Blackhawks Blow Late Lead, Lose To Wild In Shootout
As the Western Conference playoff race heats up, the Blackhawks suffered a tough shootout loss in Minnesota.
By virtue of Detroit losing in regulation and the Hawks picking up one point on Thursday night, a win by the Blackhawks on Saturday would bump make things interesting in the Western Conference playoff picture. Nashville beat Dallas in regulation on Thursday night and is now out of the Hawks’ reach with 102 points.
Jamal Mayers scored in the middle of the first period off a pretty feed from Michael Frolik. Just under seven minutes later, Mayers was head butted by Nate Prosser, who received a major penalty and was ejected from the game for the act.
The Hawks appeared to add a second goal 11 minutes into the third, but it was determined that Bryan Bickell’s stick was too high on the redirect.
Chicago’s defensive play was excellent again, aided by the return of Duncan Keith after his five-game suspension. The Wild were held to only three shots on net in the first 20 minutes, and had 22 in regulation.
Bickell took a bad penalty with under four minutes left in the game, and the Wild took advantage with a tying goal. It was a shame, too, because Corey Crawford had played outstanding hockey all night and had certainly done enough to earn a regulation win, if not a shutout bid. Both teams managed just one shot each in the overtime period.
Devin Setoguchi scored the only goal of the shootout to earn Minnesota the second point (which is meaningless for the Wild).
Marcus Kruger continued his confident play, winning 11 of 14 faceoffs in addition to one blocked shot and one takeaway. Rookie Brandon Bollig led the Hawks with four hits in only 7:29 of ice time.
Andrew Brunette and Dave Bolland joined the list of injured Hawks, replaced in the lineup by Jimmy Hayes and Brendan Morrison. Morrison played his best game since being acquired by the Blackhawks; in 13:30 he was credited with one hit and one takeaway.
Chicago and Detroit will do battle on Saturday afternoon with a great deal on the line.
I laughed when Foley said ‘Josh Harding is keeping them in the game’.
It should be “Chicago’s power play is keeping Minnesota in the game.”
Pathetic. Really. Losing twice to the Wild in the last week with so much on the line. Bickel should be benched for such a stupid/careless play late in the game (not that he means much to us anyway as I’ve never seen a softer big man at “power forward” in my life.) At least we’ve been playing lock down D and that’s encouraging for the playoffs, but if the PP does not start clicking it’s 1 and done imho.
I can’t blame one person, as it’s been this way the whole season our power-play suc**, again going 0-4 with one being a 5 min maj???? Gimme a break, give the Preds, Blues, Wings, Canucks etc…. they’ll get at least 1 if not more. We had about 5 -6 prime chances and gave them about 11. Thanks to Crow for his stellar net minding. We should be happy to have gotten a point it could’ve been 5 or 6-1 in reg time. Enuf said. Still a die-hard tho.
The game didn’t matter so I don’t see why everyone is riled up. We controlled the game and without Toews or Bolland. I say play as many back ups as possible as many minutes as possible on Sat as we are better off losing and staying in the 6 seed. Bolland and Toews should not play and I would be looking to rest people as well. Its time for Lepisto, Morrison, Hayes and Olsen to get big minutes.
Every game matters, Pete.
We did conrol the game…but we lost. Thats why its frustrating. That power play has cost us points in the standings and its gonna cost us games in the playoffs. Our season will end because of special teams. Then hopefully we can clear out those responsible for its ineptness.