DARLING STRUGGLES AS HAWKS SPLIT TRIP
Bruins get around Darling early to quell Hawks’ momentum
BOSTON — Funny thing about being a backup goaltender: You work as hard as you can to be as ready as possible for the rare times you get the call. But ideally, you won’t see a minute of ice time in the postseason.
Of course, last year Scott Darling showed how important a backup goalie can be when he righted the Blackhawks’shipduringtheir first-round series against the Nashville Predators. And in this final month of the season, Darling likely will get two or three starts as the Hawks try to fend off the Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues for the division title. So no matter what, he’ll play a key role.
‘‘I do most of my work in practice with Darling because he plays less than [Corey Crawford],’’ Hawks goaltending coach Jimmy Waite said. ‘‘I make sure I keep him sharp, because when he steps in there, he needs to be sharp, and we need those two big points.’’
Well, Darling wasn’t sharp Thursday night. And as a result, the Hawks’ building momentum was slowed by an underwhelming 4-2 loss to the Boston Bruins.
‘‘He wasn’t very good tonight,” coach Joel Quenneville said of Darling. “We expect more than that.’’
Darling was making just his second start in nearly six weeks. He had three relief appearances in that span.
‘‘He’s had some real good games for us,’’ Quenneville said. ‘‘It’s one game. I can’t remember the last one he had where he was [bad]. So he’s been all right.’’
Darling gave up two tough goals in the first period and three on the first 14 shots he faced as the Hawks dug themselves a hole they couldn’t get out of. They remained in first place because the Stars and Blues were off, but every chance to put some distance between them and the rest of the division is a big one.
‘‘It was just one of those games that we got behind early,’’ defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson said. ‘‘Nowadays, it seems like it’s tough to get back in games when you’re down. We’ve got to find a way to get a better effort.’’
Darling gave up a goal to Patrice Bergeron 78 seconds into the first period and another to Brad Marchand with 22 seconds left. In between, Jonathan Toews scored, with assists from newcomers Christian Ehrhoff and Andrew Ladd.
The Bruins’ Ryan Spoon- er and Loui Eriksson added goals in the second period to make it 4-1, and while Tomas Fleischmann’s first goal with the Hawks— off a nice bit of passing from Hjalmarsson and Teuvo Teravainen — gave the team life late in the period, they got no closer.
The loss follows big wins over theWashington Capitals and Detroit Red Wings. It’s the kind of inconsistent play the Hawks have been lamenting all season — all or nothing, good or bad. And they no longer have their schedule as an excuse. The brutal pace of January and early February has slowed to a crawl, so even back-to-back road games like this week’s shouldn’t be too much of a burden.
Quenneville noted they’re in the midst of a 10-game stretch against playoff teams. But if they want to win the division and secure home-ice advantage, they’ll need to be more consistent.
‘‘We have a really good schedule the rest of the season, so we can’t really blame it on being tired or anything like that,’’ Hjalmarsson said. ‘‘There’s teams that have much worse schedules than we have for the rest of the season, so we definitely have to try to take advantage.’’