VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Blackhawks rookie defenseman Artyom Levshunov flashed his potential with some dominant defensive shifts Saturday, and he additionally earned his first NHL level.
However Levshunov was additionally exploited for 2 objectives towards within the Hawks’ 6-2 blowout loss to the Canucks, which concluded a winless four-game street journey.
All of that balanced out to an “OK” grade from interim coach Anders Sorensen, who was a really sad man after the sport. That evaluation appeared comparatively harsh, contemplating Sorensen gave his youngest defenseman a team-high 22:39 of ice time.
The remainder of the Hawks have been various levels of terrible towards a Canucks workforce that has now overwhelmed them in 10 consecutive conferences (and 14 of the final 15). Hawks forwards dedicated numerous turnovers close to the defensive blue line, undoing some first rate performs from their defensemen, together with Levshunov.
Hawks goalie Arvid Soderblom confronted 15 photographs and made solely 9 saves. Though he definitely wasn’t sharp — his season-long save proportion dropped from .905 to .901 in a matter of hours — it additionally appeared like most Canucks photographs have been extraordinarily high-danger appears.
“We felt like we may’ve had extra pushback, or extra survival [instincts], in a number of the possibilities coming again our finish,” defenseman Connor Murphy mentioned.
Stated Sorensen: “We didn’t learn the frenzy properly, [and we] didn’t learn the protection properly.”
Struggling Canucks third-string goalie Arturs Silovs earned simply his second win of the season, and the offensively challenged Canucks scored six-plus objectives for simply the second time this season — and each situations of each occasions have come towards the Hawks.
Connor Bedard acquired a misconduct penalty for a second consecutive recreation, though this one was far much less significant than the inexplicable “abuse of officials” penalty he bought Thursday towards the Sharks. He and Frank Nazar have been each primarily ejected after a skirmish with 2:39 left.
Bedard, who was held with out a level in his second Vancouver homecoming, additionally dedicated two hooking penalties earlier on. He has now racked up 28 penalty minutes in his final 5 video games, upping his season complete to 62 minutes — second on the workforce behind Pat Maroon (76 minutes).
Analyzing Levshunov
Levshunov mentioned he has “felt good, particularly tonight,” to this point within the NHL. He mentioned he was “so excited” to get his first level with an help on Wyatt Kaiser’s third-period purpose, though Kaiser did many of the work.
Levshunov’s defensive stick utilization has been spectacular. His measurement and clean skating permit him to cowl a lot ice, so shortly. And his breakout passes are agency, flat and correct. He demonstrated all of that in a number of first-period shifts that significantly stood out.
He wasn’t aggressive sufficient to get his stick within the capturing lane on Tyler Myers’ first-period purpose, and he was deked practically out of his skates on Canucks star Elias Pettersson’s third-period snipe.
However these have been the Canucks’ solely two photographs on purpose throughout his five-on-five ice time, because the Hawks outshot them 9-2 throughout his shifts.
“It’s been spectacular to see him play his recreation and never be timid in any respect,” Murphy mentioned. “It’s not straightforward being that younger, particularly as a defenseman enjoying a variety of defending minutes like we do. However he appears to have good gaps and be not afraid to maintain pucks alive, and he’s robust when breaking them up, too.”
