Scores can be deceiving.
The reality check the Colorado Avalanche handed the Chicago Blackhawks in the season opener was understated by its 4-2 margin. And Monday’s 2-0 loss at the same venue didn’t do justice to how close the Hawks battled against the Western Conference leaders.
“It was a pretty even game overall, and we knew we had to come in and try to grind against a team like this and try not to give them much,” Patrick Kane said.
Coach Derek King added: “There were times we competed the right way and other times we dropped our compete level a little lower than it should be and they capitalized. I mean, that’s why they’re one of the best teams in the league.”
The Hawks peppered the Avs early with rushes and they blocked shots, clogged lanes and tried to take some juice out of Nathan MacKinnon’s high-powered line with Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen.
“We were taking away the inside on them,” King said.
The Hawks gave the Avalanche two openings — an open lane for Nazem Kadri on a power play and letting Rantanen sneak behind the defense — and both lapses proved costly.
The ugly truth is the Hawks are quickly running out of time on their salvage operation. Kane said the team has treated the last two weeks as if it’s playoffs or bust.
“That’s the way we approached it the last seven games up until break, and we’re 0-3 after three games,” he said. “So not the situation we wanted to be in. But I think you take the positives from this game against a good team, play the same way against Detroit (on Wednesday) and hopefully create a little bit more and find a way to finish on the other end.”
King will focus on keeping players from allowing recent lapses to get them too down.
“There’s no ‘poor me’ here. We just continue to build,” he said. “We’re doing a lot of good things out there.”
Here are takeaways from the 2-0 loss to the Avalanche.
1. The missed opportunities on breakouts tell only half the story.
The Hawks controlled the puck for a lot of the first period, and it’s only by some cruel joke of the Fates — and the stingy glove of Pavel Francouz — that several grade-A chances went for naught.
And the Avalanche know it.
“It was a little bit sloppy in the first, you know we gave up two-on-ones, but then we had a little chat between the players in the first intermission and after that it was pretty good,” said Rantanen, whose third-period goal all but closed the door on the Hawks.
Francouz said that “the way the game developed, I could see a big difference when we scored that one goal and we kind of shut them down since that. It was huge, we controlled the whole third period.”
Kane wants to see the Hawks generate more zone time and “keep the puck a little bit more.”
“That could go a long way with our team,” he said, “that puck possession, hanging on to pucks, changing at the right times and hopefully create a little bit more from that.”
King wants to see the Hawks commit to banging in front of the net.
“It’s physicality, it’s a habit,” King said. “It’s good habits to have, and sometimes guys don’t want to do that.”
Then he smiled at a novel idea of drilling net-front presence into his players.
“I might have to get a rope and tie them to the post and shoot some pucks at them and see if they can hang there for a while.”
2. No surprise, Derek King would like to be the permanent coach.
Before Monday’s loss, the Hawks reached the halfway mark of their season with a 15-19-7 record, which included a 14-10-5 record under King since he replaced Jeremy Colliton in early November.
The Hawks have had back-to-back regulation losses only once during King’s 30 games, and their performance under King through the end of the first half would have them on a 96-point pace over an 82-game schedule.
“I would obviously love to be back. I’m enjoying it,” King said. “I’m learning a lot, whether it’s on the ice or off the ice.”
King has repeatedly credited Marc Crawford, his co-coach of sorts, for helping school him in the nuances between the NHL and his old job coaching the Rockford IceHogs in the AHL. That partnership has worked, and if it keeps up this pace, they deserve to see how far they can take it with a chance to have personnel input during the offseason.
If the Hawks retool, they probably will go for a “name” coach. If they rebuild, you could make an argument that the minor-league coach is the best choice to develop the young players (though the Colliton detractors are probably angrily shaking their fists at that notion).
“I’m getting more comfortable. I feel like I can help,” King said. “But I’m just being me. I’m going to go out and do the best job I can and if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, then I’ll move on and see where I’m at.”
Asked if he’ll get a fair shake, King replied, “I’d like to think that.”
But King understands the reality of his circumstances: Both he and his boss, general manager Kyle Davidson, have “interim” in front of their titles.
“You’re probably going to get a GM hired before they’re going to hire a coach, so we’ll see who takes over,” King said. “Maybe it’s somebody I know or something. But I’m not too focused on it.”
3. Caleb Jones knows he has to take what the defense gives him and not have giveaways.
Jones has had some good moments, such as his three blocks against the Seattle Kraken last week, but he has had the occasional rash of miscues, such as three turnovers against the Anaheim Ducks.
Older brother Seth Jones’ return from COVID-19 protocols pushed him onto the scratch list Friday against the Minnesota Wild, but he was back in the lineup Saturday after Riley Stillman landed on injured reserve with a left shoulder injury.
However, Caleb Jones played just seven minutes at even strength.
“You’d always like to get a little bit more opportunity, more minutes,” he said. “I thought I had a really good start to camp and then I got a little derailed by the injury.”
Jones missed the first 15 games of the season with a left wrist strain.
“I’ve been trying to come back, and I’ve had some good moments,” he said, “but I think … this last whole year for me has been a little bit inconsistent.”
