Before going on their new collectively bargained extended break, the Blackhawks had won five consecutive games and were playing some of their best hockey of the season.
The long layoff has not been kind to teams around the league in their first games back from their breaks. Thus one of the main storylines heading into Saturday night’s game against the Oilers was whether the Hawks would resume their quality play or if the six days between games would bring them down.
The answer was the former, but the only problem was Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot was just a touch better. The Oilers defeated the Hawks 3-1 at the United Center to snap that five-game winning streak despite the Hawks controlling the puck most of the night.
It made for a dressing room of mixed emotions afterward.
"We created a lot and this was a lot better than everyone thought it was going to be for us," goaltender Corey Crawford said. "You can’t ask for more than that. Just couldn’t find the net there and I gave up a bad one."
The Hawks ended up with 39 shots on goal while the Oilers had just 22, but the Oilers found the net more thanks in part to some bad "puck luck" for the Hawks, captain Jonathan Toews said.
Matt Benning opened the scoring 5 minutes, 2 seconds into the second period when the puck went in off the skate of Hawks defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk on a power play. Milan Lucic then scored at the 9:50 mark of the third to make it 2-0 when his shot went through Crawford’s five-hole in the third period — Crawford’s "bad one." The Oilers added an empty netter from Connor McDavid in the game’s final minute after Richard Panik at scored at 15:13.
"We worked pretty hard today. We had a lot of chances," Toews said. "We just couldn’t find the back of the net."
But coach Joel Quenneville said if there was one area the rust of the break showed up, it was around the net. The Hawks may have had 39 shots on goal, but Quenneville thought the shot selection around the net "wasn’t great."
"Whether we didn’t sense the timing of (plays) or anticipating the puck … we missed a lot of opportunities that could have been high-quality chances that didn’t even get developed," Quenneville said. "And we did have some good chances, whether we didn’t elevate (the puck) or didn’t have the traffic (around the net) or patience. But our shots were off.
Things were going fine for the Hawks in the second period until Ryan Hartman drew penalties for instigating (two minutes), fighting (five) and misconduct (10) for fighting Oilers defenseman Eric Gryba, who had pushed Tanner Kero into the boards. Gryba just received five for fighting, giving the Oilers a power play off Hartman’s instigation and Benning converted.
Even after the Oilers scored, Hartman called the decision to fight Gryba a "no-brainer."
"I tried waiting long enough so it wasn’t an instigator (penalty)," Hartman said. "But it’s kind of a judgment call. Some refs call it different ways, but unfortunately it ended up in a power play for them but it’s something you just have to do."
Ultimately, it set the Hawks behind on a night they played well but came away with nothing to show for it.
"I didn’t mind how we played …" Quenneville said. "We’d probably be happy with that effort most nights, and generally would come out with something better than a loss."
chine@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ChristopherHine
CHRIS HINE’S THREE STARS
1. Cam Talbot, Oilers: Goaltender withstood a barrage, made 38 saves.
2. Milan Lucic, Oilers: Winger provided an important insurance goal in third.
3. Richard Panik, Blackhawks: Scored his 15th goal of the season.
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