The Blackhawks were in Uniondale New York Saturday night to face the young surprising Islanders, in what should be the last Blackhawks game in Nassau Coliseum. Good news for the Blackhawks was that Jonathan Toews was good to go for this one after an ugly play Thursday night.
The first period ended up scoreless but there were plenty of chances. The Goalies stood tall at each end, with the Blackhawks out shooting the Isles 10-8. Could have easily been 1-1 with the breakaways each way.
The Blackhawks came out in the second period and were out shot 10-0 to open the period. It really didn't get much better after that, with the Blackhawks getting out shot 17-7 for the entire 20 minutes. Some how; some way; The Blackhawks managed to take a lead, which they promptly gave up.
The Third period seemed to start out well for the Blackhawks and they pulled the same thing they did in the second period. They took a 2-1 lead and proceeded to give of two goals in 51 seconds to, eventually, lose the game and their winning streak came to an end.
- The game started off with several good chances from Blackhawks big men Bickell and Saad.
- The Blackhawks finally scored on a bizarre bounce. Gorilla Salad took a long snap shot on Halak, and it shot straight up in the air. When the puck came back down, it hit Halak in the top of the mask and dribbled into the net.
- About four minutes into the third period, Patrick Kane worked some of his magic and grabbed a 2-1 lead for the Blackhawks. He was actually played very well, defensively. Given the chance, you would want him on his backhand, but like so many times before, Kaner snapped a backhand from an impossible angle over the goalie's shoulder. Magic, I tell you.
- Scott Darling is most of the reason the Blackhawks didn't lose 5-2. I'm sure this will result in him being rewarded with a bumpy bus trip to Rockford when Crawford is back...CUZ BOWMAN GENIUS.
- The Blackhawks were 59% at the faceoff dots, so they have that going for them.
- It took a third period powerplay and a flurry of action in front of Darling for the Isles to tie the game back up. It was really just a matter of time.
Oh yeah, it was assisted on by the castoff; Nick Leddy. He sure sucks, doesn't he Quenneville? - Just a 51 seconds after the game was tied, Visnovsky took advantage of the third pair out on the ice, skating around first Dahlbeck and then, well, net even needing to avoid the slow and useless Roszival. That quick, the Blackhawks were down.
- The Blackhawks were out shot 41-25 and only lost 3-2. Could have been much worse.
- The powerplay has dropped back down into the bottom 1/3rd of the league again.
- Michal Roszival was just blown the hell up by Matt Martin in the second period. He just stood 5 feet from his own net, with plenty of time and waited for Martin to fright train him. Of course Q kept trotting him out there. If that was any of the young guys, they would be sitting in the cheap seats for 3 games.
- SIX SECONDS after Gorilla Salad goal, Duncan Keith got extremely flippant with the puck and basically gave the puck to Cal Clusterfuck, who was able 4 feet from Darling. Darling was as surprised as we all were, and had no time to react to a play that should have never happened. The moral of the story was that the the Blackhawks held the lead for all of 6 seconds. Keith owes Darling a fucking steak dinner.
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