Does a 3-0 loss feel that much worse than a 3-1 loss? It did Tuesday night at the United Center.
The Chicago Blackhawks looked more powerless in their rematch with the Bruins at home than they did in Boston on the tail end of a back-to-back to start the season.
Coach Luke Richardson rarely sounds frustrated, but he clearly wasn’t pleased with his team’s lack of toughness.
“I’m tired. One year is enough of a ‘hard-working’ team,” he said. “We want to push for more this year. I find the other teams, not outwork us like work-ethic-wise, but I want to say the hardness of the work. Physical one-on-one battles.”
How do you fix that?
“You do battle drills,” he said pointedly. “They don’t like that, but if you don’t do it in a game, you have to do it in practice. That’s just the way it is. That’s the work ethic in any sport, really.”
Last season the Hawks showed a tendency to implode in the second period. At least it seems they’re waiting until the third period this season.
The Vegas Golden Knights put up three goals in the third Saturday, and the Bruins tacked on two in the third Tuesday.
“We have some lapses in our play, especially these last two games, that other teams have been able to capitalize on,” defenseman Jarred Tinordi said. “We have stretches where we’re playing good hockey and we have one or two slips where we have five-minute little lulls in our game, and it ends up costing us.”
It underscores what Richardson harped on: You can’t have lulls shift to shift, especially against teams like the Bruins and Golden Knights, something he plans to address in practice.
“This is how you have to play every shift, every game,” he said.
Here are five other takeaways from Tuesday’s loss.
1. The Hawks need some of the Killer B’s killer instinct.
The Bruins have scored no fewer than three goals during their six-game winning streak to start the season, and that includes Tuesday’s 3-0 shutout.
It’s not just about the numbers, though.
They got goals from Pavel Zacha, Matthew Poitras and Trent Frederic and didn’t need a point from stars David Pastrňák and Brad Marchand.
And Patrice Bergeron and David Krejčí, who helped lead the Bruins to the best record in NHL history (65-12-5, 135 points) last season, probably have their feet up somewhere enjoying their well-earned retirement.
Whatever intangibles the Bruins have, they run deep in their locker room.
Just ask Tinordi.
“You look at that room, they’ve had core guys that do things the right way,” the Hawks defenseman said. “They know how to play, they know how to win. It’s similar to here when we had Tazer (Jonathan Toews) and Kaner (Patrick Kane) and the guys that were in this locker room. That’s where it starts; it all stems from that.
“Culture is a big deal in hockey. It’s a big deal in the room, getting guys to buy in and play the right way. I was on that Boston team a couple years ago (2020-21), and as soon as you walk in the room, you feel that everyone is pulling together. I had the same feeling here last year when we had Tazer and Kaner.”
On paper, in Richardson’s estimation, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Toronto Maple Leafs are probably more talented than the Bruins.
“But Boston has that work ethic instilled in them from the (Zdeno) Cháras and the Bergerons and now Marchand and all them. They push that through,” Richardson said. “You see their fourth line out there, they work like dogs and they don’t give you any space and time. Their ‘D’ does a great job of not letting any shots get through them or they get sticks on shots where you just hold on to it that half-second too long.”
2. How did Philipp Kurashev look?
For someone who had been sidelined by a left wrist injury for the first six games, there were glimpses when he had more jump than his teammates.
“I thought he was excellent,” Richardson said. “I thought he was probably our best player tonight.”
Kurashev played on a line with Jason Dickinson and Corey Perry for the opening faceoff. He didn’t take a shot in his 17 minutes, 45 seconds of play but said he felt good throughout the game.
“The biggest thing is just the timing,” Kurashev said. “I had just one practice in a long time. Of course the result wasn’t what we’re looking for, but I’m just happy to be back.”
Kurashev got a few shifts with top-liners Connor Bedard and Nick Foligno in the third period.
“We tried to bump him up at the end to see how that looked, and it certainly looked pretty good,” Richardson said. “That’s something we’ll consider.”
Kurashev would welcome more work with Bedard.
“We tried to make some plays,” he said. “He made a nice pass to me. I just couldn’t get the stick on it. But it was a good opportunity and we’ll see what happens in the future.”
3. Connor Bedard had his best goal yet — until he didn’t.
Bedard hit a kneeling, roof-shot, power-play goal, complete with a Patrick Kane finger-pointing celebration.
The picturesque goal was wiped out by an offside call. The Bruins challenged and a video review showed Hawks center Andreas Athanasiou preceded the puck into the zone — barely.
You could read the letdown on the Hawks faces.
“You could use that as an excuse, I guess, but I thought we played a pretty good first period for the most part and things just got away,” Perry said. “At the end of the day, I can’t turn the puck over at that blue line and it’s a 1-0 game. You put it behind you and you move forward.”
4. The Hawks zoned out on offense.
The Hawks have been at even strength for 36.8% of their time in the offensive zone, which is below the league average of 40.7% according to NHL Edge data.
That goes a long way toward explaining why they’ve averaged a third-worst 26.1 shots per game.
Meanwhile, the Hawks are dead last in faceoffs at 39%.
“Part of it relates to faceoffs and part of it is just managing pucks,” Richardson said pregame. “I thought last game, as good as we played, still lots of turnovers at the blue line or we had an offensive zone rush and we didn’t get a chance off it.
“We have to create more on our rushes. If you do that, it usually collapses the team’s defense toward their net, and if we’re moving forward, we have a chance to get that rebound and create more O-zone time.”
5. Should the Hawks get some slack for their schedule?
Did Danny Wirtz kick Gary Bettman’s dog or something? Because the NHL schedule makers were not kind to the Hawks.
The Golden Knights, Bruins and Colorado Avalanche occupy the top three spots in the standings — all are undefeated — and by Friday night, the Hawks will have played five games against them.
“You see the schedule at the start of the season and you know what to expect coming in, but, yeah, you can say it’s been tough,” Perry said. “But I think a lot of the games for the most part we’ve been in and it’s just one mistake here and the game’s over.”
