Rapid Fire Jets Shoot Down Blackhawks
After highlighting the rookie performances of the Blackhawks earlier on Thursday, the kids obliged us with a terrific performance against the Jets. But another bad third period sunk the Hawks at home – again.
The first period opened the door for more of the usual complaints. On Wednesday, the Daily Herald wrote about the troubling trend of the Blackhawks allowing multiple goals in short amounts of time, and the Jets provided another example of that in the first period.
Six minutes into the game, with Richard Panik in the box, Bryan Little made a terrific play to set up Patrik Laine for an easy power play goal. Only 42 seconds later, Shawn Matthias tipped a Jacob Trouba shot past Scott Darling to make the score 2-0 in favor of the Jets.
At which point, based on social media comments, most Blackhawks fans changed the channel. After all, the Jets had the Hawks number so far this year and the pessimism after a bad third period on Tuesday night carried over to the opening seven minutes on Thursday.
The Hawks didn’t shut it down as quickly as many fans, thankfully.
Nic Petan went to the box 13 minutes into the first, giving the Blackhawks their first power play of the night. Artem Anisimov won the faceoff and Duncan Keith unloaded, scoring his fourth of the year.
Aided by a second power play, the Hawks out-shot the Jets 18-8 in the first period. But they trailed 2-1 on the scoreboard.
Chicago kept the pressure on to start the second period and got another advantage. The Jets killed the Toby Enstrom penalty but a strong shift from a new-look line for coach Joel Quenneville – Nick Schmaltz, Marcus Kruger and Marian Hossa – tied the game. Kruger got tied up along the boards and the puck found Schmaltz, who attacked the net and fired a shot home for his third of the season.
The teams traded penalties a couple times in the middle stages of the second, but at even strength late in the period Tanner Kero and Patrick Kane perfectly executed a give-and-go that resulted in Kero’s fourth of the year a Blackhawks lead.
Darling played well in the second, stopping 12 shots to hold the Jets at two while his teammates scored twice in 14 shots on Connor Hellebuyck. Through 40 minutes, Chicago had 32 shots on net and three goals on the board.
The game got physical in the third period. Panik had a couple big hits, and Schmaltz did a great job of tipping a puck out of the defensive zone before colliding with Enstrom.
With four minutes left in regulation, Andrew Copp tipped a hard shot through Darling to tie the game. And the Hawks’ Achilles’ heel showed up again; 32 seconds later Bryan Little rifled a shot past Darling to give Winnipeg a 4-3 lead. Now, the Blackhawks had 3:31 to come up with an answer.
Darling went to the bench with 2:34 left and Anisimov taking an offensive zone draw. Chicago couldn’t get a quality scoring chance and Mark Scheifele tapped in an empty net goal to extend the lead to 5-3 at 2:01 left in regulation. Copp picked up an assist on the Scheifele goal to give him a two-point night; Scheifele had an assist on Copp’s goal to also have a multi-point evening.
Panik lit up Enstrom with 1:31 left in regulation and was sent to the box to put the Blackhawks short-handed for the rest of regulation.
Chicago is now 0-4-0 against Winnipeg on the season.
More importantly, the Blackhawks lost a home game in which they started the third period with a lead for the second consecutive game. Chicago goes into the All-Star Break having allowed seven goals in the third periods of their last two games.
Anisimov won 12 of 21 at the dot and Jonathan Toews won 11 of 16 faceoffs for Chicago. Kruger won two of five with one blocked shot and two takeaways in his return from injury.
Kane and Hossa led the Blackhawks with five shots on net each. Keith put four shots on net and had a team-high three blocked shots in 26:35 on the ice. Panik led Chicago with five hits.
Michal Kempny skated only 8:54 and put two shots on net. Vinnie Hinostroza (5:44) and Andrew Desjardins (7:01) were the low ice time recipients up front, skating on a fourth line that started with Kero in the middle. Kero skated 12:03 with two blocked shots, one takeaway and a goal.
The Hawks put 41 shots on net but their three goals weren’t enough. Darling allowed four goals against 32 shots in the loss.
Losin’ ugly
Wasn’t Kero playing w/ Hossa while Kruger was hurt? Kruger’s first game back and he slots in w/ Hossa? The 3rd period rush is Exhibits A, B & C — instead of shooting Hossa gave Kruger a perfect feed and he couldn’t even handle the pass. Kruger should have been playing w/ Desjardins — someone w/ a substantially similar skillset. This is on Q.
Van Riemsdyk is in the early stages of Greg Foxitis. This is a bad disease. Kempny playing less than nine minutes means TVR is out there more; this is not good. He has regressed — he is not physical, he is having trouble clearing pucks out of the D zone, and his coverage in front of the net is virtually non-existent. The D pairings are in disarray b/c of this. It is imperative the Hawks trade for a solid D-man to stabilize the back end.
