RECAP: Blackhawks Fall to Predators at Home

CHICAGO -- The Blackhawks dropped their penultimate home game of the year on Friday night, a 5-1 defeat at the hands of the Nashville Predators. 

The visitors held a 4-0 lead by the midpoint of the game, with a pair of tallies in each period, before Philipp Kurashev got the Blackhawks on the board on a 5-on-3 advantage late in the middle frame. Filip Forsberg completed a hat trick in the third period to re-gain the four-goal advantage for Nashville. 

Arvid Soderblom made 35 saves in goal for Chicago in the loss.

QUICK HITS

• Philipp Kurashev scored for the second straight game -- his 18th overall on the season but just the second time this year scoring goals in back-to-back games (Nov. 18-19). The goal doubled his previous season-best goal total of nine tallies from last season. 
• With a primary helper on Kurashev's goal, Connor Bedard reached the 60-point mark on the season (22G, 38A) in his 65th game.
• Tyler Johnson also notched an assist on Kurashev's second-period tally to reach the 30-point mark on the season (16G, 14A), his second straight 30-point campaign with Chicago.  
• Ethan Del Mastro made his NHL debut on Friday night and skated 18:35 in his debut. In 66 AHL games this season, Del Mastro logged 37 points (7G, 30A) and was named to the 2024 AHL All-Star Game.  
• Connor Murphy and Nick Foligno returned to the lineup at home -- Murphy after missing 34 games with a groin injury and Foligno after missing Wednesday's game in St. Louis due to personal matters. 

THEY SAID IT

• "Pretty surreal when you step on the ice for the warmups and then you know hearing in the crowd and stuff at the start of the game, it's pretty special. Obviously not the result we wanted, but pretty awesome." - Ethan Del Mastro on NHL debut. 
• "Yeah, it's big and the guys have gone through a hard stretch for a while now, and just to be able to go through it with everyone is really important. And just day-to-day and game-to-gaem to be out there with guys and and go through some of the lumps like tonight." - Connor Murphy on importance of getting back in the lineup.
• "Obviously not a great start. They're a big strong team, again, we played a few of those lately, and just turnovers and mistakes in the D-zone and the penalty kill, winch has been pretty good, over second half of the year especially, just weren't sharp. We have times where before we took the penalty, we couldn't get out of the D-zone. Then we take a penalty, and then we had both penalty kills had chances to get pucks out, just executing getting it out. It's just a case of them wanting the puck more and they were more mature." - Head coach Luke Richardson on the loss.

GAME LINKS

• Game Summary
• Full Box Score
• Highlights

WHAT'S NEXT

The Blackhawks wrap their 2023-24 home schedule with a Sunday evening matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes at the United Center.

POSTGAME VIDEO