The Chicago Blackhawks had to face a demon again Sunday night — the second half of a back-to-back. The matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights had a different feel because the Hawks had a chance to do something 56 days in the making.
With wins over the Dallas Stars (New Year’s Day) and Washington Capitals (Saturday), the Hawks were shooting for their first three-game winning streak since Nov. 5-9. Coach Jeff Blashill brushed aside the idea of playing harder for that streak, but the team came out better than in previous second games of back-to-backs.
Golden Knights left wing Brandon Saad opened the scoring at 10:40 in the first period, but Tyler Bertuzzi answered about two minutes later with his 20th goal of the season. The Hawks weren’t being run off the ice this time.
Right wing Mark Stone gave Vegas another one-goal lead in the second period to put the visitors in a winning position. Bertuzzi refused to let the Hawks fall again.
With goals at 11:36 in the third period and 1:18 into overtime, Bertuzzi recorded his fifth career hat trick to lift the Hawks (17-18-7) to a 3-2 win over the Golden Knights (17-11-12). Each victory in the three-game streak has come in extra periods.
“I thought as the game went along, our legs, we got better and better and better (and) our third (period) was our best,” Blashill said. “We pushed hard and I thought we deserved two points.”
Bertuzzi now leads the team with 22 goals.
“I’ve been feeling good,” he said. “I’ve been sticking with the program, staying even keel, going out and working hard every day.”
Added Blashill: “He’s always been a guy who draws you into the fight because of the passion with which he plays. You can see that passion. There’s not a fake bone in Tyler’s body, so you see that passion on display (and) our guys feed off that.”
The left wing found himself in front of the net when Ilya Mikheyev passed him the puck in overtime. He tapped it into the left side past Golden Knights goaltender Akira Schmid for the victory.
“I’ve got to go watch it, I blacked out,” Bertuzzi said. “On the two-on-one, (Mikheyev) looked for me at the post and I knew he was going to look for me.”
The United Center cheers were nearly spoiled when Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy challenged the game-winner for an offside penalty. The challenge was unsuccessful upon review, but Bertuzzi felt himself anxiously waiting for the call.
“(I was) a little worried, the percentage is pretty good that it’s usually offside,” Bertuzzi said. “I’m guessing they did it just because that was the last hope.”
Goaltender Arvid Söderblom (13 saves) had a chip on his shoulder after a few rough outings. He has won two of his last three games — he replaced Spencer Knight against the Pittsburgh Penguins — while totaling 53 saves.
He has been exceptional as of late with solo breakaway saves, denying the likes of Sidney Crosby, Mikko Rantanen and Stone. His hard work focusing on this area is paying off.
“Those saves can be the deciding factor in the game,” Söderblom said. “To be able to come up in that situation, it felt really good and it’s something I want to continue doing.”
The Hawks began the season as one of the more penalized teams in the NHL. They’re still in the top five in penalty minutes per game (10.3), but they’ve kept it clean in their last three games.
From Dec. 27-30 — a shootout road win over the Stars and home losses to the Penguins and New York Islanders — the Hawks had 11 penalties and a minus-5 goal differential. In the last three games, they had only three total penalties, a plus-3 goal differential and three wins.
It’s disciplined hockey, which helps as Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar trend toward returning from injuries. Blashill said that has been a focus to decrease the need to be on the penalty kill.
“We have talked about that for a long time and haven’t always done a good job of it, so I can’t take credit for the fact that we’ve done that,” Blashill said. “Sometimes games take a life of their own.
“It’s something we’ve talked about from day one. The early part of the year we took too many penalties and we want to stay away from those penalties that are avoidable. We’re confident in our penalty kill, but you don’t want to put yourself on the penalty kill a bunch.”
The Hawks are now 3-0 in 2026, with a jam-packed January ahead before the NHL’s break for the Winter Olympics in February.
“It’s always tough coming off a back-to-back like that, and we haven’t been great at it this year,” Söderblom said. “We’ve talked before that we were going to compete and give all we had (and) I think we did.”
