{"id":543586,"date":"2026-01-26T07:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/543586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T07:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:25:14","slug":"chicago-blackhawks-allow-4-unanswered-goals-in-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/543586\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks allow 4 unanswered goals in loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not much happened for a while at the United Center on Sunday. The Chicago Blackhawks hosted the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, whom they opened the season against<\/a>, and neither team could gain an advantage for two periods.<\/p>\n

The shots, scoring chances, forechecks and goalie saves were neck-and-neck through periods one and two. Defenseman Tobias Bjornfot silenced the crowd with a goal at 15:33 that squeaked past Spencer Knight (20 saves, .833 save percentage), giving the champs a 1-0 second-period lead.<\/p>\n

Tyler Bertuzzi sounded the horn for the 25th time this year with 30 seconds to spare in the second, scoring the much-needed answer to end the period tied at one.<\/p>\n

Maybe not a playoff-type of atmosphere, but it was a postseason-type of game. The Panthers have had a lot of those, so it was the Hawks\u2019 turn to see how they handled the pressure of a contender.<\/p>\n

Having not lost a playoff series in almost three years gives Florida the confidence to handle these situations. The confidence that the young Hawks are currently looking to build.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the learning curve for us as a young team, understanding how to build your confidence and who we are,\u201d team captain Nick Foligno said. \u201cSometimes as a young player \u2014 and even us as older players \u2014 you get a little bored with it because it\u2019s not breaking, it\u2019s not happening, and you don\u2019t trust that it\u2019s going to happen. That\u2019s just because we don\u2019t have experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Column: Random thoughts on a budding Chicago sports bromance and other hot topics<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Hawks (21-23-8) saw their three-game point streak end at the paws of the Panthers 5-1 on Sunday. The defending champs (28-20-3) scored four unanswered goals in the third period, making the box score uglier than the game action.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a good enough third period for sure, (and) there have been times when we\u2019ve had really good thirds,\u201d Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said. \u201cThis is how it\u2019s going to be if we want to be a good team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knight saw a second puck slide in slow motion behind him at 5:22 in the third, where defenseman Wyatt Kaiser was inches away from stopping right winger Mackie Samoskevich\u2019s goal. The Hawks lost all momentum from that point, as Carter Verhaeghe (7:24), Sam Reinhart (18:11) and Bjornfot (19:38) added salt to the wound.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when something goes wrong, it\u2019s still understanding we have to keep making plays and keep playing our game,\u201d Kaiser said. \u201cThere\u2019s a fine line between being very simple and also having poise with the puck, clean breakouts, making plays through the neutral zone, when to dump it in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tale of two faces when it comes to the Hawks\u2019 special teams.<\/p>\n

The Hawks still own the NHL\u2019s best penalty kill (85.5%) after killing defenseman Louis Crevier\u2019s hooking penalty. On the other hand, the Hawks are in the middle of the league in power play success (20.5%).<\/p>\n

That percentage is rapidly dropping because the Hawks are goalless in their last 18 man advantages. Shots aren\u2019t flying as they should be, and the chemistry seems to be off in that area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think our breakouts have been very good, probably our breakouts and retrievals haven\u2019t been good enough,\u201d said Blashill, who mentioned a power-play confidence hit before Sunday\u2019s game. \u201cUltimately, we have to break the puck in better and we have to win more loose puck recoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers showed the up-and-coming Hawks what it takes to be a championship-level team. They\u2019ll take the gut punch of a lesson in stride.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really confident in who they are and the way they play, so they know that, over time they\u2019re going to break you down or get those opportunities,\u201d Foligno said. \u201cIt\u2019s a good lesson for us, if there\u2019s anything you can take away from this game, (it\u2019s) how you have to stay with it (like) how championship teams do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Center had a purple tint as the Hawks held their annual Hockey Fights Cancer night. Cancer survivors were honored, including a kid named Drew, who rang the bell in front of 19,313 fans to celebrate the end of his cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

Included in the honors was former Hawks center Troy Murray, who announced his cancer diagnosis on Aug. 9, 2021. He played the first 12 years of his career with the Hawks \u2014 scoring 488 points (197 goals, 291 assists) and winning the Selke Trophy in the 1985-86 season \u2014 and is currently the Hawks color analyst for WGN radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the love and support of my family, friends, the Wirtz family, the Chicago Blackhawks organization and WGN radio I\u2019m confident that together, we will beat this,\u201d Murray had said in a 2021 statement.\n<\/p>\n

WGN Hawks studio host Charlie Roumeliotis, CHSN and NHL on TNT analyst Darren Pang and others held up their light purple \u201cI fight for\u201d signs with different variations of Murray\u2019s name. The United Center crowd held a standing ovation in support of Murray during a tribute video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not much happened for a while at the United Center on Sunday. The Chicago Blackhawks hosted the back-to-back…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":543587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,291,1323,239561,5386,1818,239562,157590,59706],"class_list":["post-543586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-florida-panthers","tag-hockey-fights-cancer","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-troy-murray","tag-tyler-bertuzzi","tag-united-center"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115960212703509902","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543586","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=543586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}