Blackhawks Beat Dallas, Crawford Passes Belfour
On Friday night, the Blackhawks held on to beat a young Coyotes team. That victory broke the Hawks first three-game losing streak of the season, but beating a bad team in ugly fashion didn’t resonate well.
Saturday night’s battle in Dallas saw the Hawks getting another struggling team. The veteran Stars have been surprisingly mediocre this year (52 points in 52 games coming into Saturday), but have never been easy for the Blackhawks.
The first period was fast and even. Chicago out-shot Dallas 11-10 in spite of the Hawks needing to kill two penalties.
Dallas came out firing in the second and took an early 1-0 lead. Eight seconds into the period early. Radek Faksa beat Corey Crawford for his eighth of the season and Chicago was chasing again.
But the Blackhawks answered the bell from that point on in the second period. Ryan Hartman tied the game with a pretty goal from the doorstep 6:20 into the second.
Jordin Tootoo dropped the gloves with Antoine Roussel 14 seconds after the Hartman goal and did a good job handling the bigger Stars forward. He emphatically wiped his hands after dropping a bloodied Roussel to the ice with a left.
Two minutes later, Gustav Forsling unloaded from the point and the Hawks were leading 2-1.
The Hawks out-shot the Stars 17-12 in the second period and took a lead into the third period.
Dallas got another early period goal to start the third when Jamie Benn made a pretty play around Niklas Hjalmarsson to tie the game 40 seconds in.
The Stars took a 3-2 lead at 9:24 when Forsling made a gorgeous pass to… Tyler Seguin, who was able to rip a shot through Crawford for a one-goal lead.
Chicago responded quickly, though. Artem Anisimov found Patrick Kane 35 seconds after the Seguin goal and the game was tied once again.
In the six minutes that followed the Kane goal, both teams got a power play and both goaltenders made a few terrific saves. But almost 16 minutes into the third, Dallas got too physical in front of their net and it cost them.
Anisimov attacked the net and got absolutely buried by Esa Lindell. Unfortunately for Dallas, nobody paid attention to Trevor van Riemsdyk, who appropriately trailed on the play. TvR put home the easy rebound as almost every Stars player on the ice stood and watched and Chicago had a 4-3 lead with four minutes left in regulation.
With 100 seconds left in regulation and still trailing, the Stars pulled Kari Lehtonen. A big rebound off Crawford found Jamie Benn all alone with a wide open cage in front of him. But Hartman laid out in front of the shot and got a stick on the attempt to keep the Hawks up one.
As Dallas scrambled to find an equalizer, Jamie Benn got caught tripping Artemi Panarin and was sent to the box with 63 seconds left in regulation. The Hawks were happy to pass the puck around while enjoying the advantage, and a big shot by Marian Hossa sailed wide of the cage. But Chicago was happy to extend the lead to 5-3 as Jonathan Toews scored into the empty net with 0.9 seconds left in the contest.
After going down 3-2, the Blackhawks scored three unanswered to run away with a big Central Division win.
The win is the 202nd regular season victory for Crawford as a member of the Blackhawks, moving him past Ed Belfour into third all-time with the franchise. He earned the two points on Saturday night, stopping 31 of 34.
Corey Crawford passes Ed Belfour for third-most wins in #Blackhawks history with No. 202! #crOwMG pic.twitter.com/L7Ua5HlIY5
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) February 5, 2017
Dennis Rasmussen took the most faceoffs for Chicago, winning eight of 19 in the game. Toews won nine of 17 and Anisimov won four of 13. Tanner Kero won five of seven.
Hartman, Forsling, Kane and Niklas Hjalmarsson led the Hawks with four shots on goal each. Hjalmarsson also had a team-high four blocked shots.
Anisimov and Hossa were the only Blackhawks to have a two-point night; both had two assists in the game, leading an offense that saw 12 different skaters pick up a point in the game.
Tootoo served five minutes in the penalty box, skated 5:40 and had zero points. But he kicked Roussel’s ass, so the night was a good one for 22 in white.
Tree cheers for Tootoo!
A good effort and big win. Thought Crow had an off night on the whole.
Anisimov, Hossa and Hartman played well. There may be a method to the limited minutes Hartman is getting, but he deserves more of them.
Kruger will you please shoot the puck when you get a Grade A chance.
