CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks entered Sunday night’s game against the Dallas Stars mired in a six-game losing streak.
Make that seven after a 6-4 loss at the United Center.
The Stars came in clinging to a slim lead over the Vegas Golden Knights for the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference with two games in hand.
Not that the level of competition has mattered, but the Hawks were bracing for the challenge.
“It’s a good opportunity to see what we have against a team that’s really desperate and pushing,” MacKenzie Entwistle said before the game. “You know they’re going to bring their best.”
It’s questionable whether the first period could be called either team’s best, but it was eventful at least.
The Stars took the lead on Jamie Benn’s rebound goal during a power play. Kevin Lankinen stopped Miro Heiskanen’s one-timer, but the puck dropped in front of Benn.
Then things got weird — to the Hawks’ benefit.
Philipp Kurashev tried to pass to Jonathan Toews, but the puck ricocheted off Esa Slindell as he was executing a slide technique and into the net.
Lindell was the scapegoat again when Toews’ power-play goal flipped off Lindell’s stick and past Jake Oettinger.
But that’s as far as the Hawks’ puck luck went.
Lankinen had position on Joe Pavelski’s power-play goal, but the puck squirted through underneath his arm.
About two minutes into the second period, Pavelski snatched Kirby Dach’s pass attempt and backhanded to Roope Hintz, who put the Stars ahead 3-2.
Boris Katchouk scored his first goal as a Hawk — his first point since last month’s trade from the Tampa Bay Lightning — on a one-timer served up by Erik Gustafsson to tie it 3-3.
But the rally lasted about two minutes.
Jason Robertson scored back-to-back goals about three minutes apart to give the Stars a 5-3 lead and chase Lankinen.
Collin Delia relieved him to start the third and gave up a wraparound goal to Tyler Seguin.
Dach answered for the Hawks with a sharp-angle goal that banked off the goalpost with three minutes left, but it was too little too late.
Here are five takeaways from the loss.
1. Derek King ‘caved’ and reunited the Erie Otters line.
The Hawks coach was asked Thursday morning if he would consider tinkering with the top line of Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome and Patrick Kane and decided: “I’m not messing with that line. It’s been a pretty hot line. That would just give you guys something to talk about tomorrow if I did that.”
It took a 2-0 shutout loss to the Seattle Kraken that night to change his mind.
“I did. I caved,” King said after Sunday’s morning skate. “Didn’t want to, but we’ve lost six (in a row), so it rattled in my brain a little too long but we decided to shuffle them up a little bit. Put the old Erie Otters line back together, see if there’s any magic left in those three.”
Those three would be DeBrincat, Strome and Taylor Raddysh, who was traded from the Tampa Bay Lightning last month.
While playing on the same line in a 7-2 win against the Peterborough Petes on Nov. 6, 2015, DeBrincat had a hat trick, Strome scored two goals and Raddysh scored one, and the trio was named the three stars of the game in that order.
“I told them I had good chemistry with my junior linemates, but none of them played in the NHL after, so you guys are lucky,” King said Saturday. “We’ll see. They’re good players, they can produce and maybe that gives us a little more balance in our scoring.”
They played a minute and a half together in five-on-five against the Minnesota Wild on March 19, when all the lines were shuffled during a 5-1 loss.
2. Speaking of reunions, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews played together.
Throw Kurashev in there, too, and it makes for a brand-new line.
Of course, Kane and Toews have shared the ice in five-on-five situations in various combinations, including a six-game stretch with Brandon Hagel in late November and early December when the line accounted for two goals and allowed four.
The Kane-Toews line produced a goal and allowed a goal Sunday.
Kurashev put the Hawks on the board in the first period with his sixth goal of the season and first since March 20 against the Winnipeg Jets. He was trying to pass to Toews when the puck caromed off a sliding Esa Lindell.
It worked out, but it’s the opposite of King’s shoot-first directive, especially for skaters playing on Kane’s line, who often are guilty of deferring to Kane.
“Sometimes it’s a little too much because there’s times you can shoot the puck, you’re in the house, you’re in a good position to put a puck on net or score, and then you’re looking for him. And it’s hard not to,” King said. “Anytime you play with great players like that, that’s what they do, right?”
That wasn’t a problem Sunday. Kurashev took two shots with a third attempt that was blocked, Toews took a pair (scoring on a power play) and Kane had just one shot.
