Ghost Song: Panthers 5, Blackhawks 1
The Chicago Blackhawks started the game with a bang but were shut out by the Florida Panthers after the first seven seconds of the game, ultimately falling 5-1 on Saturday.
Speaking of that bang, the Blackhawks opened the scoring with Landon Slaggert, who looked like he was shot out of a cannon into the offensive zone, grabbing the puck after Ryan Donato’s face-off win and then shoveling it five-hole on Sergei Bobrovsky.
Chicago goal!Scored by Landon Slaggert with 19:53 remaining in the 1st period.Assisted by Ryan Donato.Florida: 0Chicago: 1#CHIvsFLA #TimeToHunt #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/HjKH38a5Fd— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) February 1, 2025
The Panthers didn’t wait too long before scoring. About five minutes later, a shot from Niko Mikkola caused a scramble in front of Petr Mrazek before Jonah Gadjovich knocked it, tying the game 1-1.
Florida goal!Scored by Jonah Gadjovich with 14:32 remaining in the 1st period.Assisted by A.J. Greer and Niko Mikkola.Florida: 1Chicago: 1#CHIvsFLA #TimeToHunt #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/6Scmiwe3iI— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) February 1, 2025
The Blackhawks challenged for goaltender interference, but the call on the ice for a good goal stood after it was determined AJ Greer was pushed into Mrazek by Jason Dickinson.
#Blackhawks challenge for goaltender interference, but the call on the ice stands. pic.twitter.com/Nc7g9QBCXq— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) February 1, 2025
Sam Reinhart made it 2-1 midway through the first. Aleksander Barkov setup Reinhard up with a neat feed through traffic, and the winger banged it in off Mrazek’s pad.
Sam Reinhart – Florida Panthers (30) pic.twitter.com/LkzG1g6WGj— NHL Goal Videos (@NHLGoalVideos) February 1, 2025
The Panthers extended the lead to 3-1 with 3:31 left in the second period after Matthew Tkachuk got easy inside position on Connor Murphy and redirected a shot from Sam Reinhart with the shaft of his stick for the goal.
Matthew Tkachuk – Florida Panthers (17) pic.twitter.com/iFYhNzqI3o— NHL Goal Videos (@NHLGoalVideos) February 1, 2025
Evan Rodrigues then scored 10 seconds into the third period, putting the Panthers up 3-1. Alex Vlasic fumbled the puck off a dump-in by Anton Lundell and the puck bounced to Rodrigues in front for a quick snap shot.
Evan Rodrigues – Florida Panthers (12) pic.twitter.com/hL4cSCvP6A— NHL Goal Videos (@NHLGoalVideos) February 1, 2025
Carter Verhaeghe put this one clearly away 10:23 left in the game. On the power play, Reinhart sent a cross-ice pass off the rush to Verhaeghe, who tapped it in past Mrazek to make it 5-1.
Carter Verhaeghe – Florida Panthers (12)Power Play Goal pic.twitter.com/uLxPcdCpmo— NHL Goal Videos (@NHLGoalVideos) February 1, 2025
Notes
Oh what a nice high the game started on! Too bad it lasted the whole seven seconds it took for Slaggert’s goal to be announced, if that. The Panthers absolutely smoke-showed the Blackhawks for the rest of the first period: attempts were 32-8 and shots 15-3 were in favor of the Panthers and they owned 89.04 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5. The Blackhawks were honestly lucky to get out of that period down just 2-1 — Mrazek was a damn hero in the opening 20 minutes.
The push back from the Blackhawks was better in the second and third periods, but it wasn’t really enough and they looked outmatched over the final 40 minutes, too. The Panthers were less overpowering, and instead focused their precision on dismantling Chicago, targeting weak spots in the Blackhawks defense and exploiting basically every mistake the visitors made. Another game in which the Blackhawks allowed 35 or more shots on their goalie — this time 44. If not for Mrazek in net, this game feels like one in which the Panthers could have scored a touchdown and gotten a two point conversion, even if his numbers (.886 save percentage) won’t show it.
Sorensen: “We’re on our heels a little bit. They get some clean entries and they’re coming in waves and then we can’t stop that right away… You want to be two or three more hard strides out to close out on guys, and we didn’t have that today.”— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 1, 2025
Didn’t have the two or three more hard strides to catch the opponents, Soresen says, as if it wasn’t his choice to put the three slowest defenders on the ice together instead of one or two fast kids. Seriously, putting possibly the slowest pair in the league on the ice in Brodie and Murphy was crazy from the jump and was especially stupid live: that duo together was a disaster everyone except apparently the Blackhawks coaching staff saw coming. Add in that Alec Martinez, another really slow old dude, was on the ice as well and that’s just a recipe for disaster against a hard forechecking team. Louis Crevier’s injury about 11 minutes into the game only exasperated the issue as it meant Murphy had to skate more in his return game.
Louis Crevier did not take a shift the rest of the first period after being boarded. #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/bomdyF04Db— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) February 1, 2025
Here are a couple of comments from the game thread that I thought explained everything coach Anders Sorensen’s likely thought process in playing all three of those veterans over younger defenders but why it’s also faulty (so thanks kcv and gbubb1):
And below are some quotes from the coach himself on rotating in and out the kids. I do not have any issue with him believing the young players may need a reset or time off because of how long the season is, but he needs to stop saying things about how the veterans “are playing well, too.” No, sir, there have been far more poor performances from the veteran defenders on this team than the young ones. It just makes everyone think you’re blind if you’re not seeing this.