That was a great game. Last season they just seemed to die against the Stars and let them defeat them. Good to great effort by all to make sure that didn’t happen tonight! Good sign.
T.O.I numbers shown ,kinda rolling 4 lines , D pairings, T.V.R. and Soupy playing 15 -16 mins ,.,.,getting closer to their ability . Great to see our young D bucks scoring KEY goals for us tonight . Hartman is the real thing !
Like seeing the W and the corsi chart emphatically in favor of the Hawks. Haven’t seen that a lot this year. Pretty balanced TOI with Tootoo being the exception. Was a little surprised to see Hartman’s ice time down at 11:03. 2nd lowest. Forsling having fewer questionable moments, its exciting seeing him shoot. Not Panarin level exciting though. Aside from those 1st minute goals weren’t too many ugly moments.
Seeing more and more good coming from the kids.
That Stars window slammed shut fast!
What a great signing Tootoo was! Watching Roussel “turtle” after being dropped by 22 was awesome. Pretty slick move by TVR to poke in the game winner. 3rd and 4th lines providing solid contributions for a nice stretch. Turning things around in the 3rd was critical after the recent debacles with TB and WPG.
Noonan spot on re Kruger; speaking of, he’s not even taking faceoffs now…
As for TVR, I have an idea. He can skate, he is crafty and has an offensive skillset — why not play him on the wing on the fourth line? He has the pedigree as well.
I’m still not a huge fan of TVR on the backend (5-6 D-man at best), but compared to Forsling he looks like Doug Jarrett back there. Nevermind that Forsling scored a goal — how many giveaways/poor passes did he have tonight? Lets call him “I.T.” — instant turnover.
A reliable 5/6 D-man has to be trade deadline priority for Bowman. Is Oduya going to be an unrestricted free agent on the trading block?
The Philadelphia Roussels.
Apparently Iceman wasn’t listening when Bowman said not to expect a deadline deal.
Forsling is 20 years old with lots of upside. Offensively he is very skilled, Defensively he has a ways to go and needs to get stronger. Many have complained about Q not letting young guys develop if they make mistakes but that is exactly what he is doing with Forsling. If Q is giving him a longer leash he must like what he sees. That being said I wouldn’t be surprised to see us pick up a veteran to provide more reliability in the playoffs.
Notice that when the hawks go on a win streak the clowns disappear under their rocks! The head clown said that the hawks would be sellers at the trading deadline. What an idiot!
Always fun watching roussel getting punched. Still would love him on the hawks.
A veteran…like Roszival? OK that was a joke…kind of
I am hopeful the Hawks can continue to get production from the third and fourth line. Other teams will have to spread out their top lines. That will help create more chances for the Hawks high skill guys.
Congrats to 50
Loving what 8 and 38 are doing for this team
Tootoo TKO’s the Wiesel… replayed that around 4 times… never got old.
The good:
Toews- skating better
Hartman- continues to be in the right place at the right time
Hossa
TvR- kid really seems to have good hockey IQ- limited in most physical skills- but I can see why Q seems to like him
The bad:
Crow- 1st and 3rd goals- were soft by Crow standards
Forsling- scored a goal… but made a couple of gaffes (which he has done all year)- TO’s within 25 feet of the goalie- needs to be corrected-still
Iceman you bang on baby with our need for another D man ,things can and have turned ugly with our D at times of late . Tootoo just earned his salary for the YEAR !
When we signed him i thought he would bring that more often,knowing his other limitations . Don`t be a pretender Ernie ,we will be making some moves come closer to Deadline ,minor moves i think but really, all we need is a little tweeking provided we play like we can . P.T.L ,.,.,.,next.
Crow let a few softies in, but generally was his usual self getting them when need them. Forsling needs more development. All in all, fun game to watch, despite a few bad penalties and turnovers (fix please). Have watched 22 drop 21 about 50 times…ROUSSEL is such an ass; never gets old watching him get dropped.
That was Tootoo’s contribution for the year. Now send him to Rockford for the rest of the year.
Missed the game due to family commitment and it sounds like I missed a good one. Saw some highlights and it Tootoo’s left to Roussel’s jaw was a sweet thing indeed.
Taking 4 points out of Arizona and Dallas is nice, but now the rubber is about to hit the road – three games in four nights against the best team in the West – Minnesota, a team that has the Hawks number – Winnipeg, and the up and coming Edmonton McDavid’s. After which the Hawks will have their 1 week “bye” to think about the results from those 3 games.
