The Chicago Blackhawks split up Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat, defensemen Seth Jones and Jake McCabe reunited and goalie Marc-André Fleury started his first game since Dec. 17 — all with the hope of turning around a recent slump Tuesday against the Colorado Avalanche.
Jonathan Toews scored for the first time since that same Dec. 17 game and DeBrincat scored two goals 40 seconds apart, but all of those efforts couldn’t change the bottom line: The Hawks lost their fifth straight game, a 4-3 overtime setback to the Avalanche at the United Center in the teams’ first meeting since the Avs beat the Hawks 4-1 in the season opener in Denver.
Erik Johnson’s second goal of the game tied the score at 3-3 with 8:16 to play in regulation, and Cale Makar scored the game-winner in overtime.
Makar made a dazzling spin move off Kirby Dach’s defense, then stick-moved to roof the puck over Fleury.
The Hawks now start a three-game trip Thursday in Arizona assured of one thing: The DeBrincat-Kane combination still works.
Coach Derek King experimented with moving them to different lines to “spread the wealth,” but it was when they teamed up again on the power play that they gave the Hawks the offensive spark they were looking for.
Kane found DeBrincat for a backdoor goal during a five-on-three power play 2:18 into the third period, then fed DeBrincat a backhand pass as he streaked down the slot, also on the power play, to give the Hawks a 3-2 lead at the 2:58 mark.
Kane and DeBrincat have combined on 16 of the Hawks’ 74 goals this season, either as the scorer or a helper, and DeBrincat’s 20 goals account for 27% of the Hawks’ season total.
King may have been looking for the new mix to match up complementary skills, but early in the game the lines didn’t do the main thing he emphasized after the morning skate: shoot the puck.
King wanted to see skaters crash the net and hang around for rebounds.
“That’s our biggest concern,” he said, “getting those other guys (besides DeBrincat) to do those things and be around the net more and hopefully score those greasy goals for us.”
But in the first period, the Hawks fell back into the habit of making extra passes trying to set up one-timers and backdoor chances. It backfired with the Avalanche outshooting them 14-5 and taking a 2-0 lead.
Johnson sent a blast from the blue line to open the scoring, and Alex Newhook stickhandled behind Logan O’Connor’s and Makar’s blocks of Riley Stillman and Henrik Borgström — like a running back looking for his gap behind a pair of offensive linemen — to get an easy one on Fleury.
The Hawks came out with more urgency in the second period. They outshot the Avalanche 17-7, including seven of the first eight shots before Toews’ goal, a putback off MacKenzie Entwistle’s backhander against Darcy Kuemper.
Fleury showed few, if any, signs of rust after nearly two and a half weeks off.
The highlight came after Makar picked Kane’s pocket and the puck found its way to Tyson Jost. Fleury sprawled out to block Jost’s tip-in attempt between his pad and glove. He also kicked away the potential game-winner by Devon Toews with 1:17 left in the game.
Jonathan Toews tried to go top shelf with a couple of seconds left in regulation, but Kuemper batted it in the air.
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