Seth Jones said Thursday: “It’s kind of a stop-and-go thing. His game’s been a lot better. He’s making quick puck plays and eliminating some of the big chances against. I talked to him after one of the games on the road trip and I told him to hit singles. It doesn’t need to be a home run every time.”
King wants Caleb to stay loose and trust his instincts. He and Crawford, who handles the defensemen, have discussed Caleb’s usage.
“I’ve got to do a better job keeping him in the lineup,” King said. “He’s an extra ‘D,’ he’s that seventh ‘D,’ and then all of a sudden he’s in, and then we get a guy healthy again who’s in our top four and it’s hard to keep him in. He just has to separate himself from that seventh position.”
It’s that pressure to separate himself that can get Caleb into trouble. Like Seth, he has the ability to join the rush and run a power play, but it can’t be at the expense of taking care of business on defense.
“With those minutes, you have to make sure you’re solid defensively — you know, take what you get,” Caleb said. “It’s easy to press and say I need to go do something, I want to stay in the lineup, I want to be a key factor on our blue line, but that’s not how it works.
“You just have to take what you can get and be consistent with it, and if you keep working hard and doing things right off the ice, good things will come.”
4. Caleb Jones expressed relief about his and Connor Murphy’s stolen car saga.
Jones’ and Murphy’s luxury cars were carjacked from a valet Dec. 29 while the pair dined at a restaurant near the United Center. News of the theft went viral, but Jones was just happy to get his car back.
“It’s obviously a really messed-up situation,” Jones said. “Everything got worked out, though, and I’m just glad there wasn’t too much damage to it.”
He said when he first heard what happened, it felt weird: “I’ve never had anything like that happen.”
But he thanked Chicago police for investigating and retrieving his and his teammate’s rides: “I had it back pretty quickly.”
“We both were just relieved to get our cars,” Jones said. “The next morning, they did a great job in tracking them down and finding them for us. We both were like, ‘We don’t plan on using the valet for a little bit.'”
5. If that’s Finnish stoicism Kevin Lankinen is exhibiting, he’s taking it to another level.
If Lankinen ever gets excited or angry about a game, he probably would have to email you because you’re not going to read it in his voice or demeanor.
Apparently that comportment applies to injuries as well.
He made 40 saves in an overtime loss to the Wild on Saturday and never let on that he injured his hand until after game. He was placed on IR the next day.
“I’m still trying to get when it happened and why he didn’t really complain about it,” said King, who said he wasn’t sure if it was sprained or broken, as he held where the ring and pinky fingers join. “It was something he just dealt with and fought through it. And after the game, I was talking to him and congratulating him, and all of a sudden, the doc comes in and tells me he’s out for two to three weeks.”
Here is more game coverage.
The Chicago Blackhawks returned to the scene of their season-opening nightmare and held their own — for a while.
The Colorado Avalanche beat the Hawks 2-0 on Monday night at Ball Arena to extend their winning streak to seven games. It wasn’t the demolition back in October, belied by a 4-2 final score, but a loss for the Hawks likely stings as much.
That’s because they had multiple opportunities to grab a lead against the Western Conference leaders. But in the end, they couldn’t solve goaltender Pavel Francouz — or his glove — and didn’t get a point to show for their effort.
“We had some chances early on. Some good looks,” Patrick Kane said. “Would have been nice to take a lead, play with a lead against a team like that. Their goalie played well.
“We probably could have created a little bit more and had a little bit more of a push at the end.”
Defensively, Hawks coach Derek King faulted a couple of blown assignments on both Avalanche goals.
“And when you’re playing against a good team like that, two mistakes will cost you,” King said.
Hawks goalie Marc-André Fleury traded some beauties with Francouz, but the Avs took a 1-0 lead in the second period on Nazem Kadri’s power-play goal. Fleury initially stopped Kadri’s rocket, but the puck dribbled over the goal line before Calvin de Haan could sweep it out of danger.
Mikko Rantanen gave the Avalanche all the cushion they needed with a sharp-angled backhander about 7 minutes into the third period.
In the first period, the Hawks looked like they might challenge the Avs. They turned some giveaways into rushes and led 5-3 in five-on-five high-danger chances, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
About 61/2 minutes into the second, Fleury made a beautiful kick save on Jack Johnson’s blast, then flopped on top of the puck to stop the threat.
But the Avalanche outshot the Hawks 14-7 in the period, and their forecheck eventually broke through and forced a mistake: Seth Jones’ interference penalty against Nicolas Aubé-Kubel.
Nathan MacKinnon made a quick dish to Kadri, and his one-timer leaked through Fleury’s body block.
Meanwhile, the Hawks seemed star-crossed when it came to their opportunities.
De Haan had a breakaway chance 1 minute, 39 seconds into the game but was denied by Francouz. Sam Lafferty served up a juicy centering pass to Jonathan Toews, but Francouz stuffed the shot. And Kirby Dach and Alex DeBrincat just missed connecting on a two-on-one rush.
“We had our opportunities,” King said. “That’s a really good hockey team. If we thought it was going to be easy — and I don’t think we thought it was going to be easy — there was times we competed the right way and other times we dropped our compete level a little lower than it should be, and they capitalized.
“I mean, that’s why they’re one of the best teams in the league.”
