Thursday night seemed like the beginning of the rest of our lives, in Blackhawks land. They were coming off a pretty brutal 7-5 loss, Sunday night, to the upstart New Jersey Devils. Not only did they lose, but were left with a rather nasty taste in their mouths. One of the few players who actually looked like he knew how to play the game of hockey in that game was rookie Alex Debrincat, and it was about time. Empty net goals and secondary assists weren’t why he was on this roster, so his third goal in two games was a welcomed sight. The positives in that game were the power play going two for three, and their 44 shots on net, but the final score and the fact that they blew a 4-1 lead was much more concerning.

Regardless, the Rangers came into the United Center on a six game winning streak, which could easily have the making of a Blackhawks beating, but it turned out the other way around.

Here were the starting lines:

Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Richard Panik
Nick Schmaltz – Artem Anisimov – Patrick Kane
Patrick Sharp – Tommy Wingels – Alex DeBrincat
Lance Bouma – Ryan Hartman – John Hayden

Duncan Keith – Cody Franson
Gustav Forsling – Jan Rutta
Connor Murphy – Brent Seabrook

The game began with power plays for each team that couldn’t generate more than a whisper in the goaltender’s ears, but half way through the first period the Rangers took a 1-0 lead. The Blackhawks lost a faceoff deep in their own end and the puck worked its way around the net. Mika Zibanejad was able to sneak in behind Jan Rutta while Gustav Forsling was late getting back to the front of the net, leaving Zibanejad wide open. Chris Kreider slipped a Tommy Wingels check behind the net and saucered a nice little backhand pass over Jan Rutta’s stick. The pass landed right on the tape of Mika Zibanjad and he beat a helpless Corey Crawford high to the glove side.

It looked very much like this could be a long night for Blackhawks fans as they then proceeded to attempt to shoot themselves in the foot by handing the Rangers a four-minute powerplay on a sloppy John Hayden high stick. They were able to fortunately kill off the double minor without incident. Thanks to their hot goaltender, Corey Crawford, the Blackhawks were able to salvage the rest of the period and go into the intermission only down 1-0. Thanks to their powerplays, the Rangers led the shot totals 11-9, which was pretty reasonable considering the Rangers had the 3rd best powerplay in the league coming in.

As the second period began, the Blackhawks resumed their generous turnovers early on, but Corey Crawford continued to keep his team in the game long enough for them to actually show up and participate. By “participate” I mean they actually out shot the Rangers 16-8 and were able to literally squeak out a game tying goal.  Alex “El Gato” Debrincat, tied the game on a really fluky long shot that Henrik Lundqvist originally stopped, but plopped out behind him like a quarter out of a soda machine and rolled into the net. The Blackhawks will certainly take it.

The Debrincat goal late in the second period must have woken up the Blackhawks, for a period at least, because they came out in the third and scored three quick goals in a matter of 2:45. Artem Anisimov had two of the those three goals, while John “#BigJohnStudd” Hayden had the sandwich goal just 46 seconds after the first Anisimov goal. The Rangers attempted to make a furious comeback after Lundqvist was yanked in favor of former Chicago Wolves legend Ondrej Pavelec. They actually cut the lead down to just one goal after Kevin Hayes and Rick Nash both scored, but that was as close as the blue shirts would get. Artem Anisimov completed the hat trick, biting his former team in the behind, late in the period on a nice feed from Nick Schmaltz.  Jonathan Toews put the exclamation point on this game with and empty net goal, sending the Rangers away with a 6-3 loss.

Pluses

• Alex Debrincat had his third straight noticeable game getting his fourth goal in that stretch.
  
• Artem Anisimov continued his recent hot play with three third period goals in the “dirty areas“. That is nine goals on the season for the ArtyParty.
  
• Cody Franson had 2 assists and was very noticeable on the power play. This guy just keeps giving Joel Quenneville reasons to dress him every night.
• The Blackhawks not only out shot the Rangers 43-28, but they strangely out HIT them 25-23, as well.  While we’re looking at superlatives, the Blackhawks also won 51% of their faceoffs.
• Nick Schmaltz had a terrible first period but rebounded to tally 3 assists.

Minuses

• Jeremy Roenick and Mike Milbury absolutely roasted the Blackhawks in the first intermission and It looks like it may have worked.
• Patrick Sharp had his chances and still wasn’t able to get his first goal since forever ago.
• The only Hawks players under water in possession were Toews, Wingels, and Richard Panik.
• Sorry if I don’t drink the kool-aid after just two decent periods, but I attribute this game more to the Rangers having an off night rather than the Blackhawks magically figuring out how to play hockey.  I need more than two consecutive periods of decent NHL hockey.  We have all been subject to this fallacy far too many times.