With Hossa in building, Blues beat Blackhawks 5-2 in familiar backchecking fashion
Legendary Blackhawks winger and three-time Stanley Cup winner Marian Hossa will be honored on Sunday night when his No 81 jersey is raised into the United Center rafters.
Hossa was a 500-goal scorer, but he was mostly known for his defense.
"I think the biggest thing was just the way he kind of creates offense from his defense, or backcheck," Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane said. " ... a team would be transitioning the other way, and he would come from behind and pick the guy, and then all of a sudden you got an odd man rush or two-on-one break the other way."
Kane said that was the primary thing he noticed and tried to replicate playing with Hossa, but apparently, that tough, hardworking backcheck isn't just a Hossa thing.
The Blues know how to do it too, and they used it to beat the Blackhawks 5-2 Wednesday night. It was the Blues (7-8-0) fourth win in a row and the Blackhawks' (6-7-3) fourth loss out of their last five.
With about six minutes to go in the first period, Brandon Sadd lifted Kane's stick on a Blackhawks rush and sent the puck in the opposite direction. The puck bounced around a couple times in the Hawks' defensive zone, and it ended with a Callen Rosen snapshot going off Alec Regula and into the net.
"They get in the zone, they get a lucky bounce," Luke Richardson said. "They get a lucky bounce on it, but it is something that, looking at analytics, turning pucks over at the blue line, right? That's a killer."
Besides their 2 goals, the home team had a couple other good chances including one close-up opportunity with Raddysh and Toews about seven minutes into the third. It wasn't successful, but by that point, it didn't matter.
The Hawks looked slow and sluggish, and the damage had been done.
It only took that first Blues backcheck and goal for the scoring to begin in earnest on Wednesday night, as the two teams with the fewest goals in the NHL went on to have a field day in a wild 5-goal second period.
Andreas Athanasiou used his own Hossaian defense to get his stick in the way of a Blues opportunity and to catalyze an offensive zone breakaway, in which he put past Blues goalie Jordan Binnington. A couple minutes later, he walked in on a 2-on-1 and rifled one between Binnington's right leg pad and his blocker.
On the other side, however, St. Louis scored three in the second with goals coming from Jordan Kyrou, Ryan O'Reilly, and Tyler Pitlick.
Kyrou scored about five minutes in to make it 2-0, and after Athanasiou cut the lead to one, O'Reilly (short-handed) and Pitlick both scored within two minutes of Athanasiou's goals to keep the lead at two.
Arvid Soderblom let in his fifth goal of the night right after the Raddysh-Toews opportunity, and the three-goal difference stuck. Soderblom made 30 saves.
Hossa was in the building, but the Blackhawks could have used him on the ice Wednesday night. His career was cut short because of a progressive skin disease in 2017, but Hossa said Wednesday he could have played longer.
"I still had four years left on my contract," he said. "I was 37 years old ... feeling great and I definitely had lots of fuel in my tank."
He'd like to take a more active role with the Blackhawks.
"Definitely like to be a small part with the Blackhawks organization," said Hossa, who also has a new book out on his hockey career. "I know it's been a long time but try to make sure I'm going to make the right decision with what part I will take."