Hawks have moments, but fall in OT 4-3 to Jets

Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice can sympathize with Jeremy Colliton.

A little bit, anyway.

Maurice, you see, became the second-youngest coach in NHL history when he took over the Hartford Whalers at 29 years old in 1995-96. He's defeated Colliton's Blackhawks three times in the last 16 days and knows just how tough the first weeks and months can be for a young, up-and-comer.

"Well, Jim Rutherford (current GM of the Penguins) was my mentor at that time and said to me, 'The first thing you've got to learn is what door to walk into at each rink, and then take it from there,' " Maurice said before Winnipeg beat the Hawks 4-3 in overtime at the United Center on Friday. "This is a different league.

"There's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of variety and styles of games that teams play. You've got to learn 700 players and their tendencies. So there's a huge curve to it."

Nobody has to tell the 33-year-old Colliton that, especially after the Hawks fell to 10-18-6 overall and 4-12-3 under his watch.

The Hawks had plenty of impressive moments Friday - with the biggest being a pair of Jonathan Toews goals and an improbable game-tying score by Erik Gustafsson with just 7.5 seconds remaining. Toews now has 16 goals and is on pace for what would be a career-high 39.

Gustafsson, who missed the last two games due to illness, ripped a shot from just inside the blue line for the fifth tally in his last 10 games. Unfortunately for the Hawks, Mark Scheifele notched his second goal of the game and 20th of the season just 50 seconds into OT for the Jets (21-9-2).

"Our confidence is getting better," said Toews, who twirled and holstered his stick after his second goal, which gave the Hawks a 2-1 lead at 13:07 of the second period. "Would have been nice to build off our win (over Pittsburgh) the other night. (Winnipeg) is a good team and they stay with it. …

"We're playing better. So we've got to start demanding more out of ourselves. Just getting to overtime or 1 point out of it in our building is not good enough."

Blake Wheeler had 3 assists and 11 shots on goal for the Jets. Brandon Saad and Duncan Keith each had 2 assists for the Hawks.

While it wasn't a victory, Colliton's team looked much more poised than three days earlier in Winnipeg when they fell behind 4-0. Saad just missed tapping in a pass from Dominik Kahun in the first minute; Carl Dahlstrom hit the left post with 8:26 remaining in the first; and Dylan Sikura barely overskated a rebound two minutes into the second period.

As Maurice said, it takes a while to learn a team's tendencies and habits.

"They're in our division in the (AHL), too, so you know a lot of the players from that," Colliton said. "But three times in two weeks, you know them pretty well now."

That will help in the future, but learning all of these teams on the fly is no easy task.

"What's tough is we're so focused on ourselves right now and trying to get our own game where it needs to be," Colliton said. "Once that feels better, then you can start to look outward. But I think we're getting there, and that feels good. It's a little more fun."

So how long will it take for Colliton to feel comfortable matching lines and wits with the league's best?

"I felt like last month I was starting to get the hang of it," joked the 51-year-old Maurice, who has 669 career victories over 21 seasons.

Then he got serious and said: "It changes, right? That's the beauty of the National Hockey League. From (1995) - which was my first year to now - it's a completely different game. Different style of game, different mentality of player, certainly it feels like a different skill level.

"Everybody's different. … I've always been really fortunate (to) have really, really good coaches to work with. Experienced guys there that helped."

It took Maurice four years before he coached a team to the Stanley Cup playoffs. Eventually, experience paid off.

It's a lesson for Colliton - and Hawks fans - that sometimes success does take a while.