Jason Dickinson suffers a serious injury in Blackhawks’ overtime defeat to Oilers.
Dickinson’s left-leg injury appears severe, according to interim coach Anders Sorensen late Wednesday. Despite his absence, the Hawks rallied hard in the third period but ultimately lost 4-3 in overtime.
Jason Dickinson left the Blackhawks-Oilers game Wednesday due to an injury. The Blackhawks not only lost their top defensive forward but also another game at the United Center.
Dickinson suffered a left-leg injury during the Hawks’ 4-3 overtime defeat to the Oilers. His leg awkwardly bent under him after incidental contact with Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin in the second period, and he was seen wearing a walking boot after the game.
“It doesn’t look good,” interim coach Anders Sorensen commented on Dickinson, adding that a more detailed update will come Thursday.
Sorensen started the game by matching Dickinson’s checking line against Leon Draisaitl’s line and Connor Bedard’s line against Connor McDavid’s. However, the injury forced changes to those pairings.
Despite this setback, as the clock neared and passed 11 p.m. CT—the game had started at 8:53 p.m. due to TNT scheduling—the Hawks mounted one of their most determined rallies of the season, sparked by rookie Landon Slaggert. Ryan Donato cut the deficit to one with a power-play tip-in, and then found Alec Martinez to tie the game with 3:44 left.
Teuvo Teravainen, who had two primary assists, hit the post in the dying moments of regulation but took a costly too-many-men penalty in overtime. McDavid set up Zach Hyman for the Oilers’ game-winning goal on the ensuing power play. The Hawks have now lost four of their last nine games in overtime or shootouts.
“You can look at the bright side, say, ‘Yeah, we battled back,’” Donato said. “But if we did that without letting them have their chances and played… desperate [all night], maybe [things] could have gone a different way.”
Evaluating Dickinson’s season Before Wednesday, Dickinson was unaware that an injury was on the horizon. Instead, his main concern was his inability to replicate last season’s offensive production.
“I’ve been doing a pretty good job of my matchups,” Dickinson said recently. “[I’m] not necessarily winning them, but that’s because I’m not scoring. It’s frustrating, in that sense. You feel like you play a really good game against some top players, and you come out of it minus-one or something. You’re like, ‘[Expletive], I thought I played a really good game.’”
Dickinson, Teravainen, and Ilya Mikhyev have formed the Hawks’ checking line for most of the season, and with good reason. Statistically, they’ve been the team’s best defensive forwards. They entered the game with the team’s three lowest expected-goals-against rates and three of the four lowest scoring-chances-allowed rates, along with Nick Foligno.
Specifically for Dickinson, he has allowed slightly more expected goals per 60 minutes of five-on-five play than last season (2.47 vs. 2.35), when he earned 18 Selke Trophy votes.
However, he has allowed fewer scoring chances (23.9 vs. 26.1) and shot attempts (55.9 vs. 57.3) per 60 minutes than last season, and he has done this against some of the NHL’s best offensive players. Kirill Kaprizov, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Nazem Kadri are the four forwards he has faced most often.
Dickinson’s ability to neutralize such stars is impressive, making his absence particularly costly.
He has been focusing all his energy on shutting down these threats, leaving little for offensive contributions. This shift has been the key difference from his breakout performance last season, when he tied Connor Bedard for the team lead with 22 goals.
He has only seven goals this season, ranking eighth on the team, and will remain in an 18-game goal drought during his injury absence.
“There was a long stretch in January and the end of December where we were losing quite substantially,” Dickinson said Wednesday. “The natural instinct for me is to retreat to my defensive habits and try to protect the ice as best I can when I’m out there, so I let my offense slide.
“There’s still little areas [where] I’m not satisfied with my decision-making. I feel like I’m making a lot of the safe plays, or I’m not trying to beat anybody one-on-one. I’m maybe a little scared to turn pucks over and end up with the puck in the back of the net. I don’t love that for my game right now.”
Dickinson’s shooting percentage of 17.5% last season was always unlikely to repeat, but his current shooting percentage remains above average at 14%. That doesn’t explain his dip in production.
Instead, these stats do: He’s attempting 10.8 shots per 60 minutes, down slightly from 11.6.