Hawks fall to Lightning in OT despite strong efforts from Kane, Crawford
Corey Crawford did everything he could to give his team a victory at Tampa Bay, but the Lightning took advantage of a Nick Schmaltz slashing penalty in overtime and came back to post a 3-2 victory Wednesday night.
The Hawks got a pair of first-period goals from Patrick Kane - his seventh and eighth of the season - but they never scored again and fell to 10-8-3 on the season.
Tampa Bay got a shorthanded goal from Ondrej Palat at 4:27 of the second period, then tied the game at 2-2 on a Chris Kunitz goal 31 seconds into the third.
The Lightning won it when Steven Stamkos faked a shot and passed to a wide-open Brayden Point right in front of the net with 1:35 left in OT.
Of Crawford's 35 saves, the best might have come 57 seconds into the second period when he gloved a Stamkos blast from about 25 feet away. Crawford was also incredible in overtime, standing tall on Grade A chances from Point, Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.
Tampa Bay (16-3-2) also got spectacular goaltending out of Andrei Vasilevskiy (29 saves), with his most impressive stop coming on a Richard Panik shot 5:44 into the third period. Vasilevskiy somehow got his left toe on the puck and kept it out of the net.
Vasilevskiy also stopped Kane on a breakaway attempt 2:05 into overtime.
"It was an exciting game," coach Joel Quenneville told reporters. "Had our chances to get the lead again. But they're a dangerous team. Took one too many penalties."
While this loss stings, the Hawks did plenty of things well. First and foremost, they didn't allow the Lightning to score on its first 5 power-play chances, all of which came in the first two periods.
The Hawks' power play also stayed hot. Kane's second goal came on the two-man advantage as he took a perfect pass from Cody Franson and wristed a shot that gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead at 15:54 of the first period.
"Franson made a really crisp pass to me," Kane told NBCSN after the first period. "I just kind of had to corral it and take my time … because the goalie was on the other side of the net. Great play by Franson there."
Franson has 4 power-play assists in just 11 games.
"He really wants to do well and he wants to be an important part of that power play up top," Kane said.
"Just from being other teams, he's got a lot of different ideas about the power play too. He's been pretty instrumental in us … starting to turn it around a little bit."
This was Kane's first multi-goal game since March 4. 2017.
The Hawks return to action Saturday at Florida.