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Chicago Blackhawks: Point streak overshadowed issues
Patrick Kane’s point streak ended Tuesday night against the Colorado Avalanche, and though it is a great achievement and gave the Chicago Blackhawks some much-needed fire game-to-game, the streak overshadowed some issues facing the defending champions.
During that 26-game stretch, Chicago was 15-7-4 and scored a total of 75 goals. Kane had 16 goals and 24 assists, which means he contributed on 53 percent of the Blackhawks’ scoring. Kane set point streak records for the franchise and for an American-born hockey player. Looking past Kane’s scoring, he was phenomenal during this streak. He was skating hard, making great passes, finding the puck constantly and finishing great opportunities.
Now that the streak has ended, here is where Chicago stands. It is the first wild-card team with 38 points. Behind Chicago is Nashville with 36 points and Colorado is outside the playoff picture with 31 points. In the Central Division, Chicago is actually tied with the Wild for third place, but Minnesota currently owns the tiebreaker. In front of both of those teams, are the Dallas Stars (48 points) and St. Louis Blues (40 points). That is not a bad position for Chicago to be in at this point in the season considering all the new players and growing pains it has had to deal with.
Chicago is close to getting it together. Corey Crawford has been playing terrific, posting back-to-back shutouts against Winnipeg and Vancouver, and he has denied goals on 16 of the last 17 power plays. Teuvo Teravainen is starting to find his game again playing with Marian Hossa and Jonathan Toews. Minor issues include: Toews' disappearance in the last 10 games (two points and a few games without a shot), lack of production from the fourth line and constant call-ups and demotions. The major issue is defense, which has been hampered by mistakes, and opponents are taking full advantage.
The defensive lapses have easily been the most frustrating, and the troubling issue is that it's happening to defensemen that have been in the league long enough to avoid these problems. Against the Avalanche Tuesday, Michal Rozsival allowed Blake Comeau to beat him for an icing cancellation and almost instantly led to a goal. Similar blown plays have been happening consistently with David Rundblad as well. It is a fast game, mistakes happen and players are going to get beat sometimes, but over the point streak stretch, the Blackhawks lost out on points because of poorly timed defensive mishaps.
Three games that stand out are overtime games against St. Louis, Los Angeles and Edmonton. Chicago had the win in hand but let up late goals forcing overtime in each game. The Blackhawks were able to beat Edmonton in OT, but lost to St. Louis and Los Angeles. In those three games, Chicago got four points instead of what should have been six. That two-point difference would put Chicago second in the division and second in the Western Conference.
It’s hard to trust players like Rundblad and Rozsival late in games, and with this team’s winning history, it’s easy to start panicking about what is going to happen in the playoffs where one goal can change a series. That makes it hard for coach Joel Quenneville to balance ice time and try to give players like Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson some rest.
Though the playoffs are far away, Chicago and its fans don’t want to rely on a four-man defense like it did last year, so it’s critical that all defenders can figure out these mistakes.
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