The Blackhawks did plenty Sunday to make this one feel winnable. They skated with the Panthers, created chances, and spent long stretches in control of the play. None of it changed the result.
Chicago fell 3-2 to Florida at the United Center, dropping its third straight and slipping to 3-8-0 on the season. The loss also pushed the Blackhawks to 2-4-0 on their current seven-game homestand, with one game left Tuesday against the Los Angeles Kings.
The numbers told a frustrating story for Chicago. In all situations, the Blackhawks matched Florida 32-32 in scoring chances and held the edge in both high-danger chances and expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. But the finish never came.
Ryan Donato was in the middle of that struggle all afternoon. He led Chicago with five individual scoring chances and four high-danger chances, yet finished with no points and just one shot on goal. The Blackhawks as a group kept coming up empty on the looks that mattered most.
That was especially true on the power play. Chicago had seven chances with the extra man and generated 12 scoring chances, but couldn’t convert any of them. During the three-game losing streak, the Blackhawks are now 0-for-16 on the power play.
Florida, meanwhile, made Chicago pay on special teams. The Panthers scored on their first power play opportunity, with Matthew Tkachuk needing just five seconds to finish the sequence. It was the third time in four games that the Blackhawks gave up a power-play goal.
Chicago did get goals from Ryan Greene and Roman Kantserov, but it wasn’t enough to survive a late Panthers push. Sandis Vilmanis, Tkachuk and Lars Eller scored for Florida, and Eller delivered the winner with 2:33 left in the third period after a Blackhawks line change went wrong.
Spencer Knight stopped 30 of 33 shots in the loss. Akira Schmid made 19 saves on 21 shots to get the win for Florida.
Greene gave Chicago the start it wanted, batting a puck out of mid-air at 2:34 for his first goal of the season. Andrew Mangiapane and Kevin Korchinski picked up the assists in their return to the lineup.
Florida answered at 6:49 when Vilmanis buried Sam Reinhart’s rebound for his first goal of the season. That came after a rough sequence for the Kaiser-Levshunov pairing on the Panthers’ counterattack.
The Panthers then grabbed the lead after Tyler Bertuzzi was whistled for tripping. Tkachuk scored five seconds into the power play, with Seth Jones’ point shot banking off him and past Knight at 14:21.
Chicago tied it back up in the second period when Kantserov scored at 11:15. Patrick Kane got the primary assist, giving him a team-leading seven points on the season.
The Blackhawks had chances to tilt the game in the third. Frank Nazar got a shorthanded breakaway look late, but Schmid stopped his five-hole attempt. Moments later, Schmid turned away Cole Smith on another breakaway, denying what would have been Smith’s first goal with Chicago.
Then came the cruelest sequence of the night. Donato broke in for a prime look to put the Blackhawks ahead 3-2, but his stick snapped on the shot attempt from in tight. Florida went the other way and buried the winner almost immediately, as Eller ripped a wrist shot over Knight’s glove at 17:37.
For a Chicago team already searching for goals, this one offered more of the same: chances without finish, and a result that slipped away late.
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