tshilton

The Blackhawks faced Phoenix in the first of six road games on their annual Circus road swing, aptly named as the Ringling Bros Circus is occupying the United Center in the coming week.

Tonight a wild one, the game was extremely close as both teams were able to generate a ton of chances, it was exactly what you might expect from two young skilled teams. The pace was fast, but at times undisciplined in the end it came down to a shoot-out and the Blackhawks finally won one getting the much needed two points and breaking a minor three game skid.

Plus’s +
Chicago came out flying on the road, out shooting the Coyote’s 14 to 7 in the first period, scoring twice. The first goal set-up by a great play by Cam Barker, the Coyotes were breaking out of their zone and tried a cross ice pass to the opposite wing, which Cam breaks up in center ice. On the ensuing rush Kris Versteeg nets the games first goal from a wrist shot with assists from Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews; beautiful transition attack.

After the first period, Khabby had to be great stopping a total of 38 shots and not allowing any weak ones gave the Hawks the confidence they needed to pull this game out on the road. After Toews scored in the shootout I just got the feeling it was over that the Bulin Wall would stand firm.

Minus’s -
We dominated the first period and had plenty of chances to put the game out of reach with a third goal but couldn’t find the marker, goal scoring is one thing and timely goal scoring is another.

Concerning trend of letting teams back into games continues, as a young team we need to learn to play from the front and close out games where we are leading especially by two goals or more.

Also discipline, our defensive effort was not consistently good enough. Not to take anything away from Phoenix as they played a good game but we didn’t take care off the puck and had far to many mistakes to expect to win on most nights. Even with the lead we continued to take penalties, are penalty killing was almost the Achilles heel allowing both goals, coming from high slot one timers on the powerplay.

(Quick Note) Suprised to see both Jonathan Toews and Olli Jokinen drop the gloves in this game.

Three Stars

1. Jonathan Toews - easy choice assisted on the first goal, dropped the gloves fifteen seconds into the third period with Martin Hanzaland then scored the game winner in the shootout beating Bryzgalov with a wrist shot that hit the goalie’s stick and carried in.

2. Cameron Barker - already mentioned his play on the first goal but Cam played 26:11 seconds in this game only Brian Campbell finished with more minutes, finished the game a plus one and even got some time on the penalty kill. New coach Joel Quenneville has taken to real shine to Barker who was rewarded his trust with all around solid play.

3. Nikolai Khabibulin - solid effort, this game really came down to goal tending it was statistically even in almost every other way and Khabby came through in the clutch.

Quote of the Game
The victory was the Blackhawks’ first in five shootouts this season. “One of these days it was going to happen, so why not tonight,” Khabibulin said.

Moving Forward
Next game, the Blackhawks travel to Dallas to take on the Stars, Please check back with me here at STB as I’ll be previewing that match up Thursday morning an also will shed some light into some of the Blackhawks rumours circulating right now.

Any questions, concerns or comments

terryshilton@sportstalkbuzz.com

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