Quenneville's debut with Hawks falls short in shootout

ST. LOUIS - It didn't take long for Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville to get a good feel for what his new team is capable of doing.

While Quenneville liked how the Hawks competed in his first game behind the bench, he watched them turn a victory into a loss as the St. Louis Blues rallied from a 3-1 deficit with less than 11 minutes to play to win 4-3 in a shootout Saturday night at Scottrade Center.

Andy McDonald tied the game with a wide-open shot from between the circles that appeared to hit somebody in front with 14 seconds remaining in regulation after Adam Burish lost a faceoff.

Then in the shootout Quenneville tabbed Kris Versteeg to go third, and with a victory on his stick the rookie winger had a weak backhander stopped by goalie Manny Legace.

T.J. Oshie then beat Nikolai Khabibulin on the Blues' fourth attempt. Legace stopped another weak try by Martin Havlat to end the game.

"There were a lot of things to be positive about," Quenneville said. "I liked how we competed and I liked the speed of our team. We did a lot of good things.

"If we can find a way to continue to play with that type of energy we'll get better as we go along. We've got a lot of young guys we feel can improve in all situations."

But a loss is a loss, and the Hawks now have four in their first five games.

"It was a frustrating way to lose the game," Patrick Sharp said. "If we want to be a winning team, we've got to learn how to win games like that in those situations."

Quenneville talked up the positives when he spoke to the team afterward.

"He was happy with a lot of things," Sharp said. "He mentioned how we need to win those kinds of games, put teams away in the third period, and said he was confident we'd be able to do that."

Patrick Kane admitted he still is not over Denis Savard's firing, but he put his emotions aside and scored 2 goals to go with an assist in the loss.

Kane's second goal on a power play three minutes into the third period had the Hawks looking good at that point.

"It's almost like tryouts again," Kane said. "With a new coach everyone is out there trying to impress.

"Joel came in and said he thought we played good and gave a great effort. We just have to learn how to win those games, but we're a young team and we'll figure it out."

The Hawks had the better of the play in the first period but managed only 6 shots on goal. Still it was good enough for a 1-0 lead on Kane's goal 40 seconds into the game.

The Hawks got a quick goal in the second period to make it 2-0 as Brian Campbell's snap shot from in the slot hit Blues defenseman Eric Brewer and deflected past Legace's glove.

A positive for the Hawks was the penalty-killing, led by Khabibulin. The Blues went 0-for-3, including a failed attempt in overtime after coming into the game with the league's best power play at 8-for-19.

"The power play has looked good, but ask me in another 70 games," Blues coach Andy Murray said.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=243844">Blues' Murray: They fired a very good coach <span class="date">[10/19/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=243843">Fresh start for Havlat<span class="date">[10/19/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>