The Blackhawks welcomed the Nashville Preds to the United Center Saturday night. This game featured former Hawks Viktor Stalberg and Carter Hutton, but the bigger story was new coach Peter Laviolette's debut in Chicago as the new coach of the Preds.
The Blackhawks took a lead early in the first but then surrendered the lead on the powerplay, even though they out shot the Preds 12-2 for the entire period. Blackhawks controlled a majority of the play clearly.
The second period was generally very boring. The Blackhawks out shot the Preds once again, 11-4 for the period, which left the Blackhawks leading overall, 23-6. This, of course, didn't translate to goals, for the second game in a row.
The third period ended up being a lot more of the same as far as boring play goes. Both teams had
11 shots, but neither was able to break the tie. Once again, the Blackhawks were going to need more than 60 minutes to decide their fate.
Despite having two kill a penalty, the Blackhawks were able to take advantage of a great buonce and win the game in overtime.
- The game wasn't two minutes old and Johnny Oduya beat Carter Hutton for a 1-0 Blackhawks lead. A neutral zone turnover was quickly turned around. Oduya just skated over the blue line and blew a clapper right through the ex-Icehogs netminder.
- The Preds had Crawford dead to rights about six minutes into the third period, with a 2-on-0 chance in front of the Hawks net. Colin Wilson made the pass to Craig Smith, and Smith helped Crawford out, by shooting the puck low enough for Crawford to kick the chance away.
- With the Blackhawks killing a Patrick Sharp tripping penalty, they were able to kill off a majority of the powerplay, until Jon Toews was able to put pressure on the Nashville defender at the point. Toews was able to get the puck to squirt loose for shorthanded breakaway, and El Capitan did what he does. Game over.
- This is the second game in a row with over 35 shots and giving up under 20. You can't ask for more.
- I hate to say it, but Gorilla Salad hasn't been as awful as he could be. This isn't to say he was been good either, but I'll accept "not bad" at this point. He'll fuck this up, he always does.
- Not too long after the Blackhawks took a lead, they looked like they were in good position, drawing a Shea Weber penalty. Then they proceeded to take two quick penalties. You can all imagine where that was going to end up. Shortly after the Preds penalty and the first Hawks penalties wee over, Weber blew a slapshot past Crawford and the game was tied.oh, and this was the Preds first shot of the game.
- Shea Weber led all players with 28:21 of ice time. That won't wear him out by April, at all.
- The Hawks were pretty brutal at the dots, only winning 44%. Brad Richards won only 1 of 6 draws. That said, Marcus Kruger won two big faceoffs while the Hawks were killing the Sharp OT penalty.
- Early in the second period Blackhawks castoff Viktor St-LOL-Berg took a really stupid offensive zone penalty. Some things never change.
- I know Deuce is playing fairly well and all but, once again, he had 5 of his shots blocked. This is the Keith we saw 3 years ago, when he struggled.
- The Blackhawks powerplay looks like a steaming pile of camel dung. 0-5 and very little pressure. It's getting worse rather than better. There is far too much talent on their roster to be this bad.
- Any time Brad Richards wants to add something would be fine by me.
