Hawks battle but Kiprusoff too tough
Maybe this is how to tell the Blackhawks truly are a different team, when it's difficult to find many negatives in what is now a four-game losing streak.
The Hawks came out on the short end of a 3-2 decision to the Calgary Flames on Sunday night at the United Center when another one of the NHL's top goaltenders played at the top of his game.
Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 35 of 37 shots to frustrate the Hawks, just as Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Vancouver's Roberto Luongo did earlier in the week.
"The last three goaltenders we faced -- Luongo, Giguere and Kiprusoff -- they can put you on a losing streak, all three of them," Hawks coach Denis Savard said.
The Hawks outshot the Flames 19-10 in the third period and battled to the final second, with Kiprusoff lying flat on his back in the crease as the horn sounded, the puck under him.
"It's disappointing, but I can't fault our guys," Savard said. "They worked and they battled. Hockey is a funny game sometimes; the bounces don't come your way. I'm not looking for excuses. You guys saw the game as much as I did. If you fault effort, then you guys watched the wrong game."
Two of the 3 goals allowed by Hawks goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin came on deflections, including Daymond Langkow's on a power play with 6:08 to play that made it 3-1.
But on Langkow's goal, Hawks winger Martin Lapointe had the puck on his stick with space and time -- only to fail to clear it out of the zone.
And on Cory Sarich's goal that broke a 1-1 tie at 11:19 of the second period, Hawks winger Tuomo Ruutu failed to corral a puck that was sent to him around the boards.
"Puck goes around the boards, we work on that almost every day, and it goes by us," Savard said.
Dustin Byfuglien, the Hawks' best forward once again, answered Langkow's score less than a minute later with his seventh goal of the season to make it 3-2, but that's where the comeback ended despite a frantic final minute.
In what has become a familiar pattern, the Hawks seemed to come alive offensively and dominate play when they got behind by 2 goals, only to run out of time.
"It seems like the last 2½ minutes we absolutely dominate," defenseman James Wisniewski said. "I don't know if teams know they have the lead so they sit back and let us get in the zone, but it seems to be our tendency."
Not only have the Hawks lost four in a row, they've dropped six of their last eight and let another precious home game slip away without any points.
"It seems like one bounce is killing us or one break is killing us," defenseman Brent Seabrook said.
"Maybe guys are trying to do too much because of the losing streak we're on," Wisniewski said.
The Hawks still can make it a good month with six of their next eight games at home before the calendar turns to January and the schedule gets heavy with road games.
"Usually it's tough to win coming into somebody else's building, but teams are coming in here and finding ways to win," Byfuglien said. "We've got to start finding our ways to win."