Jason Dickinson was supposed to help unlock Connor Bedard’s offense, not the other way around.
But you won’t see Bedard or the Chicago Blackhawks complaining after he set up Dickinson for two goals on Tuesday at the United Center.
The problem: no one was in a celebratory mood after the Hawks blew one-goal leads twice in a 3-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.
It’s the Hawks’ fifth loss in six games to drop them to 6-12-1, the worst record in the league.
The frustration level?
“Obviously it’s high,” Bedard said. “(We’ve) lost a lot of games. I think we’re all feeling it, and it’s our job to figure a way to get some wins.”
Dickinson had one of the most ticked-off facial expressions of anyone who’s had a two-goal night.
The Hawks took a 2-1 lead on his second-period marker of the night, but instead of hat trick hunting, he watched his team cough up two Duck goals in the third.
When asked what happened, he let out a big sigh.
“They scored more,” Dickinson said. “They stuck with it and they were able to put the puck in.
“Now, we had some chances, we created some good opportunities that we just didn’t convert on. I would love to see us put a couple more pucks in the net, obviously, and have a different-looking third period.
“We worked hard to get there to that point, but we just weren’t able to find a way to finish.”
Coach Luke Richardson added, “It’s just a lack of execution on little plays.
“That’s what I talked about this morning, the one little play on each game that’s kind of hurting us.”
He used Alex Killorn’s third-period goal as an example.
The Hawks had just killed a penalty when Trevor Zegras set up Killorn for a backhander from net front 5 minutes and 10 seconds into the final frame.
Richardson said, “We kill off a penalty, but we can’t kill the play and get it out of the zone, so really it’s still kind of a result of being shorthanded.”
Four and a half minutes later, Killorn connected with Leo Carlsson for a back-door tip-in.
But Richardson traced it back to midway in the second, when the Hawks started losing puck battles, lost momentum and succumbed to lapses on defense.
“I think the second half of the game, where we start icing the pucks and start throwing it away, (we) stopped using our legs and just advancing pucks like we did mostly in the first period,” he said. “I think they found momentum out of that.”
As much as the Hawks hate settling for silver linings these days, Richardson made radical changes to the forward lines and saw limited success.
“I thought we had some really good moments as a whole group, as a team,” Richardson said. “I thought all the lines in the first period probably created something, but then the rest of the way, we had probably a limited amount of real good scoring chances, which I liked in the first and then it’s disappointing not to create enough.
“But when you’re icing pucks in, you (give) up the momentum, and you’re in your own zone way too much.”
For the first time this season, the Hawks tried Bedard at left wing with new linemates Dickinson and Joey Anderson. Two checking line guys with the star offensive threat.
But the experiment worked.
In the first period, Bedard took a feed at the point from T.J. Brodie, shimmied over to the high slot and dished the puck to Dickinson on the right flank when a lane opened.
Dickinson didn’t waste any time, snapping a kneeling one-timer past goalie John Gibson.
With that goal, Bedard reached 50 career assists.
Pavel Mintyukov tied the game on a dish from Brett Leason — after Brodie was tripped in front of Leason — with 55 seconds left in the frame.
Bedard and Dickinson struck again the second.
Teuvo Teräväinen passed to Bedard behind the net. Bedard rounded the corner, centered to Dickinson who exploited daylight to Gibson’s stick side, again on a kneeling shot.
This time, Dickinson dropped to both knees and slid in celebration.
It was Bedard’s 12th multi-assist game.
“Kid’s a heck of a player,” Dickinson said. “He can make those plays that seem like they’re not there. So I try to find open ice for him. I try to just get inside his head and see what he’s seeing.
“And fortunately enough, for a couple of goals, it connected.”
Later in the second, Bedard made a nice seam pass, this time to Anderson, who couldn’t convert it.
Bedard said, “Those two guys are so reliable in our own end, so we were able to get out of that. They’re good at handling pucks and obviously Dicky (is good at) finding open spots.”
“I thought Connor and Dickinson found each other really nice, and Joey always does some great responsibility work with whoever he plays with. So it really worked out and it clicked a few times tonight,” Richardson said.
Perhaps the plan didn’t unfold quite the way Richardson envisioned it, but you can’t dictate when Playmaker Bedard should take a backseat to Shooter Bedard.
“We know he can make those plays,” Richardson said. “And I think the other guys read off him well, and they got open.
“I think a guy like that, that can shoot like that, we will still always ask him to shoot more, even though he makes good plays. And I think one will work with the other well.”
Pivotal play
In the third, Taylor Hall, returning from a one-game scratch, tried to kick back a loose puck in the neutral zone that bounced between his legs.
Zegras corralled it and passed it to Killorn, who found Carlsson. The Hawks had trouble sorting on defense and Carlsson snuck to the back door and tipped in the winning goal.
“We’ve got to be more aggressive at the blue line and squeeze that and not let them get in,” Richardson said. “When Killorn pulls up, he’s got two or three seconds to find people. And he’s just like a nice seeing-eyeball pass to the back door, which we’ve got to try and lock off.
“But I think (the play) could be killed before that.”
Stat of the game
With two Ducks goals in the third, the Hawks have now been outscored 26-15 in the third period.
“We talked about good things on the bench and in between periods, we just didn’t execute it well enough in the third period,” Richardson said. “So it’s something to pay attention to and talk about it.
“But how do we fix it? The only way we can do it is the next game and do a better job at it.”
Quote of the night
“We could easily be coming out of a lot of these with wins. It’s easy to talk about, easy to say that, ‘Well, shoulda, coulda, woulda,’ but at the end of the day, we’ve got to go out and do it. We’ve got to go out and win an extra battle, find an extra puck, find an extra greasy goal to put them on their heels a little bit more, and not let them feel like they’re in the game, still.” — Jason Dickinson