The bottom five forwards (w/ 2 sitting out each game) should consist of Kruger, Rasmussen, Desjardins, Tootoo and Hinostroza/Schmaltz. Whichever rookie is stuck playing w/ whatever combination of the other four draws the short straw. It’s not like Kruger & Rasmussen are gangbusters — they are negligibly better than the other two.
The Hawks can win the West, no doubt. Q needs to get Mr. Ed out of his system and concentrate on putting the players he has in the best position to utilize their respective abilities. Playing Kruger w/ Hossa is an example of a brain cramp, particularly when Kero was so effective w/ him.
Good thing is we outplayed MIN, TAM and WIN (other then good defense in TAM game). We deserved to win these games. To me bullshit penaltys, other team getting normal bounces and breaks, and the rare lucky bounce (off boards/5 hole not go in) are why the other team got the 2 pts.
Whats not good is we should be 18 over .500 and MIN 17, with us not getting those bounces and MIN getting those in recent 5 or so games, instead of being up 1 were down 7 (21/14). MIN also got a rare lucky bounce against ANA to win that game (off the goalie backside).
Also good things, while we suck and are going to have to hear how much that were not cup contenders no matter what we do, young guys keep on getting better as we go along and Tazer, donot ever turn your back on John Wayne.
Once the top line in hockey (2nd line) breaks through, what Tazer has had to play against for 8 yrs, look out. In the meantime its good Bread Man isint getting pts for player bonuses/top 10 in goals or pts.
Well I haven’t watched the game but looking at the corsi numbers alone it looks like the Hawks played a much better game.
Can somebody tell me how the wheels fell off again? Was it goaltending? Team defence? Unlucky bounces?
This new 3rd period trend isn’t the most exciting ?
Iceman,
I do not get the Q love for Van Riensdyk at all. Dating back to when Backes scored off his skate in double overtime of game 1 last year in the playoffs. -5 in like the first four games of that series.
The eye test tells me he is a third pairing 12 minute a night guy at best yet he seems to be constantly out there. Ugh
If you check the numbers on tvr he is one of better plus/minus on their blueline his giveaway/takeaway ratio the best of the blueliners and his corsi numbers are higher than the big 4dmen on the team, while logging top 4 minutes and playing more minutes in the 3rd period than the first 2 mostly in the games he has played so he actually is not doing that bad.
This was another game that should have been a win, but was not. Another game where if the Hawks score another goal in the middle stanza or the 3rd they probably break the resolve of an opponent. Another game where somehow opposing teams are scoring 2 goals in a very short period of time. It happened twice last night. Another game with a blown 3rd period lead, which is normally not going to happen with Q lead teams.
FWIW I thought the Hawks played a pretty solid game and deserved better. These confounding consecutive shift goals given up has to stop. Somehow the players are not feeling a sense of urgency to go out and have a quality shift after a goal is given up. This is three games in a row where this has happened and it has been a negative off and on so far this year. They got a break and came back to beat the Nucks, but the Bolts, and Jets game basically ran under same script.
I don’t blame Darling for the loss last night. All I was able to notice last night is that Hawks were getting 2 guys going after the puck in the d zone and an opposing player would be left open. Jets ran alot of plays starting from behind the net. Jets would get guys like Laine wide open in the left circle for wide open looks, and that kid can really shoot the puck, yikes! Too many clear looks to bring pucks hard to the net.
Hawks last night had another bunch of glorious scoring chances. Pucks just were not going in similar to the Bolts game. There were rebounds aplenty last night too, but they would not fall towards Hawks sticks, even though Hawks went to the net aggressively. Call it puck luck I guess or lack of it.
On a positive note, good on Schmaltz, and the Kero goal was a pretty give and go exchange with Kane nicely started by TvR. Panik delivered a big hit last night that you could feel up in the stands. That guy is a physical load when he wants to be.
Very frustrating drive home last night, especially knowing the Wild won. At least they pounded the Blues. Hawks have some welcome rest time given torrid 1st half schedule, and then a long road trip. Anisimov line maybe needs the rest as do Seabs, Keith, and Kane. Maybe a long road trip is where these guys can settle down and play a more consistent 2 way game with emphasis on playing better team defense.
Really tough loss, but hopefully they can learn from it.
Lets Go Hawks!
Phil- good comments… irony is Hawks were badly outplayed early season in many of their wins… now they are losing games- where they actually carried the play for majority of games… like some say here- regressing to the mean.
Laine- could have easily had 3-4 goals… how do leave that guy open???
