All You Can Do Is Laugh: Hawks End It Like It Started

 

The Chicago Blackhawks closed out the regular season with appropriately, yet another loss, this time to the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres are a team that has hit rock bottom and is on the rise with a bright future with 2 number one (overall) draft picks in the lineup on defense. The Hawks are close to hitting rock bottom and a rebuild will be in the works for the next couple of seasons. The Hawks habit of not protecting leads came into play as they had one goal leads twice in the game with the Sabres tying the game both times before scoring the overtime winner. A frustrating season for Hawks fans that has finally come to an end and hopefully their fortunes take an upward turn next season. Fingers crossed!

Takeaways:

• I missed watching the game on Friday, so I had to resort to watching the replay on Saturday afternoon, which is okay because where I live it's solidly rained all day. I don't know what's wrong with NHL Live, but the stream froze with 40 seconds left in the third and when I switched to the Sabres broadcast it stopped with the exact time left in the game. What the hell! If I was watching this live I would have been going crazy! I couldn't access the overtime so I had to resort to the highlights on the NHL website. Disappointing finish!
• For whatever reason, the Hawks wore their home red jerseys and as usual there was a lot of red in the crowd. Despite a losing season, it was a good crowd in Buffalo.
• Speaking of, "for whatever reason", Sabres goalie (and former Blackhawk), Malcolm Subban sang the American anthem. Smiles from both teams, Subban did a commendable job, though he had a little trouble with some of the high notes and some other notes...😄 Well done Malcolm!

• Goals: Dominik Kubalik opened the scored about midway through the second period with his 15th goal of the season from a sneaky feed from Alex Vlasic for his 2nd point of the season. Dom's had rough season, but he's shown good compete level for the past month or so, maybe he can carry that into next year. Dylan Strome broke a 1-1 tie with a nice deflection about midway through the third with his 22nd. A good bounce back second half of the season for Dylan who has been a good fit with Kane and the Cat. Unfortunately, the lead didn't hold up with Owen Power tying it up to force OT about five minutes later.

• Quick notes: The Hawks resigned Sam Lafferty to two more seasons. Good move by the Hawks, it's an affordable deal for a player that has shown what a lot of hard work and hustle can do. He is the polar opposite of Alex Nylander the player they traded to acquire Laffy. Interestingly, the player they traded to get Nylander from the Sabres, Henri Jokiharju, who was a top Hawks prospect a couple of years ago, is now a solid top-4 D for Buffalo. Collin Delia played a good game, though Power's goal was stoppable. The future of Delia is as uncertain as the whole goaltending situation with the Hawks. It will be an interesting off-season.
• Patrick Kane finished the season with 93 points, his third highest total. For such a losing season, this really reflects the importance and reliance of scoring placed on Kane who had 14 more points than Alex DeBrincat. To put in perspective how top heavy the scoring is with the top line, the points drop with the next highest scorer after Kane/Cat/Strome and Seth Jones to Jonathan Toews with 37 points. Hard to imagine if the rebuild includes dealing some or all of these players. I cringe to think about it.

Up next: Well, the regular season is over for the Blackhawks and it'll be a time now to evaluate what went wrong. As a fan of the team I can only hope this "rebuild" will be quick and less painful than this season. We need some optimism and I really hope the team's management and ownership is in the right hands. What do I know, I don't even live in Chicago. The same could be said for my hometown, Winnipeg Jets who also are wrapping up a disappointing season. Unlike the Hawks, they have a solid core of players that just need a fine tune and add a couple key positions. The Hawks may have to tear it down!

Bad Call, Bizarre Goal And Blown Lead...Again!

Just when we thought the Blackhawks couldn't blow a bigger lead than last game, they did, against a crappier team and at home. The Hawks squandered a four goal lead from early in the second period only to allow the Buffalo Sabres to tie them (twice), then win it with only 12 seconds left in the third period. Not only did they have a larger lead than last game (3-0), then didn't even get the loser point this time. The problem with having a large lead before the game was even half over, is the Sabres had more time to chip away and by the end of the second period they were within a goal (4-3). If the Hawks were fighting for a playoff spot, I would be angry as hell, but this is one of many reasons they are not, they can NOT hold a lead. Good teams can protect leads and what the last two games taught us is you can't just play a really good half a hockey game and expect to be rewarded. This is a problem, duh.

