Jason Dickinson suffers a serious injury in Blackhawks’ overtime defeat to Oilers.<\/p>\n
Dickinson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look good,\u201d interim coach Anders Sorensen commented on Dickinson, adding that a more detailed update will come Thursday.<\/p>\n
Sorensen started the game by matching Dickinson\u2019s checking line against Leon Draisaitl\u2019s line and Connor Bedard\u2019s line against Connor McDavid\u2019s. However, the injury forced changes to those pairings.<\/p>\n
Despite this setback, as the clock neared and passed 11 p.m. CT\u2014the game had started at 8:53 p.m. due to TNT scheduling\u2014the 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 game-winning goal on the ensuing power play. The Hawks have now lost four of their last nine games in overtime or shootouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can look at the bright side, say, \u2018Yeah, we battled back,\u2019\u201d Donato said. \u201cBut if we did that without letting them have their chances and played… desperate [all night], maybe [things] could have gone a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evaluating Dickinson\u2019s season Before Wednesday, Dickinson was unaware that an injury was on the horizon. Instead, his main concern was his inability to replicate last season\u2019s offensive production.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing a pretty good job of my matchups,\u201d Dickinson said recently. “[I\u2019m] not necessarily winning them, but that\u2019s because I\u2019m not scoring. It\u2019s 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\u2019re like, \u2018[Expletive], I thought I played a really good game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Dickinson, Teravainen, and Ilya Mikhyev have formed the Hawks\u2019 checking line for most of the season, and with good reason. Statistically, they\u2019ve been the team\u2019s best defensive forwards. They entered the game with the team\u2019s three lowest expected-goals-against rates and three of the four lowest scoring-chances-allowed rates, along with Nick Foligno.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Dickinson\u2019s ability to neutralize such stars is impressive, making his absence particularly costly.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a long stretch in January and the end of December where we were losing quite substantially,\u201d Dickinson said Wednesday. \u201cThe natural instinct for me is to retreat to my defensive habits and try to protect the ice as best I can when I\u2019m out there, so I let my offense slide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still little areas [where] I\u2019m not satisfied with my decision-making. I feel like I\u2019m making a lot of the safe plays, or I\u2019m not trying to beat anybody one-on-one. I\u2019m maybe a little scared to turn pucks over and end up with the puck in the back of the net. I don\u2019t love that for my game right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dickinson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Instead, these stats do: He\u2019s attempting 10.8 shots per 60 minutes, down slightly from 11.6.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jason Dickinson suffers a serious injury in Blackhawks’ overtime defeat to Oilers. Dickinson\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl"],"yoast_head":"\n