Wild's Dubnyk tough again as Hawks fall
Before the Hawks took on Minnesota on Tuesday night at the United Center, I asked Jonathan Toews, Andrew Shaw and Bryan Bickell how often they look at their division rivals' scores.
With the Central Division completely up for grabs, inquiring about scoreboard watching seemed to be a natural line of questioning, and their answers ranged from waiting until the next day to monitoring things as each night progresses.
But after the Hawks suffered a second straight 2-1 home loss, Duncan Keith was asked if it's time for the Hawks to worry about their own game and not about what Nashville and St. Louis are doing.
"I think so," Keith said. "Obviously we'd like to finish as high as we can in the standings. But at the end of the day we need to play our best. When we do that, we know we're a hard team to beat."
Unlike Minnesota, which is 27-8-3 since acquiring goalie Devan Dubnyk in mid-January, the Hawks can't seem to really put a big run together. Tuesday, coach Joel Quenneville wasn't happy with his team taking too many chances during a scoreless third period.
"I know that we got away from what made it a game for the first 40 minutes knowing that there's no plays to be had," Quenneville said. "We've played them two playoff series in a row. In the third period, we all of a sudden thought we could (make plays) and they get the benefit of playing in our end."
Mikael Granlund struck first with 10:30 remaining, and less than four minutes later, Jason Zucker took a gorgeous pass from Chris Stewart to make it 2-0. Zucker was playing in his first game since breaking his clavicle Feb. 9.
Bickell gave the Hawks life, scoring with Corey Crawford out of the net and 1:48 left in the game. Bickell's 14th goal of the season, however, was too little, too late.
Dubnyk stopped 32 shots and has turned away 56 of the 57 attempts the Hawks have sent at him as a member of the Wild.
"He's been playing really well, if not the best in the league ever since he came to Minnesota," said Hawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson, who along with Patrick Sharp, assisted on Bickell's goal.
"We had a tough time creating great chances. We didn't do a good enough job to get pucks to the net and get in his eyes. At the same time, they played a really good road game."
Minnesota (45-27-8, 98 points) clinched a playoff berth with the victory. Coach Mike Yeo's was effusive in praising his team, which was 18-19-5 after losing in Pittsburgh on Jan. 13.
"From where we were, what we overcame, the way that everybody dug in together to make the playoffs is quite an accomplishment," Yeo said.
The Hawks did get very good news as the Blues fell to the Jets and Nashville lost in Colorado. The Hawks, who play at St. Louis on Thursday, remain 2 points behind the Predators and 3 behind the Blues.
Quenneville's squad finished a pedestrian 24-12-5 at the United Center this season, the team's worst winning percentage since the 2010-11 campaign when they were 24-17-0.
"Traditionally we're pretty good here at home," Quenneville said. "We let some games get away. … It's still a great place to play and we've got to take advantage of home ice moving forward."