Doing his best Snake Pliskin imitation (sans eye patch), Buffalo-native Patrick Kane repaid the smattering of boos that rang out every time he touched the puck in yesterday's matinee against the Sabres with an unlikely game tying goal.
Then it was Kane who saved one of his best shootout moves ever for the homies and haters, lifting the puck and his visiting Blackhawks to a 3-2 win.
Escape, indeed.
The Blackhawks were good in the first period, before sleepwalking through the second period, where Buffalo's lone tally came on a Corey Crawford puck handling misadventure. But otherwise, Crawford was as strong as ever, turning away multiple quality Buffalo chances.
The third was more evenly played, but Buffalo's Ryan O'Reilly put his team ahead with three minutes left with a nice move and shot, while the Hawks did a bit of a Chinese Fire Drill in their end.
Then Buffalo showed their inexperience; Josh Gorges took a bad tripping penalty on Kane, which was compounded by an accidental high stick by Rasmus Ristolainen before the Hawks gave up possession. Boom. 5 on 3. With Crawford pulled, it became 6 on 3—and Kane came out of the phone booth.
The Blackhawks probably shouldn't have won. But a penalty is a penalty. And, as good teams do, they capitalized on their luck.
Whew.
Some other impressions.
For the third or fourth straight game, Teuvo Teravainen played well along with Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa. That line was the Hawks' best yet again, although they failed to dent Buffalo net minder Chad Johnson.
Great goal by Dennis Rasmussen to open the scoring. Moose is doing just about everything you could want from a lower line center—although you'd like to see him improve a bit on 47.7% in the dot.
Speaking of faceoffs: Philip Danault went 11-7 (63.6% yesterday). That's an area where Danault struggled in both Rockford and Chicago last year, and a very good (albeit early) sign with Marcus Kruger out for the regular season.
To my eye, Danault might not yet be at 100% following hip surgery that kept him out of action until a couple of months ago—didn't see quite as much jump in his stride as he's shown previously.
Overall, Hawk fans have to be encouraged by where the Hawks are—even though yesterday's outcome was a bit, uhhhh, fluky?
And there's not much time to worry about it either:
San Jose Sharks at Chicago Blackhawks 6PM Central/4 Pacific CSN California/CSN Chicago
THE BUZZ
The Sharks are coming off a 4-2 loss Friday in Ottawa. Look for Scott Darling to get the net tonight for the Hawks.
THE NUMBERS
Power Play
San Jose 12th 19.4% Chicago 4th 22.2%
Penalty Kill
San Jose 8th 83.0% Chicago 9th 82.8%
I'll recap tomorrow.
JJ