There was a lot to unpack from the Chicago Blackhawks’ 4-3 overtime win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday.
The game took place four hours after the NHL trade deadline, always a time of mixed feelings with some teammates departing.
A pair of former Florida Panthers made their debut for the Hawks after being traded last week, and one — Brett Connolly — put the Hawks ahead for the first time in the third period after getting a takeaway.
Adam Boqvist left the game early with “concussion symptoms” after he was hit in the head with a puck, and fellow defenseman Calvin de Haan tweaked his hip pointer, leaving the Hawks thin on the blue line.
Nikita Zadorov was a surprise healthy scratch, and coach Jeremy Colliton let it be known he hasn’t been happy with his recent play.
Connor Murphy got into a one-sided scrap with Max Domi, refusing to engage him and earning a four-minute power play for the Hawks.
But the bottom line was Brandon Hagel scored the game-winner in overtime, giving the Hawks two standings points they desperately needed to reach 45 and keep pace with the Nashville Predators (47), who didn’t play Monday.
“Yeah, it’s a huge win, huge points,” Hagel said. “Obviously everyone knows where we stand. … It feels pretty good to get that one.”
Colliton called it a “gritty effort.”
“A bunch of guys really dug deep and played hard and played well and paid the price for us to win,” he said. “(We) go down to five (defensemen) right away and Cal seemed to tweak his thing a little bit. But they found a way.”
Here are five takeaways from the game.
1. Brett Connolly and Riley Stillman made their presence felt right away.
Connolly’s goal gave the Hawks their first lead. It was encouraging to see him create his own offense by swiping the puck from Jack Roslovic and snapping it while falling away for his first goal as a Hawk.
“It’s huge just to chip in and be a part of it right away,” he said. “I’m just coming in here to fit in and get back to playing the way I can play. I haven’t lost confidence in myself.”
Connolly had just two goals and two assists in 21 games for the Panthers this season, a slow fade from his 22 goals and 24 assists in 81 games for the Washington Capitals two seasons ago.
He said it wasn’t working in Florida.
“That’s in the past and I’ve already put that in the rearview mirror,” he said. “I wanted to wear this jersey, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help this team get to the postseason in the next two weeks.”
Stillman played with bite to his game in about 21 minutes. He led the Hawks with four hits and blocked two shots.
“They were both good,” Colliton said. “They brought energy and they of course were excited for the opportunity.
“Stillman was very physical. He was active, he got stops for us, he was jumping in the play. I asked him to pull back a little bit, but he did some good stuff out there.”
As for Connolly, Colliton said: “He’s a big body and he protects the puck well; he has some poise. He has a lot of games in the league, and that was a big goal.”
2. The young guys came through in the clutch.
In overtime, Hagel, Kirby Dach and Wyatt Kalynuk took over from the Patrick Kane shift with Alex DeBrincat and Duncan Keith. They had to avert a near calamity.
Dach missed a pass in the defensive zone and Alexandre Texier almost had a straight shot at Kevin Lankinen, but Dach poke-checked it away.
Kalynuk corralled the puck and kicked off a three-on-two rush. Dach found a seam to Hagel, and Hagel flushed the game-winner from the left dot, his first overtime goal.
“Yeah, finally. I know exactly what you guys are talking about all the time,” Hagel said with a smile, referring to his previous five goals, which mostly came from battling for rebounds in front of the net as opposed to midrange snipes.
“Sometimes it wasn’t going in for me this year, so finally nice to get one like that and just build off of it. I know I can score in this league.”
3. Max Domi acted like a max dummy in his fight with Connor Murphy.
Domi’s father, Tie Domi, had a reputation as an enforcer, but what the younger Domi did Monday night was self-indulgent folly.
And his meathead explanation after the game was an even bigger head-scratcher.
Domi chased Murphy along the boards and began to get physical with him, hooking him, checking him and eventually tossing him to the ice by his jersey, a series of infractions that gave the Hawks four minutes of power play and earned Domi an ejection.
Some background: Murphy has backed away from previous invitations to fight because the Hawks have asked him to. They want him on the ice as one of their best defenders, not in the penalty box.
Agree with it or not, it at least explains why Murphy looked totally uninterested in mixing it up with Domi up until the moment Domi yanked him to the ice and began pushing him up and down like an old-fashioned washboard.
After the game, Domi took a moral victory lap and painted himself as the victim of an alleged cheap hit.
“Usually when you hit someone in the head, you’ve got to answer the bell,” he said. “But a guy like that, hey, I can’t really comment on what I think of that kind of response.
