Rozner: Blackhawks happy to steal Game 1
The Blackhawks went into Friday night's series opener with questions about their goaltending and defense.
They didn't exactly find answers in Game 1.
The good news is the Minnesota Wild have to be asking some questions of their own after goalie Devan Dubnyk appeared human in the Hawks' 4-3 victory at the UC.
The bad news is the last time Dubnyk had an off night, a 6-1 loss to St. Louis in Game 4, he bounced back by stopping 66 of 68 shots in Games 5 and 6.
"It's nice to get four by him, but we're more happy with the win," said Patrick Sharp, who had an assist on Teuvo Teravainen's game-winner. "We know he'll be rock solid for them going forward."
The Hawks have their own concerns at the moment, mainly that they can't put together back-to-back periods like the one they played to open the game Friday.
"I know. It's frustrating," Sharp said. "They came out in the second and I don't know if it was a combination of us taking our foot off the gas and them pushing hard.
"Wish we could put our finger on it. Hopefully we'll play more of a 60-minute game."
The Hawks had the 21,851 in attendance wondering who the players were in red at the start when they played their best period of hockey in months, looking nothing like a Hawks team that struggled to put any part of their game together against the Predators.
It was all good from the start as Corey Crawford looked like Corey Crawford again, seeing pucks well from all different angles and through myriad screens.
The defense was strong and the forwards' back pressure was smothering, giving the Wild very few top-notch looks.
As for the offense, the Hawks were jumping from puck drop, all over Dubnyk and the Minnesota defense, and had a 3-0 lead 15 minutes into the game.
In the first minute of the second, however, Bryan Bickell missed an open net from 15 feet out and Johnny Oduya hit the crossbar from 40. Instead of being up 4-0 and ending the game right there, 20 seconds later the Hawks got caught standing around in their own end and it was 3-1.
By the 9:30 mark, Crawford had given up a pair of questionable goals and the game was tied at 3-3.
"They're a good hockey team," said Hawks coach Joel Quenneville. "You know they're going to come back. They're going to be pushing. They're going to take some chances. They're going to get some action at the net.
"I think no lead is safe in this year's playoffs."
Outplayed in the second, the Hawks got a big break when - after another nice keep-in by Duncan Keith, who had 2 more assists - Teravainen threw a puck at the net from long distance and Dubnyk was slow to react as it found the top right corner for a 4-3 Hawks lead with only 59 seconds left in the middle period.
"Sometimes you gotta shoot," Teravainen said, "and good things happen."
Based on the first-round play of both teams, no one could have forecast an opening 20 minutes in which the Hawks were the better team in all three zones, least of all the Minnesota zone that had been such a strength for the Wild against St. Louis.
The second period, on the other hand, was almost predictable.
"Certainly, we have to be better in that period," Quenneville said. "We know they're a dangerous team and expect every shift to be important."
Take nothing away from the Hawks' extraordinary opening period - when they looked like the best team in hockey again - or a solid third in which Crawford played well, but the Hawks remain baffling even to themselves.
"It's amazing, huh?" said Marian Hossa, shaking his head. "It's hard to explain why. We make a few little mistakes, they get hot, and it's in our net."
The surprise wasn't that the second period showed how sluggish the Hawks can be when they're sleepy, because they displayed plenty of that in the Nashville series.
The surprise was that the first period showed how dominant they can still be when they are ready to go.
As for which Hawks team is going to show up in a given moment, good luck trying to figure it out.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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