The red hot Anaheim Ducks came to Chicago to face the Blackhawks, Tuesday night. In sort of a surprise move, the Blackhawks decided to give Scott Darling his second start in a row against Ducks rookie John Gibson, which I was vehemently against. How would it work out...
The first period was fairly slow and methodical, but it really didn't yield many chances for either team. The Blackhawks threw 9 shots at the net and the Ducks took 10, but there wasn't many quality chances, overall. This was probably fortunate for both rookie goaltenders.
The second was just a continuation of the first period, with a slightly less methodical pace, but the same result. The Blackhawks ended up with 11 shots on net, and the Ducks had 9, for a total of 20 shots for both teams.
And the third period was dominated by the Blackhawks, out shooting the Ducks 18-4, but it was the Ducks who took advantage of a huge Hawks mistake to score the only goal of the game.
- About halfway through the second, Saad muscled his way into a partial breakaway, and not only got a shot off, but got a few whack at a rebound. The play was a great display of his pure strength.
- John Gibson made a helluva save on Toews early in the third period that will be shown on highlights for quite a while. Solid play. I really like this Gibson kid.
- Scott Darling played pretty well, and rightfully deserved a shutout. I'm still not anointing him the new starter, or even the new backup, but he's given the Hawks some hope in the system. That's where this should sit for the moment.
- Jeremy Morin was the best Blackhawks player on the ice for the entire game. If this doesn't earn him a longer look from Quenneville, the world is not right. And the world is rarely right in this fan base. All that said, he the only players to play less than him were Tim Jackman and Emerson Etem.
- The Blackhawks were absolutely dominant at the faceoff dots, winning 61% of their draws. Kesler was just worked, winning only 7 of 22 draws.
- Did Corey Perry or Ryan Getzlaf even play, because I sure didn't notice them. Perry, especially, was held in check pretty well by the Hawks defense.
- It was nice to see Bickell with some speed, going end to end, but he needs to finish.
- The Hawks powerplay, in general, failed them once again. This time, they had a full 2 minute 6-on-4 and could barely get shots to the net. That is a scenario when there should be an easy slam dunk somewhere.
- Dany Heatley, oh how the mighty have fallen.
- The amount of Hawk defensemen's shots that are blocked is seriously alarming. According to the official scorer, the Blackhawks defensive corp had 9 blocked. I would challenge that, and say they had at least a dozen blocked.
- The embellishment call against Andrew Shaw in the first period was brutal. He WAS hit in the face, and anyone who gets hit in the face with the shaft of a stick will throw their head back.
- The Blackhawks second powerplay unit failed Scott Darling, once again, with about 8 minutes remaining in the game. Seabrook got handcuffed with a bouncing drop pass at the Ducks blue line after dropping to his knees to stop prevent the puck from leaving the zone and blew a tire, not once, but twice. The puck rolled away and Devante Smith-Pelly was off to the races. Darling got a piece of Smith-Pelly's shot as Saad raced back and tried to get a stick on him, but it trickled through Darling's legs and into the net. Not on Darling at all.
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