Blackhawks Fall 3-1 To Oilers, Losing Streak Reaches Five Games
For the third time in as many meetings this season, the Chicago Blackhawks went toe-to-toe with the Edmonton Oilers, only to come up short, falling 3-1 at Rogers Place on Thursday. With that, the Blackhawks have now dropped five consecutive games and have officially been eliminated from playoff contention for the sixth straight season. It’s been known for a while now that there wouldn’t be postseason hockey in the Windy City once again this year, but Thursday’s defeat in Edmonton officially put the nail in the coffin.
On the flip side, the Oilers vaulted back into the first place in the Pacific Division with the victory and have won seven of their last nine games. When the Blackhawks look back at this loss, they’ll be kicking themselves over the amount of opportunities in which they failed to convert upon. Despite getting outshot 38-18, they had plenty of chances to play spoiler and steal a key two points from the Oilers, but couldn’t capitalize on a majority of their best looks.
Scoring chances were only 42-32 in favor of the home squad. Landon Slaggert and Ilya Mikheyev both missed the net on breakaway opportunities to open the scoring in the first period. Then, Ryan Donato fired a shot wide from point blank on a 3-on-1 rush early in the third period, which would have tied the game and sucked the soul out of Rogers Place.
Tristan Jarry, making his first start in over one week for Edmonton, came up with a few clutch saves throughout the game, but the Blackhawks bailed him out too often by simply failing to hit the target. To make matters worse, the Hawks’ lone goal scorer in the game, Nick Lardis, suffered a left-hand injury in the final moments. Lardis was standing in front of Jarry and took some friendly fire from Teuvo Teravainen, who blasted a one-timer from the point.
Lardis immediately dropped his stick his pain and skated to the bench, then exited to the dressing room moments later. Oddly enough, left-hand injuries are going around right now, with Artyom Levshunov dealing with a fracture in his left hand, while Matt Grzelcyk also injured his left hand back on Mar. 22.
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