Blackhawks Get Smoked By The Maple Leafs

The Blackhawks played as if they had spent all day partying with Rob Ford. Nothing went right in a sloppy game. The Hawks got caught looking ahead to their Sunday night matchup against the Kings and got smacked around by the Maple Leafs.

The Maples Leafs got three power plays in the first 7:24 of the game and the Blackhawks were lucky to be in the game after the smoked cleared. Peter Holland got the scoring started with a power play goal at 7:14. Johnny Oduya left his post to the left of Antti Raanta to help out Brent Seabrook but that left Holland wide open for an easy tap in goal, his fourth. The Hawks would find themselves on a two man advantage and Dion Phaneuf would tie the game for the Hawks. Patrick Kane tried to make a cross ice pass to Patrick Sharp but a diving Phaneuf would knock the puck into his own net. Things would not get much better after this point.

Jerry D’Amigo (I’ve never heard of him either) gave the Leafs a 2-1 lead 42 seconds into the 2nd period. Phil Kessel took a shot that popped out of Raanta’s glove and Duncan Keith had no interest in impeding D’Amigo’s path to the net who had the easiest tap in of a rebound that you will ever see. It looked like the Blackhawks had tied the game when Phaneuf clearly knocked another puck into his own net again, but it was ruled on the ice that Marian Hossa changed the direction of the puck with his glove. The replay clearly showed that wasn’t the case, but this wasn’t a reviewable play despite the referee going to the phone to get a review. That was a bit of a kick to the junk, but in the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t matter. Holland would get his second goal of the game, at 12:09, thanks to some lazy play in the neutral zone. Patrick Kane scored again at 13:30 after Niklas Hjalmarsson got him the puck via a neutral zone turnover. Kane never looked at the net while skating in and then sniped one past Jonathan Bernier. Sick, just sick. The Leafs would answer just 66 seconds later with a Nikolia Kulemin goal after more sloppy play within the Hawks zone. Joffrey Lupol added a power play goal before the end of the period to increase the Leafs lead to 5-2.

Kent Simpson made his NHL debut when he was put into the game at the start of the 3rd period. Simpson gave up a goal on the first shot he saw. D’oh! Lupul got his second goal of the game 28 seconds into the 3rd period. Brandon Saad got a goal back seven minutes and gave us visions of Maple Leafs 3rd period collapses past. Saad did the dirty work behind the net to keep the play alive and then went out in front to deflect a Nick Leddy shot past Bernier for his 12th goal of the year. But before the Leafs could even think about choking away this game Phil Kessel scored just 57 seconds after the Saad goal to ice to the game.

This is usually the point of the recap where I name a player of the game and make observations.  Well the only observation I got is that everything was bad! The defense played like crap and the forwards had zero interest in their defensive responsibilities.  If you are are not going to play defense in front of two AHL goaltenders you are going to lose lose badly.  I expect a nice response back home against the Kings Sunday night.

Blackhawks Advanced Stats

Maple Leafs Advanced Stats