LAS VEGAS — Yet again Tuesday, the Blackhawks pushed one of the Western Conference’s most talented teams to the brink but failed to convert the effort into a victory.
A highly entertaining 4-3 shootout loss to the Golden Knights marked the Hawks’ sixth defeat in their last seven games, but coach Jeff Blashill was generally pleased with the performance.
“You’re disappointed you didn’t get two points,” Blashill said. “With that said, I thought we did a lot of good stuff on the road against a team that’s probably considered one of the Stanley Cup favorites. … In the end, we’ll have out-chanced them and certainly were in position to win the hockey game.”
The Hawks are now 1-6 in games that have gone to overtime this season — a stat of which Blashill is fully aware. He pointed out that if the Hawks switched post-regulation records with, for example, the Ducks — who are 6-1 in those situations — their overall record would be much prettier. As it stands now, they’re 11-9-6.
The Hawks actually controlled the vast majority of overtime Tuesday but just couldn’t get the puck past embattled Golden Knights goalie Carter Hart, making his first NHL start in nearly two years. They ultimately lost in the fourth round of the shootout.
It’s worth noting the age disparity between the trios of players each team sent out in overtime was stark, as it usually is for this Hawks team. Starting the session was 20-year-old Connor Bedard, 22-year-old Ryan Greene and 24-year-old Alex Vlasic against 29-year-old Jack Eichel, 33-year-old Mark Stone and 30-year-old Shea Theodore. That trend continued as Artyom Levshunov, Frank Nazar and Oliver Moore got some run.
“We’ve got some young, young guys out there in critical moments,” Blashill said. “That’s good. That’s what this is about: continuing to grow.”
That doesn’t make losing any easier to swallow for the kids right now, but it should prepare them to win in the future.
“[We] try to work for each other, and [when] it doesn’t end up working out, it sucks,” Nazar said. “There’s spurts in the game where we looked really good and we were outplaying them. [It’s about] just continuing to get rid of those small little mishaps.”
One costly mishap occurred with 2:30 left in regulation when Moore went for an untimely line change, Tyler Bertuzzi backchecked slowly and Vlasic and Louis Crevier lost positioning on the Knights’ game-tying goal.
That prevented another highlight-reel goal by Bedard — in which he went one-on-one against Theodore on a rush, created space for himself and unleashed a perfect shot past Hart — from holding up as the game-winner.
We’re watching a truly special season unfold for Connor Bedard, night after night after nightpic.twitter.com/RLgTL2BD6I
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 3, 2025
Aside from the one mistake, though, Moore played arguably his best as a Hawk. He answered an early Knights goal with a snipe of his own and consistently made things happen with his speed and work ethic all over the ice.
“I felt confident from the jump,” Moore said. “Frankie and Bert were making really great plays to me with speed, and we were feeding off each other well.”