By Jon Fromi
The Chicago Blackhawks had a game to play in Colorado Saturday night. The Hawks playoff position was locked in earlier that afternoon when St. Louis beat Minnesota. Knowing that they would travel to Nashville to start the postseason, there was little reason for Chicago to put a lot of effort into beating the Avalanche.
The Blackhawks drew even late in the game only to surrender a late power play goal to lose their regular season finale 3-2. Since the Hawks were just running out the clock, I figured I’d let the 11-year-old handle the recap tonight. See you in a few paragraphs for some thoughts.
First Period-Some of the players took the ice, except Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith. Cody McLeod scored midway through the opening period. The Blackhawks and Avs went up and down the ice, trading scoring chance before and after this happened. Everyone played nice and there were no penalties.
Second Period-Kris Versteeg hit the goalpost six minutes in. Patrick Sharp took a drop pass from Bryan Bickell and struck twine over the glove of the Russian guy eight minutes in. This tied the game. Bickell hooked a guy and had to sit by himself and watch Jerome Iginla slap the puck off Scott Darling’s glove and into the net. Andrew Shaw ran into the referee, who fell down and went boom. The Hawks outshot Colorado 14-6 but were still losing 2-1.
Third Period-Shaw had a chance at a goal but got smashed into the wall instead. Shaw got pushed by McLeod so he pushed him back and they both had to go sit in time out while the Blackhawks kept trying to score. Dad fell asleep in his chair for a few minutes, then he woke up and watched Marian Hossa shoot the puck off Brandon Saad’s stick and past the line. This tied the game again with 4:40 left to play. The ref said Marcus Kruger tripped a guy and he had to sit down and watch Jerome Iginla score again from the same place that he did before with 30 seconds left. Then the coach took Darling out and the Blackhawks lost again.
Three Stars-Daniel Briere (third), McLeod (second), Iginla (first).
Thoughts
-How many of us just fully realized that Hossa played in all 82 regular season games? Did you notice him wearing an “A” in this one?
-Michal Rozsival made one of several decent passes on the night to Hossa to set up the tying goal in the third period.
-Darling probably deserved better in what could be his last appearance in net for Chicago this season. He stopped 21 of 24 shots. Semyon Varlamov made 28 saves on 30 Blackhawks shots.
-Michael Paliotta skated in his NHL debut and picked up a secondary assist on Sharp’s goal. He logged 12:25 of ice time.
-Joel Quenneville, who apparently didn’t care one iota about the result, did comment that Kyle Baun impressed him in his appearances these past three games. It should be noted that Chicago lost those three games.
-Guess it’s time to start gearing up for the first round with Pekka Rinne and the Preds. The journey to the Stanley Cup starts next week.
Lines
Saad-Teravainen-Hossa
Versteeg-Vermette-Baun
Bickell-Shaw-Sharp
Nordstrom-Kruger-Desjardins
Hjalmarsson-Seabrook
Oduya-Rozsival
Rundblad-Paliotta
Darling
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Jon Fromi
