As the season seemed to be slowly slipping away from the Blackhawks, they were back at the United Center to face off with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Contrary to their previous two opponents, the Lightning were one of the top teams in the entire league, even though they were riding a three game losing streak. Not the position a struggling team wants to be in when they have just been blown out of their own building for 120 straight minutes.

Coach Joel Quenneville announced a few lineup changes after their embarrassing effort against the very beatable Islanders. Artem Anisimov was activated from injured reserve and inserted back into the lineup. Anisimov had been out since leaving the game early on 12/28 against Vancouver. Tomas Jurco made his season debut as well, after sitting in the press box since being recalled January 8th.

With Gustav Forsling being sent to Rockford, Erik Gustafsson was in the lineup for his second consecutive game, paired up with Brent Seabrook again. Michal Kempny was also in the lineup with a returning Connor Murphy. Since this was also the 25th anniversary of WWE RAW, as well, I thought I would make this game better than it actually was by telling this sad story with some animated gifs.

These were the Blackhawks starting lines:
_{Subject to the Q-Blender at any moment}
Patrick Sharp – Nick Schmaltz – Patrick Kane
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Anthony Duclair
Alex DeBrincat – Artem Anisimov – Ryan Hartman
Tomas Jurco – David Kampf – Vince Hinostroza

Duncan Keith – Jordan Oesterle
Erik Gustafsson – Brent Seabrook
Michal Kempny – Connor Murphy

The Blackhawks waste much time rolling the red carpet out for the Lightning forwards, which led to an early Hawks penalty. While the Bolts did not take a lead, it was a free for all to open the first period. Jeff Glass was fighting for his life, for almost the entire first five minutes of the game.

With five chaotic minutes off the clock, the Blackhawks finally woke up and tested the Lightning goalie with a Kane/Sharp 2-on-1, and a Vince Hinostroza breakaway. The best the Blackhawks could manage out of that situation was a power play, and we all know how threatening that is to their opponents.

Action remained fairly tepid until the final five minutes of the period when Connor Murphy made a bad pinch and Brayden Point ended up 1-on-1 with Glass. Point missed the net and the Blackhawks actually ended up with the power play shortly thereafter. While the Blackhawks fumbled through their initial power play, Patrick Kane drew a second man advantage. Sure would have been wonderful if they could have used said 5-on-3 to their advantage but we all know better than to expect any of that nonsense.

It came as a surprise to everyone watching when the final shot tally showed as 13-12 in favor of the Blackhawks, because it felt like the Lightning held a convincing advantage in the first period. Both goaltenders held tough for the opening twenty minutes and the game remained scoreless as the teams went into the intermission.

The home team looked like they had a little more life in the opening half of the second period, but that still yielded them no goals. The Blackhawks still seemed to be passing up far too many open shot opportunities which was simply baffling since they do not have the luxury of passing up any opportunities.

As the period ticked away, the Blackhawks got a gift when Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev took a penalty and then earned himself an extra couple of minutes for barking at the referee. In typical Blackhawks fashion they not only fumbled the power play chance, but Patrick Sharp turned right around and took a bad penalty. To make matters worse, during the delayed penalty, the Blackhawks quit too early on the play and allowed 76 year old Chris Kunitz to bank the puck off their goaltender for a shorthanded goal. The Hawks out shot their opponent 17-5 in the middle twenty, yet they went into the second intermission down 1-0.

The Blackhawks seemed to come out in the third period and reverted to their first period style, giving up an 8-3 shot deficit early on, and failing on (surprise) yet another power play. They did flirt with tying the game, but terrible turnovers late in the game led to a long Yanni Gourde goal which was all the Lightning needed to ice a 2-0 shutout win on the road.

Pluses

• • • The Hawks threw 40 shots on net which, I suppose, is a plus. Forty shots, though, mean nothing when you get shut out.
    • The narrative has been that the Blackhawks are bad at faceoffs, but they have been over 50% in a majority of their games in the last month.  Individually, some of the centers have been bad but, as a team, they are actually alright lately.
    • Jeff Glass played well enough, AGAIN, to win this game but you can’t win if your team doesn’t score.  He is going to start suffering from PTSD and night terrors after what this team puts him though.
      

  Minuses

  • • Tomas Jurco pulling the between the legs, fancy pants Jordan Tootoo shot attempt in his first Hawks game this season is not going to win over his old school coach.
    • Anthony Duclair had a third period breakaway, but completely telegraphed his move and his attempt was basically shut down before it started by the slick Bolts goaltender.
    • Officially, the Blackhawks were 0-6 on the power play.  Officially, if you throw out the Sens game, they are still 0-fer in 2018.
      

  Here are the game highlights: