VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Vancouver Canucks fans held up Connor Bedard posters and banged on the glass to welcome back their native son for his first game at Rogers Arena, and they even might’ve cheered for the Chicago Blackhawks star had he scored for the enemy.
Though, after months of anticipation, with about 15 relatives and friends among the 18,620 in attendance, Bedard’s homecoming proved rather anticlimactic.
He was a nonfactor in the Hawks’ 4-1 loss, their ninth straight to the Canucks, and the image of Bedard hanging his head on the bench after a whiff likely will be etched into our collective memory.
Bedard wasn’t available to media after the game, but coach Luke Richardson spoke on his behalf.
“I’m sure that was probably a blow,” Richardson said. “He just missed the puck and … that’s just a little bit of salt in the wound, I think, coming home for his first game here.
“But I saw the guys patting him on the back. It happens. He’s trying to do the right thing and get in deep and he just missed the puck. That just kind of compounds everything, but we’ll talk to him and support him.”
Bedard registered just one shot on goal and went 1-for-9 on faceoffs, but the low point came during a Hawks six-on-five when he tried to dump the puck from center ice and whiffed.
J.T. Miller recovered the puck for the Canucks but momentarily lost sight of it. Ex-Hawk Pius Suter knocked it back to Miller, who launched it into an empty net from the neutral zone.
The negatives for the Hawks extended beyond a bummer of a homecoming for Bedard:
- The Hawks (6-11-1) lost their fourth game in the last five.
- They placed defenseman Seth Jones (right foot) on injured reserve and benched struggling forward Taylor Hall before the game.
- Bedard’s goal drought stretched to nine games.
- Special teams have flipped, with no power-play goals in the last three games (five chances) and two goals allowed (nine chances).
- The Hawks were held to one regulation goal for the fifth straight game.
In other words, they’re reeling.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Alex Vlasic said. “It’s getting frustrating. It’s pretty tiring to rely on one goal to win against a good team. So we’ve got to figure out a way to turn (it) around.”
Here are four takeaways from the loss.
1. The game turned on a couple of cases of bad luck.
The Hawks were cruising in the first period, dominating the puck and jumping out to a 1-0 lead on former Canuck Ilya Mikheyev’s rebound goal, set up by Nick Foligno.
But things went south in the second period. The Canucks gained momentum, and a pivotal moment came 4½ minutes into the period.
Hawks defenseman Wyatt Kaiser tussled with Canucks counterpart Erik Brännström, and Kaiser was tagged with a roughing penalty. That proved costly when Elias Pettersson scored on the power play.
Worse, the puck ricocheted off Connor Murphy’s skate and past goalie Arvid Söderblom. That will happen on occasion, but Richardson didn’t like the call against Kaiser in the first place.
“He was just protecting our crease area, and I thought it was two guys wrestling,” Richardson said. “Unfortunately that was a bit of a game-changer, that goal.
“We were on our heels a little bit around that time or just after that in the second period. But we have to find a way to kill that penalty, and we’ll take him protecting our crease and our goaltender any game.”
2. There’s no way to dress it up: Connor Bedard hasn’t looked good.
He had one shot on goal in the first period and couldn’t muster another — the third time in four games he has been held to a single shot.
Bedard also committed a careless defensive-end turnover that served up a juicy chance for Danton Heinen — who scored two goals in the teams’ first meeting this season — but Söderblom made the save.
Richardson doesn’t believe Bedard is pressing but said: “He’s maybe holding on to the puck a little too long and looking for something better. We try to encourage him to shoot the puck. He’s an elusive shooter and dangerous. If we can get him skating and shooting the puck on the fly, that’s when he’s the most dangerous.”
3. The Hawks offense has looked just as anemic.
Other than Mikheyev’s goal and Foligno’s short breakaway chance, there weren’t many prime chances.
“We just play like in a wave,” Mikheyev said, in which the Hawks “play good” and create some chances, but then it dissipates. “We need to play more simple sometimes.”
Outside of Bedard and leading goal scorer Ryan Donato, no reliable threat has emerged. And really, Donato’s contributions should be gravy. The heavy lifting should be coming from the likes of Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi.
Richardson said having more power plays would help, but in five-on-five, he seemed reconciled to what his personnel can do in the system.
“There’s not really much we can do,” he said. “We can’t start seaming passes. I don’t think we have the guys that are the strong J.T. Millers of the world that we saw tonight that can really do that and get away (with it).
“They’re powerful, they’re strong and they’re fast, and with our group makeup right now, we have to play straight on and slash and support.”
4. The Hawks managed without Seth Jones.
Jones leads the league in ice time (25 minutes, 43 seconds per game), so the Hawks replaced him with a committee approach.
Vlasic replaced him on the power play and soaked up some minutes (23:33). Alec Martinez occupied Jones’ spot on the right side, with Nolan Allan drawing into the lineup and playing opposite Martinez. And Louis Crevier was called up from Rockford as a reserve.
Vlasic said the Hawks “definitely miss” Jones: “He’s a great player, one of our best, and trying to do my best to step in and fill his shoes.”
“Well, we can’t be Seth Jones,” Richardson said. “We’re not going to be him but just by committee. For young guys it’s an opportunity. Allan came back in tonight, played a real good, strong, physical game, eat up some of those minutes we’re losing.
“Martinez (had) another strong game and he’s that veteran presence. He’s going to be able to pick up a lot of slack as well. We’re just going to have to massage that around, the six guys that are in there on any given night, because he’ll be out for a little while.”