DENVER — Jeremy Colliton unveiled some intriguing new line combinations for Saturday’s second leg against the Avalanche.
The Blackhawks then produced a performance so poor, so -fundamentally flawed, that the coach wasn’t even able to assess those switches.
“Ultimately, we didn’t have much of a chance to evaluate those lines because the base of our game — the habits we were playing with — were nowhere near we need to be,” a beaten-looking Colliton said after the Hawks’ 7-3 loss.
“We’re never going to be -perfect. Not every shift is going to be perfect. But the intentions have to be perfect, and I don’t think we can say that.”
It remains to be seen whether the new lines — Andrew Shaw promoted to Jonathan Toews’ line, youngsters Kirby Dach and Alex Nylander united, Ryan Carpenter slotted between Kane and Alex DeBrincat — will last.
The Hawks played a competitive if risky first period, generating a great deal of scoring chances, but lost the finishing battle. Still, the game remained in reach with more than two minutes of power-play time to begin the second period and only a 3-1 deficit.
Yet the Hawks could hardly complete a single pass on that power play, finished with just one shot attempt, failed to switch their fourth forward for a second defenseman at its conclusion, then surrendered a backbreaking goal the other way.
From there, the game quickly escalated out of hand, with the Avs taking a 7-1 lead shortly past the midway portion and cruising to victory, despite Patrick Kane extending his points streak to 15 consecutive games with a meaningless late goal.
“I don’t think you’re really thinking about it at that point,” Kane said. “I wasn’t very good tonight.”
Robin Lehner was pulled after allowing five goals on 14 shots, though none were really his fault, and yelled down the bench while exiting the ice.
“If we weren’t good enough, I wouldn’t care,” he said. “That’s not what it is. We’ve shown that we can play — we have to decide to play the right way, all the time. ... It’s just time to look ourselves in the mirror and do the right thing.”
Keith’s minutes spread around
The Hawks will seek to replace Duncan Keith with a committee approach.
The veteran defenseman, who suffered a groin injury in Friday’s loss, was considered day-to-day, but Colliton said he’d know more about Keith’s recovery timeline upon returning to Chicago.
He leaves open a 24-minutes-per-game hole on the Hawks’ defense.
“He’s able to play a lot of minutes, can play all situations for us, [brings a] lot of experience in big games,” Colliton said. “We’ll miss him, of course, but opportunity for others to step forward.”
The Connor Murphy-Olli Maatta duo was elevated to the top five-on-five pair Saturday, but Erik Gustafsson led the team in ice time. Slater Koekkoek also drew into the lineup, making just his 10th appearance of the season.
Wedin debuts
Anton Wedin played his first NHL game for the Hawks, taking an early penalty but finishing as a plus-one in 10:52 of ice time.
The 26-year-old Swedish summer free-agent signing drew into the lineup after Matthew -Highmore was reassigned to Rockford on Friday.
