Playoff hopes snowed under
In their biggest game of the season, the Blackhawks fall short to the Avs
DENVER — At this point in a long season, the Blackhawks aren’t trying to fool anybody. Even if they tried, they wouldn’t be able to do it.
Everyone who has watched them knows the Hawks aren’t the fastest, strongest or most talented team. That was as clear in October as it is now with April approaching.
What came as a bit of a surprise Saturday during their 4-2 loss to the Avalanche was the absence of some intangibles. The Hawks showed effort and determination, especially toward the end as they threw a decent number of shots at goalie Philipp Grubauer while trying to send the game into overtime.
What the Hawks didn’t have — and what coach Jeremy Colliton lamented afterward — were enough players going to the net, parking themselves in front of Grubauer and waiting for whatever would come next.
Colliton was perplexed that this could happen in the Hawks’ biggest game of the season. But he wouldn’t go so far as calling it an “unwillingness.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure. Sometimes we do it but clearly it’s an area we got to get better in.”
Two Avalanche goals came on tipped shots, the first by Northbrook native J.T. Compher when he deflected a Patrik Nemeth shot for a 1-0 lead. Less than two minutes into the third, Sven Andrighetto tipped in Erik Johnson’s shot from the point to give the Avalanche a 3-1 lead.
“They scored two goals off just being at the net,” Colliton said. “Throwing a puck to the net, being at the net and pucks go in. It’s hard to score those goals because you got to pay a price to be there. But it’s easy because everyone can do it. They got a couple that way, and we didn’t generate enough offensively. That’s frustrating.”
What does that tell Colliton about his team?
“Tells me we’re not ready to score those goals that are needed at this time of year when it’s almost a playoff game,” he said. “If you get in the playoffs, those are the types of goals that go in. There’s not a lot of tic-tac-toe, backdoor, one-timer things. You got to have a way to manufacture offense in different ways. They did it and we didn’t.”
The Avalanche were not appreciably better than the Hawks, though that might have been in part because they were without injured stars Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. One big difference was the 5-on-3 the Hawks gifted the Avalanche late in the second period. Erik Gustafsson was called for hooking, and 29 seconds later David Kampf’s high sticking resulted in a fourminute minor.
It seemed as if the Hawks might survive the two-man disadvantage after one Avalanche shot hit the post and another fortuitously struck Duncan Keith, but Colin Wilson was able to get one past Corey Crawford to make it 2-1. And when the teams were at even strength, the Avs also found a way to get the puck past a hot goalie more than the Hawks did.
Grubauer and Crawford have been playing as well anybody in the league the last couple of weeks. In his previous three starts, Grubauer stopped 102 of 104 shots; he made 29 saves Saturday. Crawford, who made 21 saves on 24 shots, has been human the last two games, but in the four before that he stopped 115 of 118 shots.
To win Saturday, when both teams played well, it was going to take something extra. The Hawks didn’t have it, and that could haunt them through the summer. Or they could come out Sunday night in a rematch at the United Center and play as if their season is on the line — which it is.
But the season was also on the line Saturday, and the Hawks didn’t have enough.
“It comes down to small, little things,” Duncan Keith said. “That’s the difference. We had our chances. They had some too. We’ll try to do everything we can tomorrow to be better and find a way.”
They might be better Sunday and might find a way. With eight games left, though, it’s almost certainly too late.