The Blackhawks latest streak of awesomeness came back to earth with a thud last night, in the form of a 3-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
I don't know about you, but I'm looking at every Hawk outing against likely playoff teams—especially of the Western Conference variety—as a measuring stick of how good this team is. Last night they hosted a young and inexperienced, but clearly playoff caliber, Edmonton club. The Hawks were rested and the only question going in was if they'd match Edmonton's pace early on.
At times last night, the Hawks played like the better of the two clubs, especially through most of the first period and the last few minutes of the second.
If anything, the Hawks appeared to lose a little juice in the third period. Although Richard Panik made it a game late with a nice, patient goal off a terrific Jonathan Toews feed.
The Hawks fairly widely outshot the Oilers, hit a couple of posts and a crossbar and Oiler goalie Cam Talbot was good enough when he needed to be. All that is relatively good.
But still, the Hawks seemed way too predictable on the power play, seeming to be trying to run everything through Artemi Panarin one-timers, that even people not watching the game could anticipate. No surprise, the Oilers did—and stopped the Hawks cold. The Hawks did a lot of their business around the perimeter, and when they got into the slot (with some frequency), either found Talbot's pads or inexplicably chose to pass out of the slot.
Opinions seem to vary widely on how well the Hawks "handled" the Oilers last night. My jury's out on that one I guess, but I think the argument is still there for another scoring winger to be added.
So tonight/late this afternoon, Chicago takes the ice again in Buffalo, against a team they "should beat." The Sabres are 26-23-10.
Scott Darling gets the net for Chicago.
Joel Quenneville did mix the lines a bit during the course of the game last night, and with Vince Hinostroza recalled, I would expect some possible further tweakage tonight.
The game is on NBCSN.
I'll recap tomorrow.
JJ