On Friday night, the Blackhawks concluded their second set of back to back games this week by paying the Sabres a visit. Unfortunately for Sabres fans, #BuffaloNativePatrickKane is still on the mend till the playoffs, so they had to settle to for Jonathan Toews and his late game heroics to steal the show.
The Hawks got off to a fast start, giving Lemont native Scott Darling a 2 goal lead to work with in the first 10 minutes of the game. After seeing the pace to the Hawks game, it figured to be a laugher of a game. But as is always the case, the Blackhawks took their foot off the gas, and it nearly bit them in the ass as the game went on.
Despite having carry over power play time from penalty from the first period, and another power play just over minutes in, the Blackhawks couldn't add to their lead. Instead it was the Sabres who managed to get on the scoreboard and cut the Blackhawks lead in half. The Hawks however would carry their lead into the second intermission at 2-1.
The third period would end up being a tale of two different stories. The Sabres were able to carry their momentum from cutting the Hawks lead in half, to themselves taking a 3-2 lead until late in the period. In the final two minutes, The Captain took the game by the balls, and saved the Hawks from an embarrassing loss to the Sabres and scored twice, 47 seconds apart to give the Blackhawks a 4-3 win on the road.
The Good
- Jonathan Toews. Need proof? Watch the final two minutes of the game. Lead by example folks, lead by example.
- Fortunately for Blackhawks fans, Michal Rozsival had a scheduling conflict delivering pizzas and didn't take to the ice in Buffalo.
- David Rundblad had a solid game while filling in the rotating defenseman role, he ended up with an assist and a +1 for the night. That's adequate people.
- Everyone, with the exception of Andrew Desjardins (who cares), was 50% or better at the faceoff dot tonight. Overall the Hawks won faceoffs 38-31.
- Scott Darling was "good enough" to get the win tonight. I'll take it. He isn't going to stand on his head every game.
The Bad
- With how bad the Sabres are, its kind of embarrassing that it took some late game heroics for the Hawks to get the win tonight. Even though they were on a back to back, this is a team and game the Hawks should win handily.
- The special teams weren't so special for the Hawks tonight. The power play was 0 for 3, while the penalty kill killed off 2 of 3 penalties.
- The struggles for transitioning Antoine Vermette and Kimmo Timonen continued tonight. Timonen was a -1 and also took a penalty that resulted in the Sabres second goal. Vermette had a couple of nice plays, but still couldn't get on the scoreboard.
The Ugly
- Bryan Bickell is about as bad at hockey as my last choice of beer when I was at the liquor store. He's nothing more of an eyesore. Tying this into the Sabres, Bickell is teetering on the brink of being the Hawks version of Ville Leino, but just a tick better.
- The Hawks yielded 38 shots to a piss pore Sabres team.
- Seriously, it took two goals in the final two minutes of the third period for the Hawks to beat the Sabres.
- And a big two middle finger salute to AT&T U-Verse tonight. Not only did my tv keep freezing up, it also kept cutting in and out with a lost signal. Oh and did I get to the part that the HD channel went out completely? I took the Huey Lewis And The News approach and went back in time, and watched on standard def. I don't miss those days of standard def.