From the comments it sounds like Crawford still isn’t back to his pre-appendectomy level. He needs to find a way to get there because the Hawks just plain and simple aren’t good enough to consistently beat the best teams without stellar goaltending.
Forsling credited with 1 giveaway. Hjalmarsson 4. Hawks had 8 as a team and the Stars had 16.
Ernie- we can all agree on the One he coughed up to Seguin for the goal…
I guarantee 42 passed a few more to the wrong team… I don’t know Official definition of Giveaway… but!!!
Its just going to take however many games for Crow to get back to 100% and playing really good/in the groove. Only way is to play more.
ER, I agree and we did just played top teams in Cambell and outplayed MIN and played an even game against SAN (and didn’t get any pts, when we deserved to get 2 pts and 1 pt in those)(as well as 2pts against WIN). What matters is we outplayed them and they got a lucky bounce/not a normal bad bounce.
Its just a few more against top/or good team (I think the 7 of 9 against top 10 teams, after a decent 15 game stretch will be fun because we are going to playing good then). What will be tuff in the 3in4 against EDM on road after playing hard in those 2 games. They havnt done as good as of late and we didn’t do good in the other one against them (after WIN as well) but after those 2 games we went 9-2-2. I can see a good stretch coming again, regardless of exactly when it starts.
Refs were all for DAL in that game, almost let them get away with every penalty. They did 7 called 2. Lets go refs, give us a evenly reffed game for now on. The last 14 games have been brutal.
Toews has 9 points & is winning 54% of his faceoffs in his last 7 games – among the hottest in the NHL. So please put the overpaid/not healthy/needs to earn his paycheck comments back in your shit drawer for a couple weeks….
Forsling will be a better player next year if he spends the rest of this year in the Rock where he can log big minutes away from the microscope. I would rather go with Rozy (when he is healthy) and Kempny even though that is far from ideal. I doubt this will happen though.
Puck is starting to follow Jonny again and he is creating more. There was one shift last night where Schmaltz was parked in front waiting for the puck while Jonny held his own in a one-on-three battle behind the Stars net. Obviously Schmaltz has high belief in him.
Sure the Seguin goal was bad. He needs to get stronger. Hes 20. He’s playing 6D minutes. You can do a lot worse for a 6th defenseman. The official scorer is seeing something different than some of you. TVR as a forward? Really? Forsling has his deficiencies. I’m not blind to them. But the guy that makes the calls seems to think those deficiencies are less than the guy he’s been sitting.
Fabbri done for the year. Torn ACL
Donot turn your back on John Wayne.
Hawks got the job done. I am somewhat surprised that Stars GM Jim Nill is still saddled with such mediocre goaltending and weak defense. He let Goligoski, Demers and Russell walk and signed Hamhuis while playing Johns and Lindell a ton. Hmmm.
Konroyd noted last night that in goal Lehtenon and Niemi have split the last 16 games and both have been pulled multiple times. Same circus as last years playoffs.
Glad the Hawks have preyed on the Stars after Nill nabbed Sharp, Oduya and Johns from a handcuffed Stan B.
Ernie ,.,.,.,no one cares about Fabbri .
Wow Tab. Toews is playing better. That is great news. Hope he keeps it up. However, 9 points in a 7 game stretch with one 4 point game and a few empty net points hardly makes it a good season.
If he continues that pace through the balance of the season and the playoffs then you have a valid comment. Otherwise, you’re really just butt kissing again.
Not routing for anything. Would be interesting to see STL play us now like we had to play them not deep on D when they had a deeper roster and we still should have won being down 3 games to 1. Now would like to see how they do when they are not as deep on FW with us being ahead in series. I would imagine it would be just like the 2 series against LA.
Some positives I took from the Stars were as follows:
Anisimov line is waking up again. The look on Panarin’s face in the Yotes game after he scored suggests he was much relieved to dent the net after a long drought. Bread man showed some slick passes against the Stars and his play was much looser and open. Anisimov line looking dangerous again is a good sign. Kane is always dangerous.
Hartman keeps getting it done behind a strong 2 way game. Shows us what confidence can do. Very impressive as he has been playing well with different line mates. Kero is also doing his job and has been strong on the PK.
The Cpt is just fine.
