Three Third Period Goals Put The Blues Away

photo from bleacherreport.com

The Blackhawks were riding a three game win streak going into this game, and were fresh off a successful six game, five win road trip. They were also without Corey Crawford, one of their best players so far this season, for the first of at least seven games, and were just coming out of a hardfought weekend against Anaheim and LA. The game could honestly have gone either way.


The Blackhawks have had better first periods. It took them a while to get their legs under them, and the Blues kept them pinned in their zone for a lot of it. It didn't help that they took three minor penalties in the first period alone, including a high stick from Niklas Hjalmarsson to prevent an almost sure goal from young Blues star Vladimir Tarasenko. There's a lot of bad blood between these two teams, especially after last season's playoff series, and between them they accumulated forty six penalty minutes (David Backes took sixteen, and Daniel Carcillo took twelve), including two unrelated game misconducts with less than two minutes left in the game. The Blackhawks were the second least penalised team so far this season, but they took eight penalties this game, giving the Blues six power plays, but not giving them a single power play goal. The gap between them and second place on the penalty kill is now just over two percent, but they can't keep taking this many penalties if they want to keep killing them all. They were also unable to convert on any of the power plays (although Kris Versteeg's goal, just over a minute into the third period, happened just as a power play expired), dropping them to seventeenth in the league with nineteen power play goals in 102 power play chances.

The second line ran the show in the third period. After being held pointless in the game against LA, Patrick Kane scored two goals, and Versteeg continued his offensive onslaught, adding a goal and two assists to give him twenty one points in twenty one games, good for one of two players in the league to have over twenty points and only playing twenty one games. (Versteeg missed the first four games of the season with a lower body injury). The Versteeg-Richards-Kane line has now combined for twenty eight points in their last seven games.

This was the first game this season the Blackhawks have allowed more than forty shots on goal, and only the second they've allowed more than thirty five. They were outshot 41-33, and Antti Raanta played beautifully, saving all but one during a scuffle in front of the net, giving him a .976 save percentage on the night. He didn't look like a goaltender that hasn't played a game in two weeks, or that hasn't played an NHL game in over a month (Raanta's last game was against the Blues, on October 25th), although he played an oddly aggressive game, different than his usual, leaving his crease several times to fend off shots from a distance. Nevertheless, he played excellently, and this game can only go in his favour when it comes to Quenneville having to choose between him and Rockford call-up Scott Darling for the back to backs over the weekend.

My Three Stars of the Game

3. Antti Raanta. Raanta hadn't won an NHL game since October 21st, and hadn't played since a couple of days before they left for the Circus trip. He now has a record of 2-2-0 on the season, and a save percentage of .947, having allowed seven goals on 131 shots. He was one of the best Blackhawks the entire game, and if he keeps playing like this over the stretch of Corey Crawford's injury, then Chicago has nothing to worry about.

2. Patrick Kane. Kane had his twenty second multi goal game last night, and was a couple of inches away from his first career regular season hat trick. After going pointless in the LA game on Saturday, he scored two goals in the space of about three minutes to put the Blues away early in the third.

1. Kris Versteeg. Versteeg's first game winner of the season is good for first star, but he also added two assists, including another outstanding pass to Kane for his first goal of the night, and another only minutes later to increase the lead to 4-1. He's second on the Blackhawks with twenty one points, and is only improving as the season goes on and he gets more and more ice time with Richards and Kane.

Next game: December 5th, vs Canadiens