Lankinen not a lost cause in loss
On Tuesday, the Blackhawks finally saw goaltender Kevin Lankinen, saw what they wanted out of winger Dominik Kubalik and saw center Philipp Kurashev celebrate a milestone.
They also saw another loss added to their record.
Center Frank Vatrano’s goal in overtime gave the Panthers a 5-4 win in Sunrise, Florida, sending the Hawks home without a victory after their four-game road trip to open the season.
“It’s hard to talk about it, obviously,” Kubalik said. “The work ethic was pretty good today and felt like we did lots of good things. Finally get some goals, too. [It’s] just sad that we didn’t make it to the win.”
Coach Jeremy Colliton tapped Lankinen for his first NHL start. Like Collin Delia and Malcolm Subban before him, he played decently, making some big saves, including a huge blocker stop on a 2-on-1 break in overtime. But he allowed five goals nonetheless.
Lankinen said he found out Monday about his imminent start and felt poised and prepared despite the adverse conditions.
“I’ve been working extremely hard for this moment, and I was able to enjoy the day, enjoy the game,” he said. “Am I happy with the outcome? Obviously not. But there’s a lot to build on. I felt comfortable as the game went on.”
The 25-year-old Finn is the rawest of the Hawks’ three goalies but also arguably has the highest upside. He at least showed Tuesday he deserves a regular share of the rotation.
“As the season goes on, the game’s going to settle down,” he said. “I’ll make better reads because you have that game feeling.”
Lankinen was far from the game’s only bright spot. The Hawks also outshot the Panthers 33-28 and battled back from early 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to take a brief 4-3 lead on Kurashev’s first NHL goal.
Kubalik, whom Colliton has surprisingly under-used in the early going, also rediscovered his rookie fire with two goals and eight shots on goal.
Games like Tuesday’s were surely what the Hawks imagined this season would be filled with when they committed to their youth movement in October. The team is by no means dominant or pretty, but its young players have almost universally shown signs of growth — creating excitement even without victories.
“We have no complaints how the young guys have played,” Colliton
said. “Certainly, there’s going to be mistakes, and we expect them to get better here as we go, but we have a lot of guys playing big roles, big minutes.
“Tonight it would’ve been nice to
finish it off with a win. You’d feel a lot better about it. But those young guys are a big reason why we are going to get better as the year goes on. That’s got to be our focus every day.”
Boqvist unscathed
Defenseman Adam Boqvist left the game in the second period with an apparent right arm or right shoulder injury but returned for the third period.
Colliton said Boqvist was fine despite the scare; Boqvist injured his right shoulder three separate times last season, too.