ANAHEIM, Calif. — The beginning was a disaster for the Chicago Blackhawks. The ending was a stunner.
It involved another two-goal rally — fast becoming their calling card — with three goals by defensemen and one big upset of the Anaheim Ducks, 3-2, to close out the California road trip with three points.
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“Sometimes it seems like we take a little while to get into it, but as this league gets going, you’re not going to have a chance to climb back into these games,” said coach Luke Richardson.
The Hawks haven’t looked slow and outclassed under Richardson that often, but that certainly would describe all but the last five minutes of the first period at Honda Center.
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We had good touches with the puck. Our first 15 minutes of the game were great,” said the Ducks’ Adam Henrique.
The Ducks’ Trevor Zegras burned them out of the gate with a below-the-goal-line pass to Troy Terry — and bang, down 1-0 19 seconds into the game. It was 6 1/2 minutes into the game before they got their first shot on goal — essentially a well-aimed dump-in by Reese Johnson — and 18 of the first 19 shots on goals. By then, the Hawks were down 2-0 after Henrique scored in the first.
But then Jarred Tinordi happened.
With six minutes left in the first, the Hawks defenseman took a seam pass from Max Domi, dragged it around Anthony Stolarz’s slide to the near post and dropped it in on a backside backhander.
Then with 2 minutes and 42 seconds left in the third, Tinordi’s blast from the left point pinballed between Dmitry Kulikov and Stolarz and into the net. It was Tinordi’s first career multi-goal game. Heck, it’s his first multi-goal season — doubling his career output in one night.
In between those goals, young blueliner Filip Roos scored his first NHL goal, knotting the score 2-2 in the second period.
“It went pretty fast, but it’s always fun to score, especially this one,” Roos said. “A dream come true.”
Despite an abysmal start and getting outshot 41-22, the Hawks just seem to have a knack for “hanging around.” And if you let them hang around, they might hang a loss on you.
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“Rope-a-doped them again,” Richardson said with a smile.
Tinordi added: “We’ve had great goaltending. I think that’s kind of been the storyline.”
Arvid Söderblom and his 39 saves certainly came to the rescue Saturday night, especially during a 19-shot first period.
“We had a super-bad start today. They came out much hungrier than us,” Söderblom said. “We picked it up a little bit with like five minutes left in the (first) period and then we started to play better. But, yeah, we got two points and that’s the takeaway from today.”
Meanwhile, Patrick Kane snapped a three-game point drought with two assists.
“He was really going tonight,” Richardson said. “I thought he hit the post on the empty net but I thought he could have had another goal or two.”
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Here are six takeaways from the win.
Tinordi came into the game with two goals in his career, the latter of which came last January at Honda Center — nicknamed “The Ponda” — when he played for the New York Rangers.
“I think last year I had a lucky bounce like that in this building, too, so maybe it’s the building that’s got me some good vibes out there,” he said.
The goal also seemed to snap the Hawks out of their early funk.
Richardson: “He had a great game for us. He was the only one that was really into the game, other than our goaltender, early.”
Tinordi added: “You never want to start the game down two-nothing, and if you can get one after that I think it gets you feeling good, gets you moving in the right direction. It was nice to get on the board and I think we can breathe a little bit.
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“You know, a one-goal game sounds a lot better than a two-goal game.”
The Hawks have been high on Roos since training camp, but he validated that faith Saturday, flashing a range of skills in the sequence leading up to his first career goal.
Domi blocked a Trevor Zegras slapper and shoveled it to Roos. Roos alertly stretch-passed to Kane, who dished it back to Roos as he quickly caught up. Roos fired at Ducks goalie Stolarz, who blocked it, but Roos never stopped his stride and planted his rebound into the back of the net.
“I got a good pass from Domester and yeah it worked out pretty well,” said Roos, who held the puck while posing for a picture with father in the locker room.
“We were all super pumped for him,” Tinordi said. “I was just telling him it took me like 105 games or something like that to get my first one.” Actually, it was 61 for Tinordi.
Roos’ first marker came in his eighth career game.
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Connor Murphy joked last week that Roos — a Gothenburg, Sweden, native — has “Swedish Swag,” a mix of style and confidence Swedish-born players seem to have, in Murphy’s estimation.
So that would apply to Gothenburg native Arvid Söderblom, too.
“I haven’t talked about it, but I think we bring some swag, me and Arvid in here,” Roos said.
“Me and Roosie? I don’t know,” Söderblom said. “I think both me and Rooster are calm guys, kind of chill guys. Calm and confident, too. That’s a good thing to have as a young player.”
Trevor Zegras had his signature lacrosse-style goal wiped away by an offside call, but most teams know it’s in the Ducks center’s arsenal, along with flipping the puck from behind a goalie to a teammate.
