Following a “feel good” win two nights previous, the Blackhawks faced off against the Carolina Hurricanes, on Wednesday. The Hurricanes came in with a nice point total of 69. With former Blackhawks players, Teuvo Teravainen, Scott Darling, Joakim Nordstrom, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Klas Dahlbeck playing, the Blackhawks were very familiar with this squad. Another former Blackhawk, Marcus Kruger, would have made it a grand reunion, but he was waved and reassigned to the Canes AHL team a month earlier.
Newly re-signed Jan Rutta was back in the lineup, taking Carl Dahlstrom‘s spot. Jean-Francois Berube made his second start in a row, after a very solid effort against the Avalanche, in Tuesday’s overtime win.
These were the Blackhawks starting lines:
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Kane
Alex DeBrincat – Nick Schmaltz – Vinnie Hinostroza
Tomas Jurco – Artem Anisimov – Anthony Duclair
Patrick Sharp – David Kampf – Matthew Highmore
Duncan Keith – Connor Murphy
Erik Gustafsson – Brent Seabrook
Jan Rutta – Jordan Oesterle
The Hurricanes controlled a majority of the play during the first six minutes of the game, but it was the Blackhawks who struck first, thanks to an egregious turnover by the former Blackhawks backup goaltender.
Darling played the puck from behind his own net, up the boards, right to his former teammate Brent Seabrook, who was waiting along the boards at the Canes blue line. Seabrook took a long shot, with traffic passing through the slot in front of Darling. Tomas Jurco got a piece of the long shot about two thirds of the way to the net and redirected it past the Carolina netminder for his third goal in six games.
Carolina was able to tie the game a few minutes later, in oddly similar fashion. Jaccob Slavin took a long shot from the Blackhawks blue line with traffic in front of Berube. The puck, which was originally going to go wide of the net, was redirected by an errant Blackhawks stick and ended up in the back of the Hawks net. Not much the Blackhawks goaltender could do about that.
Even though the Blackhawks only had half a dozen shots on net at the time, they took a 2-1 lead with five minutes left in the opening period. Anthony Duclair and David Kampf peppered Darling with a couple of shots, in tight, to his left. The Lemont native was not able to control the rebound, and it squirted out to Patrick Sharp across the crease. Sharp was able to poke the puck under a Canes defenseman and into the net.
This was how the first period ended, with the Hurricanes holding a narrow 11-9 shot advantage. Both goalies had tense moments in their own end during the first period, and it could have easily been a five goal period the way the puck was bouncing.
Just a minute into the second period the Hurricanes tied the game up, following a brutal defensive lapse, and the Blackhawks never again led in the game.
During the tail end of a carryover power play from late in the first period, the duo of Duncan Keith and Connor Murphy completely lost track of Jason Williams leaving the penalty box. When the penalty expired Williams was parked, all alone, at the Blackhawks blue line
Elias Lindholm located and hit Williams with a pass, which sent him in on a break-a-way. Once he was in all alone on the Blackhawks goalie, Williams picked Berube apart.
Of course, the broadcasting team tried to pin the blame on Berube for not alerting his defensemen by banging his stick on the ice, but failed to mention that the entire Blackhawks bench were less than 15 feet from both defenders and easily had the opportunity to remind them. Blame the guy 150 feet away though. No respect, I tell you.
As they opened the third period, the Blackhawks defense handed the puck over repeatedly and forced their goaltender to bail them out more than a couple of times. Four minutes into the third period, the Hurricanes finally took advantage during a Blackhawks penalty, and former Blackhawks Teuvo Teravainen led the play which resulted in the goal.
As the QB of the power play unit, Teravainen found an open lane and flipped a shot toward the Blackhawks net. Sensational Hurricanes breakout sophomore Sebastian Aho tracked the shot and redirected it, mid-air, past JF Berube. The air was completely sucked out of the United Center, and the Blackhawks never recovered.
That was basically all the Blackhawks had in them. They were out shot 40-24 in total, and showed little fight as the Hawks once again ended a game with a dull whimper.
Pluses
- Jean-Francois Berube had another great game and got little help. Two great games in a row might have given him the edge over Anton Forsberg for the remainder of the season. It certainly has for the immediate future.
Minuses
- The Blackhawks had a chance to tie the game on the powerplay in the third period and they could barely muster a single shot on net. This sounds like a broken record, but the Hurricanes were 1/2 on the power play, and the Hawks were 0-2. That is your game, folks.
- Jan Rutta, along with most of the Blackhawks defense, looked extremely rusty. If I had a nickel for every time Pat Foley had to say, “…turned it over” I would be a millionaire.
- Clearly getting out shot 40-24 is a problems but, HEY, lets bring the entire defensive corp back next season (making more money) and expect Corey Crawford to bail them out and ignore the problem.