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| photo from blackhawkup.com |
Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were on a line together for the entire game for the first time in a long time, and they combined for two goals and an assist, including Toews' 200th career goal, his 250th career assist and his thirty eighth game winner. Combined over the last 1023 games, Kane and Toews have 951 points between them. Having Kane on the second line spreads out their scoring, give the other teams defence something to think about, but putting them on the same line almost definitely means you'll be coming out on top.
Kris Versteeg continues to impress, earning himself more and more time in that top left wing spot (he shared duties last night with Ben Smith, who also had a very strong game, despite remaining scoreless in 13.33 of ice time). He's now tied for second place in goals on the team with four (after scoring two last night), despite having played four less games than Kane (also with four goals).
After a couple of shaky games, the Chicago defence stood up pretty well against Montreal's top lines, forcing turnovers hard and often. Johnny Oduya in particular had an excellent game, also scoreless but making a few key defensive plays to break up several odd man rushes. Brent Seabrook also continued his strong season on the blue line, reunited with his normal partner, Duncan Keith (who, oddly, wasn't on the ice for any of the four even strength goals last night in about twenty five minutes of ice time, although he did register an assist on the power play).
Chicago continues to have trouble staying out of the penalty box, taking four minor penalties last night. They successfully killed all of them, but this is against Montreal, a team with three power play goals in their last thirty seven power plays. Only Minnesota and Buffalo have lower numbers. If the Blackhawks keep taking an average of four penalties a game, that's going to hurt them against teams like Pittsburgh, who have a 41% success rate on the power play (19 of 46).
Other bad news from last night's game is Patrick Sharp's knee injury, which occurred in the third period, and left him unable to stand unaided. Quennville has said he'll be out for "a bit", so it looks like Chicago will be without him for at least a couple of weeks. This injury is going to mean they'll have to call someone up from Rockford, which won't be easy, considering they only have bout 800k of cap space. Obvious candidates are Peter Regin and Joakim Nordstrom (who saw NHL time last season after Toews and Kane went down with injuries), although Regin will have to clear waivers if they want to send him back to Rockford on Sharp's return.
My Three Stars of the Game
3. Jonathan Toews. His thirty eighth game winning goal was a beauty, a sort of dambuster for the four that followed it, and he's a big part of the Blackhawks' success when scoring first this season (Chicago is 6-2-0 when they score the first goal so far).
2. Kris Versteeg. Versteeg is going from strength to strength, and is almost unrecognisable from the Versteeg of last season, who was bounced from line to line, and was healthy scratched several times. Now, he has five points in nine games and is spending a lot of time on the left wing of Toews, somewhere he could be spending a lot more time, due to Sharp's injury.
1. Corey Crawford. He turned away some point blank chances from several of the Canadiens' top scorers last night, and thoroughly deserved the win, after a couple of strong performances ended in a loss the last few games. He now has a GAA of 1.53 and a save percentage of .938.
Next game: November 7th vs. Capitals
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