The Chicago Blackhawks honored members of their three most recent Stanley Cup championship teams before the puck dropped versus the Boston Bruins on Saturday night. There were drape malfunctions again, but the show went on.
Former Hawks commentator Pat Foley led the latest centennial season festivity, this time celebrating “The Banner Years” of the 2010s. He introduced Eddie Olczyk, who came to the podium for a few words, and then the members of those championship teams.
Out came Corey Crawford, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Patrick Sharp, Marián Hossa and others. They lined up on top of the Hawks’ centennial logo, and the Stanley Cup was hoisted on the United Center ice once again.
Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews — who returns Monday to the stadium where he spent the majority of his career — are a little busy, but they were still honored.
The Stanley Cup winners watched from their suite as game began against the Bruins, the team the Hawks beat for the 2013 title. That series loss is (probably) long behind the Bruins, but they didn’t want their five-game winning streak to end in Chicago.
So after trailing by two goals after the first period, the Bruins put up three of their own in the second and five unanswered overall to hand the hosts a 5-2 loss.
The defeat was the Hawks’ fourth in five games and spoiled the celebration. The Bruins, meanwhile, won their sixth straight.
“They’re on a good roll right now, they’re playing good hockey,” Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “It was some individualistic mistakes (we made) that we just have to be tighter.
“These moments, these games, are going to get harder and harder and harder. We got to make sure that you get rid of any kind of self-inflicted errors.”
The Hawks (19-22-7) have been in an offensive drought since their four-game winning streak to open the year. They scored 17 goals in those first four wins of 2026, but have sounded the horn just eight times in their last five.
“What I do notice (is that) we were playing very predictable, and now it seems we’re trying to make one extra move or one extra play,” center Jason Dickinson said. “Where we were getting success was crashing the net or pucks low to high and then working systematically through that.
“A lot of times we’re trying to continue with that, but it feels like we’re one step away from it, so we’re just a little bit disconnected. I don’t have an exact reason or answer as to why that is the case, but it could all stem from just overthinking and trying to do too much and trying to take it upon ourselves, instead of just buying into the simple nest that was working.”
Ryan Greene opened the scoring in the first period off a setup from André Burakovsky at 16:14. Wyatt Kaiser added to the Hawks lead two minutes later.
The next two periods saw the Bruins (28-19-2) create plays at their will and let it fly like their NBA counterpart at TD Garden. Three Bruins scored in the second period, including left winger Viktor Arvidsson, who caught Connor Bedard slipping in a three-on-one breakaway.
Defenseman Mason Lohrei scored his second goal of the night on the power play at 9:01 of the third period. Right winger David Pastrnak made one of the better plays of the season with his pass to center Marat Khusnutdinov for the Bruins’ fifth goal of the game.
“Leaving the first period (with) the 2-0 lead and giving up five unanswered obviously isn’t what we want to do,” Greene said. “I would say a lot of that was self-inflicted.”
The Hawks defense hasn’t been stout in the past few games, leading to the ugly results. It has been either them being too aggressive, leading to penalties, or too light, leading to practice shots for opponents.
“There’s finding the balance of when you are aggressive, you got to make sure we’re sound with the puck in those times,” Blashill said. “A little bit of carelessness.”
Goaltender Arvid Söderblom (18 saves) has had some good stretches this season but has struggled overall. He is 5-8-1 in 14 starts with a .868 save percentage and a 3.97 goals-against-average. Blashill has faith in his 26-year-old backup despite the numbers.
“This was a tough judge tonight,” Blashill said. “I got belief for sure, and he’ll play again this coming week.”