January 24, 2018: Every Point Counts

Thankfully, the Hawks did earn a point on Rivalry Night vs the Leafs at the UC.  One is certainly better than none.

Down 2-1 in the 3rd, the Hawks really needed to do something.  It was the power play that shockingly worked again.  They talked about how they met and discussed their play with a man advantage.  Well, it paid dividends twice on this night.  Seabs scored the first one, and then it was Schmaltz with a rebound that eventually sent the game to OT.  They did 3 essential things on that 2nd power play.

The first is, put the puck on net.  Skating, passing, skating, passing, waiting for that perfect opportunity; forget all that.  Get the puck on net… sort of like dumping it in vs trying to skate with the puck over the blue line.  Being so precise or perfect has not worked; we need to dump and chase.  We need to fire the puck at the net.  And we did…

Secondly, net presence.  The return of Anisimov brought back our biggest net presence guy.  He was right in the goalie’s grill, forcing the goalie to fight through the screen while positioning himself perfectly for either a deflection or rebound.  No deflection on that shot, but he did have a glorious rebound opportunity; the goalie came up with a great save… but we weren’t done.

Third and finally, crash the net.  Once that puck goes on net, and if we already have a guy in front, the rest of the guys should crash, hoping to clean up any loose pucks.  We did, and Schmaltz fired it in.  It certainly doesn’t seem like this is too hard.  Why don’t we see more of this?
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It was enough to send the game to OT, and guarantee that precious one point.  OT was over just as it started.  A breakaway of the faceoff win which lead to a penalty that was ruled a penalty shot.  What is the specific rule on that?  When does a penalty become a penalty shot vs just another penalty?  It certainly didn’t look to blatant.  Keith was behind him, but not so much.  OK, let me look it up…

A penalty shot is a type of penalty awarded when a team loses a clear scoring opportunity on a breakaway because of a foul committed by an opposing player.  OK, I guess that qualifies, but I seem to remember this same thing happening and just a normal penalty awarded…

If there is any situation where we miss Crow, it’s the shootout… in this case, it was on this penalty shot.  I’m sure there are numbers out there for this… OK, so I found last year’s numbers and Crow was the 7th ranked goalie in the NHL against the shootout, saving 12 of the 14 shots against him.  I guess that matches my gut that tells me Crow usually stands pretty tall in those spots; we could have used him on this night.  We may have got that 2nd point…

But hey, we got one, and that’s a whole lot better than what we got the last 3 games.  Every point counts, and as the Hawks sit 6 points out of the playoffs and head to Detroit on Thursday night, the story will remain the same.  Go Hawks!