Rozner: Blackhawks already looking for desperation
There's an old hockey saying about the postseason.
You don't dip your toes in the water or you're liable to get dragged under.
Sometimes it's a Shark. This time it was a Predator.
Continuing something of Blackhawks playoff tradition, the home team started slow Thursday and a first-period Nashville goal held up as the only tally as the Preds beat the Hawks in Game 1 at the UC.
So much for a fast start to the postseason.
“Next game we have to be ready,” said goaltender Corey Crawford, who stopped 19 of 20 Nashville shots. “We have to have our best start in Game 2.”
Yeah, the Hawks are known for lacking desperation until they're truly desperate, and the Hawks played the final 30 minutes with some energy, while Nashville was content to sit back in a 1-3-1 zone and watch the Hawks get frustrated.
“I didn't mind our start,” said Hawks coach Joel Quenneville. “They weren't generating much. I still don't think we were terrible at the beginning.”
No, the Hawks weren't terrible. In fact, they played a smart, conservative first five minutes and a fluke led to the only goal of the game.
All three Hawks forwards on the ice collided near the blueline, creating numbers for the Preds, and when Viktor Arvidsson slid in behind Duncan Keith, Filip Forsberg found him with a neat pass and Arvidsson tipped it past Crawford for the 1-0 Nashville lead 8 minutes into the game.
“We were all kind of looking at each other figuring out who would get the puck,” Toews said. “And all of a sudden a guy finds himself behind our defense. We need to kill a play like that before it develops.”
The Hawks finally found their desperation in the middle of the second period and dominated the rest of the game, but they let Preds goalie Pekka Rinne see too many shots.
“We didn't,” Quenneville said, “make it very hard for him.”
Rinne was good, but he didn't have to be great. Some of that was a lack of traffic and some of it was a lack of effort early in the game, but Toews wouldn't use the layoff as an excuse for the Hawks' first 30 minutes.
“We should have had a better start and there's no doubt the second half of the game was better,” Toews said. “There was probably some nerves there at the start, but early in the game we need more energy and effort.”
Once they got a lead, the Preds clogged the neutral zone while using a single forechecker with four men back, and the Hawks did not adjust in the first period.
If a team takes away the middle of the ice, you have to chip and chase and even play below the goal line if necessary, but the chase is much harder than the chip.
In their own zone, Nashville kept the Hawks to the outside and the three-time champs let the Preds play the game the way they wanted until the Hawks hit the gas in the middle of the second period.
“We have to get our game going, get our battle level up a few notches,” said Niklas Hjalmarsson. “We're going to have to play harder than we did today.”
From there, the Hawks had plenty of quality chances, but Rinne saw most of them. The Hawks also came within an inch of several point-blank chances, but the Preds seemed to get a stick on most of them.
“No, I don't think we were surprised by how they played,” Toews said of a Nashville team that played a wide-open style all year. “We just have to execute better.”
There was a lot of noise coming from the Preds' dressing room postgame, but in a quiet Hawks room there was also a quiet confidence.
Maybe even a bit of anger.
“We measure our game by what we give up, and we didn't up much,” Quenneville said. “But we have to be better across the board. There has to be more desperation.”
It's only one game and the Hawks have done this too many times before to see any panic.
So they trail in the series. What else is new, right?
brozner@dailyherald.com
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