The unofficial second half of the season got off to a rather uninspiring start for the Blackhawks on Tuesday as they dropped a 3-1 decision at San Jose.
For those of you who missed a game that ended at about midnight Central time, the Hawks were in great position to get at least a point but allowed a goal with 2:03 left in regulation to drop their third straight.
Scouting report
All three losses came with the Hawks leading or the game tied in the third period.
“Three games in a row we’ve given up some points,” coach Joel Quenneville told reporters. “It’s a tough pill to swallow.”
The Hawks’ lone goal came on a blast from Dennis Rasmussen in the second period, and it tied things up at 1-1.
The fact that Rasmussen was the goal-scorer continues a trend for the Hawks in which they are getting scoring from unlikely sources.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the Artemi matadorbet giriş Panarin-Artem Anisimov-Patrick Kane line has all but disappeared over the last eight games — a stretch in which the Hawks have 19 goals (2 on empty-netters) and are just 3-5-0.
“Everybody has stretches where things are going well for you and they’ve been excellent for a year and change,” Quenneville said. “We rely on that line (for) a lot of our offense, or to spark our offense. …
“It’s a tough stretch for them. But we need them to be productive and effective and dangerous, and have the puck a little bit more.”
Anisimov’s last two goals came on Jan. 5 in a 4-3 OT win over Buffalo, meaning he’s on an 11-game drought. That’s obviously a long stretch, and it would be nice if Anisimov started chipping in, but to me, it’s Panarin who needs to step up.
As I wrote once last year, the Russian sensation can lapse into long stretches where he looks like one of the Harlem Globetrotters with a stick in his hand. There is plenty of pretty stick-handling and fancy pass attempts, but he’s not closing the deal … or even trying to close the deal nearly enough.
Panarin is on eight-game goal-scoring drought, during which his shots on goal looks like this: 1-1-1-1-1-7-1-0.
Last year he went through similar dry spells twice — one an 11-gamer, the other a nine-gamer. Near the end of that second stretch he was also failing to shoot the puck, firing just 5 shots on goal in the last six games. When the drought ended in Game 78, though, Panarin went on a tear by scoring five times in the final five games.
I’m not saying Panarin is the only answer to the Hawks’ scoring woes because we all know that Kane (15 goals) and Jonathan Toews (9) are still below their career averages. But last year’s Calder Cup winner is capable of far more than he’s shown lately.
When he gets hot, I expect the Hawks to at the minimum break out of this funk … and at the maximum to take off and find the gear they’ve been looking for all season.
• Follow John on Twitter @johndietzdh
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