Tootoo drops Roussel with a quick left after getting nose bloodied! As stated by others, this was perhaps the evening bonus. Tootoo not playing much, but he can dance when called on. I too replayed that just to watch Roussel cover up/cower on the ice.
TvR gets lots of abuse, but he is a serviceable #5 or #6 d man. His instincts to jump into rushes are good and that was quite a nifty stick move to pot that goal Saturday.
They didn’t blow up a good effort even though it looked shaky at times in the 3rd. The way I look at it, they just beat two weak teams in games they should have won. Finding ways to win after blowing leads over the past few weeks is a good sign. It starts getting even better if they follow through against the Wild midweek.
Not so positive:
Crow struggled with a few softies, but was there when needed late. We know he will improve, even though he is not on top form yet given recent samples following surgery. At least Darling is there.
Lot’s of d zone giveaways that looked avoidable. Forsling exposed a times and yes, he coughed up pucks more than the stat sheet suggests. The kid is still a tad late with decisions in the d zone, but given his age he shows good potential.
Lets Go Hawks!
Bowman is a shrewd guy, level-headed demeanor. He is no dummy — he sees what all of us also see, every game. Assuming, hypothetically, that he doesn’t, rest assured there are enough influential eyes that work w/ and for him that will advise him what the Hawks need to acquire. There will be some personnel turnover for the stretch and playoff run.
Bowman has done an excellent job recognizing his mistakes over the years, at some point Kruger’s cap hit will be sent packing, be it trade deadline or in the summer.
PS As agitated and upset as Q is/gets w/ defensive zone turnovers/blunders, it is unlikely he is going to go into the playoffs w/ Kempny/Forsling or Roszival as the 6th D-man. The playoffs is not audition time. He seems to give Forsling a greater leash than Kempny, but regardless those two have had the heeby-jeebies back there. How did last season work out w/ Gustafsson/Svedberg/Rundlbad back there in the playoffs? One bad apple can spoil the batch.
Someone can take time, search for and provide us w/ the list of unrestricted free agents to be D-men. Thank you.
Imo that the Hawks D corps are presently much stronger than last year. Not even close. Yes, the adds this year make some mistakes, but they are far better players than the cringe worthy threesome we carried into last years playoffs. Forsling will likely be on a tighter leash as the season deepens. Kempny has some bad moments and is prone to getting beat to the outside, but he is still learning and brings some physical play as a stay at home d man. Rozy is slow, but experienced. Forsling is close as it relates to reaction/decision making timing needed to play successfully in the NHL.
Last year Guss, Svedberg, and Rundblad were simply a mess. I don’t think SB does any changes at deadline for a dman, when goal scoring seems more in need of being addressed. The key is what do you need to give up for what you want to get?
I still think this team has the capability of playing better hockey.
Lets Go Hawks!
Its not going to take too much to trade for a depth Defenseman or FW. We add a 2nd or 3rd line FW, that might take a little but we have plenty of assets to do so (and I donot mean any of the top/must keep/want to keep for now for sure prospects). I can see us adding a Defenseman and a FW but might be a FW. I would imagine we add one of each, depth role players, and just have a deeper roster with more options. These adds will not cost much in assets and we can get those back and more when we do what we do at draft.
We can have which ever guys in Rockford to bank as much space for player bonuses and in order to keep everybody/deeper roster. Were going to get better from within and when theres a good trade offer. The young guys we have now and that are coming are going to make us deeper/faster for the few coming yrs. We are going to be stacked again. We donot have to sell at deadline to be stacked even more, just keep the young/top prospects and be smart with caphits/salary cap stuff.
Making the playoffs will make anybody in the west a serious contender to get to the finals. Once that bappens you got a chance.
The word average is the most hypocritical crock of horseshit in sports.
Only average team we had since 19/88 was 2011 roster (and maybe 2012).
Bruins fire Julien…Which makes Q the longest tenured coach with his current team.
Last night Roenick was talking about Ken Hitchcock possibly taking over in Boston, after the season that is, if Julien was let go. Then Julien gets pulled today. There was also talk about Hitchcock potentially ending up in Las Vegas as well. Even though this was supposed to be his retirement year, people who know him seem to think he will not give up head coaching in the NHL.
That is a long time to get a call wrong-hopefully it motivates the Hawks in the third.
(technology and stuff isn’t working)
Karma