CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks feasted early this year.
The night before Thanksgiving, the Blackhawks went for seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths and finally a sixth serving of goals on their way to a 6-2 win over the Dallas Stars in an offensive breakout Chicago had desperately sought for weeks.
Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson had been constantly shuffling his deck of forwards, searching for any combination to muster a little more offense. The Blackhawks had been in nearly every game — 20 of their first 21 games were winnable — but they had just seven wins to show for improved competitiveness compared to a season ago. And the reason for that was largely their lack of offense. They came into Wednesday’s game ranked 31st at 2.33 goals per game. From teenage phenom Connor Bedard to former Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall, almost everyone in the lineup had mostly underperformed offensively.
The bar for the Blackhawks to clear seems to be three goals. They had been held to two goals or fewer in 14 of their first 21 games this season and won just one of those 14. In the seven games in which they surpassed the two-goal total, they won six times.
It was fitting Hall would clear that by himself Wednesday, scoring his first hat trick since Dec. 5, 2013. The last month-plus had been challenging for Hall; he was hopeful of a rebound this season after missing most of last year with a knee injury, and early indications were promising. But his offense quickly fell off, and his last goal had come on Oct. 22. He was riding a 13-game goal-less streak into Wednesday. On top of that, he was caught off-guard by Richardson making him a healthy scratch against the Vancouver Canucks on Nov. 16. For someone who had once been considered the best player in the league, it was a tough pill for Hall to swallow.
Taylor Hall hadn’t scored a hat trick since December 2013. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Hall had some heart-to-hearts with Richardson since then and chose to use his demotion as motivation. Looking back, Hall can see how the scratch might have benefited him.
“We had some good chats,” Hall said of Richardson. “Maybe that was what I needed. Sometimes it’s nice to kind of feel like what rock bottom is. Or, not rock bottom but just, like, ‘All right, that’s the worst I’m going to play,’ or, ‘That’s the worst I’m going to feel. So let’s figure some stuff out. Let’s change a few things in my preparation and my habits, and let’s see if I can not dwell on it but take some constructive criticism, look myself in the mirror and try and play better.’ So that’s what I’ve done.”
Richardson couldn’t have predicted a hat trick, but he was hoping something big was coming Hall’s way.
“I knew it’s just like those type of guys, when it breaks out, it really breaks out,” Richardson said. “I’m glad. He had a great game. We’ll talk about his three goals and those were huge in our win, but if you scroll in the middle part of the third period, when they were trying to press and push, he had a huge backcheck right to our crease and that pretty much nullified a play. That’s just as important as the others. That’s the professional he is.
“He played a complete game. He wasn’t just happy with his three goals. He played hard for Petr (Mrázek), backchecking hard and helping the defense out and that’s a good example for everybody.”
Hall’s first goal Wednesday was classic Taylor Hall. He built speed through the neutral zone, received a pass, took it to another gear as he went wide left in the offensive zone and shot hard back to his right. Stars goalie Casey DeSmith got a glove on the puck, but couldn’t hold on and Hall scored 17 seconds into the game.
The tone had been set.
“What’d I see? I just ripped it,” Hall said. “I’m trying to just play the game without as much thinking and thought. So I had the puck, going a lot with some pretty good speed through the neutral zone and was able to get the puck out wide in a spot where it was in a nice spot on my blade. And I just figured I’d shoot it. It’s the first shift of the game, let’s get a shot, let’s try and see how the goalie’s feeling. And it went in. It was a hard shot. He probably wants to have that back, but I got a lot on it.”
The Blackhawks’ crowd of 19,144, the third-biggest crowd of the season, was immediately engaged. And shortly later, Hall would give them even more to celebrate. After DeSmith missed a teammate with a breakout pass, Ryan Donato recovered the puck along the left wall and quickly got it to Hall at the front of the net. Hall pushed it past DeSmith and had two goals in 5:43. You began to wonder if he might come close to scoring three goals as quickly as he did in 2013 when he broke Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers record of scoring the fastest hat trick to begin a game by doing it in 7:53.
It wouldn’t be that fast, but Hall completed his hat trick at 8:42 in the second period when Craig Smith got the puck out of a corner battle and fed Hall in the right circle and he sent the puck past DeSmith again. A massive smile broke across Hall’s face as his teammates swarmed him and hats flew onto the ice.
“Yeah, 11 years, yeah,” Hall said. “It’s been a long time. You know, you don’t come into games expecting to score hat tricks, but I’ve been working pretty hard. I’ve been pretty happy with how I’ve been playing and my effort. And being put on that line. I wanted to play well and show well, obviously. And we needed to win. We needed a win on home ice. And just as a group, I think a lot of guys got on the board – Connor (Bedard), myself – and you need that. As a hockey player, as an offensive guy, sometimes it’s not enough to just play well, you need to see some results from it. Hopefully this can kind of springboard our whole offensive game as a team.”
Hall’s hat trick may take the headline here, but Bedard breaking out of his 12-game goalless streak may even be the bigger story. Bedard was in an offensive slump like he hadn’t been in his life. It had tested his mind and confidence in a way he wasn’t used to.
After Bedard cleanly beat DeSmith with a rising wrister from the right circle during a power play in the second period, he looked up to the sky and clenched his fists.
“On the goal, yeah, kind of relief,” Bedard said. “I mean, it’s been like a month. I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch like that in my life, so felt good to see one go in. … I didn’t care how one went in, to be completely honest. I would have taken it off the face. I guess however it was going in, it’s nice. It feels good.”
Bedard’s goal gave the Blackhawks their third goal and got them over the hump. Hall provided the team’s fourth goal, Teuvo Teräväinen the fifth and defenseman Louis Crevier scored his first NHL goal as the sixth.
“That was sweet,” Bedard said of Crevier’s goal. “That’s the thing today, talking about getting a lot of goals, everyone getting on the sheet, you know, everyone’s having fun. Everybody’s loud on the bench, energy. Obviously seeing Louis get his first, it was awesome.”
The Blackhawks have plenty of work ahead of them if they’re going to turn their season around. While they have picked up five points in their last three games, they’re still 30th in the league in points percentage. For them to defy the U.S. Thanksgiving standings, their last 60 games will have to be a lot more like Wednesday’s.
“Well, we just talked about it yesterday a little bit as a team, and I think with any little bit of luck and a little bit more determination and focus, we could flip our first-quarter schedule,” Richardson said prior to Wednesday’s game. “And I think that’s our goal, and that’s what we want to do.
“So I don’t really follow where we are right now for putting it against U.S. Thanksgiving on a timeline, I just kind of liked how our team’s played. I think just the execution on little details, if we can clean that up, I think our special teams have grown this year, and certain situations have grown. Just one little area of mistakes, and it’s never the same one. So we’ve got to make sure we’re alert on everything, because you never know what that one little play will be that gets you the winner or it doesn’t.”
(Top photo of Taylor Hall and Craig Smith: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
