Oct. 16--It was a back-to-back the Hawks would like to put in the back of their minds. Against the Flyers and Capitals, the Hawks lost by a combined score of 7-1 and came away with no points Wednesday and Thursday. Here are a few notes from Thursday's 4-1 loss to the Capitals.
1. Slow starts characterized both losses. The Hawks came out flat against opponents who were raring to go against the Stanley Cup champions and fell behind in each game. It's something defenseman Duncan Keith said the Hawks needed to correct.
"I still think we can work a bit harder, win some races to the puck and I think getting a lead would be nice," Keith said. "Two good teams in their building, they come out hard, try to weather the storm a little bit. Get more shots, good traffic."
There was little traffic from the Hawks in the first on Thursday. They only managed five shots on net in the first period while the Capitals converted a power play to take the lead.
2. Coach Joel Quenneville sat winger Ryan Grabutt and replaced him with Kyle Baun. Garbutt had been in the rotation on the top line, where Viktor Tikhonov started the game Thursday. But Tikhonov could be headed back to the bench after he went nearly 10 minutes in the third period without getting a shift. Although Quenneville also seemed to punish Teuvo Tervainen, who went a similar amount of time without seeing the ice.
3. The fourth line of Andrew Shaw, Andrew Desjardins and Marcus Kruger contributed the most chances for the Hawks and seemed to generate the most time in the Capitals zone. Shaw generated four scoring chances, one high-danger scoring chance, according to war-on-ice.com. But that's a bad sign when the defensive line is also your best offensive line. Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa have been absent from the goal sheet so far this season. But that could also be a sign of optimism for the Hawks. Players of that caliber are unlikely to stay down for long.
chine@tribpub.com
