‘A grind’ in Columbus
Subban tallies first Hawks shutout, Kane approaches milestone in win over Jackets
The Chicago Blackhawks and the Columbus Blue Jackets would agree: Thursday’s game was a grind.
“Didn’t like our start, thought we were passive and just took too long to move the puck,” said Jeremy Colliton, whose Hawks prevailed 2-0. “They were good. They came out solid and work ethic and whatnot, but I thought we were a little bit on our heels and too slow with the puck but excellent response in the second period.
“Very good energy and pressure on the puck and urgency with it. I felt we created enough, but we could’ve created more with a little better execution. But it was a battle, tight game.”
Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella echoed that sentiment.
“It’s such a close game, chancewise, shot-wise,” he said. “Yeah, I guess who blinks first.”
Patrick Kane was off in a blink on his decisive breakaway goal in the third period, the 399th of his career.
On the subject of milestones, Malcolm Subban stopped 15 shots in the third period and 26 overallen route to his first shutout as a Hawk and second of his career.
“He was very good,” Colliton said. “Can’t be better, obviously.”
The 11-6-4 Hawks have won two in a row and eight of their last 10. They won four of the five-game road trip.
They return home for a fivegame stand at the United Center, starting with the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.
1. Breaking down Patrick Kane’s breakaway, the Blackhawks saw opportunity. The Blue Jackets saw inevitability.
Calvin de Haan was about to finish a shift, along with Matthew Highmore’s line, but before they gave way to Kane’s line, de Haan dumped the puck from the Hawks’ end into the neutral zone.
Kane took it from there.
“I was coming off the bench, (Alex) DeBrincat just got a touch on it, enough for me to skate into it,” Kane said. “I just had to pull it around one (defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov) and had a lane to the net. The D-man (Michael Del Zotto) was coming over so I wanted to get a shot off before he closed space, just tried to pick my spot and hit it.”
In a grinder game like Thursday’s, the goal took on added magnitude.
You could see it coming with Kane flying off the bench as the puck made its way to him, Gavrikov looking around trying to locate puck and Del Zotto coming from across the ice to try to put a body on Kane.
“It’s kind of a tough play,” Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski said. “(Gavrikov) made a great read pinching (DeBrincat) there, stepping up, puck’s in his feet, and then Kane’s coming with so much speed.
“He’s a tough player to stop. There’s so many ways he can find ways to score, whether it’s his backhand shot (or) making a move. Kind of try and just limit him, take away his time and space and push him to the outside. But he had a quick release and found its way in.”
David Savard, who exchanged words with Kane after laying a questionable hit on him Tuesday, gave Kane his props.
“His whole career he’s been a difference maker,” Savard said. “When he gets a shot like this he doesn’t miss too often.”
2. Idle time is Malcolm Subban’s workshop.
Here’s the pattern with Subban so far: He’ll sit on the sideline for days at a time, then make some highly athletic saves in a spot start.
Even his non-saves seem capable of making highlights.
NHL Network’s nightly roundup included a clip of Subban darting out to his right on an apparent block during the second period, but officially Eric Robinson’s
wrister hit the goalpost.
Oh, well, Subban had plenty of actual saves (26) to choose from during his second career shutout — the other coming as a Vegas Golden Knight when he made 20 saves against the Winnipeg Jets on March 21, 2019.
“It feels good,” Subban said. “I’ve never been really good at getting shutouts, so I cherish them when I get them, but I just think it’s a result of our team play. It felt like a playoff game today, and usually those are really tight, so it felt like a really tight game overall.”
The Blue Jackets drew iron at least a couple of times, and the Hawks defense blocked 14 shots. But Subban came through on some difficult stops, including a sliding save to thwart Seth Jones’ one-time attempt from close range 7½ minutes into the first period.
“I think we generate a little bit more maybe with screens or something like that when a goalie’s playing as good as he was tonight but he made good saves tonight,” Werenski said.
As much as Subban’s shutout is the headline, his ability to carry his momentum despite the 11-day gap between starts is noteworthy.
“Just trying to work hard and take my practices like my games,” Subban said.
“Especially in the game-situation drills, you’ve really got to bear down there when you’re not playing that much.”
Colliton called Subban a hard worker.
“He’s done a great job preparing himself to be ready when he gets the chance and he’s making the most of his opportunities,” Colliton said.
3. The Hawks can’t be this lucky with goaltending, can they?
Well, “lucky” is relative. The Hawks’ goaltending was expected to be a train wreck, and instead that locomotive has been quickly building speed while encountering the occasional bump or two.
Subban has the team’s best save percentage (.930) and goalsagainst average (2.14) but has just five starts to Lankinen’s 14. Lankinen’s .921 save percentage and 2.59 GAA rank sixth and 13th, respectively, among goalies who have made at least 10 starts.
“We have to say we’re pleasantly surprised,” Colliton said. “They’ve both been really good, they give us a chance to win every night. That’s what you hope for when you give young guys opportunity, you hope they’re going to seize it and take advantage of it, and that’s what they’re doing.”
4. Pius Suter and Philipp Kurashev shook things up by switching places.
The Hawks offense was stagnant through the early second period, so about four minutes into the second, Colliton put Kurashev on a line with Kane and DeBrincat.
He moved Suter to Kurashev’s usual line with Carl Soderberg and Mattias Janmark.
“Just trying to get something going,” Colliton said. “Didn’t like our first (period), thought we were passive, thought we could get some momentum from a couple of different combos.”
The DeBrincat-Kurashev-Kane line played about 8½ minutes, had the best puck possession and took the most shots of any Hawks line, based on NaturalStatTrick.com data.
The Suter-Soderberg-Janmark line played just less than 4½ minutes and had a high-danger chance, which is more than Suter’s line with Kane and DeBrincat could generate.
In case you’re wondering, David Kampf was on the ice with Kane and DeBrincat when Kane’s thirdperiod goal broke a scoreless tie.
5. It was Opposite Day compared with Tuesday’s game.
Tuesday was a figurative and literal shootout, decided 6-5 after the overtime period on DeBrincat’s winning shot. Thursday night was a defensive slugfest.
The Hawks had 17 shots in the first period Tuesday, a season high for that period. On Thursday, they tied a season low for any period with three first-period shots on goal.
The Hawks’ magic disappeared during the second period Tuesday but was just the opposite Thursday: They found their stride in the second, outshooting the Blue Jackets 12-3 and turning the tables in puck possession.
“Second period was a struggle where we gave it back to them top of the circle,” Tortorella said. “We just played a 140-foot game with them there we just kept on turning pucks over, didn’t get a chance to forecheck.”
By Colliton’s count, the Hawks held Columbus to six evenstrength chances over the last two periods, though “they had a flurry there (when) they had four in one little sequence (in the third) that was self-inflicted (after) the penalty kill.”