For the third consecutive game, Connor Bedard scored, and Petr Mrazek made 38 stops as the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Florida Panthers 5-2 at United Center on Saturday.
After missing their last game, an 8-1 defeat to the Arizona Coyotes on Monday, Taylor Hall scored his first goal with the Blackhawks (4-6-0), who were led by Philipp Kurashev to two goals and two assists.
Indeed, Mrazek said, “it was a great comeback game for us, especially in the first period.” We worked hard this week in practice, and it paid off because we demonstrated how we can play and what we can accomplish.
The Panthers (5-4-1), behind 3-0 in the first and 4-0 early in the second, made 19 saves as Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Matthew Tkachuk scored.
Florida held a 19-7 lead in the second quarter and a 15-3 edge in the third after being outshot 14-6 in the first.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said, “We had a tough first [period].” We have 246 sessions to play. I hope that was the worst of us. Assign them a grade. Hard as they skated. It was a hard game for them (in Arizona). Coach Luke Richardson, I believe, had them concentrated. That is most likely the most prominent of the two eras that followed. After the first phase, our only options are to figure out how to get out of it and not so much to make apologies.
“We were energized enough tonight. Simply put, we weren’t informed of the start time. I misjudged the time.
At 6:25 in the first period, Nick Foligno gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead on a power play. After Panthers defender Gustav Forsling was struck by a shot from Seth Jones from the blue line, the ball moved to Foligno in the slot, where he scored with a wrist shot.
At 9:21, with both teams playing 4-on-4, Nikita Zaitsev scored in the slot after receiving a feed from Kurashev to make it 2-0. Zaitsev scored his first goal of the year with it.
At 12:39, Hall pushed it to 3-0. Jason Dickinson sent the ball across the ice to him, and he skated in on Stolarz to slot the puck between the goalie’s pads. After being traded to the Boston Bruins on June 26, Hall suffered a shoulder injury that kept him out of action for the previous three games.
With his fifth goal of the year at 5:29 in the second, Bedard increased the margin to 4-0. After a Florida mistake, he scooped up the puck in the neutral zone, went down the left side, and beat Stolarz with a shot.
Bedard played 16:19 of ice time and had two shots on goal. Late in the second period, the rookie center, who is just eighteen, stopped a shot by Forsling and, while he walked to the bench in pain, he eventually returned to the ice.
Richardson said, “I think he was in that awkward spot, like 10 feet away, where it’s going to hurt a little more.” But what’s interesting? obeyed all rules and remained in the designated lane. That significantly raised our bench. I’d want to see a young man do it. Just kind of reinforced a good performance by him.
At 6:33 of the third period, Ekman-Larsson scored on a wrist shot from just inside the blue line to trim the score to 4-1 on a power play.
At 12:29, Tkachuk scored on a rebound of a shot by Carter Verhaeghe to pull Florida within 4-2. 500 NHL points (194 goals, 306 assists) was achieved by Tkachuk.
To be honest, it doesn’t mean anything anymore, he said. “I’m lucky to have played with so many excellent players.” They came straight to us with it. It becomes too difficult to recover from when you concede three goals and then a fourth. We had several opportunities, however, and we were close. You’re placing yourself in a horrible situation when you’re down three or four goals.
At 19:50, Kurashev scored into an empty net to seal a 5-2 victory.
Kurashev said, “Our first period was definitely great.” Second, they kind of had the upper hand, but Petr kept us in the game with some outstanding play. We did a fantastic job weathering the storm, despite our best efforts.
NOTES: Bedard (18 years, 110 days) broke Jeremy Roenick’s record of 19 years, 31 days on February 17, 1989, by becoming the youngest player in Blackhawks history with a three-game goal streak. .. Jarred Tinordi, a defenseman, blocked nine of Chicago’s 29 shots.The Panthers’ four-game point run (3-0-1) came to an end.
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