Great road trip? You bet
LOS ANGELES – It was a great road trip for the Blackhawks despite Saturday night’s 2-1 loss to the Kings in a shootout, which followed Friday’s 3-0 loss at Anaheim.
The Hawks took 9 out of a possible 12 points and come back home still in first place in the Central Division.
"I thought it was a real good road trip," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "You get 9 out of 12 points in six tough buildings. At the beginning of it you would have taken that."
Trailing the Kings 1-0 after two periods, the Hawks played a solid third and got the tying goal from Jonathan Toews on a power play with 13:04 to play.
A victory was there for the taking when the Hawks had a power play for the final 1:02 of overtime, but they never got any real good looks.
"We had a couple chances," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "We were trying some one-timers, but it was the end of the game and the ice was a little choppy."
The shootout was all Kings. Anze Kopitar and Jack Johnson beat Hawks goalie Cristobal Huet with dekes while Toews and Patrick Kane were stopped by Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick.
Marian Hossa was slated to shoot third for the Hawks, but it never got to him.
Breaking down the road trip
Here are the Hawks who more than pulled their weight during the six games:
Duncan Keith – plus-6 with 7 assists
Brent Seabrook – plus-4 with a goal and 2 assists
Patrick Sharp – 1 goal and 4 assists
Jonathan Toews – plus-4 with 3 goals and 3 assists
Troy Brouwer – plus-4 with 2 goals and 2 assists
Kris Versteeg – 3 goals
Brian Campbell – plus-4 with 5 assists
Patrick Kane – plus-3 with 2 goals and 4 assists
Cristobal Huet – 3 wins, 1 loss, 1 shootout loss
Antti Niemi – 1 start, a 1-0 win at Vancouver
Although Huet would have not been my favorite as the#1,I wish people would lay off
him .He's gonna bet your #1 all year,unless they pull off some kind of miracle trade.
The guy's GAA is 2.12,4th in whole NHL.Martin Brodeur is at 2.02,a HOF'er.Good teams
like the Hawks make it easier on their GT by not allowing many shots on goal.
Detroit won Cups with Chris Osgood,who is OK,but far from the best in the NHL.
This was a great road trip,one that used to the death trip,especially in Calgary and
Edmonton.It would have been nice to get the shootout win last nite in LA,but take the
ponit and come home.Just think if you got 9 pts. out of 12 possible on the road
consistently,with the way the Hawks play at home,you'd end up with about 120 pts
for the season.What the trip proved was they can beat the TOP TEAMS ON THE ROAD.
They kicked Calgary and San Jose around.Plus they proved they can shutout good
teams on the road with yourbackup goaltender,like in Vancouver.the only game they
were never in was the Anaheim game.Teams that aren't playing well always want
to get going again,they were up big time for the Hawks.Welsome home Hawks,kudos for
a job well done.
The Hawks are the only bright spot on the Chicago sports scene right now. Let's rock the UC during this home stand!!!
I don't think we can feel too bad about the shootout. Kopitar and Johnson are both great in that situation. It was a good road trip and it seems clear the guys were losing their jump at the tail end. Good time to come home and play at the UC.
I hope Bowman is working some type of magic to rid the team of an under-achieving $7m+ defenseman. I am sorry but Campbell is a great player but the Hawks are stacked on D and I feel we would not miss a beat sending Soupy on his way.
Great road trip against some tough tough teams, great work Hawks and here's to an awesome Pittsburgh venue.
long term a Campbell trade would be good, be trading him before the playoffs as a salary dump KILLS the depth on D...it would go from great to above average
Great road trip and we are ready to roll moving forward but teams that are the "measuring stick" for the entire league figure a way to score more than 1 goal combined against the Ducks and Kings. These are the types of teams we will likely face in round 1 and can't afford to give these games away.
Yesterday in the last blog, I didn't mention the Duck game separation.
I think this was a scheme to avoid both Keith and Seabrook being inflicted to energy line checks.
When teams are going to play that god awful trap we have to learn how to adjust our game. We need not to try to be so cute and dump, chase and bang bodies. As the old saying goes they don't put pictures on score cards and ugly goals count the same as the pretty ones.
If we are going to take a run to the cup we are going to have to adjust to playing like this because most teams in the NHL can not skate with us. We have enough talent to adjust to whatever style the opponent wants to play and to do it well.
