Mark Scheifele’s huge game exposes Blackhawks’ lack of shutdown forward

The Blackhawks have had no answers for Jets star Mark Scheifele for years, and they had none again Saturday.

A heroic effort by Scheifele rallied the Jets from a four-goal deficit to a 5-4 shootout victory, extending their voodoo-filled winning streak to six games and dealing the Hawks their 10th loss in their last 12.

Scheifele scored the Jets’ first goal, then took advantage of Hawks goalie Spencer Knight’s stick getting stuck in the boards — a very unlucky break — to set up Kyle Connor to cut the deficit to 4-2 by the second intermission.

Early in the third, Scheifele deftly tossed the puck into the crease to enable a power-play goal by Cole Perfetti. Late in the third, he showed great vision and sense of timing to hit Gabriel Vilardi in the crease for the tying goal. And in the shootout, he sniped the corner over Knight to convert his attempt.

It was an MVP-caliber, four-point performance. From a Hawks perspective, however, it wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen before.

Scheifele now has 46 points in 51 career games against the Hawks, including a whopping 14 in their last six meetings. Many of those have come in clutch fashion, too.

In October 2024, he scored with 64 seconds left in regulation and again 38 seconds into overtime to flip a 1-0 Hawks lead into a 2-1 Jets victory.

In March 2026, he assisted on a goal with 39 seconds left in regulation and scored two minutes into overtime to flip a 2-1 Hawks lead into a 3-2 Jets victory.

Despite seeing it over and over, the Hawks can’t seem to stop it. Anecdotes such as those reiterate just how desperately they lack a true shutdown forward capable of stifling opposing stars on a nightly basis.

Granted, they also lack a reliable six-man defensive corps — although Alex Vlasic and Ian Cole were excellent Saturday — and a second offensive star to complement Connor Bedard, among many other things. Their holes are plentiful.

Obviously, a Selke Trophy-caliber center would transform the Hawks’ lineup, but those types of players are rare. The Hawks are trying to develop their own in Anton Frondell, whom they believe might become their next Jonathan Toews. That’s why they’re stubbornly keeping him at center instead of moving him to Bedard’s wing.

But even somebody such as former Hawks forward Jason Dickinson would make a big difference. Although Dickinson’s game was one-dimensional and he contributed little offense, he could — and, with the Oilers, still can — shut down opponents at an elite level.

Dickinson was also a critical component of the Hawks’ penalty kill and six-on-five defense, which is notable, considering the events of Saturday.

He wasn’t great on faceoffs, but he was respectable. The Hawks, who won only 19 of 60 draws Saturday and rank last in the NHL in faceoff winning percentage by a wide margin, could use that, too.

I wrote two games into this season how the Hawks seemed to be missing the stability Dickinson, Ilya Mikheyev and Connor Murphy provided, and I’ve had that same thought countless times since then.

Those veterans kept the team afloat in the defensive zone perhaps more than anyone appreciated at the time. They also made it a no-brainer decision for Hawks coaches about which line and defensive pairing would handle the toughest matchups in every game.

Without their services this season, coach Jeff Blashill has shifted around those responsibilities on a game-to-game basis, and he hasn’t found a consistent formula.

It was strange that Frondell, who did a good job in a heavy matchup role against Scheifele on Oct. 15, barely saw Scheifele on Saturday. Instead, Bedard’s line received the most ice time against Scheifele, and an injury to Tyler Bertuzzi in the third period further tilted the Hawks’ disadvantage in that matchup.