The Chicago Blackhawks had to face a demon again on Sunday night — the second half of a back-to-back. The matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights had a different feel because they had a chance to do something 56 days in the making.
With wins over the Dallas Stars (New Year’s Day) and the Washington Capitals (Saturday), the Hawks were shooting for their first three-game win streak since Nov. 5-9. Hawks coach Jeff Blashill brushed aside the idea of playing harder for that streak, but the team came out better than in previous second games.
Golden Knights left winger Brandon Saad (10:40) opened the scoring in the first period, but Tyler Bertuzzi answered about two minutes later with a goal, his then-20th of the season. The Hawks weren’t being run off the ice this time.
Right-winger Mark Stone gave Vegas a 2-1 lead to put the road team in a winning position. Bertuzzi refused to let the Hawks fall again.
The Hawks (17-18-7) were lifted by Bertuzzi’s fifth career hat trick in a 3-2 overtime win over the Golden Knights (17-11-12). Each win in the three-game streak has been in extra periods.
“I thought as the game went along, our legs, we got better and better and better (and) our third was our best,” Blashill said. “We pushed hard and I thought we deserved two points.”
Bertuzzi sits in the team lead for goals this season (22).
“I’ve been feeling good,” Bertuzzi said. “I’ve been sticking with the program, staying even-keel, going out and working hard every day.”
Added Blashill: “He’s always been a guy who draws you into the fight because of the passion with which he plays, you can see that passion. There’s not a fake bone in Tyler’s body, so you see that passion on display (and) our guys feed off that.”
The left winger found himself in front of the net when Ilya Mikheyev passed him the puck at 1:18 in the overtime period. He tapped the puck into the left side past Golden Knights goaltender Akira Schmid for the victory.
“I’ve got to go watch it, I blacked out,” Bertuzzi said. “On the two-on-one, (Mikheyev) looked for me at the post and I knew he was going to look for me.”
The United Center cheers were nearly spoiled when Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy challenged the game-winner for offside. The review deemed the challenge unsuccessful, but Bertuzzi felt himself anxiously waiting for the call.
“(I was) a little worried, the percentage is pretty good that it’s usually offside,” Bertuzzi said. “I’m guessing they did it just because that was the last hope.”
Netminder Arvid Söderblom (13 saves) has had a chip on his shoulder after a few rough outings. He’s won two of his past three games (he replaced Spencer Knight against the Pittsburgh Penguins), totaling 53 saves.
He’s been exceptional as of late with solo breakaway saves, denying the likes of Sidney Crosby, Mikko Rantanen and Stone. His hard work focusing on this area is paying off.
“Those saves can be the deciding factor in the game,” Söderblom said. “To be able to come up in that situation, it felt really good and it’s something I want to continue doing.”
The Hawks began the season as one of the more penalized teams in the NHL. They’re still in the top five in average penalty minutes per game (10.3), but they’ve kept it clean in their past three games.
From Dec. 27-30 — at the Dallas Stars and hosting the Penguins and the New York Islanders — they had 11 penalties and a minus-5 goal differential. In the past three games, the Hawks only had three total penalties, a plus-3 goal differential and three wins.
It’s disciplined hockey, which helps as Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar trend toward their return from injuries. Blashill says that it’s been a focus to decrease the need to be on the penalty kill.
“We have talked about that for a long time and haven’t always done a good job of it, so I can’t take credit for the fact that we’ve done that,” Blashill said. “I think sometimes games take a life of their own.
“It’s something we’ve talked about from day one, the early part of the year we took too many penalties and we want to stay away from those penalties that are avoidable. We’re confident in our penalty kill but you don’t want to put yourself on the penalty kill a bunch.”
The Hawks are now 3-0 in 2026, with a jam-packed January ahead before the NHL’s break for the Winter Olympics in February.
“It’s always tough coming off a back-to-back like that and we haven’t been great at it this year,” Söderblom said. “We’ve talked before that we were going to compete and give all we had (and) I think we did.”