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The Chicago Blackhawks took on the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday night. It was the first matchup between the last two number-one overall picks, Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini.
The first period went very poorly for Chicago. They were outshot 10-6, and that doesn’t even tell the full story. San Jose made it to the first intermission up 2-0 thanks to goals scored by Will Smith and Spencer Graf.
The second frame was much better for Chicago, but that wouldn’t be hard to achieve as the first period was as rough as it gets. Just ten seconds in, Frank Nazar brought the Blackhawks back within one thanks to his beautiful snipe.
About halfway through the period, the Sharks found some luck on the power play. Shakir Mukhamadullin set up Will Smith for a shot but he whiffed. The bad shot found Colin Graf who redirected it into the net for his first multi-goal game. The former Quinnipiac star put his team back up by two.
Chicago wasn’t done battling, though. Ilya Mikheyev stayed hot with his 15th of the season to keep it close. Ryan Donato made a beautiful play for Mikheyev to deposit. This 3-2 score was held through the second intermission.
Something bizarre happened at the midway point of the third period. After not getting a tripping call, Connor Bedard was handed a 10-minute game misconduct for abuse of officials.
It didn’t look like Bedard did anything too egregious but down one goal, the Hawks had their leading scorer in the box for almost the entire second half of the final frame.
Despite a good effort (even without Bedard) to tie the game, Tyler Toffoli’s empty netter sealed a 4-2 victory for San Jose. Of course, the mysterious 10-minute misconduct penalty would be the big story after the game.
“I don’t think it was too crazy, but he’s the ref, so he gets to make that call.” Bedard said after the game. “You don’t really expect that, but it happens.”
Is that Bedard being a respectful young player or did he deserve it? He didn’t refute saying something that could have earned him the penalty fairly.
Anders Sorensen also had an interesting response when asked about it. "I've heard worse." He said postgame.
One-line answers like that are common for Sorensen. This comment doesn’t call out an official and risk getting a fine but it also doesn’t sound like anything negative against his player.
Unfortunately, this impacted the hockey game the way it did. Any team down a goal wants nothing less than their best offensive player in the penalty box.
Nothing about the conversation between Connor Bedard and the officials seemed worthy of this drama in real-time or on video replay. Still, the decision was made and they had to live with it. The effort to tie it was there but they came up short.
Chicago’s next chance to play will come on Saturday night when they visit Bedard’s hometown team the Vancouver Canucks. Expect him to come out angry following what transpired in San Jose on Thursday.
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