DALLAS — The NHL’s 2021 sans-fans season suddenly feels like a long time ago, but this weekend marks a brief return of one of the more tolerable quirks of that year.
The Blackhawks lost 5-4 in overtime against the Stars on Friday, starting a unique two-game set in Dallas and extending their road losing streak to 10 consecutive games. They will rematch the Stars at American Airlines Center again Sunday.
Outside of the pandemic season, when two- or three-game baseball-style series in every city were the norm, this marks the Hawks’ first time playing consecutive road games in the same venue since January 2007 in St. Louis.
The first leg turned out to be a roller coaster. The Hawks scored the first two goals, the Stars responded with four straight, the Hawks rallied to tie it — equalizing with a late power-play goal by Tyler Johnson — and the Stars won with 7.9 seconds left in a low-event overtime when Roope Hintz completed his hat trick.
“If we could play like we did in the third period and the start of the first, you’re looking at two points a lot of times in this league,” coach Luke Richardson said.
Said Johnson: “We battled, so that part was good. But our structure and our discipline could be a little better. We gave up too many odd-man rushes.”
On the health front, Nikita Zaitsev was a late scratch due to illness; Louis Crevier replaced him. Taylor Raddysh also left with a lower-body injury just two shifts into the first period.
Meanwhile, Jarred Tinordi endured a rough night, making mistakes that led to three Stars goals. After Wyatt Johnston embarrassed him early in the third period, he was benched the rest of the game.
Faceoff improvement
The Hawks will probably not end up coming close to breaking the NHL record for the worst team faceoff percentage this season after all, as was feared early in the season.
The all-time record is 44.1%, set by the 1997-98 Lightning, and the Hawks have already improved up to 45.9% entering Friday, which isn’t even the worst in the league this season — the Wild hold that title at 45.3%.
Connor Bedard has slowly improved — he entered Friday at 41.6% — but Jason Dickinson is the biggest reason why they have moved out of the hideous range, entering Friday at 50.6% over his last 24 games.
Friday was not a banner day for the Hawks’ faceoff-taking, though, as they won just 25 of 66 draws as a team. Dickinson, who was great in every other area, went 2-for-12 while Bedard went 2-for-13.