3. At least MacKenzie Entwistle knows Derek King doesn’t play favorites.
If you attend enough of King’s news conferences, you get the sense he loves talking about “Entsy,” whom King also coached in Rockford.
But in the last two weeks, King has alternated benching and starting Entwistle both to give him a chance to take a step back and see what he may be doing wrong and to rotate in other young forwards such as Kurashev and Henrik Borgström.
“There’s only so many games left and I can only get so many guys in,” King said. “And if they have a bad game, they have a bad game.”
King even sat Dominik Kubalík on Sunday.
Entwistle is never counted on for offense — just checking, energy and defense — but he hasn’t recorded a point and has a minus-7 rating in the last 12 games.
Entwistle said he and other players have talked about the rotation and fall back on the idea that “when you’re in the NHL, it’s a good day.”
“It’s an opportunity for me to grow, watch from up top and see,” he said. “You can take a lot from watching up top. It looks easy, I’ll tell you that. It looks a lot easier and looks like you’ve got a lot of time out there. But when you’re out there, it’s a different game.”
4. Boris Katchouk likes the restaurants — the weather, not so much.
If Katchouk has learned nothing else about the difference between Chicagoans and Tampeños, it’s that Chicagoans must love to eat.
“I could go to a new restaurant every day this season. It’s a cool city for sure,” Katchouk said.
There’s at least one thing the Waterloo, Ontario, native didn’t need a trade from Tampa Bay to Chicago to figure out: “I went from warmth to cold again. Other than that, it’s good. I’m from Canada, so I’m pretty used to it.”
You get the sense, however, that Katchouk still is getting used to the Hawks.
Trade-mate Raddysh jumped right in and had two goals and three assists in his first six games, though he has cooled off lately.
Even if you give Katchouk a pass for offense, there’s more the fourth-liner could be doing to help the Hawks keep the puck and create chances. He has a team-low 31.6% Corsi-for percentage in five-on-five and also has the worst goals-against per 60 minutes (4.37) when he’s on the ice, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
“It’s been up and down,” Katchouk acknowledged before the game. “There’s some good games but there’s also some bad games, but I expected that.
“I’m not here to score a ton of goals or anything like that. I’m here to be a 200-foot game. (Toews) is probably a guy I try to model my game after.”
King advised Katchouk to “just play a direct game, north-south, get in on the forecheck.”
“Just finish your shifts down in the offensive zone, don’t get stuck playing in the D-zone all the time,” King added. “Those type of lines you can’t put out all the time because you’re worried about them getting stuck in the D-zone. We need them to bring the energy and get in on the forecheck and bang some bodies and create some stuff.”
King hoped throwing Entwistle into the mix with Reese Johnson would help that line, and he got what he wanted.
That line was on the ice when Katchouk recorded his first goal — and first point — as a Hawk in the second period. Johnson had the secondary assist.
Just hours beforehand, Katchouk was asked would it would mean to collect his first point in Chicago.
“It would (be nice), but I can’t be thinking about that,” he said. “Just coming into every game and try to help the team the best way possible.”
5. Kevin Lankinen has had hard luck, but some of it is of his own making.
The Hawks’ de facto starting goaltender entered Sunday trying to break a five-game losing streak, though two came in overtime
In that span he had an .888 save percentage and allowed 20 goals. He had shown slight improvement in the last three starts with a .917 save percentage.
“He’s been good,” King said before the game. “He’s given us a chance to stay in a game or even win a hockey game. He’s just not getting those bounces, and we’re not helping him at times.”
Lankinen occasionally has been the victim of a bad bounce. You felt for him after Buffalo Sabres center Tage Thompson’s broken-stick power-play goal bounced off the back wall and went in off Lankinen’s skate with 12 seconds left on March 28, prompting Lankinen to break his stick in frustration.
But then you remember the Sabres rallied from four goals down.
Lankinen had some rough moments Sunday too.
The rebound gremlin haunted him again on Benn’s opening goal.
Lankinen had trouble tracking the puck on both of Robertson’s goals in the second period.
He was searching for Hintz’s wrister that went wide to Lankinen’s left, then Robertson sneaked on his left and banked it in off his back. Lankinen was trying to look around a screen when Robertson sniped from the top of the right circle, again assisted by Hintz.
King yanked Lankinen, who allowed five goals on 20 shots, and started Delia in the third period.
