ANAHEIM, Calif. — In the Blackhawks’ crease this season, goalie Arvid Soderblom feels as though he has moved from a highway to a school zone.
That change in pace helped him deliver one of the best starts of his career Sunday. He saved 37 of 39 shots in the Hawks’ 4-2 victory against the Ducks.
“I have, in the back of my head, a lot of small details that I’m improving,” Soderblom said. “It makes the game feel a little slower. I play a little calmer [and] let the game come to me instead of chasing it.”
Connor Bedard tallied three assists for the Hawks, who led 2-0 after the first period and protected that multigoal advantage through the game to complete a sweep of their Southern California back-to-back set. They finished their road trip 3-2-0 and are now 5-7-1 this season.
They were porous defensively in front of Soderblom, officially allowing 54 scoring chances — their most conceded since March 2019. They didn’t look nearly as bad visually as they did analytically, though, and coach Luke Richardson was pleased with their performance.
“The shot count was a little bit different, but I still think we played pretty good for a team that played yesterday,” Richardson said.
Teuvo Teravainen and Seth Jones both scored power-play goals, whereas the Hawks’ penalty kill — which discussed before the game the need to return to their aggressive ways from earlier this season — would have gone five-for-five had the Ducks not scored a meaningless late goal.
Nonetheless, Soderblom was clearly the No. 1 star. Richardson has used the 25-year-old Swede sparingly, giving him only three starts through 13 games in spite of Laurent Brossoit’s absence, but he has been stellar when called upon. He now touts a .926 save percentage.
“He was unbelievable,” Bedard said. “We had some breakdowns, and he was always there to make a big save.”
Goalie coach Jimmy Waite has refined many aspects of Soderblom’s game since halfway through last season, when things weren’t going well at all. Recently, Waite’s advice to look up before a play arrives to get a mental picture of the arrangement of every opposing player really resonated with him.
“Sometimes you’ve got to take time to make time,” Soderblom said in October. “That’s a thing I’ve been working on in all situations. [I will] take that extra second, whether it’s a rush coming in or a dump-in, to see what my playing options are.”
