HC Luke Richardson shifts spotlight from Taylor Hall's first hat trick in 4041 days to one crucial play during Hawks vs Stars

Taylor Hall scored his fifth career hat trick during Chicago Blackhawks' 6-2 win over the Dallas Stars on December 28th, 2024. His latest hat trick, before last night, was 4041 days ago on December 5, 2013 for the Edmonton Oilers. However, head coach Luke Richardson chose to highlight Hall's backcheck late in the third period rather tha his hat trick.

With the Stars pressing, the 33-year-old tracked back to help defend and stopped a potential scoring chance. Richardson praised Hall for playing a complete game, emphasizing that the defensive play was just as important as his goals.

"We’ll talk about his 3 goals, and those were huge in our win. But if you scroll in the middle part of the third period, when they were trying to press and push, he had a huge backcheck right to our crease and that pretty much nullified a play. That’s just as important as the others. That’s the professional he is. He played a complete game," Richardson said.

Taylor Hall amassed a total of three points during the Blackhawks' match against the Dallas Stars. He had a +3 plus-minus rating, 2 penalty minutes, and 3 shots on goal. Hall didn’t score on the power play and his average ice time was 14 minutes and 19 seconds.

Taylor Hall's performance helped Blackhawks dominate stars

Taylor Hall gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead just 17 seconds into the game with a wrist shot. He made it 2-0 at 5:43, jamming the puck past Casey DeSmith off a pass from Ryan Donato.

Talking about his hat-trick, Hall expressed his motivation behind it.

“Yeah, 11 years, yeah. It's been a long time.” Hall said per NHL.com, “You know, you don't come into games expecting to score hat tricks, but I've been working pretty hard. I've been pretty happy with how I've been playing and my effort. And being put on that line (with Bedard and Philipp Kurashev), I wanted to play well and show well, obviously.”

Connor Bedard scored a power-play goal at 0:41 of the second period, making it 3-0. Teuvo Teravainen made it 4-0 scoring from the slot. Colin Blackwell cut the lead to 4-1 backhanding the puck into the net. Hall completed his hat trick at 8:42 for 5-1. Louis Crevier scored his first NHL goal to make it 6-1.

Matt Duchene scored for Dallas at 13:43 in third period, but the Blackhawks won 6-2 .