The first Connor Bedard and Adam Fantilli rematch may have been the storyline everyone expected Sunday, but it was not the one we got.
The highlight was Bedard versus buddy and fellow British Columbia native Kent Johnson in the Columbus Blue Jackets’ 6-3 win at the United Center.
Bedard, who couldn’t buy a power-play goal in the first 21 games, scored his second to open the scoring 2 minutes and 59 seconds into the game. He also extended his point streak to three games.
Johnson gave the Blue Jackets their first lead with his first-period goal, and the fourth-year forward extended his point streak to nine games.
Damon Severson’s hard wind-up grabbed Petr Mrázek’s attention before he shuffled it over to Johnson for a short-side one-timer.
“It’s a great pass by (Severson), really,” Johnson said. “I’ve just got to hit the net. Great play, sold the goalie.”
It was par for the course for the Blue Jackets, whose rush kept the Hawks off-kilter in a 6-3 win.
After all three Hawks goals, the Blue Jackets answered within a minute and a half to three minutes.
“That was the disappointing part,” said Nick Foligno, who had the Hawks’ third goal. “Felt like we couldn’t get anything rolling. Especially after that first power-play goal, you think you’ve got some momentum and then they come back with two quick ones.
“It’s the lulls in these games that are hurting us, and that was the story tonight.”
Alex Vlasic said the Blue Jackets played a physical game.
“They’ve got some big guys on their team and they’ve also got some skilled players,” he said. “You find yourself getting stapled to the glass and their skill guys kind of take over from there.”
The Hawks had given up more than three goals just twice since November, so the lack of defensive discipline after each Chicago goal particularly irked coach Luke Richardson.
“It’s just irresponsible, really,” he said. “Sometimes it’s not the timeline, it’s just how we’re getting scored on in a game like tonight. It was just obviously too often.
“One of the worst goals-against outings for us this year but just a team like this we talked about them being an odd-man rush team and that’s what we really need to stay away from and make them work for anything.
“I think we gave them the game they wanted.”
Here are six takeaways.
1. Connor Bedard continued to rediscover his game.
It’s eerie, but perhaps unsurprising, that Bedard and Fantilli recently have endured similar goal droughts leading up to Sunday’s matchup.
Among the great pre-draft debates, Bedard-Fantilli two seasons ago was akin to the NBA wrangling over Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley (2008) or the NFL deciding between Mitch Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson (2017).
There were clear winners in the latter cases (Rose and Mahomes), and Hawks forward Bedard was certainly favored in the NHL, but he and Blue Jackets forward Fantilli, the No. 3 draft pick, have had a bumpy road in their sophomore season as they met for just the second time in their NHL careers.
Bedard admitted he lost “a bit of confidence” during a 12-game goalless skid, before breaking out of his funk with a goal against the Dallas Stars on Wednesday.
Fantilli slogged through 13 games without a goal before bursting out with two goals against the Calgary Flames on Friday.
Before Sunday’s game, Blue Jackets coach Dean Evason said of Fantilli, “He scored a couple goals the other night, (but) there were some questions: ‘Well, he hasn’t scored, hasn’t had the offensive production and all that stuff.’
“But we continually talked about him being a well-rounded player. His commitment to playing in all areas and all situations of the game of hockey, and he’s been committed to do that.”
Evason added, “Has it maybe hurt him offensively a little bit? Maybe. But he’s doing the right things to help his hockey team win, and that’s not just scoring goals or setting them up.”
Fantilli had five goals and seven assists in 22 games entering Sunday’s schedule, and Bedard had four goals and 13 assists in his first 23 games.
While one of Fantilli’s most hopeful projections is the well-rounded game of Jonathan Toews, Bedard is expected to bring Patrick Kane levels of offensive pop.
But just being a top-three draft pick can be a drag on a young player’s psyche eventually, Richardson said.
“Having some success in your first year, there’s more expectations and more pressure the next year. So it’s the first time that they’re hitting it,” he said. “The first year, they’re just kind of new, and it’s fun, and they’re just going and feeling it out, (whereas) the second year there’s more expectations on the outside, there’s more expectations from themselves, and sometimes they’re just thinking a little bit too much.
“For the first year, they just went out and played. So that’s the difference. And I think the best thing is having good veterans around them that have already gone through that, and they’re the best people to kind of help them through it. And I know that’s happened here, so I’m sure it’s happened there as well.”
On Sunday, Bedard scored just his second man-advantage goal of the season and danced through defenders during one of his four other shots on goal. But he was on the ice for four of Columbus’ goals.
Richardson said, “He definitely looks more like himself the last few games but on the defensive side of things, we have to be better and so does he.
“He can’t score one and give up two, right?”
