Bolland's goals can't save Hawks

On a night when little went right for the Blackhawks' top players, there was a silver lining.

Dave Bolland scored 2 goals, and they helped the Hawks snag at least 1 point for the 12th time in 13 games in a 4-3 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues at the United Center.

"We value points," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "If you keep getting points in these type of games, sometimes you're going to come out with 2. Every night the league is so close and so competitive, the value of these points is huge."

Another mammoth crowd (22,260) watched the Hawks overcome a poor first period and a 3-1 deficit to send the game into overtime, thanks to Bolland's first goals of the season.

But in OT, Bolland was penalized for hooking Andy McDonald at 1:07, and the Blue cashed in moments later when McDonald ripped a slap shot through goalie Nikolai Khabibulin from inside the right circle for the winner.

The Hawks felt the hooking call was cheap, with Quenneville accusing McDonald of taking a dive.

"It was a tough call at the end," Quenneville said. "It was a dive, clearly."

It was the kind of borderline call that could have been let go in overtime.

"I think so, but it's under their discretion," said Bolland, who took the blame nonetheless. "It wasn't smart. You wish you could go back, but you can't."

It was an uphill battle all night for the Hawks following Dustin Byfuglien's turnover on a power play that wound up as McDonald's short-handed goal 3:49 into the game.

The Hawks were buzzing on the power play until Byfuglien's fumbled the puck away at the St. Louis blue line.

"The power play looked like it was going to be all right too at that point," Quenneville said. "They hadn't won in a while, and they get a little jolt off that and it gets them in the game."

The Blues, who hadn't won in six games, went head 2-0 on David Perron's goal at 6:19 of the first following an Aaron Johnson turnover.

Byfuglien cut the Blues lead to 2-1 with a goal at 7:09, but a Martin Havlat giveaway led to Cam Paddock's goal three minutes later.

"Giving up a short-handed goal, certainly you lose everything you had going into the game right there," Quenneville said. "Then they get a quick one right after, so it's a huge hole. We get to 2-1 and it's OK, but the third one kid of represented we were too loose in our game."

There were 8 fighting majors handed out in the first period, but the story was the Hawks' sloppy play at both ends of the ice. They were 0-for-3 on the power play, allowed the shorty and missed the net with shots five times.

"We started a little slow tonight and dug ourselves a hole," said captain Jonathan Toews, who was held off the scoresheet along with linemate Patrick Kane. "We can't blame anybody else but ourselves for our slow start and the penalties we took.

"We have to let this one sink in and really get ticked off about it. Obviously we have to come back and be better on Sunday (against San Jose). There's not much to say. It's pretty simple what we didn't do tonight."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=250930">Hawks' stars hit snag in shootouts <span class="date"> [11/14/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>