Hawks slow out of the blocks
3 takeaways from loss to Islanders, descent to 0-3-1 start to season
This is where the Chicago Blackhawks are.
After a fourth straight loss to start the season — a 4-1 setback against the New York Islanders in the home opener — the Hawks are hanging their hats on the fact they played well for two periods. Two periods after which they trailed 1-0.
And it didn’t matter anyway: 20,279 fans at the United Center watched the Hawks fold in the third period and give up three goals in about 11 minutes.
The Hawks (0-3-1) fell to last in the Central Division, and only the Montreal Canadiens (0-4-0) have a worse record.
Marc-André Fleury has a 5.63 goals-against average and an .840 save percentage.
The Hawks are grasping for silver linings as they prepare to face the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday, when Patrick Kane will be celebrated belatedly for reaching the 1,000-game mark.
“They want it bad. I mean, they want to win,” coach Jeremy Colliton said about his team. “It was a really good response, the first two periods in particular, and parts of the third as well. When you don’t get rewarded for it, it’s tough.
“But that’s the thing. We have to be consistent, we have to do it over and over again. If we had played much better over the first three games, we may be 0-2-1 but we win tonight.”
It remains to be seen if playing better Tuesday helps produce a win Thursday.
Here are three takeaways from the loss to the Islanders.
1. Blackhawks fans are getting restless — is the front office?
It’s one thing to start 0-3-1 if you had no expectations of being good, but the Hawks revamped in the offseason.
Before Tuesday’s outcome was determined, Colliton heard boos from the home crowd during his pregame introduction.
“Hey, we’ve all got pride,” Colliton said after the game. “We play for Chicago, we play for the team and the fans and the organization. We want to win, so I understand people care.
“We’re just going to dig in and keep responding. We responded well tonight, we have to respond well again.”
Despite the late score to avoid a shutout, the Hawks were booed by fans anyway.
Kirby Dach said it was great having fans back in the arena, but “it’s tough to go out there and lay an egg in front of your home crowd in your home opener. Figure it out and get ready on Thursday, back to battle.”
Every loss puts more pressure on Colliton’s tenure as coach.
The Hawks were supposed to have improved, but with the exception of two periods Tuesday, they have looked worse than last season’s youth-laden team.
Colliton is caught in a tug-of-war between process and results.
“To me, the result is important, no doubt. We want to get points,” he said before the game. “But it’s more about how we play, and how we play, when you look at it, should lead to winning. Over time, you have to think the way we’re playing is going to lead to us getting points.”
The question is how much more time will Colliton get to iron out those details he says will pave the way to wins.
Only Stan Bowman can answer that.
2. Jonathan Toews still has ‘work to do.’
Many at the United Center stood when Toews was announced during player introductions.
Fans last saw him on home ice March 11, 2020. The pandemic shortened that season, and then Toews missed the next season while dealing with what he was told is “chronic immune response syndrome.”
Through four games, Toews has averaged about 17½ minutes and has taken five shots but has yet to register a point.
“No doubt I’ve got work to do,” said Toews, who played 22 shifts Tuesday. “There’s a little bit of when the team game settles in and you let the puck do the work, shifts aren’t as hard.
“But there’s some conditioning I need to keep chipping away at, just recovery and taking care of the body and getting ready for the next game. Definitely not where I want to be yet, but I still have to find a way to go out there and contribute and do things on both sides of the puck.”
3. The ESPN broadcast was roundly criticized.
The Hawks are scheduled to appear on national TV several times this season, but the second nationally televised game and first on ESPN was littered with hiccups.
It got off to a shaky start for the broadcast team of announcer Sean McDonough and analyst Ray Ferraro.
Ferraro said during a pregame segment that the Hawks “gave up a goal 17 seconds into their opening game of the season” against the Colorado Avalanche, but actually it was the second game against the New Jersey Devils.
The pair called MacKenzie Entwistle by his first name for most of the game, and then — after Entwistle scored late in the third period — Ferraro made a remark about “MacKenzie” again seconds before McDonough replied, “Morgan Entwistle, just 22 years old, was one of the breakout players in training camp.”