Anyway, it was a great trip and now its time for some home cooking. LET'S GO HAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Somebody smarter than me once said that in a game decided by one goal, do not blame what happened on the winning goal. One must look back over the entire game to the events that led to the score being tied. It might even have been a baseball manager talking about an extra-inning loss.
first sorry for my poor english but stop with cristobal huet criticism at any time
STOP can you respect him as man and real pro he is
Do you know kopitar and the young kings ?
Do you know the stats of cris in shutout ?
Do you love your team or year after year of LOOSE you really don't realize what happen?
Do you know how many fan in the nhl admirate the hawks ?
Incredible to read what i read every day on the supposed hawks blog fan or whatever
you are not real fan of your team you want to win only win because of 85 years and..... ok
I'm in admiration behind this team i love this jersey since 20 years and i very proud
to spend my night in france to see cris and his teammate plays like a dream team
Thank You,and to finish I trully believe the hawks win their 4th and 5th Cup very soon.
Eh, mon ami, beaucoup des bloggers ici savent (savont?) hockey tres bien (mon francais, comme ton anglais, n'est pas tres bien). Mais ca que tu as dit de Cristo c'est tres vrai. Ici la problemme est des bloggers qui maintenant aimer Nikolai Khabibulin. Aussi, Cristo a commence' ce saison pas tres bien, OK?
Bienvenue ici, et retournez toujours.
What he said!
That a goalie can play outstanding for 65 minutes, then lose a point in a hockey version of a game of H-O-R-S-E. But them's the rules and Huet has to come through, especially if his own guys can't beat the other guy.
I also thought Simmonds' goal was a little weak. But If the Hawks can muster 2 goals (which they failed to do on three games on this trip!) are we even talking about Huet this AM, or are we even saying how good he was in regulation?
Sorry, the "they don't play with confidence in front of him" argument doesn't wash anymore. They scored 14 foals in two games in front of him against two of the league's best teams on this trip.
Less finesse hockey and we aren't even talking about Huet this AM.
I define "fence sitter" when it comes to the shootouts. In theory a shootout seems to be about the dumbest way to end a game. It also goes against the the Old Time Hockey grain. But the excitement level is sky high when you're actually at one of these games so I can see why the league likes them. Regardless of last night's results Huet has played as well as any goaltender in the league this past month or so. Unless he falls off the wagon and suddenly plays like he did the first couple of weeks of the season he's way down the list of concerns for this team. Plus Niemi has really sparkled in his limited time so hopefully poor goaltending won't be the talk of the town for a long while.
Goal scoring was a little erratic on this trip but that's to be expected when you hit the road for two weeks. December is loaded with home games, including at least one home game against every division team, so this will be a key month for the Hawks if they want to get a little separation between them and everybody else.
At the start of the trip just about anyone would have been satisfied with nine out of twelve points so all in all it was a success considering the miles traveled. You hate to see a shootout at the end of the trip but the Hawks could easily have lost this game in regulation too so we should take the point and be happy with 4-1-1.
As long as there is no letdown coming back home for so many games in December the season should set up fine. Just need to get the offense back in fine form which all the home games in December should assist with.
Huet indeed proved he was French retreating terribly on the two shootout goals. Brutal goaltending reminding me of the darkest days of Joc T-blow era. Hold your ground 39 !!! Don't back into the hemp hut.....you lose when you do that and you cost us the extra point tonight with that shoddy a** goaltending.
Most redeeming aspect of the game was the fact that the Hawks played their strongest period of the night in the final period of a tough road trip. We should have won the game in o/t but looked too disorganized with the man advantage. A lost opportunity. John Quick looked like the second coming of Patrick Roy. He was first star in my mind. Good trip though.....now back to the UC for some home cooking.
If anyone on this blog rails against Huet regulary, it is me.
I have given him soft nicknames to go along with the soft goals he was letting in.
Lately though, he is playing very well.
Yeah he is not the best shootout goalie in the world, but one thing to remember about shootouts..........they do not exist in April, May and June.
And Huet stopped a breakaway earlier in the Kings game, if I recall.
Good road trip. 9 of 12 is very good.
on the breakaway and he made the same move he did in the shootout, but Huet closed the dooor between the pads.
there Swisscheese -- there's no real reason to care about our goalie's (or for that matter our shooters') performance in the post-game skills competitions. Unless we think the team will need the extra standing points in order to make the playoffs, but obviously the Hawks won't. So worrying about winning and losing shootouts is just wasted energy.