Blackhawks' big first period not enough in loss to Blues

Five Blackhawks goals in under 16 minutes.

That's what 21,676 fans at the United Center were treated to in the first period Wednesday night against St. Louis as the Hawks had “Chelsea Dagger” on repeat and kept a sea of red-clad fans on their feet, stomping and shouting with joy.

Marko Dano, Andrew Shaw, Teuvo Teravainen, Brent Seabrook and Patrick Kane staked the Hawks to a 5-2 lead after one period, and an easy 2 points seemed to be in the bag.

But the Blues had other ideas. They charged back with 3 goals in the second period, then got an overtime score from Vladimir Tarasenko with 1:06 remaining to claim an unlikely 6-5 victory.

“It's a good lesson to learn I think early in the season,” said Hawks goalie Corey Crawford, who saved 23 of 29 shots. “You can't let up, especially against a good team.”

Moments later, Jonathan Toews echoed those thoughts.

“It's not fun to give up a game like that,” he said. “But it's something … we definitely have to look at and learn from short term.”

St. Louis made it 5-3 when Colton Parayko's blast from the right point bounced off Alexander Steen's skate just 3:11 into the second period. Jay Bouwmeester scored on the power play 14 minutes later, and David Backes made it 5-5 when he took a pass from Alex Pietrangelo and beat a too-slow-to-react Crawford and a sliding Seabrook.

In overtime, Tarasenko buried the game-winner when Toews had gone off for a change, leaving Artemi Panarin and Seabrook playing 3-on-2 in front of Crawford. Afterward, Toews, who finished without a point and with a minus-2 rating, admitted he shouldn't have left the ice.

“It was entertaining for both sets of fans,” Backes said. “Hopefully no one in St. Louis turned that off too soon.”

The last time the Hawks scored 5 goals in the first period was in a 6-3 win over Vancouver on March 5, 2010.

If there was a bright side to the loss, it's that the Hawks have been waiting for someone other than Teravainen, Kane, Seabrook, Toews and Artem Anisimov to score. So it went without saying that Dano and Shaw getting goals was a welcome sight.

Shaw's penalty-shot goal made it 2-1 at 4:37 of the first period after he was held by Joel Edmundson on a breakaway. For Shaw, who scored 15 times last season, it was his first goal since Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Teravainen made it 3-1 less than two minutes later, Seabrook ripped one home at 17:09 to make it 4-2, and Kane scored his eighth goal of the season at 17:52.

That was the Hawks' last goal as they ended up falling to 7-5-1.

“(After the first period, it) seemed like there wasn't as much urgency as there was at the beginning of the game,” Crawford said. “As a goalie, too, when your team has a good start — especially 5 goals — you want to be able to shut it down.

“It just seemed like, no matter what was happening, everything seemed to find its way in.”