Costly Turnovers Lead to Blackhawks' Defeat

photo from rantsports.com

The Red Wings opened the scoring last night on a costly turnover by Kris Versteeg, and that set the tone for scoring for the rest of the game. Three of the four wings goals were from turnovers, and two of those turnovers happened in Chicago's defensive zone.


This is the kind of play that can't happen more than once, but it happened three times, and with the Red Wings suppressing the Blackhawks offence easily, holding them to just twenty six shots and outshooting them consistently (26-37), the Blackhawks spent most of the game playing catch up, and this was their first game of the season losing by more than one goal.

The special teams were okay this game, going one for four on the power play, and three for three on the penalty kill to remain the team with the best penalty kill record in the league. Ben Smith in particular stands out as strong on the penalty kill, playing anywhere between forty five seconds and a minute and a half every penalty kill. This is good news, as the Blackhawks are on average taking three minor penalties every game (fifty one penalty kills in seventeen games).

Not many Blackhawks players were playing as well as they should have done last night, but Brent Seabrook had a strong game, as he often does, taking on a lot of odd man rushes, and adjusting well to playing with David Rundblad instead of his usual defence partner. Mike Babcock was asked about the Blackhawks that he coached at the Olympics (both Vancouver and Sochi) and of Seabrook, he said "Real good passer, better than people think." He rarely gets as much praise as he deserves, playing in a pairing so often with Duncan Keith, but playing with the younger players or, on occasion, Niklas Hjalmarsson, shows us just how good a defenceman he is on his own. Splitting up Keith and Seabrook looks like it might be a permanent change, similar to Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews spending most of last season on different lines, forcing the other teams to think about what offensive lines they want to play against Keith and Seabrook separately.

That being said, Quennville spent a lot of time in that game trying new lines on the fly, having a different trio of forwards almost every shift after the Versteeg turnover. He wants more consistency in their game, but it's hard to see how any guys are going to be able to hold on to any consistency if they're playing on three or four different lines every night with half a dozen different guys, especially for players like Brad Richards who are new to the lineup and haven't been playing together for the last five plus years.

My Three Stars of the Game

3. Brent Seabrook. He had another solid game, even playing with an unfamiliar defensive partner, and he's showing game by game that he's not just Duncan Keith's defensive partner, he's a strong player of his own accord.

2. Jonathan Ericsson. He led the Red Wings in ice time and was on the ice for three of the four Detroit goals, and did an excellent job of shutting down the Chicago offence (only four Chicago players had more than two shots on goal, and only one had more than three)

1. Luke Glendening. Glendening had an excellent game, opening the scoring and adding an assist later in the game, and another two shots on goal in his fifteen minutes of ice time. An excellent game for someone who's been struggling with their offence so far this season.

Next game: November 16th, vs Stars