Hawks' Fleury does it all, but Stars prevail in shootout 1-0
There are saves.
And then there are Hall of Fame saves made by a future Hall of Fame goalie.
That's exactly what occurred at the United Center on Friday night as Marc-Andre Fleury absolutely robbed Roope Hintz on a point-blank one-timer with 6.5 seconds remaining in the second period. Hintz, who appeared to be firing into a wide-open net, looked skyward in disbelief when the puck ended up buried in Fleury's glove instead of the back of the net.
The nearly silent arena erupted and the Hawks skated to Fleury to express their profound gratitude.
That miraculous save, plus another on Alexander Radulov's one-timer with 8:15 remaining, plus the other 25 shots Fleury stopped enabled the Hawks to get the scoreless battle to overtime.
The only question was, could anyone play hero on the other end of the ice for interim coach Derek King's squad?
The answer was very nearly yes in the first minute of OT, but Jake Oettinger turned aside quality attempts by Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat.
In a game with so few scoring opportunities, it seemed fitting it would go to a shootout where Fleury could save the day again. Unfortunately for the Hawks, Dallas won 1-0, converting in the first and sixth round. Only Alex DeBrincat managed to beat Oettinger in the shootout. Patrick Kane, Lukas Reichel, Philipp Kurashev, Dominik Kubalik and defenseman Jake McCabe all missed.
McCabe was a surprise choice, but the veteran said "he was hot this week in shootouts" during practice.
"I thought I made a pretty good shot. The goalie got his knob on it," McCabe said. "It's unfortunate that one didn't go in for me."
True. But McCabe feels more than a little fortunate to have Fleury manning the pipes behind him.
"He saved my (butt) in the end of the second," said McCabe, who was in the middle of that 2-on-2 rush that led to Hintz's shot. So does Fleury ever amaze himself?
"Sometimes I think I'm lucky, like that's what I meant to do," Fleury said. "I'm hoping to stop it obviously. As a goalie those are the ones I play for and I love doing.
"You know, players love to score goals, right? For me, if I can make a save - a tough one - those are the ones that feel good and make me smile."
Said Hintz, who has 21 goals in 46 games: "I thought there was only one or two seconds left so ... I shot it too fast. If I knew there were six seconds, I would hold it a little bit more and wait for his glove too drop. It is what it is. That was a nice save, and it didn't go in."
The Hawks are now 18-25-8 overall and 8-12-4 at home. Dallas, which is 8-3-0 in its last 11 games, improved to 27-19-2.
DeBrincat (7), Calvin de Haan (5), Kane (4) and Connor Murphy (4) took 20 of the Hawks' 34 shots on goal.