The Blackhawks have been feasting on mediocre opponents, but the schedule won’t stay that way forever.
With a wild card there for the taking, the Hawks hit a rut last week and sit just outside the playoff field, three points behind the Wild for the last spot. They survived on middling performances against the Red Wings and Devils, then the Bruins and Blue Jackets smacked them by a combined score of 11-5.
It’s going to take more than a good period here and there to topple quality teams, and the Hawks have been erratic since putting themselves back in the wild-card hunt with a seven-game winning streak.
“I think a lot of the things are still there,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “Our maximum level is as good as we’ve been.”
That’s probably true, but they haven’t sustained it and it has been taking too long to get there. They fell behind by two goals in the first period three times last week, and turning it up in the second was too late against the good teams.
Within 17 seconds of Patrick Kane tying the game Saturday, Blue Jackets star Artemi Panarin put one in the net, and they closed the first period up 3-1 on another goal in the final minute.
The Hawks awoke in the second period and outshot the Blue Jackets 20-9, pulling within 3-2 on Jonathan Toews’ goal, but Columbus held them off and won comfortably. It followed a similar track to the loss in Boston, where the Hawks came back from a 4-1 deficit to make it a one-goal game in the third period before wilting.
“Like I said to the players after the game, the negative is we lost two points and we missed an opportunity to close the gap in the race that we’re in, but the positive is we were in a bad spot and we turned the game,” Colliton said after losing to the Blue Jackets. “We were right there. Let’s find a way to do it for more of the 60 minutes and we’re good enough.”
Making it a close game is a moral victory, and it seemed like the Hawks were past that.
They still have two weeks of a reasonably favorable schedule, beginning with a home game Monday against the Senators, and better use it to make their move. They’re in a group of six teams fighting for two wild-card berths, and eventually somebody is going to get hot and take control of the race.
The Blues already have. They won nine in a row, including takedowns of some of the NHL’s best teams, heading into their game against the Wild on Sunday and are now playing for a divisional seed rather than the wild card. Not bad for a team that was right there with the Hawks at the bottom of the league in December.
The Blues’ surge has been convincing, too. They have outscored their opponents 36-14, outshot them and posted a Corsi For percentage of 51.6. That advanced stat essentially measures the portion of the game in which a team dictates the action.
The Hawks have gone 8-2 over the past few weeks, but the numbers make it feel more like smoke and mirrors. Their scoring margin is plus-14, they’ve allowed a league-worst 37.4 shots per game and have a 46.5 Corsi For percentage.
It’s going to be difficult to keep winning that way.
“At this time of year, we just want points and wins,” defenseman Connor Murphy said. “Don’t look too deep into that. There’s parts of your game you want to see get clean and to be the best team you can be running into February and March, because that’s when it counts the most.”
February is already halfway over, and if this is the best the Hawks can be, it’s hard to picture it being enough to make the playoffs.
