SEATTLE — A backbreaking swing within a 10-second window during the third period Wednesday doomed the Blackhawks to their 18th straight road loss.
Kraken goalie Joey Daccord stopped a breakaway by Hawks forward Ryan Donato, then Kraken forward Tomas Tatar caught the Hawks sleeping and beat Arvid Soderblom on a breakaway the other direction.
With that, what could’ve been an intriguing comeback changed into an insurmountable deficit with 15:32 left, and the Hawks ultimately fell 6-2 to move within one game of tying the franchise record for consecutive road defeats.
They’ll have to win Thursday against the Oilers, winners of 14 straight, to avoid matching the record set in 2004.
“We can’t play two or three good shifts and have one bad one,” coach Luke Richardson said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re more consistent. That’s what we’ve been trying to do all year, and we’re not there yet.”
Soderblom might never want to enter the state of Washington again, having allowed 13 goals in his two starts this season at Climate Pledge Arena.
He squandered his chance to avenge the seven-goal December disaster by stopping only 22 of 28 shots Wednesday. That included a facepalm-worthy own-goal where Seth Jones sent the puck from the boards toward the middle of the ice in his defensive zone and it deflected off Alex Vlasic’s skate and past an unsuspecting Soderblom.
The Hawks found a sliver of life when Philipp Kurashev nicely set up Nick Foligno for a power-play goal early in the third period to cut the deficit to 4-2, but the Donato-to-Tatar swing squashed that.
“We let the guys know, if [the Kraken] get a change of possession, they will blow the zone,” Richardson said. “So we were aware of it. We missed it for about two or three seconds, and that’s all it takes.”
Said forward Joey Anderson: “We had more chances tonight to score, but you can’t give up the stuff we were giving up defensively tonight. ... You can’t give those [scoring chances] up and trade for offense. It’s got to come the right way. And tonight, we just didn’t do it for long enough.”
Reichel scratched again
Struggling young forward Lukas Reichel was a healthy scratch again Wednesday, marking his second consecutive game out of the lineup.
Richardson said Reichel would play in at least one of the last two games — against the Oilers and Flames — before the All-Star break, but he thought “another game looking from above will give him a bit of perspective and sink in what he has to do.”
It’s telling that the Hawks have kept Rem Pitlick — a similarly light, offensive-minded player with zero points in eight games since coming over from the Penguins’ AHL affiliate — in the lineup over Reichel.
If they were in the playoff race, they probably wouldn’t be doing that. But since the game outcomes don’t truly matter, Richardson feels freed to use scratches to send messages to players that do matter long-term.
Nothing on Raddysh, Katchouk
The investigation into sexual assault allegations against Team Canada’s 2018 world junior championships team — which Hawks forwards Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk were part of — appears to be reaching a climax.
The police department of London, Ontario, announced Wednesday it will hold a news conference Feb. 5 to discuss details after The Globe and Mail reported five unnamed players from the 2018 team have been told to surrender to police.
Five players who were on that team — Flyers goalie Carter Hart, Flames forward Dillon Dube, Devils forward Michael McLeod, Devils defenseman Cal Foote and former Senators forward Alex Formenton, who has been playing in Switzerland — have all been granted leaves of absence from their current teams within the past few days.
If charges are ultimately pressed only against those five players, it could be good news for the Hawks. Raddysh and Katchouk have both publicly denied involvement.
