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Rozner: End for Blackhawks summed up in one play

The story of the Blackhawks' season can easily be summed up in a single play.

With 11:46 remaining in Game 7 of a fiercely contested series, Brent Seabrook swings the puck over to his defensive partner, Erik Gustafsson, who waits as the Hawks make a line change.

Just inside his blueline, Gustafsson sees Artemi Panarin hop over the boards and swing through the dots in his own end, ready to accept a pass.

Patrick Kane has also hit the ice and is circling back through the zone to pick up speed. Kane assumes Panarin will receive the puck at full speed. Kane will follow up the middle and the Hawks will be in business.

The score is 2-2 and the Hawks are generating chances and carrying the play.

But Gustafsson doesn't wait for Panarin. He looks at Panarin and it appears as if he's ready to pass the puck, but doesn't feed the winger. That's the only play here. Give it to a fast forward, let him gain the offensive blueline and try to make a play.

Gustafsson gets excited. He wants to be the hero. Gustafsson tries to skate the puck out of his own end and beat Robby Fabbri just outside the Hawks' blueline. The two collide, the puck is turned over in the neutral zone and Alex Pietrangelo chips it deep into the Hawks' end.

The Hawks' forwards are going the wrong way.

Paul Stastny corrals the puck on the half-wall to Corey Crawford's left and Gustafsson skates past Stastny as he tries to recover. Stastny gets it to Fabbri in front, he passes to Troy Brouwer, who hits the post, whiffs on the second attempt and finally puts it into an open net for the series-winning goal.

"We had the perfect setup there and we did exactly what we're not supposed to, or what we're not accustomed to doing, and it's in our net," said an aggravated Joel Quenneville. "Game, set, match."

It was a terrible play by Gustafsson, but don't put it all on him. It's the kind of bad play made frequently in this series by sixth and seventh defensemen like Gustafsson, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Michal Rozsival, David Rundblad and Viktor Svedberg.

Game 7. Tie game. Last period. Season determined by 20 minutes. Win this period and maybe you go all the way again.

Lose and you're done.

"It's on the line. Let's have fun with it and play the right way," Quenneville said. "Made a mistake that was critical."

It was a microcosm of the season, the constant search for a fourth defenseman and the inability of the Hawks to find one.

So now begins the blame game, which is always the case when the Hawks don't win the Stanley Cup.

The truth is when you pay a huge percentage of your cap to only a few players, you have to make tough choices and the Hawks lost Johnny Oduya for salary cap reasons after they won it all last June.

It's also worth remembering that Oduya took a lot of heat in Chicago for his play last season. Some might want to revisit their thinking on that one. The Stars love him in Dallas.

Go figure.

Trevor Daley would have looked good in this series, but Quenneville had no use for him from the first minute he saw him, and Daley's playing 22 minutes a game for Pittsburgh in the postseason, with 3 assists in 5 games, including 1 on the power play.

Stephen Johns is 24 and averaged 17 minutes for Dallas in the first round.

And then there's Nick Leddy, the Maserati that Quenneville tried to drive 40 mph in the left lane during his time in Chicago. The coach didn't like him, forcing GM Stan Bowman to trade him.

Leddy averaged a team-high 30 minutes per game for the Isles during the first round against Florida. He had 3 assists, including 1 on the power play, and had one of the plays of the year in Game 6 when New York ended the series in overtime.

After saving an empty-net goal, Leddy took the puck from behind his own net at the end of a 70-second shift, skated it the length of the ice, beat the entire Panthers team and set up the game-tying goal by John Tavares with 54 seconds left in regulation.

It's just what you would hope for from a puck-moving defenseman with brilliant speed and the ability to change a game in an instant.

And those are just the defensemen still playing right now. If you've lost track of all the young defensemen the Hawks have traded in the last four or five years, no one would blame you.

Some have been dealt because of the coach, some because of the GM, and some have simply been dealt.

What's important to remember is that Quenneville is a great coach who's headed to the Hall of Fame and has delivered three Cups during his time here.

Tip your cap.

The relationship between Quenneville and Bowman works because the GM doesn't force players on the coach, and when he refuses to play them or obviously dislikes them, the GM moves on.

There's no point in fighting about it. You can't force a coach to play guys he doesn't want. You don't win any Cups that way.

So this is where the Hawks are, with three exhausted defensemen, one short of winning a playoff series - maybe winning another Cup - and getting older by the day.

This is what happens when you win Cups, suffer due to the salary cap, and pay great players to stay in Chicago. Sacrifices must be made. Those are the rules.

But if the GM can't find another defenseman, or the coach can't develop a young one, early exits will become a theme around these parts.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.

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