Blackhawks Pick Up a Point, but Fall 4-3 in Shootout to Nashville

CHICAGO – It was a festive holiday atmosphere for the first Blackhawks home game in a week. Fitting because Nick Foligno was delivering the goods like he was St. Nick himself.

Foligno had two goals and an assist for the Blackhawks but it still resulted in a lump of coal during a 4-3 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators Tuesday night.

It’s the Blackhawks fourth loss in a row.

Foligno opened the scoring with his third of the season on a little play that saw him deke and then get just enough for the puck to hop up and over Juuse Saros to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.

Then it got absolutely crazy. Both teams traded goals in a flurry of scoring, seeing Nashville pot two in 26 seconds before Jason Dickinson answered with his eighth of the season 32 seconds later.

Foligno struck again just two minutes later and it would be a good seven minutes before the Predators would knot it up at three courtesy of Ryan O’Reilly’s 12th. When the period ended, the teams combined for five goals, four coming in a span of just over three minutes.

But a deadlocked third period pushed into overtime, which certainly saw chances for both teams and proved not enough, going into a shootout. While Connor Bedard potted his first shootout goal in as many attempts, Nashville scored all three of its chances, sending the Blackhawks to a fourth straight loss–albeit it coming with a point.

Blackhawks Earn a Point, But Still Not Enough

The Blackhawks were able to notch a point but it wasn’t good enough for the Blackhawks.

“I’m not trying to be down on us, it’s just that in order to move the needle to where we need it to, we’ve got to show sustained flashes, right?,” Foligno said.  “We’ve got to show that we can do that the whole game.”

They took an early lead and then surrendered it the blink of an eye. But instead of it snowballing, the Blackhawks were able to fight back and take the lead on Foligno’s second of the night.

Though they gave up the tying goal later in the second period and kept it even–albeit with chances later–to have a shot at winning it.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough in the end.

The Blackhawks (7-16-1) play again Thursday against the Anaheim Ducks.