“You can’t really take a penalty like that, so that’s on me. But that being said, I think of the first one, I think he sold it a little bit, so I kind of went at him a little bit and he elbowed me in the head.”
Now, hard stop.
It was Domi’s arms that shot up in protest as Murphy tried to shrug off a hook, and not even a worn-out rewind button on the remote control could produce even a sign of physical contact, much less this phantom elbow.
But Domi went on.
“If you’re going to do that, you better answer the bell,” he said. “I’m really surprised that he didn’t, but I’ve got to find a way to pull back there. I mean, it’s not a good play by me, but it’s embarrassing for him for sure.”
Yes, it’s embarrassing, but not in the way you think.
Colliton said he didn’t know what was behind the scuffle, but he said Murphy “plays hard, he’s physical, plays an honest game and that’s what he brings to our group.”
“I imagine there aren’t many forwards who enjoy playing against him,” Colliton said. “We’re happy for the power plays.”
4. Keep an eye on the defensive depth.
The Hawks have started with six defensemen and ended with five for two games in a row, meaning the other blue-liners had to put in longer ice time.
Boqvist exited about five minutes into the game after taking a puck to the face.
“He has concussion symptoms, so we’ll see,” Colliton said. “Those things, you don’t have a timeline.
“Five (defensemen) is tough; it’s especially tough when it happens early. We played five for a lot of the first games, so that compounds.”
Making matters worse, de Haan hurt his hip again.
“De Haan, he gutted it out. He was in a tough spot and we needed those minutes,” Colliton said. “Overall, he did a very good job. I understand he got beat on the (Patrik) Laine goal (to tie the game in the third period), but that guy had three zones of speed and Cal was struggling with his mobility. So the fact he was in and eating minutes for us was huge.”
5. Is Nikita Zadorov in the doghouse?
For most of the season, the Hawks have defended Zadorov and his puck management. Late last month, president of hockey operations Stan Bowman called Zadorov “our most physical defender.”
He added that blue-liners in Zadorov’s mold should be judged “by the way they play against better players and how they can neutralize the other teams’ top scorers. That’s really more the measure for someone like him.”
But perhaps glaring errors in his last two games — such as a turnover and coverage lapse during the 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars — merited a temporary sit-down.
“We think he can bring much more to the table than he has over I don’t know how many games it is, but certainly a few,” Colliton said. “We were quite happy for a long stretch, and he’s dropped off and we need him.”
Colliton said when Zadorov is on his game, he is mean, physical and can break up plays with his long reach. His puck play, while not a strength, had improved.
“But recently (he) hasn’t been as good, and we have to get him back to that,” Colliton said.
Here is more game coverage.
Brandon Hagel scored 1 minute, 25 seconds into overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 4-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday — and a two-game sweep at Nationwide Arena.
Duncan Keith, Philipp Kurashev and Brett Connolly, playing his first game with the Hawks, all scored in regulation. Patrick Kane had two assists.
The game also marked the debut of defenseman Riley Stillman, who was in the lineup in place of Nikita Zadorov. The Hawks acquired Connolly and Stillman from the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
The Blue Jackets’ Patrik Laine sent the game into overtime with a coast-to-coast score 11:32 into the third period, weaving past Hawks defenders.
But in overtime, Hagel took a feed from Kirby Dach and wristed the game-winner.
Hawks defenseman Adam Boqvist left the game 4:46 into the first period. Twelve seconds into his second shift, he took a puck to the face off Zac Dalpe’s backhand pass.
Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton said after the game that Boqvist had “concussion symptoms.”
Stefan Matteau scored his first goal of the season for the Blue Jackets in the first period, and Keith answered with a power-play goal about 21/2 minutes later. It was the Hawks’ second straight game with a man-advantage goal.
However, Laine’s blast from the blue line 6:11 into the second gave the Blue Jackets a 2-1 lead.
The game took an ugly turn with 2 minutes left in the second when Max Domi hooked and cross-checked Connor Murphy, then tried to goad the Hawks defenseman into a fight, grabbing his sweater and throwing him to the ice and repeatedly pushing him.
Murphy has been targeted by other teams, but the Hawks have asked him not to retaliate and take himself out of games with time in the penalty box.
Domi drew a misconduct as well as 2-minute minors for the hooking and checking penalties, which gave the Hawks four minutes of power play, but the Hawks didn’t score.
Kevin Lankinen made 30 saves for the Hawks, one of the biggest off a rush by Jack Roslovic.
Blue Jackets goalie Joonas Korpisalo also had 30 saves.
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