TAKEAWAYS: Blackhawks Fall Short to Canucks

After a tough battle throughout the matchup, the Chicago Blackhawks suffered a 4-3 deficit to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday afternoon. 

Despite the end results, Nick Foligno praised the way the players came together in the contest to try and rally in the third period to tie things up. As they continued to lose players to injuries over the last few days, he noticed that the team still brought their compete level. 

“With what we're facing right now, with the group we have with injuries, I'm proud of our guys for competing,” Foligno said. “We played a way better game and we gave ourselves a chance to tie it at least…” 

Over the last few games, the Blackhawks had three injured defensemen with Seth Jones, Jarred Tinordi and Alex Vlasic out of the lineup along with some forwards. In the matchup on Sunday, Connor Murphy left the game for a short period after he took a puck to the knee and also lost Joey Anderson as he suffered an upper-body injury.

While it’s tough to see the team lose more players to injury, this brings in new opportunities for other players to step up. 

“It sucks when guys are going down, but [the team did] a great job with a lot of guys stepping up,” Connor Bedard said. 

One of those chances came on the Blackhawks’ power play unit. Head coach Luke Richardson and the coaching staff placed five forwards on the first unit due to the limited defensemen they had. 

It also gave them the chance to bring more pressure on the Canuck’s penalty kill and create more shots on the net. By the end of the game, the Blackhawks went 2-for-4 and had nine shots on goal. 

“We got a lot of guys out that would quarterback, the power play and it's our responsibility sometimes to step up,” Foligno said.

Even though they might not have had a lot of practice time to adjust, Richardson liked the way the players handled the situation and executed through the contest. 

“I think that it's been going pretty well but with changing of our groups again,” Richardson said. “I thought we had a good practice yesterday and a lot of conversation yesterday and today amongst themselves and I thought they did a really good job execution tonight.”