Blackhawks blow another big lead, fall to Sabres

Blowing a 3-0 lead en route to a 5-4 overtime setback at Vegas on Saturday was a tough pill to swallow for the Blackhawks.

But blowing a 4-0 lead at home to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday - and then falling 6-5 on a bizarre goal by Tage Thompson with 11.6 seconds remaining - was too much for even the mild-mannered Derek King to put up with.

"Didn't do anything we asked them to do," said an exasperated King. "First period they did. They played the game the right way.

"Second period, nothing. Third period, they kind of threw some flashes. It's like putting lipstick on, right? Clean it up a little bit. Make it look good. Not good enough."

Calvin de Haan, Sam Lafferty, Jonathan Toews and Seth Jones scored the first 4 goals in under 21½ minutes.

Seemingly, a rout was on. Something like 8-2 or 9-1.

Or even 11-2, which is how badly the Penguins defeated the Red Wings on Sunday.

Instead, the Hawks got sloppy and started looking for cheap, easy points. Poor defense, untimely penalties (Dylan Strome for hooking with 1:09 remaining) and suspect goaltending also allowed the Sabres to strom back.

The game-winning goal came right after Thompson's stick exploded on a one-timer. The puck hit the end boards, caromed off Kevin Lankinen's left skate and slid into the net.

"That was a fluke," King said. "But when it goes bad, stuff like that happens."

Said Toews: "We just kind of let them walk in everywhere and (start) making plays through us - no sticks on puck and go down the list."

Erik Gustafsson committed two of the worst gaffes - a weak ring-around attempt that led to an easy goal by Victor Olofsson and a weak clearing attempt that led to Kyle Okposo's goal that made it 4-3.

On the bright side, quite a few Hawks had standout performances as:

• Taylor Raddysh and Dominik Kubalik set up de Haan to open the scoring at 7:53 of the first period. Raddysh has 2 goals and 3 assists in six games since coming over from Tampa Bay in the Brandon Hagel trade. "He's fun to play with," Toews said. "Every time he gets the puck, he seems to know where guys are."

• Lafferty, seconds after delivering a crunching hit along the boards, went to the net and tipped in a long shot from Jake McCabe to make it 2-0. Lafferty has 4 goals in the last 13 games.

• Phillip Kurashev drew a penalty after putting a nifty move on Casey Fitzgerald deep in the offensive zone, then assisted on Toews' power-play goal at 16:55 of the first.

"We've been playing really good hockey," said Toews, who now has 10 goals. "We've been putting ourselves in good spots late in games. We just need to find a way to play in those situations a little bit better."

Bartlett native and former Hawk Vinnie Hinostroza tied the game at 4-4 at 2:39 of the third period. Alex DeBrincat restored the Hawks' lead with 9:04 remaining, but Buffalo tied it on Alex Tuch's goal with 2:14 left.

Lankinen has allowed 10 goals in the last four periods of regulation.

Injury update:

Defenseman Connor Murphy (concussion protocol) skated Monday morning and "said he's feeling really good," according to coach Derek King. "I believe some of the symptoms are not there or close to being not there." Murphy has missed seven straight games. ... Kirby Dach (non-COVID illness) did not play against Buffalo.