Hawks fail to turn on the power, fall in OT
Handed all sorts of ammunition in the first 22 minutes against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night, the Chicago Blackhawks not only didn't hit many bulls-eyes, they barely brought a gun to the fight.
Dallas made the Hawks pay for some sloppy, uninspired play and prevailed 4-3 in overtime when Mattias Janmark beat Corey Crawford with a neat flip shot for his second goal of the game.
The Hawks went 1-for-7 on the power play, had just 10 shots on goal through two periods and were fortunate to come away with a point against their division rivals.
“We don't compete hard enough in the first two periods,” center Artem Anisimov said. “Then we start playing in the third. Just not enough.”
The Hawks (12-9-4) fell 1 point behind the Stars (14-10-1) and will see them again Saturday at Dallas.
This game could have been over in the first period, but coach Joel Quenneville's power-play units generated next to nothing, then failed again with 2:37 of man-advantage time midway through the third.
“We scored one, but we didn't generate enough,” Quenneville said. “We had net-front presence — we just didn't get it through when it was the opportune time. We lost momentum on the power play tonight.”
Not only did they lose momentum, the Hawks actually fell behind 2-1 when Radek Faska converted a penalty shot at 17:20 of the first after Patrick Kane was called for hooking on a breakaway. Kane, who didn't agree with the call, made up for it by tipping in a Gustav Forsling shot 4:34 into the third period to tie it at 3-3.
“I think you can probably see the replay on calling the penalty shot, it looked like I just lifted his stick,” said Kane, who has 10 goals on the season and 5 in the last eight games.
“But we had our fair share of chances on the power play, so we're not going to blame that. We should have done better on the power play and it probably wouldn't have even went to overtime.”
Artem Anisimov and Alex DeBrincat scored the Hawks' other goals, with DeBrincat's coming just nine seconds after Dallas took a 1-0 lead in the first period. Anismiov scored the Hawks' only power-play goal, tipping in a perfect pass from Kane to make it 2-2 at 1:02 of the second.
Said Kane: “To be able to find that puck through a stick and someone else's legs — and to be able to get that much on it and put it in the net — that's pretty impressive by him.”
Anisimov has scored 11 times in the last 15 games, while DeBrincat has 10 goals in the last 13.
Crawford made 31 saves, including 3 on Remi Elie shots from point-blank range in a six-second span late in the third period. Dallas then went to the power play, and Crawford turned away a Tyler Seguin shot. Four seconds later, Alexander Radulov somehow missed a wide-open net from 10 feet away.
“Crow played amazing and we could have not even made it to overtime,” DeBrincat said.