this game but didn’t make any enormous mistakes.
