Matthew Highmore would have had to try to be a good roommate in the early hours of Thursday if these were ordinary times.
Highmore shared a room with a Blackhawks teammate on the road throughout the regular season, but considering the ongoing pandemic and the protocols for life inside the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs bubble, Highmore has his own room.
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That came in handy after Game 3 of the qualifying-round series against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night. When Highmore got back to his room in the early hours of Thursday, he was in no way sleepy. He was wired.
“I think everybody was pretty fired up after that game,” Highmore said after laughing on Thursday afternoon. “We hung tough, got the job done. But probably one of the harder nights to fall asleep after a game, for sure.”
Highmore spent those extra hours awake replaying the game and his individual performance in his head and on a screen. He said he had watched the game three to four times before noon Thursday.
Thursday was mainly about resetting for Highmore and the Blackhawks as they prepare for the difficult task of attempting to close out the series on Friday, but Highmore was willing to go down memory lane about his previous night one more time.
No Blackhawks player certainly felt the highs and the lows Highmore experienced in Game 3. The lows were winning out for most of the evening, too.
On the Oilers’ first goal, Blackhawks center David Kampf won a defensive faceoff, and Highmore was first to the puck. As planned, he knocked it softly behind him and looked to create a loose puck for a teammate. The sequence didn’t play out as the Blackhawks hoped, and the puck bounced away from defensemen Olli Maatta and then Slater Koekkoek, and it ended up quickly on Leon Draisaitl’s stick and in the net.
“We’re trying to bump it behind the net,” Highmore said. “It’s just kind of sitting there and somebody has to make a play on it. Unfortunately, it kind of hopped around and there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it. We just have to be cleaner, myself included.”
The goal erased the Blackhawks’ 1-0 lead in the first period. A period later, another mishap by Highmore and the fourth line allowed the Oilers to even the score at 2-2 after another Blackhawks lead.
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The Oilers’ second goal was much harder for Highmore to swallow. The Blackhawks were working the puck around in their defensive zone to organize a breakout, and Highmore received a pass with no one in his vicinity. Highmore got the puck, then was going to pass it across the ice to Maatta and make his way into the neutral zone. But the pass never occurred. Highmore drifted to his left and swung his stick to connect with the puck, but the puck wasn’t where he expected it to be. He missed, and the Oilers jumped on his mistake. Within a few seconds, the Oilers had scored again
“I just whiffed on it,” Highmore said. “I thought I had full control of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t and just kind of went downhill from there.”
Highmore’s game could have remained downhill. Two things happened to prevent that. One, Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton kept playing him and his line. Two, Highmore didn’t get lost in what already happened and fought to remain optimistic.
Those events weren’t a given. Plenty of coaches have sat players and lines for less, especially in big games. On the second point, Highmore isn’t a kid at 24, but he is still a rookie and it was still his first taste of the playoffs. The turnover could have easily crushed his confidence.
“I think it’s something everybody works on throughout their career,” Highmore said. “Highs and lows throughout a game, you have to kind of stay even-keeled. For me, it’s something I’m getting better at. I’m generally tougher on myself, but really credit my linemates last night for keeping not only our line in it but myself and making sure we knew the job wasn’t done, and there was plenty of time to get it back.”
Time was running out in the third period, though. The Blackhawks were trailing 3-2 when Highmore and his linemates jumped over the boards for a neutral-zone faceoff with 6:16 remaining in the third period. The Oilers won the faceoff, and Highmore broke up a pass in the neutral zone and gave the Blackhawks possession.
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The Blackhawks dumped the puck into the offensive zone and began pressuring on the forecheck. Kampf and Highmore forced the puck along the boards, and the Oilers had their own miscue with the puck. Carpenter was the first to the loose puck, passed it to Maatta on the left side of the blue line and he passed it to Koekkoek on the other side of the line.
Koekkoek was waiting for it with his stick pulled back and fired a low one-timer at the net. Highmore had skated from the boards to near the net while that was happening. Facing away from the net, he reached out his stick, made contact with the puck and directed it over Oilers goalie Mikko Koskinen’s right shoulder.
“I think you have to kind of anticipate it a little bit,” Highmore said of the redirection. “Just kind of knowing whether it’s from practice or just watching tape, knowing how someone shoots the puck or where their tendencies are just so you can kind of get a bit of a jump on it to get your stick on it.”
All that worked out perfectly for Highmore. After tipping the puck, he turned around, saw the result, threw his arms into the air and pumped his fist while dropping to a knee in celebration.
His night had dramatically changed.
“Last night, it was a lot of relief,” Highmore said. “We were pushing to get that back. We had plenty of guys who had lots of chances. It was just a lot of relief, joy, excitement and a 3-3 game in Game 3 of the playoffs. It was a big moment for us.”
Asked if it was the biggest goal he had ever scored, Highmore had to think about it. He hadn’t really considered it.
“To date, probably, yeah,” Highmore said. “With the magnitude of the situation, kind of the time left on the clock, yeah, it was probably the biggest goal.”
Highmore defended on a few shifts and helped preserve the tie and then the lead when Jonathan Toews scored. For a player who is as team-oriented as anyone on the Blackhawks, Highmore was only going to enjoy his accomplishment if they won. It did, and that adrenaline fed into his late night.
When Highmore returned to the hotel, it was too late to talk to anyone, but he had plenty of congratulatory text messages to read. And finally around 3:15 a.m. MT, he drifted off into sleep.
(Photo: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)