“I think Jimmy (Waite) is going to look after that,” Richardson said before the game, implying that the goalie coach was going to make sure Söderblom was aware. “Not just the goalie but the defense, got to be alert.”
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“He’s a crafty player. He can shoot pucks and make plays and obviously a certain play like that’s going to be dangerous tonight.”
That plan went out the window just 19 seconds into the game.
Zegras zipped behind the net and stopped on a dime to shake Philipp Kurashev and Domi in pursuit. Zegras dished to Troy Terry and Terry planted it past Söderblom to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead.
Tinordi called Zegras “a pretty dynamic player.”
“You want to play him tight and you want to play him hard,” Tinordi said. “You want to win with the space that he has because he can make some plays on you. I think we did a better job of that as the game went on, so that’s the positive we take away.”
Richardson said coaches scouted that very situation with the players.
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“They go on the forecheck and they go east-west behind the net, right down the middle, and that’s how they scored,” he said. “We showed them all that, so I was watching the replay of the prescout again live.
“For some reason, it took us a little while to kick off the dust.”
The Hawks practiced Friday and Richardson noticed, “We were a little tired.” He was concerned pregame about a possible flu bug circulating. Forward Jason Dickinson was scratched with a non-COVID-related illness.
“If there’s anything going around, we don’t want to be around the guys either. We can’t afford that,” Richardson said. “We have our flu shots waiting for us at home.”
In the third period against the Los Angeles Kings, Richardson bumped Kurashev up to the top line with Kane and Max Domi, and placed Athanasiou on the second line with Jonathan Toews and Taylor Raddysh, and that alignment carried over into the Ducks game.
For at least one game, the Kurashev-Domi-Kane line worked like gangbusters. Domi and Kane each assisted on the Hawks’ first two goals, with Domi the primary helper in Tinordi’s goal and Kane the primary for Roos.
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Before the game, both left wingers were indifferent about the move.
“We had some good O-zone time” Athanasiou said of the third period with Toews and Raddysh. “It doesn’t matter really who you play, all these guys are good players.”
Kurashev added: “Hopefully we can have a good game, have the puck a lot, make some plays. I just try to play the same way, win the battles, and then I think the rest will take care of itself. You’ve got to be first on the loose pucks and help your teammates in the battles.”
Richardson said “it’s an easy switch back” if it’s not clicking, but he wanted the change because of differences he noticed in their playing styles.
The top line was on the ice for all three Hawks goals — but they also were present for both Ducks goals.
After the game, Richardson wasn’t ready to declare it a success or failure.
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“Tonight seemed so scrambly right from the beginning, so it was hard to really judge,” he said. “We’ll have to take a step back and look at it again on the way home tomorrow and see, what’s our best option?”
Patrick Kane II, the hockey-playing son, had just boasted about the “pretty good bond right now” between his dad and Tie Domi, linemate Max Domi’s dad, who were reunited on this two-game swing through Southern California for the Hawks’ “Dads Trip.”
But then Kane II was informed that his dad made a crack at morning skate about beating up Tie, whose pugilistic credentials are well-documented. According to hockeyfights.com, most of Tie’s 333 fights were against the Hawks and the Kane’s hometown Buffalo Sabres.
“It’s so funny because Tie’s an unbelievable storyteller, talking about fighting guys,” Kane II said. “And he uses my dad as the prop, so he’s, like, grabbing my dad all the time. My dad’s just like, ‘What are you going to do?’”
Petr Mrázek said he “needed new lungs” after a four-minute defensive shift to end the second period. Caleb Jones needed new lungs and legs.
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“It doesn’t feel that long when you’re actually out there. You’re just gassed trying to get the puck out,” Jones said. “But once you get through it, and you don’t get scored on, it’s like, ‘Oh my god.’”
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Jones was out there for 3 minutes, 58 seconds, while and defensive partner Alec Regula logged 4 minutes, 11 seconds.
“We got back to the locker room at intermission and we’re just gassed trying to get our legs back underneath us and kind of reset. The legs are burning a bit, but I would say lungs, it’s mostly lungs,” Jones said. “You’re kind of just out there gasping and they’re kind of flying around changing lines and you can’t get off. It’s a long change in the second period.”
To conserve energy, Jones said he and Regula were calculated on defense and not be too aggressive until they were sure they could clear the puck. The duo didn’t give up a goal.
Jones has found himself in that situation before.
“I had one of those last year with Murph (Connor Murphy) in Edmonton,” Jones said. The pair both played 4 minutes, 50 seconds during that shift in the second period of a 5-2 loss on Nov. 20.
“I get one of those sort of once a year, it seems like, where I’m getting caught out there,” Jones said.