Hawks have to make do without stars in lineup
Dealing with injuries to key players has been a big part of the Blackhawks' season to this point.
They've been without Marian Hossa on two separate occasions, Dave Bolland for six games and Brian Campbell for the first 13 of the year.
Now they are going to be minus Patrick Kane for an undetermined period of time with an apparent left leg, knee or ankle injury suffered in Sunday's 4-2 win over Calgary.
While coach Joel Quenneville said the injury wasn't serious, that doesn't mean Kane won't be out for a while.
“Guys that are getting injured are key parts of this team and when they go down it's tough,” defenseman Duncan Keith said. “It's a lot of offense and a lot of firepower out of your lineup.
“I think every team deals with it at one point or another, but it seems we've had a tough go of it. But we have guys that can step up and pick up the slack and collectively be a little bit better.”
The Hawks lost Kane on his first shift when he tried to spin away from a check by Flames defenseman Cory Sarich and fell awkwardly into the boards.
Kane rarely leaves himself in a position to take a hard hit and he didn't this time either, avoiding a charging Sarich for the most part.
Kane has missed only four games in his career: two in 2009 because of a sprained ankle, one in the 2009 playoffs with the flu and one earlier this season because of illness.
Flame out:
Calgary gave the Hawks 9 power plays on Sunday that turned into 4 power-play goals.
That was the game.
“It's just not smart hockey, it's undisciplined hockey, and it shoots you in the foot,” Flames coach Brent Sutter said. “You beat yourself. Five-on-5 we were fine.”
Sutter didn't think goalie Miikka Kiprusoff was very good either.
“Your goaltender needs to be your best penalty-killer and he wasn't that,” Sutter said. “In the third period, you have six minutes of power plays in the last eight minutes of the game and you don't generate enough. We didn't generate, consistently, enough pressure on our power-play.”
Calgary is 11-14-2 now and last in the Western Conference.
Money matters:
When the NHL Board of Governors begin two days of meetings today in Florida, Commissioner Gary Bettman will update them on the financial state of the league.
Various reports are suggesting the salary cap could rise by at least $2 million from its present $59.4 million.
That would be good news for the Hawks, who will be squeezed cap-wise again next summer and with core defenseman Brent Seabrook to sign as a restricted free agent.