Blackhawks doomed by Arvid Soderblom's soft goals allowed in latest loss

TAMPA, Fla. — Many of the Blackhawks' problems will require some big, difficult decisions by general manager Kyle Davidson to address.

One that wouldn't require shaking the earth, however, is changing the backup goalie.

Current backup Arvid Soderblom's struggles continued Thursday in a 4-1 loss to the Lightning, which extended the Hawks' losing streak to five consecutive games.

"There's probably a few [goals] there that he'd like to have back," coach Jeff Blashill conceded before saying the right things to take the heat off of Soderblom: "We're going to win or lose as a team. There's mistakes made throughout the game. [We've] got to stick together."

Davidson, who traveled with the Hawks for both games in Florida this week, surely has to be thinking long and hard about whether this team is capable of turning things around in its current form, even though their schedule does lighten considerably after this trip.

He also ought to be thinking long and hard about whether Soderblom can be a viable NHL goalie moving forward. Soderblom is now 0-3-1 with an .846 save percentage this season after going 8-13-3 with an .880 mark last season.

The Hawks have leaned heavily so far on starter Spencer Knight (13 starts in 17 games), but they have more back-to-back sets coming up that will need dividing.

The Lightning's first goal was a high-danger chance on a two-on-one rush, but Victor Hedman's not particularly well-aimed shot probably should've been stopped.

The Lightning's second and third goals, meanwhile, definitely should've been saved. They both beat Soderblom clean — one through the five-hole, one over the glove — from low-danger angles near the left circle.

The Hawks weren't the better team and didn't deserve a different outcome. They're generating painfully little offensively right now. Soderblom did make a few good saves, too, and has demonstrated an unflappable attitude.

The expected goals, however, were 2.79 to 2.14 (per Natural Stat Trick). That's a closer game than the 4-1 scoreline suggests, and goaltending is one reason for that disparity. That's a common theme in Soderblom starts throughout recent years, too.

Things aren't going any better for Rockford right now than they are for the Hawks, which means prospect goalie Drew Commesso has a lackluster .890 AHL save percentage beside his name. But a different look of any type seems worth a shot.

Tampa trend

The Hawks had bizarrely won each of the last three seasons in Tampa, with Ryan Donato's last-minute game-winning goal here last October marking arguably the high point of last season.

Donato admitted the Hawks' mood was "definitely different" after this result.

"But the effort’s there," Donato added. "The guys are working. We have a great group of guys...that love being with each other, want to compete and want to win. I think it’s a matter of time."

Ilya Mikheyev scored twice Thursday for the Lightning, doubling his season goal total in one night and twisting the dagger deeper into his former team.

Physical presence

The Hawks were credited with a season-high 31 hits. That was mostly thanks to their fourth line: Cole Smith, Ryan Greene and just-called-up Dillon Boucher. They combined for 16.

Smith said he's making a concerted effort to be more physical and believes "that's something, as a whole, we can increase."

Boucher also had a doozy of a fight against Lightning tough guy Jeff Viel. Blashill said Boucher has brought the exact elements to the lineup that he hoped to see.

Backing Blashill

Connor Bedard raved about Blashill's coaching when asked about it Wednesday.

Of course, it's rare for any player to criticize his coach, so Bedard's words could taken with a grain of salt. But they seemed genuine, and they echoed the sentiments other players have recently vocalized.

"We love 'Blash,'" Bedard said. "We love how he approaches us, how he coaches our team. I know, on a personal note, how much better of a hockey player he's made me in the last year and a bit here. He's given us the right message, the right formula, and we've got to go execute better for 60 minutes.

"We're not focused on outside [noise]. ... We're focused on internal, and we feel like our whole coaching staff is doing a really good job. We want to go get some wins for them."

Internal info

Blashill's propensity to share some of the Hawks' internal analytics in interviews — particularly as evidence to support his claims that the team didn't actually play poorly in some recent losses — has backfired on him, becoming a running joke among hockey analytics-oriented commentators on social media.

Blashill admitted Wednesday it's unfair for him to consistently reference stats that reporters and the public don't have access to. He also shed light on where the organization's internal analytics come from.

"First off, we're doing our chances manually," Blashill said. "We have a criteria that we follow, and it's not favored towards us or towards the other team. I can say that because there's games where we've been out-chanced bad.

"There's a criteria that [video coach] Matt Meacham has gone through going back to his days with Joel Quenneville, so he's done it for a long time. We've tweaked the criteria a little bit based on further knowledge. It’s hard for anything that's automated to be as accurate as manual chances. You just can't do that across the league."