The Blackhawks took the ice at Saturday afternoon at Pepsi Center in Denver in the first half of a weekend home and home versus wildcard rival Colorado. At stake? Basically making the playoffs—if not entirely dependent on today’s game, then the home and home overall might determine which team makes the postseason.
The Hawks lines and pairings were as follows:
Dylan Sikura–Jonathan Toews–Patrick Kane
Alex DeBrincat–Dylan Strome–Brendan Perlini
Brandon Saad–Artem Anisimov–Dominik Kahun
Chris Kunitz–David Kampf–Marcus Kruger
Gustav Forsling–Brent Seabrook
Corey Crawford squared off in net against German netminder Philipp Grubauer.
FIRST PERIOD
In a tightly checked 20 minutes of action—with a pretty high pace to the action—the Hawks outshot the Avs 8-7. The score remained 0-0 at the horn.
SECOND PERIOD
The Avs broke the scoreless tie at 3:07 of the period when JT Compher tipped a Patrik Nemeth point shot past Crawford. 1-0 Colorado.
Hawk captain Jonathan Toews capitalized on a Colorado turnover at 5:20, notching his 32nd goal in a stellar rebound season. 1-1.
But the Avs regained the lead at 13:57 when former Nashville Predator Colin Wilson redirected a puck past Crawford, with two players (Erik Gustafsson and David Kampf) in the penalty box for Chicago. 2-1 Colorado.
Shots were 12-11 Avs in the period.
THIRD PERIOD
Colorado added to their lead at 1:26, when Sven Andrighetto tipped an Erik Johnson point shot into the net. The call on the ice was “goal,” but it was reviewed as Andrighetto’s stick was near crossbar height. Still, there was not enough evidence to overturn. 3-1 Colorado.
“Good Gus” showed up at 12:04, when Erik Gustafsson blasted a 60 foot one-timer past Grubauer, narrowing the Colorado lead. 3-2.
The Hawks mounted a lot of pressure from there, outshooting the Avs 12-6 for the period. But at 17:40, with Crawford pulled, “Bad Gus” mishandled a Patrick Kane drop pass (also a bad idea) at the Colorado blue line, which resulted in a 2-on-1 the opposite way and an easy goal for Derick Brassard. 4-2 Colorado, and that was how it would end.
THE GOOD
The Hawks limited Colorado to just 25 shots, continuing a generally positive recent trend in a highly troublesome area for the team this year.
THE BAD
The postgame talking heads on NBCSN lamented a recent lack of scoring by the Hawks. However, this lack of scoring seems to coincide with less shots against, which would at least suggest that perhaps this team is not quite good or deep enough to properly take care of business at both ends of the ice against good teams. Or that the Hawks highwire act gets grounded in tighter-checked games. Either way, this was a game where the Hawks really would have benefited from gaining at least a point. And now their next two contests, at home tomorrow night against Colorado, and following that at Arizona, are absolute must-wins to even have a shot at the playoffs.
THE UGLY
Patrick Kane is a great, great player. But the cutesie drop pass to Gustafsson with the goalie pulled was not smart. Having been victimized many teams in similar situations over the years, Kane should know better.
Finally, are Steve Konroyd’s arms tired yet from constantly pumping Dylan Sikura’s tires? Oy.
All I have on this one. Check back here in the morning for a comprehensive preview of tomorrow night’s game. Comment below.