One 'brutal loss' for Hawks

DETROIT - Only time will tell if the Blackhawks can bounce back from what happened Tuesday night at Joe Louis Arena.

A gritty effort to send the game into overtime ended in a bitter 3-2 defeat when Detroit's Mikael Samuelsson scored 5:14 into the extra period.

Brian Campbell attempted a pass to Cam Barker from the right point to the left point that was knocked down by Samuelsson, sending the Red Wings off on a 3-on-1 against Nikolai Khabibulin.

A nice passing play between Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula and Samuelsson ended up on Samuelsson's stick in the slot for the shot past Khabibulin.

"On the goal, I'll do that play a hundred more times," Campbell said. "He made a good play. If I have a chance again, I'll do the same thing. That's a play I can make, and I normally do make it."

Samuelsson admitted he made a risky play trying for the steal at his own blue line in overtime.

"I usually don't go over to the other defenseman, but it worked," Samuelsson said. "It looked like they had something good going on."

The Red Wings own a 2-0 lead in the best-of seven series that resumes Friday night at the United Center.

"It was a brutal loss today," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We did a lot of right things, but we still can't be satisfied with certain things. We've got a couple days now to gather some momentum. The things we do well, we've got to build upon."

The Hawks sent the game to overtime on Jonathan Toews' second goal of the night with 7:40 to play.

A relentless shift by the Hawks paid off as Toews tipped a shot by Kris Versteeg from the left point through goalie Chris Osgood's pads with Dustin Byfuglien also crashing the net.

The Hawks had the momentum most of the rest of the way.

"I think we were better tonight," Campbell said.

Red Wings coach Mike Babcock didn't think his team played its best.

"I don't think we did as good a job tonight," Babcock said. "I didn't think we had any legs or any pop tonight right through our lineup. We had good will and good determination, but no legs.

"We found a way to win two games against a real good team. This is going to be a team that's going to be very difficult to put away."

The Hawks outshot the Red Wings 19-13 in a first period that saw the teams trade power-play goals.

"We felt we had a lot of great chances," Toews said. "We got really close to closing it out, but they're a great team. We gave ourselves a great chance to win going to overtime, but unfortunately we came out on the short end."

Toews opened the scoring at 12:49 when he came out of the corner and had his centering pass deflect off the skate of defenseman Jonathan Ericsson and past Osgood.

The Hawks were at the end of another power play later in the period when Toews tripped Pavel Datsyuk to the right of his own net. That penalty led to Brian Rafalski's tying goal.

Rafalski flipped the puck at the net from the blue line and Khabibulin never saw it through a Tomas Holmstrom screen.

Earlier in the period Holmstrom had been penalized for goaltender interference against Khabibulin, but this time he was clearly outside the blue paint.

The Red Wings cranked up the big red machine in the second period and put the clamps on the Hawks defensively. The Hawks had only 6 shots in the period and surrendered the only goal to Dan Cleary after another Brent Seabrook turnover.

The puck came back to Seabrook at the blue line after the Hawks won a faceoff deep in the Detroit zone. Cleary picked off a Seabrook pass and took off in alone on Khabibulin for his third goal of the series.

The Hawks outshot the Red Wings 39-38 in a game that featured more up-and-down action than Game 1.

"They gave us everything we could handle tonight," Osgood said.

"I thought Khabibulin was good and I thought Osgood was real good," Babcock said. "If you're a hockey fan and not a coach, it was probably real exciting."

Tim Sassone's game tracker

Three stars

1. Mikael Samuelsson: Another game-winning goal for the Red Wings forward who started and finished the 3-on-1 in OT that ended it.

2. Jonathan Toews: Hawks captain had both goals in a tough loss.

3. Chris Osgood: Red Wings goalie was 1 shot better that counterpart Nikolai Khabibulin.

Key stat

The Hawks could only get out of the first period tied at 1-1 despite 19 shots on goal.

Big moment

Mikael Samuelsson picking off Brian Campbell's pass in OT to set up his winning goal.

The quote

"If I have a chance again, I'll do the same thing. That's a play I can make, and I normally do make it."

- Hawks defenseman Brian Campbell on his turnover in OT

Looking ahead

The Hawks need to win Games 3 and 4 at the United Center, but taking four of the next five from the Red Wings to take the series is a tall order.

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