The positives:

• Fast Start: Again, the Hawks came out flying outplaying and outhitting the Sabres as they roared to 3-0 by the end of the first period and 4-0, a minute and a half into the second. It's great to see the Hawks starting out so quickly and they've been scoring the first goals more often. Earlier in the season it was a habit to see them fall behind early and never recover or comeback.

• Goals a Plenty: Calvin de Haan's goal came as a result of a sweet pass from Taylor Raddysh. The second goal was all Sam Lafferty who threw a big hit to retrieve the puck from the corner, then proceeded to the front of the goal to tip a McCabe point shot. The third goal was vintage Johnny Toews with a beautiful move to the front of the goal and the fourth was a nice feed from DeBrincat to Seth Jones who moved in from the point. After the Sabres tied it at 4, the Cat snapped his 38th of the season to take a 5-4 lead, but of course, we know the Hawks can't hold a lead. The PP was 2/2, so that's positive. Another good offensive output with lots of goals, but it was all for naught.

Bad Thoughts:

• Blown lead: How many times this season have the Hawks failed to hold on to a lead? It seems like every time the momentum is turning against them when they have a lead, they collapse, crumble and go into panic mode. They stop doing what they were doing, they can't clear the puck out of their own end, they continue to to make east-west plays not advancing the puck, especially in the neutral zone and their own end and they get too fancy in the other teams zone and don't get pucks to the net. How do you stop the mo, relieve the pressure and slow the game down? They had to have felt it as soon as the Sabres scored their second goal, they just lost a game where they blew a big lead and clearly unless you are blind to the signs, you have to do something to stop the bleeding. Call a time-out, throw some hits, start a fight, throw loose change on the ice, whatever it takes! That's where good coaching and well disciplined players comes in. This has to be addressed in the off-season.
  
• The setup for the inevitable winning goal seemed like it was meant to happen. All the circumstances surrounding it, the Sabres had tied it with just over two minutes left, Dylan Strome receives a hooking penalty with about a minute left in a tie game, Tage Thompson scores on a once in a lifetime fluke goal with 12 seconds left. Comeback complete.

• Bad call: The penalty Strome received was such a non-call, the refs should be embarrassed. Strome clearly used his stick on Jeff Skinner's stick in the slot area and he fell because Strome out-muscled him as Skinner was falling forward already. (see above photo). Strome only used his stick on Skinner's stick, not on his hands and not touching his body at all, a really good defensive play. Earlier in the period, Skinner felt he was violated and proceeded to scream and whine to the refs. According to Colby Cohen, between the benches, Skinner continued to bark at the referee even through a commercial break. You have to wonder if all those intimidating threats do influence and make the ref question their earlier non-call. The fact Skinner could get away with his verbal assault without getting a penalty or misconduct is unbelievable. And to add insult to injury, supposedly, the ref Skinner was targeting was working one of his first NHL games and he was the ref that ultimately made the last minute penalty call. Seems like a premeditated call to me. If this is the case, this is another example of the incompetent and oh, so frustrating inconsistency of NHL refereeing this season. It was a bad call and it cost the Hawks the game.
  
• Bizarre goal: It took the replay to realize how the puck went in. Thompson took the shot from inside the circle, his stick shattered in half, the lower half went with the puck that hit the back boards then ricocheted off Lankinen's skate to deflect into the net. You would never be able to recreate that shot. When Thompson took the shot and his stick broke, he was on the way to the bench to get another stick when it went in. What a way to lose!

 

 

• It took Kevin Lankinen three smashes of his goal stick to break it completely.

Up next: Hawks take a trip to Florida to face a couple cup favourites, Thursday in Florida and Friday in Tampa Bay. both games at 6:00 CST.