For a moment, the Chicago Blackhawks found a crack in the Washington Capitals’ defense and broke the stalemate in what had been a dog of a game.

But then the dam broke.

[ [Don’t miss] 4 takeaways from Chicago Blackhawks’ 3-1 win over the St. Louis Blues — their 1st back-to-back victories this season ]

The Capitals rattled off three unanswered goals in the second period and held on to win 4-2 on Sunday at the United Center.

The Hawks came into the game riding their first two-game winning streak, and early in the second period things were looking up.

For the fourth game in a row, the Hawks struck first: Philipp Kurashev scored the game’s opening goal with a tip-in from the doorstep.

Seth Jones found him with a cross-crease pass, and he and Connor Bedard each recorded their 11th assist of the season.

Anthony Mantha answered for Washington 82 seconds later. Connor McMichael lobbed a pass over Nikita Zaitsev’s stick, and Mantha split Alex Vlasic and Connor Bedard and outraced both to the puck, then backhanded past Arvid Söderblom.

Ex-Hawk Dylan Strome tipped in a goal to push his team lead to 11, and Nic Dowd poked in the puck from out of a scrum to cap the scoring for the frame.

Dowd scored again in the third. The Caps had a late power play but Tom Wilson committed roughing and unsportsmanlike penalties, and Hawks defenseman Connor Murphy scored during the four-on-four.

The game didn’t get off to a sparkling beginning for either team.

The Capitals smothered Hawks puck carriers, hemmed them along the boards and outbattled them for pucks, and took away passing lanes and shot angles.

For the Hawks’ part, at least in the first period, they blocked or forced bad shots and had timely takeaways.

The Caps got the first power play on Nick Foligno’s tripping call 2 1/2 minutes into the game, and the Hawks’ Taylor Raddysh drew back-to-back tripping penalties, but neither team could score during those opportunities.

During the Hawks’ first power play, Kurashev kicked in the puck off Seth Jones’ rebound and officials waved off the goal.

Kurashev still bumped fists with the bench. A would-be goal was the only thing to celebrate from a slog of a first period.

Overhead during the first intermission: “Not aesthetically pleasing.”

The Hawks came into the matchup confident of an upset.

Typically, a visiting team playing the second leg of a back-to-back would be an advantage for the home team, but the Capitals entered the matchup with a 3-0-0 record in those games.

Coach Luke Richardson said before the game, “We did talk about that last game with St. Louis. They played the night before — we wanted to jump on them early.

“We played yesterday but we didn’t travel. So there has to be an advantage that you can try and use every night in this league.”

[ [Don’t miss] Kevin Korchinski takes a temporary leave from the Chicago Blackhawks for a ‘family matter’ ]

However, Caps coach Spencer Carbery said his players understand the games’ importance as well as how the physical and mental aspects of back-to-back games play major roles.

“Veteran guys do a really good job of permeating the message to the group that it’s mental,” he said before the game. “You’re going to have the limits physically, no question, but if you can make good decisions, if you can be mentally engaged through the 60 minutes, you can have success.”

Here are four takeaways from Sunday’s loss:

It depends on who you ask.

“It was rushes-against that we weren’t sharp on,” Murphy said. “It seemed like we lost a little bit of our emotion.”

He said the Capitals got more physical, “and we didn’t seem to give the same response.”

Foligno agreed. “They just picked up their intensity. You can see it, they just got more physical. And we didn’t match that. It’s disappointing.”

Foligno noticed a drop in the Hawks’ intensity after Kurashev’s score.

“We score and we kind of sit back, and now they’re making a push and they get momentum back,” he said. “And now they’re rolling, right? It’s 3-1, and they get that one (by Nic Dowd) late. It’s disappointing because those are the ones we’ve got to get out of our game.”

Earlier this season, Bedard might have ignored the bench to prolong his shifts, but Richardson said that wasn’t the case when he was out for a minute and 33 seconds before Mantha scored.

“I think that was on a whistle on a chance. He just hoped to stay out there,” Richardson said.

Bedard was out for 2:26 his next shift, and was out for 1:52 for a third-period shift.

Richardson said, “I’ve talked to him (about shift length) before. I think sometimes he’s just analyzing the game and looking around (so much) that he honestly doesn’t realize how long he’s been out there. That’s just a learning curve. He has to realize that in the NHL, no player is going to play a proper shift two minutes in length and expect to do well at the end of it. If you do, you’re cheating out there.”

Söderblom is going to have to buckle down and have one of those games like Petr Mrázek just had.

Yes, the Mantha breakaway was tough to defend but Söderblom bit on the first move.

Conversely, the Hawks weren’t nearly as diligent on defense as they were in the first period (particularly the second), and they gave Söderblom little in the way of goal support for a netminder struggling to get a win.

On Strome’s goal, T.J. Oshie blasted Hawks defenseman Alex Vlasic behind the net. Murphy and Söderblom shifted to defend Joel Edmundson from the slot — leaving Strome wide-open on the backdoor for a pass from Edmundson.

On Dowd’s first goal, Beck Malenstyn’s rebound was lying loose amid a pile of bodies and Dowd got to it first.

Richardson said, “It bounced off (Söderblom) and then I think he tried to freeze it but there were a bunch of bodies in the crease that knocked it away from him, so that was unfortunate.

“But it was good on Dowd. He was hard in the hard area and he got behind him and it was free and he knocked it in the net. It’s Arvid, but it’s all of us around him. We have to make sure we stay on our feet and protect him that way. We’re no help when we’re lying in the crease.”

Chicago Tribune Sports

Weekdays

A daily sports newsletter delivered to your inbox for your morning commute.

It also doesn’t help Söderblom’s cause when the Hawks have scored two or fewer goals in three of his last four starts.

“It stinks,” Foligno said. “He’s made some really great saves for us. There’s games where we’ve wasted away on him and we want to give him more run support, obviously. He’s competing and doing his best and it stinks not to be able to give him more success.

“We’re going to have to dig in a little harder for him.”

Bedard played about 16 and 17 minutes against the Anaheim Ducks and St. Louis Blues, respectively — below his average of about 19 1/2 minutes through his first 24 games.

Richardson said it came down to situational hockey.

“He’s obviously really good with the puck, but line matching at home probably plays a role in that. not really watching his minutes too much,” he said. “Also games, when they’re close and we have the lead, I think we’ve been using guys like (Jason) Dickinson’s line and Tyler Johnson and Kurashev, guys like that who have more experience to play in a 5-on-6 situation at this level.

“(Bedard’s) not probably going to be part of that equation yet, but he’s a great player and he has good hand-eye coordination with stick abilities that at some point, we’d like him to be involved in that. But right now, that probably plays into ice time as well at the end of the game.”

Originally Published: Dec 10, 2023 at 9:26 pm