Hawks blanked, checked by Philly
Quenneville’s squad can’t avoid penalties in loss against Flyers
PHILADELPHIA— Through the first three games, the Blackhawks hardly had played flawless hockey. There was some sloppy play, a spotty power play, some shaky defense — all the usual things you see in the first few weeks of a long season. But when it came to staying out of the penalty box, the Hawks were as good as it gets — allowing only four power plays through three games, including a bench minor. That’s a formula for success.
“Especially now with the salary cap and all the teams getting closer and closer together, special teams is one of those areas where you have to be good if you want to make the playoffs,” Niklas Hjalmarsson said before the game Wednesday against the Flyers. “Avoiding the penalty box is a good thing, and we’ve been doing a great job with that. Obviously, it makes it easier when we don’t have to kill four or five every game.” Yeah, about that. The Hawks committed five penalties in the first two periods, one leading to a Flyers goal and the rest leading to a disjointed attack in an underwhelming 3-0 loss at Wells Fargo Center. Throw in an 0-for-5 effort on the power play— including three opportunities in the third period and a 23-second five-on-three on which the Hawks didn’t even get a shot off— and you have an unusually frustrating defeat this early in the season.
“It’s a result of five-on-five play that was insufficient,” a disgusted Jonathan Toews said. “We had our chances at the end, but sometimes you don’t come out with the work ethic you need. We weren’t winning the puck races, we weren’t winning the battles — all those little details you hear us talk about. You don’t get the bounces if you don’t do that.”
It was the kind of sleepy effort you expect to see in the dog days of winter, when mental and physical fatigue start setting in. In mid- October, after three days off, there’s no such excuse. Coach Joel Quenneville tried in vain to jumpstart the team by mixing the lines yet again, giving Artemi Panarin and Viktor Tikhonov turns on the top line alongside Toews and Marian Hossa, but to no avail.
“Certainly tonight wasn’t what we were looking for,” Quenneville said. “It wasn’t about trying different things. We were brutal.”
Ryan Garbutt’s high-sticking penalty early in the second period set up noted Hawks killer Sam Gag- ner’s first goal with the Flyers. The man who once had eight points in a game against the Hawks while with the Oilers fired a wrist shot that got through Andrew Desjardins and Viktor Svedberg before eluding Corey Crawford (26 saves) at 5:35.
Viktor Tikhonov then took a hooking penalty, and Panarin followed up shortly after that with an elbow. The Flyers didn’t score on those power plays, but the relentless kills kept the Hawks out of their rhythm. Claude Giroux followed up a Michael Raffl wraparound attempt to make it 2-0, and the Fly- ers outshot the Hawks 15-9 in the second period. Matt Read finally put the game away for Philadelphia at 17:25 of the third.
The Hawks had their chances, but Flyers backup goalie Michal Neuvirth (30 saves) survived three power plays and stopped Hossa from close range.
Patrick Kane was booed every time he touched the puck in the arena in which he scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 2010. But the Flyers fans twice added “She Said No” chants, in reference to the ongoing police investigation in Western New York. They were significantly louder than the “No Means No” chants in Brooklyn last week.
Follow me on Twitter @MarkLazerus.