Chicago’s dominance of the blues cements hasn’t been seen since 2019

The Chicago Blackhawks beat St. Louis Blues Wednesday night at the Enterprise Center, blasting their divisional foes 8-3 and securing their own the biggest bump in the road since 2019 (h/t Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times). The win moved Chicago to 2-2-1 and extended their winning streak to two games, while St. Louis, who was on a two-game winning streak himself, fell to 2-2-0.

The scoring started only 3:02 into the first period when Ilya Mikheyev took advantage of a defensive error by Blues goalkeeper Joel Hofer, intercepted a pass and shot into an open net. St. Louis answered quickly, Jake Neighbors tied the game at 4:29 on a rebound, his fourth goal in three games. Lucas Reichel restored the Blackhawks’ lead at the 5:23 mark with a slant shot over Hofer, and Dylan Holloway tied the game again at the 14:54 mark, sending the teams into the first intermission tied at 2-2.

Chicago took control in the second period, scoring three times in 6:03. Reichel scored his second goal at 2:49, a breakaway shot by Aleks Vlasic. Frank Nazar added a goal at 4:32, using a clean rush past Neighbors to beat Hofer over his left shoulder. Joel Hofer was pulled at 7:09, replaced by Jordan Binnington, who allowed a goal to Jason Dickinson at 8:52 to extend the Blackhawks’ lead to 5-2.

Chicago’s dominance continued in the third quarter. Ryan Donato converted a loose puck at 1:17 to make it 6-2. Tyler Bertucci added a power-play goal at 5:03 off a Teuvo Teravainen one-timer and Tyler Tucker scored at 11:28 for St. Louis’ only answer before Ryan Green, in his seventh NHL game, notched his first career goal at 12:21 to make it 8-3.

Reichel finished the night with two goals and an assist, while Mikheev, Bertucci, Nazar, Donato, Dickinson and Green contributed goals. Connor Bedard led the team with three assiststying Bobby Hull for the most points by a Blackhawks under-21 player. Ilya Mikheev, Tyler Bertuzzi and Tyler Bertuzzi also tallied points. Arvid Soderblom made 23 saves for the Blackhawks, while Hofer and Binnington combined to stop 15 of 22 shots for the Blues.

It’s the eighth time Chicago has scored at least eight goals against St. Louis, the last time coming on Oct. 26, 1993 when they won 9-2. It is also their highest goal total in a single game since an 8-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on March 8, 2022.