Sharks power their way past Hawks
Even after some recent wins, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville was warning his players about taking too many bad penalties.
Some of them obviously weren't listening.
The Hawks gave the San Jose Sharks 6 power plays Sunday night at the United Center, and the team with the NHL's best record made them pay dearly.
The Sharks scored 4 power-play goals, 2 in a third period they entered trailing, to hand the Hawks a disappointing 6-5 defeat.
Dan Boyle's power-play goal one minute into the third period with Dave Bolland serving a tripping penalty tied it. The Sharks won it on Devin Setoguchi's power-play goal with 4:15 to play as Dustin Byfuglien sat for taking a tripping penalty in the offensive zone.
Quenneville wasn't too happy with what he saw.
"We get a lead there and take a penalty right on the first shift (of the third period)," Quenneville said. "That got us in trouble and they scored right off the bat. They get excited and get the momentum back.
"We can't take some of the penalties we took tonight. It's something we're going to continue to stress, knowing that you can't take that number of penalties in a game like that when we have control of it."
The third-period meltdown spoiled a second-period comeback by the Hawks that saw them rally from a 4-2 deficit to take the lead on goals by Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker and Patrick Kane.
"It's real disappointing," Brian Campbell said. "Those are games you've got to find a way to win.
"I don't think San Jose played their best. We took penalties again, some in the offensive zone, which you don't want to take."
Cristobal Huet wasn't sharp in goal for the Hawks, but neither was San Jose's Brian Boucher.
While Huet allowed some soft rebounds, it was difficult to fault him on the power-play goals with his teammates failing to do their jobs in front of him.
"Honestly, I think it was more what we did," Campbell said. "They have a good power play, but we gave them a lot of seam passes. It's tough for Huet to get over cross-box and they're firing. We're usually pretty good at taking that away, but we didn't do a good job tonight."
The Sharks improved to a league-best 15-3-1, while the Hawks lost their third in a row and now must head out on the road for the next six games.
It was the Hawks' first loss at home in regulation after a 6-0-4 start.
"We gave them too much respect," captain Jonathan Toews said. "We let their best players roam around and do what they want out there. We hung in there and got a lead, but we still didn't play solid enough."
The Hawks entered the game third in the NHL in penalty-killing, but only eight teams have been short-handed more than them.
"Certainly penalty-killing was a sore spot tonight, and the number we took and the kind of penalties we took," Quenneville said.