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RECAP: Blackhawks put up a goose egg, lose 3–0 to Nashville

  
Blackhawks
Connor Bedard attempts a shot against the Nashville Predators. (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

The Chicago Blackhawks came into Tuesday night’s action against the Nashville Predators having dropped both games of an away-and-away in Dallas. After a long time of not getting into game action, Arvid Soderblom got the start in net for the Blackhawks. Besides him, Brett Seney was recalled from Rockford and got into his first game action of the season. Nikita Zaitsev drew back in as well after an illness. The Blackhawks’ lines looked like this:

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First period

After some back and forth, Nashville took to the power play on a “hold” by Seney, in one of the more questionable calls that I have ever seen in a game.

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Nashville put one home on the ensuing power play, as Gustav Nyquist put a wrister in on Soderblom from the left circle, 1–0 Predators. They did not stop coming after that either, as Soderblom continued to get peppered with shots. The Predators ended up outshooting the Blackhawks 16–5 in the first, but the score only had them leading by one.

Second period

The second period was just filled with ugliness and injuries for the Blackhawks. Both Anthony Beauvillier and Colin Blackwell went down with injuries in the period. That made it so that the Blackhawks had to ice two defensemen on the penalty kill the next time out, as they were running out of healthy forwards at the midpoint of the game. Philipp Kurashev took a nasty hit from Jeremy Lauzon toward the end of this period that sent Nick Foligno to his defense.

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Third period

It took until late in the third for more scoring to happen, but it was the Predators once again. On the two-man advantage, Filip Forsberg got the puck from one side of the net to Ryan O’Reilly on the other side, who put it home to put the Predators up 2–0. An empty-net goal from Luke Evangelista would make it a 3–0 final. The Blackhawks were not able to muster any offense and got shut out for the first time in the new year.

Analysis

The Blackhawks continue to struggle with injuries this season. They are down so many bodies that Luke Richardson jokingly wondered if the team will have bodies to call up. Soderblom played as well as you could have asked him to in this game. He made most of the stops that he should have made, as the only goal that he might have been better positioned on was Nyquist’s first period tally.

Foligno has continued to provide veteran leadership to this young Blackhawks team. It is always good to see him standing up for his teammates and always answers the bell when called upon.

The Blackhawks’ next game is on Thursday night against the New York Rangers. That game will be at 6 p.m. CST on NBC Sports Chicago.

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