TAKEAWAYS: Blackhawks Drop Back-and-Forth Game to Blues

The Blackhawks dropped their seventh consecutive game on Thursday night in a 5-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues, but the effort from head coach Luke Richardson's team was night-and-day better than their last outing against the Stars on Tuesday.
"I'm sure guys are frustrated, but a lot of really good effort," Richardson said. "They did what we talked about all the day. It was a really good start, we just didn't have the finish. We just don't have that natural finish right now, but I like how we pushed back."

The Blackhawks climbed out of a 1-0 hole early in the second, and quickly fell behind by two shortly thereafter, but crawled back early in the third to pull within one tally late. Chicago had several good looks with the goalie pulled and extra attacker on in the dying minutes, but an empty-netter from former Hawk Brandon Saad sealed the game for the visitors before the home team could convert for OT.
"Yeah we fought to the end there," Taylor Raddysh said. "I feel like parts of that game we played really well. We had a really good start, and I guess in the second kind of fell apart a bit, but we wound up in the third period and fought to the end and fell up short."

WAGNER DEBUT

Nearly four weeks to the day after he was acquired from the LA Kings on trade deadline day, Austin Wagner made his Blackhawks debut on Thursday night. The hard-skating winger suffered a hand injury during a fight earlier in the year, a wound that developed an infection and delayed him joining the team following his March 3 acquisition.
"Pretty good," Warner assessed of his debut. :I think it's been a little while off here with the hand and everything, but just trying to move my legs, keep it simple out there. I thought we did a good job as a team and played with pretty well. So all these things we can improve on, but it's a step in the right direction."
The newcomer showcased his speed early opening up a partial breakaway on his third shift of the night for a scoring chance, and created another look late in the third off a strong forecheck.
"Good," Richardson said of the debut. "I thought we saw his speed in the first period. He was just holding off the guy, otherwise he could have maybe had a better shot on that break. But he's already into it. He's yelling at the other team on the bench. I liked his spirit and his play, aggressive play."
Wagner hadn't played in the NHL since two seasons ago with the Kings, and hadn't played in a game at any level since late January while nursing his hand injury.
"I think excitement," Wagner said of his return and debut, "obviously to get an opportunity to come to a team like this and, you know, try to play some games. obviously excited," Wagner said. "A little bit shocked [about the trade] but they've been nothing but welcoming to me here and I'm thankful to thankful to be here."
"He hasn't played in a while, and you can skate all you want or ride the bike all you want, but until you get into a game, there's clutching and grabbing, it's a totally different thing, you're exhausted," Richardson said. "So I think he was smart, taking short shifts just to get himself acclimated in here.

RECHARGED

Chicago snapped an 0-for-13 drought on the man advantage over the last five games with a pair of power-play tallies to open their scoring, going 2-for-3 on the night overall.
First, it was Tyler Johnson with a cross-ice seam pass to Andreas Athanasiou to tie the game 1-1 in the second frame. In the third period, Raddysh slid a pass across the top of the crease for a back-door tap-in by Johnson.
"We were we're moving the puck well," Raddysh said. "I feel like we we had some good shots and a great play by Johnny there on the on the first goal to find Athanasiou and then a nice play on the second one, just finding funny Johnny on the on the backdoor there and great play by him to out-man that guy in front."
"Power play It was much better. They moved the puck sharper," Richardson added.