The Blackhawks’ offense looked as ice cold as Buffalo’s weather in a 3-0 loss to the Sabres on Thursday, one day after the game was postponed because of excessive snowfall.
Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped all 20 shots he faced to earn his second consecutive shutout and deliver the Hawks their fourth shutout defeat of the season — and, even more notably, their 16th consecutive road loss.
“We came out pretty slow, right from the start,” defenseman Alex Vlasic said. “It felt like nobody had jump, nobody was really ready to go. [The Sabres] like to play a high-flying game, pretty fast-paced, and we played right into that. All around, we were sluggish the whole game, myself included.”
Seth Jones singlehandedly created five of those 20 shots and had a great chance to finally break his seasonlong goose egg in the goal column during the first period, but Luukkonen wasn’t tested much by anyone else.
The Hawks snapped their streak of four consecutive games scoring a single goal with an even more pitiful effort.
Their offensive production of late, with Connor Bedard not in the lineup, has become historically bad.
This marks the franchise’s first five-game stretch with four total goals since October-November 2006.
“[We need] a little simpler, direct approach on offense,” coach Luke Richardson said. “We need to shoot pucks when we have that opportunity. There were a couple line rushes or two-on-one [rushes] where we decided to make an extra pass, and that was just fortunate for them and unfortunate for us.”
On the other end, goalie Arvid Soderblom — making his first appearance since Jan. 5 — was solid for a third consecutive game, but he fell victim to a couple fluky goals in the third period that put the game out of reach.
JJ Peterka banked an impossible-angle shot off Soderblom’s helmet, then Rasmus Dahlin had a power-play goal — after Philipp Kurashev was assessed a five-minute boarding major — that deflected off Vlasic’s stick.
Raddysh struggling
Taylor Raddysh immediately slotted onto the Hawks’ first forward line upon returning from a minor groin injury Jan. 9, but he has been there for five games now without having much impact.
He recorded two shots on goal Thursday, which marked just the second time in his last 10 games he had multiple shots on goal. After surprisingly reaching the 20-goal mark last season, he remains stuck on five goals this season.
To make matters worse, he briefly left during the third period after blocking a shot, but he was able to return.
Meanwhile, defenseman Connor Murphy (lower body) and Nikita Zaitsev (right knee) missed the game because of injuries, allowing Isaak Phillips to make his first appearance since Jan. 7.
