An early sign of progress
Rebuilding Hawks show resiliency in OT win over Wings
Luke Richardson couldn’t have picked a better script for his first home game as coach of the Blackhawks.
That national anthem rendition he loves. A home opener against the Detroit Red Wings, the team the partisan United Center crowd hates most.
And then there was that dramatic 4-3 comeback win Friday night in overtime.
Three Blackhawks — Andreas Athanasiou, Philipp Kurashev and Connor Murphy — scored their first goals of the season, Max Domi swiped and sniped the puck in a stunning game-winning sequence and goalie Alex Stalock — pressed into duty after an injury to Petr Mrázek — made all 10 saves to clinch his first win as a Hawk.
“Stalock came in cold and shut the door for us,” said Sam Lafferty, whose two assists were pivotal to the rally.
The Hawks are 2-2-0. The last time they were .500 was April 29, 2021, after a 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers.
Hey, that’s what counts for progress around here.
A win this early in the season might not count for much in the long run, but it’s more about how the Hawks are playing — even in losses.
A certain former coach loved to use the word “relentless,” but this is what it looks like, even if in this form it sneaks up on you.
If Richardson’s team can sustain this style of play, this is a squad you don’t want to let “hang around.”
“You want that in your team,” Murphy said. “The character of our guys is good and everyone wants to play the right way and wants to win for each other.
“There’s not any guys here that want to just come and get points and slack. You can tell everyone wants to get things turned around and get that bad feeling of last season out of us.”
Here are four takeaways from the game.
1. This Blackhawks team has the capacity to come back.
They had a bit of bad luck when the game’s opening goal went in off Pius Suter’s skate, but they looked flatfooted when Dylan Larkin, uncontested in the high slot, took advantage of Oskar Sundqvist’s screen for a power-play goal.
But in the second period,Athanasiou’s speed on a breakaway forced Filip Hronek to hook the center, and Athanasiou’s penalty shot put Hawks on the board.
Dominik Kubalík gave the Red Wings a 3-1 advantage in the second period, but the Hawks answered in the third with goals by Kurashev and Murphy.
“They really showed a lot of character in that (locker) room and that’s a credit to the leadership on this team,” Richardson said. “We go in between periods and give them a message and some guidance, like in a game plan, but when we leave the room it’s the leadership and the guys who control that and implement that into their game plan.”
Richardson saw the push at the end of the second period as an indication “there was a lot of belief.”
“Coming out for the third, I knew we were going to be there at the end,” he said.
In overtime Domi stole the puck from Lucas Raymond at center ice and motored toward the net.
Domi had Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider backpedaling and Patrick Kane trailing, but he took the shot himself and sneaked it past Alex Nedeljkovic.
“I’d be lying if I said I saw Kaner because if I saw him I’d probably give him the puck,” Domi said. “I don’t know who I picked off there, but I saw some open ice and knew I was going to shoot first right away.”
Said Richardson: “I had a feeling he was going to shoot that puck. He had a couple of nice goals in overtime in Montreal when I was coaching with him there, and when he skates and shoots the puck he’s a very dangerous player.”
2. Sam Lafferty is the Hawks’ points leader. That’s right, he leads the Hawks with five points: two shorthanded goals and three assists, two of which he picked up in the third period Friday.
He was named the second star, but first-star Domi said Lafferty was the top performer.
“He’s unbelievable,” Domi said. “You see the energy he brings to our whole team, it’s outstanding. Whether it’s five-on-five or on the PK, he was first star again tonight.
“He’s deserving all the credit he’s getting. He’s going to keep going, keep getting better. I’m really happy for him.”
In the third period Lafferty won a faceoff and sent the puck to Murphy for a bang-bang score that tied the game and sent it to overtime.
“That play to win, it was so clean,” Murphy said. “It makes it a lot easier to be able to shoot and get the puck where you want to on net.
“He knew exactly where to put it to win it on my tape.”
Richardson trusted Lafferty enough to start him in the threeon-three overtime with Jason Dickinson and Seth Jones.
Lafferty “actually lost an edge and didn’t do what he was supposed to do,” Richardson joked. But “he had a great gam. [He’s] been great all year.”
3. It was a revenge game for three former Hawks — until it wasn’t.
It’s a good thing for the Hawks that the Red Wings don’t have anymore Chicago exiles or the Hawks might not have won this game.
Pius Suter and Kubalík each had goals, and Kubalík and Olli Määttä had assists (in fact, Kubalík’s goal was a deflection of Määttä’s shot).
But Kubalík was on defense when ex-linemate Kurashev scored in the third period to spark the rally.
Kubalík seems to have put his rocky end to his time in Chicago well behind him. He’s no longer No. 8, he’s No. 81. Ben Chiarot wears No. 8 for the Wings.
And Kubalík wasn’t the only former Hawks player who found out this summer that he wasn’t part of the long-term plan.
“Since I noticed I’m not going to be playing for Chicago anymore, I don’t want to say I stopped following them, but I focused on what’s going to be a new chapter, new opportunity for me,” he said. But “then I was looking at what was going on with Chicago. I knew they made a couple big trades.”
The Hawks traded Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach for high draft picks.
“That was a little surprising for me, especially to see the younger guys like DeBrincat and Dach,” Kubalík said. “The team is not the same, how it used to be last year, so nothing I can comment on.”
When Kubalík landed in Detroit, he found some familiar faces in Suter and Määttä who helped him make an easy transition.
“There’s been a couple (Chicago) guys that have helped me out too,” he said. “Everybody welcomed me with open arms, so it was smooth and I’m happy.”
4. Richardson savors these ‘firsts.’
Since the season started the firsttime NHL head coach has been meeting all sorts of Hawks luminaries, including Denis Savard at a charity gala.
“Ironically, that’s the guy I was trying to chase around here the first game 35 years ago,” Richardson said of his NHL debut with the Maple Leafs in Chicago on Oct. 8, 1987, at the old Chicago Stadium.
Friday marked his coaching debut at the United Center.
“Very proud to be here, just when I got the opportunity and now very proud that we could come through for the fans tonight,” he said. “The home opener’s always really exciting for fans to see the team for the first time together, and I thought the guys put (up) a really good effort.”
Richardson has said several times how much he enjoyed Jim Cornelison’s rendition of the national anthem, even when he was the opposition.
“It was great,” he said. “Felt way better on that bench than the other bench.”