Quenneville loses cool, Blackhawks win in OT
Joel Quenneville has been known to lose his cool now and again on the bench when a call doesn't go the Blackhawks' way.
The veteran coach has probably never been more animated, though, than when a Marian Hossa goal was taken away during the first period of the Hawks' 5-4 overtime victory at Arizona on Thursday.
The Hawks won when Jonathan Toews — returning from a one-game suspension — potted the game-winner with 28.5 seconds remaining in extra time. It was his second goal of the game and fifth in overtime this season.
The Hawks also got goals from Hossa, Patrick Kane and Michal Rozsival.
Hossa appeared to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead 15:40 into the game, taking a loose puck in front of the net and sending it past Coyotes goalie Louis Dominque.
Arizona challenged and won despite the fact that Klas Dahlbeck clearly pushed Hossa into Dominque.
At that point, Quenneville erupted.
His arms flailing and tie flying, Quenneville jumped in front of his players on the bench and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at the refs that ended up earning him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
“We've seen Joel Quenneville snap, but I don't think I've ever seen him snap like that,” said Comcast SportsNet analyst Eddie Olczyk.
Adding insult to bad call, the Coyotes took a 1-0 lead when Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored on the power play with 2:48 to go in the first period.
Of course, as the Hawks (35-16-5) are apt to do, they responded by getting 2 goals in the first four minutes of the second period to go up 2-1.
And who scored the first one? Hossa, of course.
“Sometimes when calls go against you, the easy thing is to dwell on it and kind of let it translate into a poor game in the next 40 minutes,” Toews told Comcast SportsNet. “But I think Hoss used it in the right way and came out flying. … He was a huge factor for us tonight and playing the way we know Hoss can play.”
The cagey veteran beat Dominque with a solid power move 2:53 into the second period to make it 2-2.
Then, with Arizona on the power play, Hossa broke free and fed Toews for a short-handed goal just 67 seconds later to make it 2-1 Hawks.
“I thought we had a real good response in the second period,” Quenneville told reporters afterward.
At that point, Arizona could have packed it in, but the Coyotes roared back with 2 goals in just nine seconds. They came from Mikkel Boedker at 12:34 of the second period and Jordan Martinook at 12:43.
Eighty-seven seconds later, the game was tied again when Patrick Kane ripped a shot past Dominque for his career-best 31st goal of the season.
Rozsival gave the Hawks a 4-3 lead at 7:18 of the third period with his first goal since Dec. 5, 2014, but Arizona knotted the contest at 4-4 when Shane Doan scored four minutes later.
A furious back-and-forth overtime ensued with both teams having multiple chances to prevail. Toews finally sealed the deal when he got the puck to the middle of the ice and unleashed a shot that Dominque had no chance of stopping. It was Toews' 21st goal of the season. He's now surpassed 20 in each of his nine seasons.
Dominque has allowed 5 goals in three straight games.