Blackhawks create few shots, fewer goals as skid continues in loss to Canadiens

MONTREAL — Life without Connor Bedard is proving to be as grueling for the Blackhawks in 2025-26 as it was in 2023-24.

The Hawks produced little offense Thursday against the Canadiens in a 4-1 loss, recording only 15 shots on goal — their second-fewest in a game this season.

"You can't pass up a shot in a scoring area," coach Jeff Blashill said. "We literally passed it out of a scoring area into a non-scoring area. That's nonsensical. We're going to have to...make sure we have much more of a shooting mentality and create chaos off the shots."

The defeat dropped the Hawks to 0-3-0 since Bedard's shoulder injury last week in St. Louis and 3-13-1 all-time in games Bedard has missed.

The Hawks are also 3-10-2 this season since their third-period meltdown Nov. 20 against the Kraken. That felt like a potential turning point — in the wrong direction — at the time, and it very much resembles one in retrospect.

Their more recent third-period meltdown Tuesday against the Maple Leafs also felt like a potential turning point from bad to worse. That night, the team executed the stingy, defense-first game plan they believe gives them a chance to succeed without Bedard, yet they were denied any positive reinforcement from the steadfast effort.

Can they really replicate that type of performance consistently moving forward? Thursday provided an answer: Probably not.

The Hawks failed to generate any more of the electricity from their stirring comeback win inside Bell Centre in April late last season, which generated enough optimism to last the entire summer. This return to Montreal was as forgettable as that game was unforgettable.

"I just thought too many guys had their 'C' game," Blashill said. "You're not going to have your 'A-plus' game every night. But you've got to find a way to make sure when you don't have that, you have a 'B-plus' game."

Two successful offside challenges — taking two Canadiens' goals off the board — kept the Hawks in the game for a while. Their excellent video coaches, Matt Meacham and Adam Gill, deserve kudos. The Hawks' five successful challenges this season are now the second-most in the NHL.

Canadiens forward Zachary Bolduc's go-ahead goal 20 seconds into the third period, though, created some apparently unbreakable momentum that allowed the hosts to pull away.

"They just completely outplayed us in the third," defenseman Matt Grzelcyk said." I think they had a level of desperation that we couldn’t match. That’s unacceptable on our end."

Frank Nazar was one Hawk who seemed to have his 'A' game, just like he did in his first visit to Montreal.

He finally snapped his 21-game goal drought — during which he had racked up a ton of unfulfilled scoring chances — by tipping in a Grzelcyk pass in the first period, and he was active throughout the night.

"We just talked about it today...that if you just keep it up, you're going to get rewarded," Blashill said. "It was good for him to get rewarded. It's unfortunate it wasn't in a win, but we're going to need him — [during] these next few games here — to get hot and really feel it offensively. And that's a confidence thing, so certainly scoring helps that."

On the other hand, the all-rookie third line of Ryan Greene, Nick Lardis and Oliver Moore "struggled tonight, to be dead honest," Blashill added. That trio seems unlikely to remain intact Saturday against the Senators.

Still, there may be only so much Blashill and his players can do, no matter the lineup construction. Their lack of offensive firepower and dynamism without their best-by-a-mile player is impossible to overlook and difficult to overcome.