The Chicago Blackhawks needed a win like Sunday’s 3-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins at the United Center.
Correction: The young Hawks needed a win like this.
The Hawks made mistakes, but small ones.
They engaged in a bit of a track meet with the Pens, but nothing too risky in what had been a scoreless stalemate through the better part of two periods.
They played bend-but-don’t-break hockey — until they could break through.
That breakthrough came on a shorthanded goal by Frank Nazar with 65 seconds left in the second period.
Nazar had teased many scoring chances this season and delivered when the Hawks needed it most.
Buoyed by that confidence-booster, the Hawks swarmed the Penguins in the third period and padded their lead midway through on Ilya Mikheyev’s 19th goal.
Connor Bedard and Sam Rinzel assisted, with Rinzel earning his first NHL point.
Rickard Rakell scored Pittsburgh’s lone goal on the power play, but Mikheyev reached the 20-goal plateau for just the second time in his six-year career on the empty netter.
“There (were) a lot of just 50-50 shifts going on, but for us, as a group, that’s also a positive: learning how to play those games,” Hawks interim coach Anders Sörensen said. “We’ve had a tendency to open things up sometimes. So that was good.”
The win snapped a five-game skid.
“Everyone played pretty selfless, and then we (battened) down the hatches,” said Hawks goalie Spencer Knight.
“Obviously they have a good power play and they executed on that one in the third, but that’s the thing: We just stuck with it, no one pouted (and) everyone stuck to the script and battled.”
Here are six takeaways.
1. For once, Nazar doesn’t come up short while short-handed.
Leading up to the Pens game, the speedy rookie had had five shots on goal on the penalty kill, indicative of his talent for breakaways.
But he had trouble finding a way to fool a goalie — until Sunday.
He broke out on a two-on-one with Teuvo Teräväinen and beat Alex Nedeljkovic pretty handily.
“I know there’s been a lot of talk about his scoring chances and breakaways, so good for him,” Sörensen said. “That was the difference. After that we had some good energy.”
Mikheyev has come to expect such performances from Nazar.
“You see during the season how he’s grown up,” the wing said. “Frank’s a smart guy and he’s using his power skating and everything.”
2. Mikheyev has really turned it on in the final stretch.
With two goals on Sunday, he has recorded five goals and three assists in the last eight games.
He knows when to stay home defensively and when to take off, and with his speed (and some better passing than usual by the Hawks on Sunday), he consistently gets ahead of the pack.
“He’s awesome,” Knight said. “Super great guy. Great speed, smart player, and on the PK.”
3. The Hawks didn’t “crack” in the third period.
It’s usually a disaster.
That’s not hyperbole. Heading into Sunday, they had scored the fewest goals in the league (65) and given up the most (103).
But they had a 2-1 advantage to secure the win, when many times they’ve blown leads.
“I want to say maybe the last three weeks, month maybe, we’ve played good,” Mikheyev said. “Not (always a) win, but we have more advantage during each game and we sometimes crack in the third period.
“It takes time to learn for young guys and for everybody to be patient and maybe sometimes play more simple.”
4. Knight’s not grousing about the missed shutout.
Had it not been for Tyler Bertuzzi tripping Evgeni Malkin and the ensuing power-play goal by Rakell, Knight probably could’ve posted the goose egg.
It would’ve been his third of the season and fifth in his career, but it wasn’t just about him.
It would’ve been the Hawks’ first shutout of the season, and psychologically, that’s nothing to sneeze at.
But Knight put it in perspective.
“I’d rather just get the win,” he said. “A few years ago, I just really got it down that (a) shutout, one goal, two goals, whatever — if you get the win, that’s more important. It’s like if a guy scores a hat trick and comes in and is all happy after the game and you lost.
“But I think everyone here is just focused on getting the win. That’s what I’ve seen. A lot of good attitudes.”
5. Why don’t the Blackhawks just shelve Alec Martinez?
Sörensen said the defenseman is “progressing” from his hip injury.
Martinez missed his seventh consecutive game Sunday and hasn’t played since March 22.
The Hawks haven’t ruled him out for the rest of the season, but they’re already struggling to find ice time for their stable of blueliners.
“We’ve got some bodies,” Sörensen said. “We’ll see how we get through tonight and then go from there. But it’s good that he’s making progress.”
If not for the fact that some of the young defensemen are destined to return to Rockford, we probably would have seen the last of Martinez in a Hawks uniform — the future unrestricted free agent turns 38 in July.
Meanwhile, forward Pat Maroon and defenseman T.J. Brodie also were healthy scratches on Sunday.
Maroon’s retiring, and Brodie, who hasn’t seen the ice since March 1 in Anaheim, seems like a prime candidate to have his miserable run with the Hawks end in a buyout.
Still, Sörensen has to manage veterans who’ve grown accustomed to ramping up for the playoffs this time of the year, not riding pine.
Development is the priority for the still-rebuilding Hawks.
“I don’t think anybody’s happy when they’re not playing, right?” he said. “So that’s for sure tough on guys, but that’s the situation right now. We’ll see the next handful of games where we’re at, but (we) try to be fair to everybody.”
“But that’s the business side of it. We’re trying to win games and at the same time trying to get some of these young guys an opportunity here to see what they have.”
6. The Hawks are still seeing stars.
Hawks forward Joe Veleno admitted he was a little starstruck Friday sharing the same ice as Alex Ovechkin and watching him tie Wayne Gretzky’s NHL all-time goals record.
“Pretty crazy game for a lot of us,” Veleno told the Tribune on Saturday. “And special to be able to witness that, although we wouldn’t have wanted him to score any goals at all. …
“He’s probably the greatest goal scorer to ever play the game. And he was my favorite player growing up.”
Ovechkin surpassed Gretzky against the N.Y. Islanders on Sunday with his 895th goal.
Defenseman Sam Rinzel faced Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Ovechkin in his second and third career games.
Talk about being thrown in the deep end.
Entering Sunday’s matchup, Penguins star Sidney Crosby was riding a 12-game point streak, culminating in his 14th career regular-season hat trick (17th overall) in Dallas on Saturday.
The Hawks will face him again on Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
Sörensen has addressed some of the star power on the schedule with his young skaters.
“We just (have) normal conversations — ‘Hey, they’re human beings,’” he said. However, “I don’t know if there’s anything you can say, like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it?’ That’s not going to help them.
“So they’ve just got to take it for what it is.”
