BOSTON — Whenever Blackhawks rookie defenseman Artyom Levshunov looks a little lost, coach Jeff Blashill puts it into context by imagining his 19-year-old son in a comparable position.
“[He] goes to college at Ole Miss. If we throw him into Moscow, how’s that going to go?” Blashill said this week. “I think you have to keep your standards high, but you have to have empathy for the background.”
That thought likely will pop up in Blashill’s head again when he watches the replay of Levshunov’s boneheaded mistake during a crucial moment in the third period of the Hawks’ 4-3 overtime loss Thursday against the Bruins.
Blashill insisted he didn’t see the play clearly live, but if he had, he wouldn’t have liked what he saw. After Levshunov was called for a high-sticking penalty, he raised his arms toward the referee in frustration, then stood in place while watching the TD Garden scoreboard in hopes of seeing a replay.
What he didn’t do was try to chase down the puck as it rimmed around behind the net. His delayed reaction allowed the Bruins to retain possession and led to an extended six-on-five sequence.
“Obviously, you can never stop playing, so we’ll look at that,” Blashill said.
The Hawks somehow survived that penalty kill and earned their first point of the season. They nearly won twice in overtime, too, with Bruins goalie Joonas Korpisalo robbing Frank Nazar in the slot and Connor Bedard on a breakaway.
Bruins forward Fraser Minten, however, buried a shot off a two-on-one rush to deny the Hawks an opportunity for their first victory. It was an intense and entertaining game, one that the Hawks should be able to build upon and learn from, but moral victories are getting old at this point.
“We definitely took steps forward in a lot of [areas like] winning plays, winning habits, stopping on pucks,” Blashill said. “The disappointing part is we want to find ways to win these close games. We’ve lost both of them.”
Levshunov’s performance wasn’t all bad. He made a great play to join a rush and feed a wide-open Andre Burakovsky to assist on the Hawks’ game-tying goal early in the third, for example. The Hawks actually had a 7-2 advantage in scoring chances during his five-on-five ice time.
GOAL: Andre Burakovsky scores on a shot from the slot for his first goal with the Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/XnN909xTCT
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) October 10, 2025
But there’s still too much drama and immaturity in his game.
This wasn’t even the first time he has let emotions distract him from continuing to play the game; the same thing happened after he ripped a shot high during a preseason game. His over-the-top angry reaction was almost comical at the time, but it becoming a pattern isn’t funny.
The Hawks’ coaching staff will try to incorporate that aforementioned empathy into their work with him, but there’s a lot of work to do.
Other young players were bright spots for the team against the Bruins. Bedard fired his first goal of the season in the first period, then notched his first assist on Louis Crevier’s second-period goal. Sam Rinzel looked much more like himself (while ice time was limited to a more manageable 19:03).
And Ryan Greene stepped up in the wake of an injury to Jason Dickinson, looking calm and reliable in a high-pressure defensive role.
As Dickinson brought up Thursday morning, though, it’ll take many more than two games to thoroughly assess the 2025-26 Hawks. The NHL’s 82-game schedule is a marathon that will test youngsters in ways they haven’t been tested before.
“You can do anything for one game here or one game there, but doing it on a continuous basis is where the real growth is,” Dickinson said. “Being able to show up at 6 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon against Montreal . . . that’s where the growth is going to be.”
