The Chicago Blackhawks have seen the number nine a few times in the past few days. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been too lucky.
The Buffalo Sabres hosted a Hawks team that was tired from both being on a back-to-back and blowing a 2-0 lead to the Seattle Kraken the day before. The Sabres dealt the Hawks nine goals in their 9-3 win on Friday.
The Hawks returned home to kick off their second four-game homestand. Maybe they could rest a little and get things going again?
Not with the NHL-leading Colorado Avalanche coming to town. It still was a huge opportunity for the Hawks to bounce back in the best way possible.
The home team did make the Avalanche look human. They didn’t make them look beatable, though, as Colorado left the United Center as winners of nine straight.
The Hawks (10-8-4) left a donut on the scoreboard as they fell to the Avalanche 1-0 on Sunday. Colorado won its 16th game of the year and shut out both the Hawks and the Nashville Predators in its back-to-back road trip.
It was the sixth time the Avs (16-1-5) have shut out the Hawks in their last 10 meetings. It’s the first time the Hawks have been shut out since April 7, 2024. They weren’t shut out in the 2024-25 season.
“The other team is going to push back, that’s the reality of life,” Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “We did an excellent job in our structure (and) we stayed with it.”
The only goal of the game came from a rare mistake from goaltender Spencer Knight, who had 24 saves in his 15th start. He passed the puck directly to center Tristen Nielsen and Cale Makar found the back of the net off the rebound from Knight’s save.
Minus the giveaway, Knight kept the Hawks within arm’s reach of the Avalanche. The home team was outshot 19-1 in the second period after winning the category 11-2 in the first.
Ryan Greene had four scoring chances in the first period but was unable to capitalize against goaltender Scott Wedgewood, who had 22 saves and earned his ninth shutout of his career. He didn’t score a point, but it was a standout performance as a winger on the top line.
“The goalie made some good saves, (but) I thought he did the right things,” Blashill said. “He just didn’t quite go in, (which) was the story of the whole first (period) for us.”
The second period has plagued the Hawks all season. They’ve allowed 25 goals between intermissions, tied for the sixth-most in the NHL.
It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly goes wrong after intermission one for the Hawks. The team doesn’t know, either.
“I don’t think that there’s some magic answer that’s like ‘our second periods, we just decide to not try,’” center Jason Dickinson said. “Is it as simple as teams see what we do in the first period and they make adjustments and we are now trying to adjust to their adjustments? Maybe, it’s really hard to say.”
Dickinson returned to the lineup after dealing with an injury suffered in an Oct. 30 road game against the Winnipeg Jets. He wanted to return when he was 100 percent healthy and felt good in his first action in nearly a month.
“My legs took a little while to get back to where they should be,” Dickinson said. “A couple misses that I’d like back, but that’s to be expected.”
It was a better response from the Hawks after their showing in Buffalo two days prior. They raced to the puck, created takeaways and left the Avalanche’s skaters confused in the first and third periods.
“It’s just one of those nights where things just really weren’t going right,” defenseman Wyatt Kaiser said. “So (we) each come in and get back to work (get) confident in our game (because) we know we can be a good team, so we should go out there and start playing.”