Game Recap: Hawks @ Islanders 4/2

"If life hands you lemons, you gotta cram 'em down some punks throat til he see's yellow." - Frank Reynolds

At least, that's the quote I wanted to use before the game started. You see, I actually thought that the Hawks would embarrass the Islanders in their quest for the wild card spot in the east. I also thought that Connor Bedard would regress toward the mean and explode in goal-scoring.

Other than the Islanders getting booed off the ice in the 1st, no lemons were crammed down throats.

What I failed to remember was that the Islanders play boring hockey. And they're good at it.

Sure, things are different under Patrick Roy. And I appreciate that. As evidenced by Matt Barzal's impressive display of puck possession tonight.

What slowed down the Hawks wasn't so much the Islanders' offense, they actually looked ok for the most part in their DZ. It was the Islanders' defense. They are very good at employing the Box+1 and they do so by creating layers of defense in the slot, leaving permiter shots to Sorokin, and forcing turnovers which turn into counterattacks.

I thought the Hawks did fine against most counterattacks, although Petr Mrazek standing on his head probably helps. They just couldn't crack the defense tonight.

What's interesting is that while it looked like the Hawks were limited to chances on the perimeter, the heat map paints a totally different picture. The Hawks also had 7 high-danger chances in the 1st period and 4 in the 2nd, which might skew the map. The Islanders protected the slot for the most part and left Sorokin to deal with the low-percentage perimeter shots. Easy saves.

Thoughts

• That first goal by the Hawks was some beautiful entry work by Jason Dickinson and Bedard. Oh, and Philipp Kurashev gets his 50th point. Great stuff.

• Matt Martin had to fight Jarred Tinordi because Tinordi laid a pretty awesome and very clean hit on Jean-Gabriel Pageau. Look, I love huge hits and I love fighting. But do we need to fight after every clean big hit? I'd get it if Pageau was hurt or something, but the dude got up right away just fine.
• The 2nd period was some classic boring-ass Islanders' hockey, that is until the middle of the period when the action picked up.
• Ilya Sorokin made awesome saves, as did Mrazek, who finished with a .931 SV%. He stopped 27 of 29 shots on goal.
• The Hawks' PK was looking tight until Barzal decided to become a human blender and open up a great scoring chance for Bo Horvat.
• The Hawks' lone PP had some good puck movement, and that's about it.
• The Blackhawks had 13 scoring chances when Bedard was on the ice.
• The Bedard-Dickinson-Kurashev line had a 51.61 Corsi and an expected goals share of 93.91%. They also had 16 shot attempts (while giving up 15). The next highest line was Foligno's line, and they had 5.
• Simon Holmstrom's goal was the result of some bad luck with an issue with the boards. Sure, Lukas Reichel could cover Athanasiou's position better, but he almost hesitates. It was a weird play.

• Look, I hate poo-pooing on Seth Jones. I really do. It's low-hanging fruit because of the contract. But man, he kinda dropped the ball on that final faceoff.

Well, the only thing this does is hurt Kane's chances of seeing the playoffs with the Red Wings. The Hawks don't play again until Saturday. Good time to watch some teams that play good hockey.