Positives & Negatives From the Blackhawks’ 4-3 Overtime Preseason Win Over Wild

The Chicago Blackhawks regulars got their first taste of preseason action against the Minnesota Wild on Monday night, although without newly acquired Patrick Kane, who was scratched. The Blackhawks faced the Wild’s younger squad, who are trying to gain experience and make the jump to the NHL. 

Last night’s contest was the second between the two teams. On Saturday, both teams played their second group, and the Wild won 3-2 in overtime. Head coach Jeff Blashill said that waiting until Monday gave the NHL squad a little more time to practice, and they avoided some early travel miles to Minnesota; Monday’s meeting was at the United Center. The Blackhawks won 4-3 in overtime.

The Positives

Bowen Byram made his unofficial Blackhawks debut and looked great, finishing with a hat trick, including the overtime winner. In the second period, he sniped a shot past Calvin Pickard to the top left corner to give his team a 2-1 lead, his first goal of the evening. The play wouldn’t have happened without Sam Rinzel battling through pressure and Ryan Greene’s cross-ice pass – an all-around good sequence for Chicago. 

Byram and Alex Vlasic complemented each other nicely. Byram is more offensively minded, and Vlasic is more defensively minded, and it showed. At one point, Byram fired one off the post after a feed from Frank Nazar, and Vlasic tracked down Yakov Trenin and made a good defensive play to poke the puck away. The team couldn’t have asked for more from Byram by the time the night was done, and he proved he can be the top player on defense if he is consistent.

Artyom Levshunov, Roman Kantserov, and Nick Lardis had strong games, as well. Levshunov worked on his skating and getting faster over the summer, and he showed much more confidence in the offensive zone on Monday. Having Byram consuming minutes for him will be beneficial to his development.

Kantserov threw the body and wasn’t afraid of contact. He also had a couple of shots on goal. He hit his first NHL game out of the park after arriving from the KHL this summer. Lardis showed why he is a breakout candidate. He was tripped up on a breakaway, went down, got back up, and finished the play with a goal to tie the game at one. 

The players who needed to have good showings had them, and there is reason to be excited heading into the regular-season opener on Sep. 29.

The Negatives

One glaring negative is that the Blackhawks’ NHL regulars couldn’t beat the Wild’s youth in regulation. They should have shut the door with the score at 3-1 to start the third period. Chicago had a habit of blowing leads last season, and it reared its ugly head again last night.

The wheels fell off the bus late, too, with turnovers that led to breakaways for Minnesota. It might just be their first time playing together outside of practice, but if it continues to happen into October, then there’s an issue.

Another negative was goaltender Spencer Knight. It was his first start since April, so it was understandable if he was a little cold. But he allowed a goal off the first shot of the game, which set the tone for the end of the contest. Knight had the low pad, under the arm blocked off all last season, but he let one sneak by in the final frame. The third goal wasn’t on him; that was on Vlasic and Wyatt Kaiser not being able to win a two-on-one and take the Wild’s Bobby Brink off the puck.

Knight had some good moments, though. He stopped a breakaway chance late in the game to keep it tied at 3-3. Now that he’s played his first full 60 minutes of the season and has seen some shots, he should be ready to go by the time the Hawks travel to Vegas; there really isn’t a need to worry.  

Overall, Chicago had more positives than negatives on Monday night, which is good. However, there are still a lot of things to get right by the time the regular season opener against the Golden Knights rolls around, and it’s going to come fast. This group will get another go either on Sept. 24 or Sept. 26 against the St. Louis Blues to fine-tune some areas, which is what preseason is meant for.