by Gatekeeper
The Blackhawks were in the former State of Hockey™, Tuesday night, to extend their road trip against the Wild. They were coming off back to back wins against two teams they should have beat in Calgary and Vancouver. Whatever the case, they were on a streak. Speaking of streaks, the Wild were attempting to sweep the Hawks in the season series, for the first time in franchise history. This would be a great time for the Hawks to go on a hot streak.
In other news, the Blackhawks and Wild honored Minnesota native and Chicago Cougars player Matt Olson with an auction and helmet stickers. A very nice and sentimental gesture by both organizations. On to all that sportsmanship, and shit.
The Blackhawks were stuck on stupid from the drop of the puck. They gave up a goal just two and a half minutes into the game, on the first Wild shot, no less. They followed the goal up with a dumb offensive zone penalty and then lost their top defender to an immensely stupid match penalty. Of course, they decided to finally take the game serious, for a moment, and tie the game, while shorthanded. This left them with one really good defender and four "other guys" for the remainder of the game. I guess we were all going to get to see just how thin their defensive corp was. Oh right, the shots were 8-5 in favor of Minny.
As one might expect, the second period opened up like the wild west. The Blackhawks took at least half the period to get their bearings, but actually settled down a bit towards the second half. By "settled down" I mean "played defend the castle". While they didn't give up many chances, they didn't generate many, either. The shots were 7-6 for the middle period which let to a WHOPPING total of 14-12 in favor of the Wild. Considering their defensive status, I cannot complain about this game plan, either. Hang in there as long as you can, and wait for a mistake. Lets just say they didn't hang in there long enough.
The Hawks "bend but don't break" defense didn't last long at all. The Wild took a 2-1 lead early, and then gave up the back breaker shortly after the half way point of the third period. They gave it an honest effort, but with a #2 defenseman and a bunch of #5s and #6s, they weren't going to get very far. Based on the circumstances this game could have gone down the road to shit town in a hurry. A 4-1 loss is about what I would have predicted, if you told me that both Keith and Seabrook would be out for a majority of a late season division road game.
- With Keith out of the game and the Hawks killing his 5 minute match penalty, El Capitan and the God of Thunder, Marian Hossa worked a beautiful 2-on-2 to tie the game shorthanded. Minnesota, those are two sets of enormous balls, feel them tickle your chin. That goal gave Hossa 499 for his career.
- Um, they didn't get slaughtered when they very well could have? I guess?
- It only took the Wild one shot on net in two minutes and thirty seven seconds to take a lead. Jarret Stoll sniffed his way into the Hawks zone on a fairly harmless looking 2-on-1 but Scott Darling was off his angle and Stoll beat him stick side.
- In all the shenanigans, Andrew Shaw was on some revenge kick after the hit Matt Dumba put on Patrick Kane last meeting, so he spent the better part of the first 30 minutes chasing Dumba around. Shaw finally got him to scrap. The people in Carolina will love his grit, next season.
- Four minutes into the third period, Christian Ehrhoff got caught very deep in the Wild zone, leaving Hjalmarsson and Teravainen to cover for him. Mikko Koivu led the rush and caught a streaking Jared Spurgeon in behind a slowly recovering Teravainen. Spurgeon was in all alone on Darling and beat him to the stick side for a 2-1 lead.
- Trevor van Riemsdyk led the Hawks in ice time and team high 11 defensive zone starts. That's not good for anyone.
- There were 37 TOTAL shots in this game. Neither team managed more than 19.
- With Brent Seabrook sitting out, Duncan Keith took exception to being knocked on his ass by almost taking Charlie Coyle's head off with his stick. It was a pretty ugly play that Keith thought he would get away with, by trying to argue the old, "I slipped and fell". Any sane person could not argue with the call because it was clear in the replay that he was carelessly whipping his stick around like a machete. You can bet the Department of Player Safety will be weighing in on this one. Keith might get a rest for the remainder of the regular season for this bonehead play.
- Christian Ehrhoff didn't do himself any favors in the eye of the almighty Lineblender by taking a really lazy icing after Darling bailed out the defense with a pretty blocker save on a rare early second period 2-0. A questionable Ehrhoff pinch early in third period helped lead to the Wild go ahead goal. Based on Quenneville's past, unless Keith sits the remaining games with a suspension Ehrhoff might not see the ice again. Hell, even if Keith does sit, Ehrhoff might not see anything but the shrimp cocktail in the press box.
- With just under 9 minutes remaining in the game, the Wild took a commanding 3-1 lead. The only really solid remaining defender the Hawks had left, Nik Hjalmarsson, was running on fumes while getting double shifted. Nino Niederreiter beat Hjalmarsson up the half boards, and chipped a pass to a streaking Eric Huala. Huala beat Darling and, for all intents and purposes, put the game out of reach.
- To show you what a silly and subjective stat hits are, Patrick Kane led the Hawks with 3. LED THE TEAM!
- Hawks centers were completely pistol whipped at the dots, winning only 14 of 43 or 33%.
- The Blackhawks team overall corsi was 57%, which is really good. Another time when the eye test and the stats don't really match.
- Michal Rozsival should have tire tracks up and down his back with his team low -4 corsi and -7 fenwick.
Ladd - Toews - Hossa
Panarin - Teravainen - Kane
Fleischmann - Rasmussen - Panik
Desjardins - Kruger - Shaw
Keith - Hjalmarsson
Ehrhoff - van Riemsdyk
Svedberg - Rozsival