The Blackhawks were bag-skated at practice despite their epic comeback win against the Sharks

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Joshua Deeds
March 25, 2024 (8:29 PM)

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The Chicago Blackhawks conquered the San Jose Sharks Saturday, as they surpassed a four-goal deficit to beat the team, 5-4 in overtime on Saturday.

It had been the team's biggest comeback victory since October 12, 2009, when they overcame a whopping 5-goal deficit to win in overtime 6-5.

Even though the team had beaten the Sharks, he still put them through a bag skate, which you might see at training camp, not this late in the season.

The conditioning drills are one of the most dreaded in the sport, and this was to emphasize how unhappy he was with the effort on the three-game road trip recently.

Again!

(Whistle) pic.twitter.com/q2Cf4YwbVd� Joe Brand (@Joe_Brand1) March 25, 2024

"Little bit to grab their attention," Richardson said. "I know we skipped out of the game luckily on top, and that's great on them that they were able to do that, but if we go back two games, we weren't happy with our performance in two games. That's just not professional enough for me. You have to do it every day.

"Sometimes that's the way the game is played: up and down the ice, or over and back. It sets home that it's really unacceptable for the standard that we want to have for work ethic. So we worked in practice today."

Richardson, who is known as a kind guy would give a heated speech to the bench after the team fell behind 2-0. Richardson was so unhappy that game that he didn't wait until intermission or a timeout to lay into the Hawks.

"You're right, I don't think you can do that too often; it just falls on deaf ears after a while," Richardson said. "I think what you need to do is make them realize that this is up to them to be ready. We need to be ready and give them a good gameplan they can succeed at, which we did.

"We're always up for discussion with them about certain parts of our systems and what we do and questions on gray areas and how to fix them. ... We take that into consideration but when we feel like we've done our job and prepared them and we're doing the exact opposite of what our pregame message was and our video of the other team was, and they're doing the exact same thing they're doing, that's unprofessional and it's unacceptable. I let them know that in the best way or fashion of urgency that I thought was needed at the time.

"Then I tried to back off and say not too much at all. Even that sometimes is hard. I want to talk through a shift so other people can see what's going on, on the ice and get the message, but I try to back off and let the assistants talk and do some stuff for the rest of the period. I didn't go in between periods. I thought, why would I double up on the message and sound contradictory or repetitive? One of the two. So I just stayed out of there and let the veterans take that message and figure it out."

The team would eventually understand and execute what Richardson had pressed upon them on the bench, but it took a bit. Richardson isn't one to typically blow up on the bench, but at that point in the game, he felt like it had to happen.

Richardson would stay out of the locker room during the first intermission but would reinforce what he had to say, by telling the team they didn't have to win the game in the first 5 minutes of the third period, they had a full 20 minutes to do so.

Which they eventually took to heart and won the game, soon after.

"I thought it was a full team effort," Richardson said, before letting out a smile and quipping: "A full team effort the first half of the game to get into that trouble, then a full team effort to get out of it. So, at least they all did it together."

As Seen On: nbcsportschicago.com