It may be a battle of the Western Conference’s two divisional cellar dwellers, but both the Chicago Blackhawks and host San Jose Sharks head into Thursday’s matchup on a winning note.
The Blackhawks hit the West Coast after snapping a four-game losing streak with a 5-2 road win over the Colorado Avalanche on Monday, while the Sharks kicked off a five-game homestand with a solid 4-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
In fact, the Sharks have won consecutive games – claiming a 5-4 comeback victory in overtime over the Utah Hockey Club Monday in Salt Lake City – after starting the season winless in their first nine games.
“A win’s a win. It doesn’t matter where it is. We want to win hockey games here,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “(I’m) proud of the guys (Tuesday) in the back-to-back effort, the way we performed, the way we showed up, and how we worked was how it should look. Proud of the group.”
To say it has been a rough stretch for the Sharks, who are in last place in the Pacific Division, would be an understatement. After finishing last in the league in the 2023-24 campaign, hopes were high they had reached rock bottom and could turn the corner. Instead, they struggled out of the blocks.
However, spirits are higher thanks to a pair of victories, and probably nobody is feeling better than Jake Walman. The defenseman scored once in a three-point performance against the Kings after collecting three assists in Utah the previous night.
“I think we can all contribute. We’ve all kind of individually done it in the past,” Walman said. “Any time we can help the forwards out, the biggest thing is just getting it up to them. We have so many skilled forwards.”
Chicago, which beat the Sharks 4-2 in the first meeting of the season on Oct. 17, is playing the third game of a five-game road trip that will conclude with a pair of clashes against the two Southern California clubs.
Beating the Avalanche to finally snap their skid was a huge boost for the Blackhawks, who had been on the wrong side of a few close games during their swoon.
“I think we deserved what we got (Monday), and there’s been nights that we probably didn’t deserve the final fate,” coach Luke Richardson said. “We could have easily had a few more wins, and I think this team and the whole organization is tired of the moral victories. So, (this win) was a really big step for us to take a real victory and put it in the back of our minds how we did it.”
Chicago was the better team through the first period against Colorado and took advantage. Ryan Donato scored his first of two goals in the game late in the opening frame to stake a 3-1 lead.
And if his offensive contributions were not enough, Donato – along with linemates Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev – kept Colorado star Nathan MacKinnon (one power-play goal) reasonably in check.
“There’s so many times the last couple games where we feel like we played pretty well, and five minutes we take off they’re back in the game. We just find a way to not finish it off,” Donato said.
“I think we all came in the locker room after the second (period) and said it wasn’t good enough, we’ve got to step back up. There’s not much to say other than just getting the job done, and that’s kind of what happened.”
Chicago enters Thursday’s game tied with Nashville at the bottom of the Central Division.
