Blackhawks ride first-period offensive breakthrough to win over Avalanche

DENVER — In the first period of their 5-2 win Monday against the Avalanche, the Blackhawks finally produced everything they’ve sought over the past week.

They scored a power-play goal, snapping their drought in that category when Alex Vlasic set up Philipp Kurashev. They scored on a lucky bounce when Craig Smith’s shot deflected in off Lukas Reichel’s arm. And they scored an ugly, scrappy goal around the crease when Ryan Donato banged in a rebound after Jason Dickinson threw the puck on net.

After so many narrow losses, the Hawks believed an extra one or two of those types of goals per game would make a huge difference. And although they generated very little offense the rest of the game, they were proven correct.

“When you’re not scoring, the easy ones aren’t going to come,” Connor Murphy said. “Once you start getting around [the net] and guys getting rebounds and … having pucks go off your body, that’s usually how you break a bit of a slump from scoring. And then the offense seems to flow after that.”

The opening frame was one of the Hawks’ best periods of the season; they entered the first intermission with an 11-3 advantage in scoring chances, including 10-1 in high-danger chances.

The only goals scored after that point were empty-net tallies in the final minute by Donato, who tied a career high with three points, and Ilya Mikheyev. Goalie Petr Mrazek’s aggressive approach to challenging every Avalanche shot worked very well, halting a late push by the hosts; he finished with 24 saves.

“[Against] teams like this that have great shooters and really shoot hard, you can’t give them too much of the net, so you’ve got to challenge it a little bit,” coach Luke Richardson said. “Our ‘D’ did a good job of clearing rebounds. There weren’t a lot of second chances.”

The Hawks ended a four-game losing streak this month as well as a six-game losing streak in Colorado, where they had previously been outscored by a horrific 25-4 margin since 2019.

“There’s been nights that we probably didn’t deserve the final fate, so I’m glad the guys got what they deserved tonight,” Richardson said. “This team and the whole organization is tired of the moral victories, so tonight was a big step for us to take a real victory and put it in the back of our minds how we did it.”

The Hawks will continue their road trip Thursday against the Sharks, who dramatically rallied late to earn their first win Monday against Utah.