Rozner: Blackhawks' season on brink after failure to launch

The Blackhawks knew they had to have this game.

They said they fully understood the meaning.

They promised their desperation would be apparent and immediate.

But after a regular season in which their mental and physical fatigue was consistently evident, the Hawks again failed to deliver on a promise Tuesday night at the UC, and the 4-3 loss to the Blues leaves them in a monstrous hole heading back to St. Louis for Game 5 on Thursday night.

For the fifth time in six playoff seasons, the Hawks are down 3-1 in a series and will need a comeback the likes of which they haven't seen since their second-round victory over Detroit in 2013.

In 2014, they rallied to tie Los Angeles at 3-3 before losing on a Game 7 bounce at home in overtime, costing them a chance at a three-peat, but of the previous four series in which they were down 3-1, they have only survived once.

Through four games, the Blues' best players have been terrific, making life miserable for the Blackhawks.

At the same time, the Hawks' best players have been mostly invisible, making life miserable for Joel Quenneville.

And if that doesn't change immediately, the Hawks can start making tee times.

St. Louis took advantage of some stupid Hawks penalties and some terrible defensive play, and it was a microcosm of the last few months for the home team.

The Hawks came out skating hard, but the Blues played a very smart and conservative road period, frustrating the Hawks in the St. Louis end and consistently getting the puck behind the Hawks' defense in the home end of the ice.

And it was on such a dump-in that St. Louis took the lead 14:02 into the game when Vlad Tarasenko fired it deep and Jori Lehtera beat Brent Seabrook to the puck behind the Hawks' net.

The Hawks had numbers, five guys inside the dot, but nobody turned around and picked up Tarasenko trailing the play and he took the pass from Lehtera and easily beat Corey Crawford through a Seabrook screen to open the scoring, the third time in four games that St. Louis collected the first goal.

The Hawks finally tied the game midway through the second just after a power play expired when Marian Hossa flipped a puck from the top of the circle through traffic and it hit Andrew Shaw in the jersey and sneaked past Brian Elliott.

Then came the play that looked like it might be the turning point in the game and the series.

Robby Fabbri walked in on goal and after Crawford made the save Fabbri made no attempt to avoid the netminder. Crawford took another shot to the noggin and this time he took matters into his own hands, unwilling to wait for his teammates to take up the cause.

Crawford went after Fabbri, a scrum ensued and the Hawks wound up with a power play on which Duncan Keith scored to give the home team a 2-1 lead with 6:51 remaining in the middle period.

But a few minutes later, Andrew Ladd took a bad penalty and Tarasenko beat Crawford through a Keith screen for a 2-2 tie with 2:29 left in the second.

Only 61 seconds into the third, it was Keith's turn to take a terrible penalty, and again the Blues made the Hawks pay on a rebound by Jaden Schwartz for a 3-2 St. Louis lead.

The awful tandem of Michal Rozsival and Trevor van Riemsdyk handed the Blues a fourth goal early in the third, and the Hawks were in big trouble until Keith scored again on a Blues deflection with 5:20 remaining in the third.

With the Hawks searching for the tying goal, it was Shaw who took the last stupid penalty and that was it for the Hawks, who had to finish the game short-handed and could not solve Elliott for the tying goal.

So the Blues went home knowing the series can be over Thursday night and believing they won't have to return to Chicago until next fall.

And they won't if the Hawks don't locate their stars somewhere between here and St. Louis.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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