Nov. 05--Take a deep breath -- it's only November and the Blackhawks didn't come away empty-handed from on Wednesday. They did pick up a point in the 6-5 loss in overtime to the Blues.
Here are some notes from the game.
Change is hard
This was the longest overtime period the Hawks have played this season and as such, it involved a couple of line changes. Joel Quenneville used other 3-on-3 alignments besides Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook: there Artemi Panarin, Artem Anisimov and Trevor van Riemsdyk then Teuvo Teravainen, Tanner Kero and Nikals Hjalmarsson before Kane, Toews and Seabrook headed back out.
It was Toews who got caught trying to make a change that led to a 3-on-2 attack for the Blues, who ultimately scored on Vladimir Tarasenko's shot from the slot. Toews took the blame for it after the game, but he was likely tired and might not have been doing much good if he had stayed on the ice. Overtime can extend shifts that way to the point players are dragging and merely staying on the ice just to prevent a breakaway for the other team. Because if they change, something like Tarasenko's goal can happen.
"It's something that you have to fight and hang in there and even if they have the puck for another minute, you've got to stick it out," Toews said.
Balanced scoring
Yes, the Blackhawks lost the game, but one positive takeaway was the production from their third and fourth lines. Marko Dano scored his first goal off a pretty play from Ryan Hartman, who poked away the puck from Blues defenseman Carl Gunnarsson right to Dano in the slot. Then minutes later, Andrew Shaw scored on a penalty shot. It was the first goal for anyone on the Blackhawks' fourth line this season.
Numbers lie
All of the statistics in the game favored the Blackhawks. They had more shots on goal, more total shots and more unblocked shots and more high-danger scoring chances, according to war-on-ice.com -- yet the Blues managed to gut out the victory. It wasn't Crawford's best night in net, and the Blues had some fluky goals, but they took advantage of those breaks.
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