The Blackhawks looked like they had finally found something in Boston on Saturday afternoon. They pushed the Bruins hard, built a two-goal lead late, and still walked out with a 5-4 overtime loss after letting the game slip away in the final minutes.
Chicago opened the scoring just over six minutes in when Anton Frondell cashed in on the power play. Frondell, who may have turned in his best NHL game, kept showing up all afternoon for the Blackhawks.
Boston answered seven minutes later on a David Pastrnak breakaway after Ian Cole lost track of the situation behind him and didn’t recognize that Pastrnak was the last man back. That tied the game at 1-1, but Chicago grabbed the lead again in the second period when Tyler Bertuzzi’s shot ended up in the Bruins net with help from Frondell.
The Bruins pulled even before the second intermission when Casey Mittelstadt finished a quick counter, and the period got chippy from there. A scrum between Mittelstadt and Alex Vlasic escalated into a near-line brawl, with Nikita Zadorov landing a sucker punch that would have merited supplemental discipline if the league gave a shit about stopping this kind of thing from happening.
Chicago had more in the third. Ryan Greene put the Hawks back in front midway through the period, and Connor Bedard followed with a highlight-reel goal to make it 4-2.
But the cushion vanished fast. Boston cut it to one just 46 seconds later, then Morgan Geekie tied it with 10 seconds left to force overtime.
Elias Lindholm finished it off there, giving the Bruins the extra point.
Even with the loss, Chicago controlled a lot of the night. The Blackhawks outshot Boston 41-32 and had the better 5-on-5 possession numbers across all three periods, not just in a short burst.
Their full-game 5-on-5 edge included 55-38 in shot attempts, 29-19 in shots on goal, 26-17 in scoring chances and 14-6 in high-danger chances, with an expected goal share of 64.32 percent, their best mark since Dec. 2, 2024.
That’s what made the ending sting so much. The Hawks had a chance to make the night mean something bigger, especially after playing so well for so long and carrying a two-goal lead with just under eight minutes left. Instead, they came away with another loss, and one that felt especially hard to swallow given how much went right for them before it all unraveled.
Anton Frondell finished with two goals, Elias Lindholm scored the overtime winner for Boston, and Connor Bedard had a goal and an assist.
The Blackhawks are back home briefly to host the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night at 7 p.m.
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Alex Vlasic Incident Should Have Blackhawks Fans Arguing About NHL Discipline
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For Chicago, the bigger conversation is what the ruling says about discipline around a play involving a defenseless player. The league stopped short of a suspension, leaving Blackhawks fans to weigh whether the punishment matched the moment and whether Vlasic should have been protected more firmly by the officials and the league office. [Read more 🡒]