Brock Faber's fancy assist (and a 4-0 Minnesota win) throws lighter fluid on an already heated Calder Trophy debate.
The Chicago Blackhawks had been on a feel-good run with four wins in the last six games. Even two losses felt like winnable games.
That came to a crashing halt with a 4-0 shutout at the hands of the Minnesota Wild on Sunday at the United Center.
“I guess a little bit of fatigue,” said coach Luke Richardson, alluding to the Hawks winning the first leg of their back-to-back with a 3-2 upset of the Dallas Stars. “But they played and traveled, too, and they just had a little bit more in their tank than we did tonight.
“We just couldn’t really muster too much together on the offense and then we couldn’t kill anything defensively.”
The Hawks had few scoring chances despite changing lines, and they were shut out for the 13th time this season to lead the league. The Anaheim Ducks are the next closest with 10.
“I don’t know how many shots we had at the end of the game, but there weren’t too many Grade As, getting traffic in front of them, stuff along those lines,” Colin Blackwell said. “They just had an all-around good team defense.”
Entering the game, the focus was on the second and final head-to-head matchup between rookies Connor Bedard and Brock Faber, the top two Calder Trophy rivals.
Bedard missed another matchup on Feb. 7 at the United Center while recovering from a broken jaw.
For all the hype about both players, neither did anything during a scoreless first period that was yawn-inducing.
Things picked up in the second — for the Wild.
After Philipp Kurashev high-sticked Jake Middleton to set up the Wild on the power play, Kirill Kaprizov scored the opening goal (to reach his third 40-goal season) on a one-timer from Matt Boldy.
Marco Rossi caught Hawks goalie Arvid Söderblom far out of the net for a backdoor goal.
Frederick Gaudreau’s tip-in off Zach Bogosian’s point shot capped the run.
Faber put the exclamation point on the game — and added some fuel to the Calder debate — backhanding a pass to a trailing Kaprizov, who made it 4-0 Wild.
Just @Brockfaber14 doing Brock Faber things.
pic.twitter.com/lqEQzr4oTA
— NHL (@NHL) April 7, 2024
Richardson said Kevin Korchinski made the right call directing Landon Slaggert to cover Faber, but then made the wrong decision by doubling Faber anyway and leaving Kaprizov wide open.
“It’s usually (on) the D,” Richardson said. “The D is skating backward, you see everything because you’re facing forward. The back checker doesn’t really see the next guy coming, so you have to be his eyes.
“He said the right thing at the beginning and maybe decided that he (Slaggert) wasn’t going to get there and he went to help, he wanted to help, which causes more harm.”
Meanwhile, the Hawks were held out of the net by the Wild’s rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt, who coughed up seven goals to the Dallas Stars in his only other outing this season.
“There’s no real excuse,” Blackwell said. “They had a back-to-back too and they had some travel.”
He added the Hawks didn’t manage the puck well in the limited time they had it, and on the flip side the Wild did a better job making hay with their possession.
“They extended the neutral zone pretty well and were able to stretch us out,” Blackwell said.
“That’s automatic, right?”
—Luke Richardson making his campaign pitch for Connor Bedard winning the Calder Trophy pic.twitter.com/hMM4jbCduK
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) April 7, 2024
Defenseman Jaycob Megna agreed.
“We needed to kill more plays and hitting guys … and we weren’t able to stop their progression,” he said. “They circled back a lot and came with speed and made it tough on us.
“We just got stretched out and we got tired and couldn’t really pin guys on the walls and stop their momentum.”
It also was a slog for Bedard, who had just one shot on goal to Faber’s three.
Bedard joined a line with Lukas Reichel and Andreas Athanasiou hoping a dose of speed might give his offense a jolt, though It didn’t work.
Richardson said, “I thought (Athanasiou) had a little bit of energy going, and Lukas had a few bursts, so just thought I’d try those guys together.
“They had a couple of times when they were close, and they had one little bit of a burst in the O-zone, but we were a little bit on the perimeter tonight, something where we just couldn’t get to the inside.”
Before the game, Richardson was asked about his thoughts on Bedard’s chances in the Rookie of the Year race.
“That’s automatic, right?” Richardson said before the game. “His production offensively is great but, like I said, now that you’re adding better and more conscious responsibility away from the puck, I think that shows a lot of maturity in a young player.
And when you have the point production still coming, when you’re doing that, that’s a sign of a real solid player that’s going to be here for a long time doing this.”
Still, Richardson gave a lot of credit to Faber, who, as a defenseman, sits just 17 points behind forward Bedard (59) with 42 points.
“He’s been obviously great offensively for them,” Richardson. “I know he plays on their power play at the top, which is a tough thing to do for a young defenseman, but he’s done it with some grace and aggression.
“He’s not the biggest guy but he’s tenacious out there. He battles hard.”
