The Blackhawks are already wrestling with a familiar kind of trouble in 2026-27: the kind that leaves no mark on the scoreboard at all.
Chicago has been blanked twice in its first nine games, first in a 6-0 loss to the Utah Mammoth in game two and then again in a 4-0 defeat to the Dallas Stars in game nine. That kind of start doesn’t happen often for this club, but when it does, the history behind it isn’t exactly comforting.
This is the second time in the last four seasons the Blackhawks have been shut out twice before reaching 10 games. The last time came during Connor Bedard’s rookie season in 2023-24, when Chicago was held scoreless in games five and seven. Go back one year further, to the season leading into the 2023 Draft Lottery, and the picture gets even more severe: the Blackhawks were blanked in three of their first 15 games, finished with the NHL’s third-worst record, and ranked last in goals for.
There is one number that keeps this year from looking totally bleak on its own. Chicago has scored 21 goals so far, which places it 21st in the league. But the shutouts are starting to form a pattern, and it’s one that sits well outside the Blackhawks’ usual experience in the salary cap era.
Since 2005-06, opponents have typically shut out Chicago much later in the season. The average timing of the team’s first shutout has been game 18, and the second has usually come around game 28.
Before Patrick Kane arrived for the 2007-08 season, the Blackhawks didn’t get blanked until games 39 and 53 in 2005-06. The next year was rough, though: Chicago was shut out in three straight games on nights nine, 10 and 11.
That 2006-07 team still managed to recover enough to finish with the NHL’s fifth-worst record while ending up second-to-last in goals scored. That’s one reason the current start doesn’t automatically write the ending. The Blackhawks have survived a miserable early scoring drought before.
There’s another early-season benchmark in the mix, too. In Kane’s first game on Oct. 4, 2007, the Minnesota Wild shut out Chicago, and that remains the only time in the past 20 seasons the Blackhawks were held scoreless in their season opener.
The closest the team came to something similar came in Kane’s final season with Chicago in 2022-23 before his blockbuster trade on Feb. 28, 2023.
That year, the Vegas Golden Knights shut them out in game two, and Chicago would later be blanked again in games 12 and 15.
The Blackhawks have also had stretches where shutouts barely showed up at all. In 2012-13, the season that ended with Chicago’s second Stanley Cup in four years, the club avoided a regular-season shutout entirely.
Even so, opponents managed to shut them out twice in the playoffs, and the Blackhawks still lifted the Cup. During the 2013-14 title defense, they went all the way to game 60 before being shut out, then were blanked again in game 72.
More recently, the shortened 2020-21 season brought just one shutout, and it didn’t arrive until game 39 against the Nashville Predators. In Bedard’s sophomore season in 2024-25, Chicago went 65 games before being shut out, then suffered another at game 78. Last season, the club’s first shutout didn’t come until game 22.
Still, the big-picture warning light is hard to ignore. This is the third season in the salary cap era in which the Blackhawks have been shut out twice before playing 10 games, and the first two times it happened, they missed the playoffs.
In Other News...
Blackhawks Fans May Finally Get A Beloved Jersey Back
Chicago hockey fans may be getting a familiar sight back on the calendar after years away from it. The Blackhawks green Shamrock look has long carried a special place in the teams history, even if it only ever appeared in warmups and never in actual games. When the NHL banned specialty warm-up uniforms in 2023, that effectively shut the door on the look, at least for a while.
Now there is fresh reason to think the jersey could return in a new form, with a teaser and leaked list pointing to an early November unveiling tied to the leagues Hometown Remix jerseys. The buzz has only added to the intrigue around a design that already feels woven into the citys St. Patricks Day identity, and Blackhawks fans will not have to wait long to find out whether the hint turns into a real release. [Read more 🡒]