After struggling to just one victory in a season-opening four-game road trip, the Chicago Blackhawks will aim to regroup on home ice against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
Chicago went 1-2-1 in its journey to Utah, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. The Blackhawks showed competitiveness throughout the trip and had blanked Winnipeg until 1:04 remained in regulation before losing in overtime.
To Chicago captain Nick Foligno, those merely are facts, nothing around which the Blackhawks should hope to rally.
“We’re a better team (than last year). That’s just the reality,” Foligno said. “That’s why the expectation goes up, though. We talked about it: It’s no more moral victories.”
The Blackhawks showed resilience early in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss at Calgary. Foligno scored 10 seconds after the Flames’ Matt Coronato provided the hosts with the game’s first goal, redirecting a shot from Seth Jones.
Chicago collected seven of the first eight shots on goal in the second period but was stifled by Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf, whose 31 saves featured a stop of Joey Anderson on a short-handed breakaway.
“We played a pretty good game, the first half of the game, especially,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “We didn’t give them hardly anything much. And then we got into some penalty trouble and they scored on the power play.
“We were just a little disconnected after that, trying to chase it a little bit, not playing simple.”
San Jose pushed host Dallas on Tuesday but was unable to thwart the Stars’ perfect start to the season in a 3-2 shootout loss.
Tyler Toffoli and Ty Dellandrea scored for San Jose.
Goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood, who made 36 saves, called it “a step in the right direction” as Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky remains in search of his first career victory.
“We’re doing some good things,” Warsofsky said. “We still have to do a lot of things better and more consistently. We’ve done some good things, but we’ve got to continue to grow.”
Dellandrea feels the Sharks could improve on their late-game urgency, to start.
“We’ve got to get wins and find ways to close out games,” he said. “We had looks in the third. We had chances.
“We need to get on the gas in the third period a bit more instead of sitting back. I thought we did a better job of that tonight versus (Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Anaheim) but it’s still something we’ve got to improve on.”
San Jose was without No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini, who didn’t travel with the club to Dallas after being placed on injured reserve Saturday with a lower-body injury.
The earliest he can return is Friday, when the Sharks are set to visit Winnipeg.
Jones (four assists), Connor Bedard (four assists) and Teuvo Teravainen (three goals) all have five points through four games to lead Chicago.
The Blackhawks won all three meetings against the Sharks last season, earning one victory in overtime and another in a shootout.
–Field Level Media