2. You know who hasn’t struggled? Kent Johnson.
Johnson and Bedard have been friends and workout buddies since childhood. Johnson’s Port Moody, Canada, is about a 40-minute drive from Bedard’s North Vancouver.
They shared something else on Sunday: a goal for each in the first period.
“That definitely is cool and obviously you want to come out on top anytime I’m going against him,” Johnson said.
The sweetener? Bedard was on the ice for his goal.
When asked whether he was trying to score a goal because Bedard had one, Johnson laughed.
“No, not really. I wasn’t thinking about it like that,” he said. “But you always want to score and contribute and get the points. Yeah, it’s nice.”
3. Petr Mrázek needed the defense to bail him out for once.
Mrázek was a little slow sliding over on Johnson’s goal, but he looked ready for Sean Monahan’s shot before Monahan just picked a corner on him.
In the third, he gave up another softy to Dante Fabbro.
Kirill Marchenko scored Columbus’ fifth goal after the Hawks defenders found themselves scrambling and Mrázek was left exposed to a clear shot from Marchenko.
Both Richardson and Foligno said this game was about understanding who you’re playing, and this moment was a prime example of how the Hawks played into the Blue Jackets’ hands.
- The Hawks were aggressive in the offensive zone, but too aggressive. Philipp Kurashev and Taylor Hall were below the goal line, Bedard was in the left circle, so no one was at the F3 spot defensively in the slot.
- The Hawks picked a bad time for a line change, with Kurashev and Hall coming off (Richardson said they were tired) for Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi, just as the Blue Jackets launched a counterattack — with numbers.
- Bedard and Alec Martinez trailed their targets a bit too far and cleared space in front of the crease, while Wyatt Kaiser failed to clear out a loose puck.
- Teräväinen arrived a hair too late to stop Marchenko from whipping a shot from the slot.
“Martinez did the best job he could on an odd-man line-rush-against to delay it, put it to the outside,” Richardson said. “Connor over-backchecked a little bit. But give him credit, he’s the one who stayed out (on the ice) and backchecked. But if we can stop it in the slot, right in the front of the crease as a forward and let the D take care of that blue paint area, whacking rebounds away,” that would’ve been a better option.
“But they were fortunate. They did a good job of being in the right spots,” Richardson said.
The coach said that’s all the more reason to not take chances against Columbus, which was in the scouting report.
“If we can stay above them in most areas, like guys like (Zach) Werenski and their speedy forwards, it helps out our D and helps out our goaltender,” he said. “I don’t think we did a great job in front of him tonight.”
4. All three of the Hawks’ goals came on the power play.
The output matched the Hawks’ high in a 5-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Oct. 12.
And it’s the Hawks’ third straight game with a power-play goal.
“Sure, it’s a good thing, I guess,” Vlasic said. “But it doesn’t really mean anything. We’ve been feeling good about it, but still losing games, so it doesn’t really help.”
Bedard, Craig Smith and Nick Foligno all scored on the man advantage.
Vlasic had a breakaway and a follow-up that showed his growing confidence in that role.
They counted for two of his game-high six shots on goal.
“That’s a big aspect of why I’m there,” Vlasic said. “Just keeping it simple and getting pucks to the net.
“Had a number of good looks. I think I’ve got to do a better job of scoring. On that partial breakaway, I might have been able to tuck that one in if I just take it to my forehand instead of shooting on my backhand.”
5. What gives with the giveaways?
The Hawks haven’t been as sloppy this season, but they finished with 11 giveaways. Casual turnovers by Taylor Hall and Teräväinen led to Blue Jacket shots on goal.
“We talked to them, we showed them some last game where we thought the middle of the game in Minnesota where that hurt us,” Richardson said. “It was a bit of a carbon copy of that in the first period.
“I thought we had a better second period, but in the third period we’re probably pressing too much to try and tie it without having patience enough to play the structure. So, when it’s time to strike, we strike, and when it’s not, we don’t get down by two. That makes it very difficult.”
6. The defense was feeling good about itself. Until …
The Hawks defense had dealt with an extended absence from defenseman Alec Martinez and is now in similar circumstances without Seth Jones.
Yet they entered the game ranked 12th with 2.96 goals allowed per game. They averaged 3.7 goals-against through the first 23 games last season.
Having Martinez back has helped, Richardson said, along with getting offensive and defensive contributions from some of the young blueliners such as Vlasic, Wyatt Kaiser and Louis Crevier.
“We haven’t had everybody out at the same time, which is manageable,” Richardson said before the game. “The (young) guys have had (a) little bit of experience showing this year. Crevier has come up and played really well the last few games. Kaiser has had a good start to the season, using his legs. And Nolan Allan had a really good camp.
“We’re happy with the way things have worked. Our goals are way down this year.”
Before Sunday, anyway.
It was just the second time this season the Hawks allowed at least six goals — the first was a 6-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 22.
