Blackhawks Postgame Chatter: ‘It Pisses Me Off a Little Bit’

CHICAGO – Ask Chicago Blackhawks forward Colin Blackwell what he thinks, and he doesn’t sugarcoat it. After a two-goal performance in a shocking 4-3 win over the Calgary Flames, the lineup consisting of everyone from AHL vets to waiver wire pickups banded together to pull off an impressive win.

Front and center was Blackwell, who talks with the same ferocity he plays the game with. That same fire helped pace the Blackhawks to what many will chalk up as an unexpected victory.

“I play with a chip on my shoulder and I recognize that I’m trying to fight for a spot on this team and also trying to make up for some lost time,” Blackwell said.  “I don’t take the game for granted, I never really did, but when you miss a lot of time, you’ve got a little extra pep in your step. A lot of people don’t necessarily think very highly of me, and I keep the receipts and it pisses me off a little bit.

I’m always trying to play, it’s not always going to be scoring goals, but you can influence the game in many different ways, and I was just trying to do that every time I step on the ice.”

That he did. Head coach Luke Richardson noted that Blackwell crunches numbers as well as opponents, too.

“Yeah, I think for Blackie himself, he’s not a big guy but he’s really strong and he’s all fire and he knows the game very well,” Richardson said.  “He makes the right plays a lot of the time. He’s saying all the right things on the bench. He’s giving us information on the bench. ‘You can’t take the faceoff on this side because this guy’s 75 percent on the faceoffs.’ He knows stats. And it’s great. It means he’s up on the game, he’s ready to play.”

Blackwell’s Effort an Example of What the Blackhawks Want to Be

Nick Foligno has said it a lot, talking about how they want to play “Chicago Blackhawks” hockey, no matter the odds not exactly being in their favor. For a team absolutely hammered by injury, where the majority of players on opening night are injured, the Blackhawks came out and played with an inspired effort that had their fans out of their seats counting down the final seconds as if it were a series clinching playoff game.

Blackwell’s work likely factored into some of that effort, felt by fans and players alike.

“He’s always got energy and it’s big,” defenseman Connor Murphy said. “You can see that feeds momentum and it feeds a line and when a guy plays with energy and scores, you see the celebrations, you see the passion to want to win the game. It’s contagious to everyone.”

Blackwell’s energy certainly helped–along with the two goals he scored to help win a game that few thought they had a chance in. There’s no sugar coating that either.

But they found a way.

“I like the energy I can bring to the room and I think other guys were feeding off of it, too,” Blackwell said.  “When people play like that, you just drag people into the scrums that you get into and cause some havoc and just that emotion that I play with is something I try to bring every single night.”