Did Kempny get hurt… Or was there a BIG gaffe- that caused Q to staple him to the bench??? At least- Kempny (like Crow) should be able to walk away from this game and say to himself– “see- it’s not me… the same results- with me on the bench!!!” It’s the Team sucking!
Seabs – was bad again- coughing up a few pucks with Zero pressure…
Nigrelli agree. Rundbland’s numbers weren’t bad either, he was a perpetual fire drill in the D zone. I’ve seen enough of TVR to come to the conclusions I have set forth.
While TvR makes mistakes he is young and still developing. He is a vast improvement over Rundblad. Look who the Hawks skated against St Louis in the playoffs. It was a real mess from a depth standpoint and imo the reason Hawks lost…barely to the Blues. Rundblad AND Gustafssson were in the lineup. Made to fail given minutes logged by 2,4,7 to compensate. Dues 57 need to get better defensively? The answer is yes. I like his instincts offensively as he jumps up into plays though, and the guy should get better as he gets more experience.
Hawks d corps and keepers aren’t the real problem. It’s the forwards that aren’t doing their jobs within the structure of the team defense where the zone breakdowns are taking place. It has to get better if this team is going to make some noise in playoffs.
Lets Go Hawks!
Hi folks ,just back from blowing my nose and wiping away those tears ,..,game tying goal in the 3rd was a nice tip ,Darling had a piece of it ,.,.,.but the game winner ,Darling went down when he should have stayed up,.,.he,s 6 foot 6 shit just stand there . I agree with the stone throwers in re-guards to T.V.R . ,and this only proves all the stats in the world can ,and are wrong . He should be logging 8 – 10 mins a game , and never be paired with Soupy . Do we have someone in Rockford to insert D wise ??/ Just a steady stay at home ,clear the front of the net guy .
Over all ,love seeing the rookies scoring goals , and turning themselves into trade bait .
On that happy note ,have a good weekend people .
I believe that if the “core players” effort was commensurate with their compensation, many of the team’s problem would be solved.
Once the pak line gets hot again if will take alot of pressure off. With this line going the pp improves and every other part of the team runs smoother with it. Stats are as important as you want to make them as has been discussed often regarding contributions of kruger and toews.
Phil, that’s what I think we didn’t get the normal bounces in both games and the other teams got the rare bounce (off boards) and MIN has gotton the normal bonuces and the rare bounce/lucky blunce (off goalies back agasint ANA). So for as good as we played and didn’t get any breaks, MIN was outplayed in 4 of their last 6 and should have 4 reg loses in those. We get 2 or so loses that should be wins and they got away with wins when they deserved 4 reg loses. Should be 17 and 18 over .500, instead it 21/14. I thought they would have a rough patch after doing so good (based on good play) but they seem to have a little of the pixie too.
The league should have 90sec. tv timeouts after every goal scored (where they can review, with their own instant replay guy at each game, every goal for offsides/highstickes/handpases/etc type stuff). Then this shit with the other teams scoring within a min after they just scored (or we scored, ahs been happening or close to scoring) wont happen like that. I know thats on us (and wont happen in playoffs/turtle when leading) but I think that’s a good way of reviewing every goal (without challenges) and not allowing any team get cheap goals after a goal. Like punching a guy in the gut after he just ran a race/ski down the entire mountain. Make those teams earn those goals by making them wait 90 sec tv timeout. After every penalty/icing right to faceoffs.
At home most teams carry the play most of the time so outplaying them doesn’t mean much. If you look at it from the road team’s perspective, they hung around and found a way to win–perfect road game (just like we pulled off in Boston last week).
As long as we continue to develop the young guys I will be happy. At the deadline any team with a chance to either make the playoffs or make a run is a buyer (usually about 80% of teams) so the issue for most teams is not whether you are a buyer or seller, but how big a buyer you are. I don’t see enough in our play so far this year to be anything other than small buyers. Maybe we still have it in us to turn it up in the playoffs, but that is going to come from within and not from expensive deadline acquisitions. Stay the course.
Wall, your right that no team was going to keep winning at that percentage when playing ok/good without goaltending like that. I think it doesn’t ever even out (I donot use the words regression to mean) but it does always get back to more even over longer sample size. When a team does that good though (the goaltending) its put itself in a good position that even over the 82 games will still ahead 0f ‘even’ unless play like shit/or not get our fair share of bounces.
Everybody was wrong, when we said were going to be better when we have normal possession numbers with normal goaltending/and be near/at top of standing in conference.
or
said were going to suck/cant contender/got lucky to win that many games then and would be a good/top team when really good goaltending was normal without normal (for us) possession numbers and still be near/at top of standings in conference.
Were the same top 5 team we have been the whole way through but we need to improve every where and work on what we been sucking at. Then we have a chance to redeem ourselves.