I asked Sorensen that this morning: https://t.co/CH9mjImRlt pic.twitter.com/7xgPQIGnJS— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) February 1, 2025
Brodie was especially painful this game in terms of speed: he couldn’t skate or pass the puck out to save his life, he got pressured so easily because turtles can catch him, and he was behind plays to an embarrassing degree. As we’ve been saying all season, it’s not just the physical limitations that have made Brodie a liability more often than not: he’s just not adjusted his decision making well enough to compensate for said decline in physical ability (like Pat Maroon has, as well as he can).
So, yeah, Brodie should be jettisoned into the sun at this point — the sun being the press box. Murphy wasn’t good either, though it was more of a mixed bag with him than a complete calamity. My biggest problem with him tonight was on the Tkachuk goal: he did a horrible job clearing the front of the net. Tkachuk is obviously an amazing player, but Murphy barely looks like he tried to stop Tkachuk from getting inside position on him for his tip goal. I’d cut him some slack that it’s his first game back, but he’s been ineffective there most of the season. Again, though: he’s not alone.
I'm glad the #Blackhawks are playing their veterans today otherwise this game could really be out of hand— Mario Tirabassi (@Mario_Tirabassi) February 1, 2025
There were plenty of individual mistakes throughout this game. Martinez had coverage issues, more in the first than latter in the game, but his gap control was especially lacking. Dickinson pushing a player into his own goalie, contributing to a goal against. Teravainen had some dangerous turnovers that weirdly did not show up on the stat card. Mikheyev misplayed the puck a few times when trying to exit the zone, resulting in more Panthers zone time. Nick Foligno lost his man on the penalty kill (even if it was a possible miscommunication with Slaggert, the younger player had a man while Foligno did not), and took himself out of the play at least twice trying to hit an opponent ineffectively.
This is not to say the young players didn’t also have some issues: both Alex Vlasic and Bedard made costly mistakes as well. Alex Vlasic fumbled a dump-in retrieval and turned the puck over, which led to the fourth goal against, and the weak coverage by Bedard on Reinhart aided the Panthers’ second goal. Reichel had at least one turnover in the neutral zone trying to do too much, Dach lost his man in the second that led to a scramble in front, and Slaggert took an ill-timed penalty. However, a rookie or year-two player making a mistake is different than a decades-long veteran because the former is a learning experience that will hopefully get better with time while the latter is just frustrating.
It’s also extra idiotic for anyone to come down so hard on those young players only. Like Mark Messier was a good player obviously, but he was also a known locker room cancer in Vancouver, so I’m not interested in his opinions on team morale, especially about the Blackhawks best young player who has factored into over a third of the team’s goals. There are a lot of superstar players (example: Connor McDavid) who only learned to be solid to good defensively by playing through their mistakes. And outside of that mistake, Bedard has been fine this game, albeit suppressed pretty well by one of the best defensive teams in the league.
To be clear, it’s absolutely fine to criticize Bedard’s defense on that play, but to suggest he should be yelled at in a manner like, say, what John Tortorella did recently to Matvei Michkov is asinine. Get out of here with that dinosaur take. At least Sorensen acknowledged this game was a team-wide poor performance.
Anders Sorensen didn't bite on the Mark Messier criticism: "We all had a tough game. I don't think it was just him. It was a group thing and they were kind of all over us there, and we had a hard time finding any space."— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) February 1, 2025
Mark Messier said on live TV that Connor Bedard shouldn’t have come out on the Blackhawks power play because he was a little soft on the Sam Reinhart (who has 30 on Feb 1 for a reason) goal. I will never understand talking down on Bedard who is such a good young player. https://t.co/3yQEsMAbNi— Vinnie Parise (@VinnieParise) February 1, 2025
Quiet day for Connor Bedard, who Mark Messier apparently bashed during the ABC intermission show (because of course he did), but he just made a nifty steal in the OZ that eventually led to a Florida penalty.— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 1, 2025
The obvious bright spot in this game was Slaggert making franchise history with scoring the fast goal. He’s not necessarily a top-six forward in terms of skill, but he’s smart, fast, and tenacious enough that he could be a complimentary type who could play up or down the lineup as needed (not unlike Andrew Shaw, though they are different stylistically). Slaggert was rewarded for the second game in a row with time with Bedard, either up with Tyler Bertuzzi (3:25) or with Ryan Donato (3:58). It’s that second combination that was especially effective: the Blackhawks owned 73.33 percent shot attempts, 77.78 percent of the shots on goal, and 79.13 percent of the expected goals when those three were on the ice.
Sorensen on bumping Landon Slaggert up to Bedard's line: "I think he clears a lot of space. A lot of good stuff on the forecheck and retrieving pucks. And, again, the second and third effort to win those pucks are crucial and he does a lot of that."— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) February 1, 2025
No other line was positive, though the fourth with Lukas Reichel, Colton Dach, and Maroon came the closest with just one shot attempt and one SOG differential with them on the ice. It’s kind of strange they weren’t played more, honestly, especially Dach was noticeable in positive ways in his less than 11 minutes of playing time. He had two shots on goal, a scoring chance, three hits, and a blocked shot. That’s more impactful than some other players on the ice, let’s be honest.
Also to note, Slaggert getting time with Bedard obviously meant Nazar didn’t get as much, and the latter played his lowest minutes (14:52) in three weeks (11:06 against the Edmonton Oilers, Jan. 11). I’d have rather seen a young guns trio of Slaggert, Bedard, and Nazar than the first two taking spins with Bertuzzi, but maybe that’s just me. Donato getting extra time is fine because he actually goes all out, all the time, no matter what the score.
Game Charts
Three Stars
Sam Reinhart (FLA) — 1 goal, 2 assists
Carter Verhaeghe (FLA) — 1 goal, 1 assist
Aleksander Barkov (FLA) — 2 assists
What’s Next
The Blackhawks have several days off before returning to the United Center on Wednesday night to host the Edmonton Oilers at 8:30 p.m.
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