Strome's return should help backsliding Blackhawks

One of the big storylines from the Blackhawks' 4-2 loss to Tampa Bay Thursday was the Lightning attempting to bait Connor Murphy into fighting.

Murphy, who crunched Erik Cernak and was given a match penalty March 7, elected not to drop the gloves because he didn't want to sit in the box for five minutes.

Somewhat lost amid the drama was that Dylan Strome returned to the lineup for the first time in a month. Strome scored the Hawks' second goal by jamming the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy at 18:45 of the first period.

Strome's return should be a boost for the Hawks, who have dropped five of six and face Tampa Bay again Saturday. Strome was having an uneven season before entering concussion protocol Feb. 22, but he came back with a vengeance, putting 4 shots on goal and winning 4 of 7 faceoffs in nearly 17.5 minutes.

"It was nice to get back out there with the guys," Strome said. "I'm feeling a lot better."

It's not clear when Strome suffered his second concussion in as many seasons, but he was experiencing headaches and playing through them for at least a couple of games.

"It was headaches at the beginning, then started to not feel like myself," Strome said. "There's so many different reasons for headaches, so it's not like a specific thing where you can say, 'Oh, it's a headache or concussion.' It's a weird injury for sure. ...

"Great training staff here. A lot of people (are) looking out for my best interests, so I really appreciate that and they had no problem when I told them what was going on."

Strome was used as a winger against the Lightning, with Mattias Janmark and Ryan Carpenter (center) as his linemates. In mid-January, Strome told us how happy he was to be back at center and that he feels more comfortable in that role.

This was his first game action after a long absence, however, so it's not surprising coach Jeremy Colliton would ease the 24-year-old back in. The Hawks also are trying to develop a roster full of players who can play all over the ice.

"We want to have a lot of players who are capable of playing center," Colliton said Friday. "That fits how we want to play the game - sharing the load defensively, faceoffs, whatever it may be.

"He was really good last night; very good performance. He skated well, made a lot of plays, work ethic away from the puck was excellent. And now we look for him to follow it up."

As for where Strome fits in the long term? That remains to be seen.

"Don't know," Colliton said. "He's still a young player. He hasn't played a lot of wing. We're giving him the opportunity there for now, but that could change."