Blackhawks happy to at least pick up a point
WASHINGTON — All things considered, the Blackhawks were fortunate to skate out of the Verizon Center with 1 point Sunday afternoon.
The Hawks were sloppy defensively, allowing 42 shots, at a disadvantage with banged up defenseman Brian Campbell able to play only seven minutes, and allowed a killer short-handed goal.
It took 6-on-4 power-play goal from Jonathan Toews with 39 seconds to play in regulation with goalie Corey Crawford pulled for an extra attacker to get the game to overtime.
The Capitals made it 8 straight wins when Mike Knuble turned in a nice play in front at 3:51 of OT for the 4-3 victory.
“We’ll take the point, but we certainly weren’t very good today,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “They (Capitals) played well and played hard, but I thought we had a little delay in our game and were very generous on all the goals we gave them. We could have done a better job defending on those situations.
“We’ll take it when you’ve got to pull your goalie and score in the last minute.”
With the Western Conference standings still tighter than tight, any point that can be fought and scratched for is important — especially for the Hawks with just 13 games to play.
The Hawks finished their four-game road trip a disappointing 1-1-2 and have not won in three games since reeling off that eight-game winning streak.
“It’s about getting beyond that point of satisfaction and finding a way to win,” Toews said. “It (stinks) that we can’t get 2 points tonight, but we’ll be ready to bounce back (Monday against San Jose).”
Toews tied the game by jamming home his 29th goal of the season through Capitals goalie Braden Holtby after Duncan Keith’s wide shot rebounded off the end boards.
Washington outshot the Hawks 6-0 in overtime and got the winner when Knuble made a slick, twisting move in front with Keith defending.
“It was a good play by him,” Keith said. “We were at the end of a shift there, it’s late in the gamem, and it’s tough going. I made a turnover there trying to make a play to (Chris) Campoli and it goes the other way.”
Knuble’s shot popped in the air and fell into the net.
“It just found a way in,” Crawford said. “It went off a guy and was bouncing. I was trying to poke at it and I don’t know who it bounced off, but it kind of trickled in. At least we got a point.”
The Hawks took an early 1-0 lead on Nick Leddy’s goal at 4:46 of the first period. They were on a power play moments later when Patrick Sharp misplayed the puck inside the Capitals’ blue line and Boyd Gordon took off the other way and beat Crawford with a hard slap shot.
“I find shorties really take a lot out of your team,” Quenneville said. “I thought we had the start we were looking for and all of a sudden it gets the building going, gets them going and is kind of disruptive for our power play as well.”
The Capitals rode the energy from Gordon’s short-handed goal and went ahead late in the first period on Jason Arnott’s power-play tally.
“That was a huge short-handed goal to kind of take the momentum back because we had taken penalties and allowed them to get their confidence and game going,” Knuble said.