The Chicago Blackhawks rallied from a two-goal deficit for the third straight game, and this time they had to overcome defensive lapses and rally twice to secure a 5-4 win against the Seattle Kraken on Sunday at the United Center.
Tyler Johnson scored his second game-tying goal of the game, and Jason Dickinson scored 13 seconds later during a furious third-period rally.
“Tonight we dodged a bullet,” coach Luke Richardson said. “The next time we might not.”
The Hawks improved to 3-2-0. The last time they were above .500 was late April of the 2020-21 season before a loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped them to 22-22-5.
With Sunday’s game tied 3-3 in the second period, the Kraken had a two-on-two rush when Vince Dunn beat Patrick Kane coming into the zone and crashed down the middle. Dunn had plenty of room in the slot to fire past Alex Stalock for the go-ahead goal.
In the Hawks’ previous two games, the San Jose Sharks and Detroit Red Wings also took 2-0 leads, but in each game the Hawks took over in the second period, allowing only one combined goal — to former Hawk Dominik Kubalik, now with the Red Wings.
On Sunday the Hawks went on a tear late in the first and early in the second.
During a penalty kill, Jujhar Khaira took a feed from Colin Blackwell to give the Hawks their fourth short-handed goal of the season. They entered Sunday already leading the NHL in that category.
“We’re buying into the system and everybody takes pride in that part of our game, the special teams for sure,” Khaira said. “Right now we’re fortunate enough to get those bounces, but we’ve been really good on the kill so far.”
The Hawks added two more goals in the next 31/2 minutes.
Johnson was in perfect position on the left flank for the rebound of a Seth Jones shot and tied the game 2-2 with 42 seconds left in the first.
“I’d like to say the first one I knew what I was doing, but that one was pretty lucky,” Johnson said. “When the shot was going on, I said, ‘Shoot, I should probably be in front of the net.’ So I kind of got lucky there.
“But the second one, that’s just how we play. I’ve played with Tazer (Jonathan Toews) long enough that I know when he has the puck down low, you’ve just got to get open somewhere and he’ll find you. So I was just trying to get there.”
Max Domi scored his third goal of the season 32 seconds into the second period on the Hawks’ second power play.
The Kraken’s Matty Beniers answered 19 seconds later, and Dunn added his goal midway through the second.
“F1 and F2 (forwards Domi and Kane) that are in on the forecheck can’t get beat up the ice by a defenseman,” Richardson said, adding he wanted Andreas Athanasiou, the third forward, to challenge Dunn coming up the slot.
“We always want to try to protect the middle first, but your instinct is that you see a guy open on a one-timer or an open net, and your instinct is to try and stop everything and you end up stopping nothing.”
Hawks coaches likely will break it down on video Monday, when they’re scheduled to practice at Fifth Third Arena.
“We’ve shown some clips on that,” Richardson said, “and we’ll definitely show that Dunn clip as an example where Domi’s line probably extended their shift too long trying to get everything back at once and win the game in the middle of the second period.
“You just have to win your shift. We’re not going to win the whole game at that one moment.”
Stalock had 29 saves after taking over as the main man in net when the Hawks placed Petr Mrázek on injured reserve.
