TEMPE, Ariz. — The Blackhawks’ goaltending magic crumbled in disastrous fashion Monday.
Arvid Soderblom endured arguably the worst start of his young career in an 8-1 loss to the Coyotes, saving just 15 of 22 shots before being relieved by Petr Mrazek late in the second period.
The final score marked the Hawks’ biggest margin of defeat since a 7-0 loss to the Panthers in March 2017.
“We didn’t win any 50-50 battles after the first 10 minutes,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “And then we obviously let our goalie down with a lot of easy ones.
“We weren’t holding onto pucks. We weren’t using each other. We weren’t communicating out there. And that’s what happens: they jump on you, and then [after] two or three passes, it’s in the net.”
It was inevitable the Hawks’ stellar team save percentage would regress at some point. They entered Monday at .916, putting them among the top 10 in the NHL. But to see all that regression occur within a couple hours in the Arizona desert was jarring nonetheless.
Soderblom’s individual save percentage plummeted from .913 to .868 due to the one awful performance, while the Hawks’ team save percentage dropped to .899.
It wasn’t entirely Soderblom’s fault, as is usually the case in any blowout loss. A few goals involved some bad luck — particularly the Coyotes’ fourth (which bounced off the top of the net and then Soderblom’s back) and seventh (a borderline kicking motion ruled a goal after review). A few others involved poor defensive coverage or the Hawks failing to get sticks on loose pucks.
But regardless, it wasn’t pretty. Coach Luke Richardson said he hoped to take out Soderblom earlier but wanted to give Mrazek time to warm up — given the latter’s history of groin injuries — and, while Mrazek was doing so, things snowballed even further.
The Hawks-leaning crowd of 4,600 at Arizona’s tiny Mullett Arena got out of their seats early when Kevin Korchinski set up Connor Bedard for his third goal in the last four games just 28 seconds in.
It was all downhill from there, though. The Hawks actually finished with a 67-64 edge in shot attempts, but the Coyotes produced 22 high-danger scoring chances while conceding only seven. Not a single Hawks player played particularly well.
The Hawks now sit at 3-6-0. They’ll have four days off — including a couple practice days — before hosting the Panthers on Saturday.
“In a weird way, I’m glad we get to chew on this one,” Nick Foligno said. “This one hurts; this one sucks. I hate losing, especially like that. I hope every guy takes it a little personally in here and understands there’s a standard we’re trying to get to and that was nowhere close.”
