Boo who? Dach has response for it too.
Former Blackhawk nets winning goal for Canadiens in shootout
Kirby Dach’s homecoming was quiet for most of the afternoon Friday at the United Center.
But the former Chicago Blackhawks center awoke when it mattered, flipping a wrist shot past goaltender Arvid Söderblom to give the Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 shootout win in a matchup between two Original Six teams.
Dach, 21, cupped his hand to his ear to mock Hawks’ fans, who had greeted him with jeers upon his return.
“Nice little touch,” Dach said afterward.
It wasn’t apparent that Dach was booed heavily before the game, but he insisted it was loud enough for him to hear.
“That’s the whole reason I did the celebration,” he said. “I stepped on the ice and I was booed right away. I played the game with emotion and it just kind of came to me in the moment.”
It was just another in a growing number of bad endings for the Hawks.
They lost their sixth straight game despite rallying with a late third-period goal from Taylor Raddish to tie it. After neither team scored in overtime, Jonathan Toews and the Canadiens’ Cole Caufield both converted their chances in the shootout, but Patrick Kane wound up hitting the post after outmaneuvering goalie Sam Montembeault.
After Nick Suzuki and Andreas Athanasiou scored, Dach took the puck with a chance at the storybook finish and sent it past Söderblom to end it.
In truth, Hawks fans had no real reason to boo Dach, the third pick of the 2019 draft who was well-liked in Chicago and touted as one of the team’s future stars. Toews and Kane can’t play forever, and Dach and Alex DeBrincat were supposed to soften the transition to a new era.
It wasn’t Dach’s fault the Hawks gave up on him, trading him to the Canadiens on draft day in July for two picks, the same day DeBrincat was dealt to the Ottawa Senators.
Was he surprised at the reaction?
“It comes with the territory,” he said with a grin.
Dach still maintains his condo in Chicago and told me when he came back home this week that he thought about the shocking turn in his career. He called Chicago “my second home” after his hometown in Alberta.
“I’ve had a chance to take it in, spend some time back at my condo,” he said. “It (Chicago) definitely holds a special place in my heart. This is the place where I bought my first home, my first car. So there are definitely a lot of good memories here. But I’ve moved on and I feel good in Montreal.”
In the long run, Dach is probably fortunate to be removed from the team that decided he wasn’t worth building around despite his talent and personality.
“Obviously he’s a good, creative player,” Hawks coach Luke Richardson said. “Sometimes situations work out good for both teams. We obviously got what we wanted to out of that trade,