ANALYSIS: Strome Leads the Way as Blackhawks Offense Explodes in Detroit

The goal lights at Little Caesars Arena might still be flashing.
A combined 13-goal output from the Blackhawks and Red Wings set single-game highs for both teams, with Chicago prevailing with an eight-goal performance that shattered their previous five-goal mark for a since game.
Twice on the night Detroit turned four- and three-goal deficits into one-tally games, but the Blackhawks held strong with 11 different players registering points in the win.
"We let them back in the game obviously too many times," said Dylan Strome who led the team with three goals. "We were struggling to score goals and found a way to score eight tonight. We'll take the positives and move on and hopefully we can build off it. Flower (Marc-Andre Fleury) has saved our bacon plenty of times, so nice to give him eight and give him some support. We haven't given him much of that. He's been our backbone most of the season."

POSTGAME LINKS
GAMECENTER: CHI at DET
RECAP: Blackhawks Take High-Scoring Game in Detroit, 8-5
HIGHLIGHTS: Blackhawks at Red Wings
GALLERY: Blackhawks at Red Wings

STROME SHINES

Almost from puck drop on Wednesday night, Strome was just feeling it.
On an early power play, the centerman redirected a pass from Alex DeBrincat over the pad of Alex Nedeljkovic. Less than two minutes later, he took a beautiful spin pass from Patrick Kane off a rush and finished it off with a top-corner snipe. He had chance after chance in the second, one of which he found his own rebound on and hit Sam Lafferty at the backdoor. Then, in the third, he outworked his mark in front on another man advantage and tipped home a Seth Jones blast.
"You kind of get lucky on the first one and then the second one goes in and you kind of just feel good," he said.
"Whatever he touched was pretty dangerous, so I'm pretty happy about it," Dominik Kubalik said.

The hat trick was the first of his NHL career and the four points overall set a personal mark for a single game as well.
"It feels good. I haven't had a hat trick since the Memorial Cup in 2017, so it's been a long time. I'll take it," Strome said. "I guess they don't ask how, they ask how many. I was quite happy."
"We kind of had him all over the place, sat out a few times. I think him playing with this line has helped him," King said of Strome's up-and-down season that has seemed to turn a corner with points in six of his last eight games. "[Brandon Hagel] and Kaner have helped him a lot and he feels confident when he's out there, so hopefully he can just keep building on it."

GREASY GOALS

After being shutout on Monday in Colorado, King prescribed his team needed to get to the net front more consistently to find their scoring touch.
The team answered on Wednesday night with four of the first five goals coming from white jerseys around the blue paint. Kubalik's opener was being in the right place to capitalize on a shot that squeaked through. Strome's first and third goals both came from battles for position in the slot. And Sam Lafferty was in the right place off the rush to take a feed from Strome off a rebound and tap it home.
"Much better," King said. "And there's still room for improvement. Rome wasn't built in a day, they say, I guess. We'll keep picking away at it and keep hounding on them about getting to the front of the net."
"I think we've just got to do it. It doesn't matter if it hurts or not, you've just got to be there," Kubalik said. "It's going to make us be more successful for sure, score more goals and I think even the time in their zone sometimes, we're going pretty well and looking to shoot but we have no one there. I caught myself once when I was standing in the corner. I've just got to go there, that's just what it is. It's a detail but I think it makes a big difference for sure."

BACK AND FORTH

Even when the Blackhawks went up 4-0 in the first, King was nervous. Playing with a large lead isn't the M.O. of his hard-working, tight-game team, and he knew the young skill on the other bench that could make sure things stayed interesting.
Detroit followed through on the coach's concern, making a 4-0 game after the first period into a 4-3 score by the end of the second and then a 6-3 Chicago lead in the third into a 6-5 game with under five minutes to play.
"Good thing is the guys didn't just kind of go in a shell," King said of his team's ability to bend, but not break. "They kept going and plugging along and when they made mistakes, we capitalized. Just like they did."
"When you're up 4-0, you probably think it might be a little easier game than it is and obviously we can't take our foot off the gas. We probably did that after the first period," Strome said. "I think when we get the lead, you can't just sit back and expect it to be easy. We probably did that a few times tonight and it caught up to us."