{"id":439563,"date":"2025-12-11T07:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/439563\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T07:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:12:14","slug":"chicago-blackhawks-cruise-past-new-york-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/439563\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks cruise past New York Rangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Blackhawks came into the United Center fresh off back-to-back blowout losses. It was a rough West Coast trip<\/a> for the Hawks and it looked like the tank was on empty.<\/p>\n

They needed to bounce back against the visiting \u2014 and fellow centennial celebrating \u2014 New York Rangers. The Hawks responded by keeping their foot on the gas for 60 minutes en route to arguably their best game of the season.<\/p>\n

The Hawks (13-11-6) cruised past the Rangers 3-0 on Wednesday. They denied New York every chance to make the game competitive while piling on goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we played some pretty good games (this season), but (tonight) was certainly a complete game,\u201d Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said. \u201cFirst (period) was really good, the second was fine. I thought the third, outside of the penalties, we did a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defenseman Louis Crevier put the Hawks on the board with a shorthanded goal at 7:08 in the second period. He found himself alone on the blue line during the Rangers\u2019 power play and scored his third goal of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty fun, (I was) a little bit mad at first because I thought I could have had an easier break,\u201d Crevier said. \u201cI don\u2019t get too many looks like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connor Bedard joined the scoring party with his 19th goal of the season at 14:27 in the same period. The center, who had two points in the game, collected a pass in front of the net by Andr\u00e9 Burakovsky and made short work of goaltender Igor Shesterkin.<\/p>\n

Spencer Knight earned his second shoutout of the season and seventh in his career. He saved 21 shots, tied for the second-fewest shots he\u2019s seen this season.<\/p>\n

It was a great bounce back for him after allowing six goals to the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> on Saturday. But the goaltender calmly dismissed the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not really a bounce back to me, it\u2019s just another day,\u201d Knight said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have games where that happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t overanalyze it, just take what you can from the game and move on. Every game is a new game, that\u2019s how I approach it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks assigned defenseman Sam Rinzel<\/a> to the AHL\u2019s Rockford IceHogs on Monday. The roster move made the team run a traditional six-defensemen lineup for just the fourth time this season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an adjustment, but the defensemen didn\u2019t show any flaws with the lineup. Matthew Grzelcyk \u2014 who spent time in the top power-play unit \u2014 had the primary assist on Crevier\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good thing is we\u2019ve all played with each other and all have a little bit of chemistry, being out there in different situations,\u201d Grzelcyk said. \u201cAs a D corps, it was probably one of our better games, using our feet to our advantage and gapping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks had their chances to run up the scoreboard, but the Rangers (15-13-4) avoided catastrophe to start. Shesterkin saved two Burakovsky shots to keep the first period scoreless.<\/p>\n

The Rangers came into the United Center with 12 road wins this season, the most in the NHL. They\u2019re just 3-8-3 at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

Next up is another back-to-back for the Hawks as they travel to play the St. Louis Blues on Friday and host the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday. The last back-to-back was ugly, but it also brought lessons that the team will use this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cA back-to-back isn\u2019t ideal, (but) as a young team, we\u2019re going to work hard and stick to the game plan,\u201d Knight said. \u201cTake in all the experience that we can and just keep building.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win may have been extra special for Blashill, who turned 52 on Wednesday. He didn\u2019t show it, as expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus is going to St. Louis and playing a team that\u2019s played pretty well overall the last little bit,\u201d Blashill said. \u201cComing back here, we\u2019re going to have to talk about how you play to be successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot coming. It\u2019s just the reality of the league, so we have to be able to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks came into the United Center fresh off back-to-back blowout losses. It was a rough West…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":439564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,291,123097,5386,1818,86182,202996,202997,1302,123389,59706],"class_list":{"0":"post-439563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","10":"tag-connor-bedard","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-jeff-blashill","14":"tag-louis-crevier","15":"tag-matthew-grzelcyk","16":"tag-new-york-rangers","17":"tag-spencer-knight","18":"tag-united-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115699695426924051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}