Blackhawks undermined by leaky defense, dubious calls in loss to Canucks
A questionable failed offside challenge and a clearly missed too-many-men penalty undermined the Blackhawks in a 6-3 loss Tuesday against the Canucks.
During a wild first period that ended with the Canucks leading 4-2, the Hawks’ typically infallible behind-the-scenes video team struck out on an attempt to nullify the Canucks’ third goal. Minutes later, the Canucks got away with temporarily having seven players on the ice seconds before scoring their fourth goal.
The home bench was perplexed the first time and irate the second time. Captain Nick Foligno said the referees later admitted to making a mistake in the second instance.
Porous defense undermined the Hawks even more, however, and the refereeing had no effect there.
Wyatt Kaiser and Seth Jones were burned on the opening goal only 21 seconds into the game, and things didn’t improve after that. The Hawks found themselves scrambling around their own zone for most of the night.
‘‘I just don’t think we got on the same page in the ‘D’ zone, for some reason,’’ Foligno said. ‘‘We were just slow in getting to pucks and also moving pucks. It seemed like every time we did break out well, we had an opportunity on the other end. But as soon as we held on to it too long . . it cost us.’’
Jones struggled, rookie Nolan Allan endured his roughest night to date and even Alex Vlasic — typically the Hawks’ most reliable defenseman — was caught sleeping on the almost-offside goal. Goalie Petr Mrazek’s stat line (24 saves on 30 shots) could have been worse had he not made some desperation stops.
‘‘They were more determined than we were,’’ coach Luke Richardson said of the Canucks. ‘‘In the ‘D’ zone, that just hurts you so much if you don’t win your share [of puck battles] or more than half. We weren’t even close to that.’’
The Hawks produced some high-quality chances late in the second period that could have cut their deficit to one goal, but former Hawks goalie Kevin Lankinen stymied them, and the Canucks broke the game open in the third period.
‘‘When we play together and play a simple game . . . everybody jumps in and buys in and is able to play that style,’’ Foligno said. ‘‘We haven’t gotten to it as much as we’d like. We had it going on the road . . . but it seems like it’s starting to fade away in certain moments.’’
Levshunov activated
Prospect defenseman Artyom Levshunov’s professional debut appears to be imminent. The No. 2 overall pick in the draft participated in the Hawks’ morning skate Tuesday and subsequently was activated off injured reserve and assigned to Rockford, whose next game is Saturday.
The happy-go-lucky Levshunov said he fractured his foot in a three-on-three tournament during the summer in Florida, but he continued skating on it for another month before an MRI exam revealed the problem.
‘‘I was surprised,’’ Levshunov said. ‘‘‘It wasn’t, like, too much pain, but it was just bothering me on the ice a little bit.’’
He ended up missing all of rookie camp, training camp and the first two weeks of the regular season. Instead, he skated individually with skills coach Brian Keane, which he admitted was ‘‘sort of boring.’’
Levshunov has been able to sit in on Hawks meetings and explore Chicago, though. During his junior-hockey stint two years ago in Green Bay, Wisconsin, his love for U.S. chain restaurants, such as Chipotle, P.F. Chang’s and Panda Express, became famous among teammates.
Now he has upgraded his favorite restaurant to a more popular choice: Gibson’s.
Brodie’s system
Veteran defenseman T.J. Brodie has encountered some difficulties adjusting from the Maple Leafs’ defensive system last season, which leaned toward man-to-man coverage, to the Hawks’ system, which leans toward zone coverage.
On the play leading up to Sabres forward J.J. Peterka’s game-winning goal Saturday, that confusion was a factor.
Brodie was trying to box out Sabres forward Alex Tuch from the crease, like he was supposed to with the Leafs, but he was unable to get his stick on the pass to Peterka on the back door as a result. Poor positioning by Allan, Craig Smith and Lukas Reichel also contributed.
‘‘I’m used to boxing out instead of switching off at the net, so [I’m working on] just being cleaner [with my reads],’’ Brodie said. ‘‘This is more of a zone, so sometimes you end up with a two-on-one for a second. So you can’t really get tied up.’’