The Rinkside General

For the love of hockey. Prospect talk, NHL Commentary, and #Blackhawks content creator.

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[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

#Blackhawks

https://t.co/JO6Qw1ZHXh

[Anthony Donati @TheProspectDon]

Ryan Roobroeck with a HATTY!

Up to 12G 6A 18P in 11GP

Full SZN projection: 72G 36A 108P in 66GP

All 3 goals of Ryan’s Hatty from the @OHLHockey

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

https://t.co/PsRkhHNcTe

[Tyler Aven @tyleraven10]

The Blackhawks have been using a 5 forward power play in the 4 games since Byram left the lineup, they’ve gone 1 for 20 in that time.
They had a 6 day break after the second game, came back, and did the same thing. In the 2 games after the break, PP is 0/12.

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

The #Blackhawks need to fire Mike Velucci.

He has proven time and time again that he has no idea how to maximize the talent on this unit.

Even missing Bowen Byram, this team has way too much offensive talent for the power play to be struggling this hard.

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

Watch the full video of the #Blackhawks struggles here:

https://t.co/uNSEUsM2rk

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

@SoftServeHockey yeah i'm going back on my break lol just popped in during the game (bad habit)

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

Presented without comment.

#Blackhawks

[HockeyStatCards @hockeystatcards]

NHL Game Score Impact Card for Chicago Blackhawks on 2026-10-25:

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

@BenjaminSolak damn Trautman that's some brilliant awareness to draw the defender away

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

3-2.

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

HOW MANY OPEN CHANCES CAN ONE HUMAN MISS IN A GAME

OH MY GOD DONATO

#BLACKHAWKS

[Mario Tirabassi @Mario_Tirabassi]

Through 2 periods at 5v5 tonight per @NatStatTrick

Sam Rinzel, 8:55 TOI
CF%: 66.67 (14-7)
SF%: 50 (4-4)
xGF%: 50.09
GF: 2-0

Kevin Korchinski, 7:28 TOI
CF%: 58.82 (10-7)
SF%: 50 (4-4)
xGF%: 46.09
GF: 2-0

Top 2 Hawks players in xGF% at 5v5 through 2 periods

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

This power play is a joke.

#Blackhawks

[Mark Lazerus @MarkLazerus]

Kevin Korchinski a plus-2 today, and the Blackhawks have a 6-2 edge in scoring chances and 10-3 edge in shot attempts with him on the ice.

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

Korchinski has also given Sam Rinzel some life.

This is may be his best period of the entire season.

#Blackhawks

[Wally Mazurek @WallMaz35]

Kevin Korchinski looks phenomenal #Blackhawks

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

ROMAN KANTSEROV FROM PATRICK KANE THERE IS LIFE

#BLACKHAWKS

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

Kevin Korchinski gets into the lineup and immediately picks up a (secondary) assist.

1-0 Hawks

#Blackhawks

[The Rinkside General @RinksideGeneral]

@ZacDjellab @Antoni_Talks no way i heard "konate" compared to upamecano 😭

[Scott Powers @ByScottPowers]

Something Jeff Blashill said today got me curious. He said the Blackhawks had an 8-1 advantage in scoring chances before they allowed the goal late in the first period last night.

In public data, Natural Stat Trick had the scoring chances at 5-4, Blackhawks, at five-on-five and 8-6, Blackhawks, overall in that period.

Blashill said today of public stats, "I wouldn’t trust many of those other numbers. The numbers I trust the most by a country mile are the ones we do internally. So those are all our own numbers. Everybody’s got their own chance stuff. It’s not that I wouldn’t trust them, you can trust whatever you want. The ones that we do manually, basically, are by far throughout my coaching career are the ones we trust the most. You know when you should win games, when you should lose games. A big piece of it was our first period. We were out chancing them 8-1 and then they score the first goal. That kind of dictated the different change in chances."

I decided to go back and watch the first period and track myself. Of course, it's somewhat subjective, but I decided on counting anything that could have potentially gone in as a scoring chance. I tried to be as objective a s possible.

This is what I came up with. I counted six scoring chances at 5v5 for the Blackhawks before the Canadiens' goal. The goal was one and only 5v5 scoring chance for Montreal in the period. The Canadiens did have a scoring chance on the power play and another on the penalty kill. The Blackhawks had three scoring chances on the power play.

So for the period, Blackhawks were 6-1 in scoring chances at 5v5, 3-1 on the power plays power plays and 0-1 on PKs. At all strengths, that puts the Blackhawks at 9-3 all period.

I recorded each shot below.

At 5v5
CHI 1, 18:43: Kane shot from lower right circle, tough angle and lower percentage shot but a chance.
CHI 2, 18:18: Kantserov shot form high slot, catches goalie off guard
CHI 3, 17:50: Del Mastro with time and space from left circle
CHI 4, 17:27: Greenway high slot, goalie sees the whole way
CHI 5, 15:38: Bedard scores goal from left circle
CHI 6, 8:08: Greenway one-timer from right circle hits left post
MTL 1, 2:31: Evans scores goal with shot across slot

Power play
MTL 1, 13:55: Slafkovský near net, hard shot right in Knight
CHI 1, Bedard with shot off rush, just high (this
CHI 2, 7:25: Kantserov with a close shot off the rush
CHI 3, 7:07: Kantserov one-timer in high slot, hits Fowler high, creates rebound

Penalty kill
MTL 1, 6:37: Josh Anderson with 2v1 shorthanded chances, shoots into Knight

I do think one piece of the puzzle that is always missing when talking about scoring chances is the grade of scoring chances. There are probably only four shots in that period that you would have expected to go in. Those are listed below. The other scoring chances having so many variables from who is shooting, how the puck comes off the stick, whether it's off a pass, the goalie's movement and sight line, etc.

1. Greenway's one timer that hits the post. It was a no-doubter if he doesn't hit the post. It had every component from one-timer, pass origination from center lane, goalie movement you'd want from a chance.
2. Evan's goal across the slot. No defender is in his path and has space to shoot on Knight. He scores that more often than not.
3. The two-on-one shorthanded chance. Montreal probably scores if Anderson puts that shot almost anywhere else. It wasn't the cleanest shot or rush, but it was one of the best chances for either team all period.
4. Bedard's goal. It's a goal because it's off of Bedard's stick. It's probably still a scoring chance if anyone takes that shot, but few players actually score that goal.

Anyway, it was an interesting experiment for me. I do recommend people subscribe to @ShutdownLine's work because he tracks those stats plus so many more manually. I'm comfortable citing his data as a close equivalent to what the Blackhawks and other NHL teams are tracking.

[Jeff Marek @JeffMarek]

Mehta mentions that public models used to evaluate goalie performance are different than the 14 (!) different expected goals models his staff uses.

[CSS @ChicagoSufferer]

3 assists tonight for Xavier Villenueve including this nifty find

5A in 6 games, all on 3rd pair mins 👀

[UMass Hockey @UMassHockey]

Vaclav secures his second multi-goal game in the past three contests with this one - assists go to Jack Musa and Maxim Masse

Watch on @ESPNPlus - https://t.co/6O0HcZbTSf

#NewMass X #Flagship🚩