Dietz: Blackhawks giving opponents life by taking too many penalties

When the Blackhawks took a 2-0 lead over Vancouver on Friday, it looked like coach Jeff Blashill's squad was on its way to a third straight victory.

After all, two nights earlier the Hawks scored six of the last seven goals in an 8-3 thumping of St. Louis.

Now, you're thinking, put your foot on the Canucks' throats and suck the life out of them.

If only it were that easy.

Vancouver, buoyed by a couple of Hawks penalties, knotted things up with two second-period goals en route to a 3-2 shootout victory.

“I felt like we gave them life when we didn’t need to and that’s a huge learning thing for us,” Blashill said. “We should have been able to walk out of this game with two points.”

Look, in the big picture — which we will keep in mind all season — the Hawks should be quite pleased with their start. Their fast, relentless style has opponents on their heels. The defense is much improved. And the goaltending has held up quite nicely.

The biggest issue thus far? The penalties.

The Hawks took seven against the Canucks, with two coming early in that second period. Connor Bedard (at 3:48) and Ryan Donato (at 6:16) were both whistled for slashing, essentially putting Vancouver on back-to-back power plays.

The Canucks took advantage, with Jake Debrusk scoring at 6:49 to cut the Hawks' lead to 2-1. Seven minutes later the game was tied at 2-2.

Vancouver was on the power play three more times in the third period thanks to a Lukas Reichel high stick, an unsuccessful coach's challenge on what appeared to be a go-ahead goal by Tyler Bertuzzi, and a holding call on Bedard.

Meanwhile, the Canucks were penalty free for the final 37 minutes.

Through Saturday the Hawks led the league in penalty minutes per game (14:20) and times short-handed per game (4.67). To put that in perspective, there were 13 teams who were short-handed an average of 3.0 times or fewer.

There are times and places to take penalties — the most obvious coming when you're trying to thwart a breakaway or odd-man rush. The ones that coaches fume over include the unnecessary slash or high stick in the offensive zone; the careless trip; the silly puck-over-the-glass miscue inside the defensive zone; and any reckless boarding incident.

The Hawks need to avoid garnering a reputation as this kind of team. They're already at a bit of a disadvantage because of their youth. Referees won't often give players like Bedard, Frank Nazar, Sam Rinzel, Louis Crevier and Artyom Levshunov the benefit of the doubt. (And to be sure, there have been some ticky-tack calls.

Bedard, Levshunov and Crevier have combined to put the Hawks short-handed a combined 10 times.

After the Hawks took 10 penalties in a 3-2 loss to Montreal on Oct. 11, Blashill said: “There’s frustration when there’s that many penalties. We have to make sure we control what we can control, so where our stick position is, those types of things.”

He then said something that made my ears perk up — and it had to do with his own players flopping in hopes of getting a call by the refs.

“We’ll never be a team that goes down light,” he said. “It was a night where it paid to be light a little bit, but we’ll never do that. … We're going to be a team that plays through it. There were (times where) had we gone down light, maybe we attract attention and get the call.

“But that’s not what this team is going to be about.”

That's good. Now it's time to make it about playing smart and disciplined. No more silly penalties.

Do that and the arrow will continue to point in the right direction.

• John Dietz, a sports writer at the Daily Herald from 1998-2024, covered the Blackhawks from 2014-24. You can reach him at jdietz6917@hotmail.com.