Crawford soars in win over Stars, Hawks extend Central lead
Patrick Sharp has seen it a million times: A Blackhawks opponent dominates a game, only to leave the arena shaking their collective heads because Corey Crawford somehow willed his team to victory.
“He's a great goalie every game, win or lose,” Sharp said after his Dallas Stars lost 3-2 in a shootout at the United Center. “He's solid back there (and) gives the Hawks a chance to win every night. (He's) a good friend and a tough guy to play against.”
And that was especially true Thursday night when Craw ford made 42 saves and 2 more in the shootout as the Hawks won a game with a lackluster effort that left coach Joel Quenneville seething at the postgame lectern.
“I know last game (against Vancouver) I didn't mind the way we played and we didn't win,” Quenneville said. “(Sunday) we weren't very good for 40 minutes against Colorado, and tonight we weren't very good for 60 minutes. … We want to make sure there's more attention to detail and more pace to our game.”
Patrick Kane scored his 33rd goal of the season midway through the first period and Marian Hossa broke a 1-1 tie at 8:37 of the third. Dallas wouldn't go away, though, and Ales Hemsky scored his second goal of the game with 5:09 remaining to knot the score at 2-2.
Kane and Artemi Panarin ended up converting in the shootout to give the Hawks their 18th victory in the 22 games. The win enabled them to increase their lead to 8 points over Minnesota with just eight games remaining.
Crawford, who was not made available to the media, allowed 4 goals on 10 shots against the Canucks on Tuesday and was pulled in favor of Scott Darling. Against Dallas, Crawford made a slew of incredible saves. The two biggest came on shots by Devin Shore just before the Stars tied it up, and in overtime when Remi Elie raced in on a breakaway.
“You've gotta give Crawford some credit on the saves,” said Dallas coach Lindy Ruff, whose team outshot the Hawks 44-26. “But at the same time, we missed some beauties.”
One of those came when Sharp had a golden opportunity to beat his buddy on a first-period breakaway, but the former Hawk couldn't find a good angle and didn't even get off a shot.
“I didn't see much to shoot at, so I tried to do a little move and Crow was all over it,” Sharp said.
Hossa's goal (his 24th) came after he took a pass from Nick Schmaltz and blasted it by Kari Lehtonen.
The Hawks, who now head out for a three-game road trip to Florida, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh, went 2-0-1 on their homestand. Like their coach, though, Hossa and Kane were less than pleased with the team's play this week.
“We want to get ourselves ready for the playoffs and we have to play a full 60 because it's not going to be enough just to play 20, 40 or 50 minutes,” Hossa said. “We have to play a full 60.”
Said Kane: “We've been playing well on the road (and) we have a little road trip here, so it would be nice to recapture where we were a couple weeks ago.”
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