After a couple great wins between tough losses recently, the Blackhawks took another unfortunate loss when they took a trip to play against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday, March 21st at the Honda Center. Chicago lost 6-2 against the Los Angeles Kings prior to this game, on Tuesday. They were shut out 4-0 by the Ducks, this being the 11th time this season they’ve been shut out. Lukas Dostal made a total of 29 saves in his first NHL career shutout for Anaheim, and the Ducks ended their seven-game losing streak.
Blackhawks lineup against the Ducks:
Foligno – Bedard – Kurashev
Athanasiou – Johnson – Reichel
Slaggert – Dickinson – Anderson
Donato – Entwistle – Raddysh
Vlasic – Jones
Korchinski – Megna
Kaiser – Zaitsev
Soderblom
Mrazek
Ducks lineup against the Blackhawks:
Killorn – Carlsson – Terry
Vatrano – McTavish – Strome
Jones – Lundestrom – Leason
Johnston – Meyers – Silfverberg
Fowler – Zellweger
Mintyukov – LaCombe
Vaakanainen – Lindstrom
Dostal
Gibson
Throughout the entire opening 20 minutes, it remained scoreless. However, the Blackhawks outshot the Anaheim Ducks 13-7. The second frame is when the Ducks began to score, taking a 3-0 lead.
Early into the middle frame at 16:50, Alex Killorn began the scoring to put the Ducks ahead 1-0 with his 13th goal of the season when he tipped in Gustav Lindstrom’s shot. Brett Leason made it 2-0 with his 11th of the season when he burst into Chicago’s zone with speed, and then sent a wrister past Arvid Soderblom from the top of the right circle. Later into the second at 1:34, Killorn struck his second of the night and his 14th of the season to extend Anaheim’s lead to 3-0. Killorn scored from the right circle with a wrist shot.
Leo Carlsson had to be helped off the ice late in the second after he had made knee-to-knee contact with Alex Vlasic. This was his third game back after missing eight games due to sustaining an upper-body injury, and he missed 10 games due to a knee injury from December 23-January 15, as well as the first two games of the season with a lower-body injury he had sustained in training camp.
Frank Vatrano went for his 30th goal of the season for the 4-0 final at 9:29 of the third period. During a 5-on-3 power play, he scored on a wrist shot at the right circle.
Jaycob Megna on the Blackhawks’ being shutout: “It’s just frustrating. We didn’t execute well enough, and obviously, penalties set us back a little bit. Any time we felt like we got a little momentum, we just didn’t hang onto pucks and we didn’t create enough chances. Just not good enough.”
Tyler Johnson on the loss against Anaheim: “We took too many penalties and they made it count. Sometimes when you try too hard to make plays, things happen and it usually goes the other way – you just got to relax a little bit,”- “That shouldn’t be an excuse, we should be desperate too. I think we’re second to last place, so if you’re not desperate every game, I don’t know what it’s going to take.”
Notes:
– The two previous times the Blackhawks played against the Anaheim Ducks this season, they defeated them… the first game took place on December 7th, where Chicago shut them out 1-0, and the second time took place on March 12th, defeating them 7-2.
– Arvid Soderblom made a total of 21 saves for Chicago.
– Colin Blackwell was out of this game due to the upper-body injury he sustained in the 6-2 loss against the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
– The Blackhawks had come in 10-1-1 in their past 12 games against the Anaheim Ducks.
– The Blackhawks’ 11th time being shutout this season has been the most in the NHL since the Minnesota Wild had been shutout 11 times in the 2018-19 season.
– Lukas Dostal is the third Anaheim Ducks rookie to record a shutout, and he joins John Gibson (six times) and Ilya Bryzgalov (one time).
– Brett Leason had a goal and an assist… three of his 11 goals had been against the Blackhawks this season.
– Ben Meyers’ assist on Leason’s goal was his first point with the Anaheim Ducks since being acquired from the Colorado Avalanche on March 8th. Also assisting Leason’s goal, Pavel Mintyukov is fourth among NHL rookies in assists (24).
– Frank Vatrano is the second Anaheim Ducks player to score at least 30 goals in the past six seasons. He joined Troy Terry, who had recorded 37 in the 2021-22 season.
