Hawks Insider

Blackhawks won't panic after opening loss: ‘It's only one game'

Share

The Blackhawks kicked off the 2020-21 season with a 5-1 loss to the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, who unveiled their Stanley Cup banner on Wednesday.

It was as difficult of an opening draw as it gets for the Blackhawks, who are without Kirby Dach (wrist), Alex Nylander (knee), Brent Seabrook (lower back) and Jonathan Toews (medical issue). The game certainly looked lopsided at times, but the Blackhawks aren't going to read too much into the loss after having no exhibition games to prep.

"There’s no need to panic right now," Calvin de Haan said. "It's only one game. You guys may disagree with me, but it didn’t really feel like a 5-1 game out there. We had our opportunities, their goalie made some big saves at opportune times. We’re playing against the Cup champions. It was a good test.

"Losing 5-1 is never a good thing, but I think there's some positive things we can take away from the game, for sure. It's definitely frustrating. But we just move on, the sun’s going to rise tomorrow, just keep pushing forward here and hopefully get two points tomorrow and go from there."

On one hand, facing the Lightning right out of the gates is an unfair draw for a decimated and rebuilding Blackhawks team. On another, it gives the Blackhawks no choice but to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

"It was a good test for us," Dominik Kubalik said. "There’s no easy game in this league, so whoever you play, you just need to be 100 percent ready. I'm very excited for tomorrow because we need to go out at practice a little bit and have a good game."

The Blackhawks reviewed the tape on Thursday and harped on the decision-making that led to some of the odd-man rush chances against. Head coach Jeremy Colliton said it was a combination of the forwards needing to do a better job of recovering the puck and the defensemen knowing when to be aggressive and when to hang back.

The Blackhawks will get another crack at the Lightning on Friday to learn from their mistakes and turn in a cleaner performance.

"It's nice to play the same team back to back," Colliton said. "Just allows you to dig in a little bit deeper, no question. … We know we've got to get better. I'd say primarily that the focus is on our own game, how we've got to improve. Certainly, it's an excellent team over there and it's a big challenge. Hopefully it's going to bring the best out of us."

 

Contact Us