The rest of the season in the abyss began Thursday night in San Jose, against the Sharks, as the Chicago Blackhawks started a short California road swing.
The Blackhawks were without Jan Rutta, once again, as they announced he would be out day-to-day with a lower body injury earlier in the day.
In somewhat brighter news, rookie Matthew Highmore made his NHL debut on the third line with fellow youngsters Alex DeBrincat and Nick Schmaltz. Not only did Highmore make his debut, but he was in the starting lineup. Great night for the kid. That was about the only redeeming quality of this game
Joel Quenneville announced, on Wednesday, that “hot goalie of the moment” Jean-Francois Berube would be starting two of the three road trip game, which makes you wonder what effect they expect this to have on the psyche of their “official” starting goalie, Anton Forsberg. Do they even care at this point?
Blackhawks starting lines were as follows:
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Vinnie Hinostroza
Tomas Jurco – Artem Anisimov – Patrick Kane
Alex DeBrincat – Nick Schmaltz – Matthew Highmore
Patrick Sharp – David Kampf – Anthony Duclair
Duncan Keith – Jordan Oesterle
Connor Murphy – Brent Seabrook
Erik Gustafsson – Carl Dahlstrom
Just a couple of minutes into the first period, Artem Anisimov gave the road team a 1-0 lead.
Duncan Keith set up the play by drawing a defender on the half wall, then dishing to Anisimov. The Blackhawks center quickly released a shot, using a Sharks defender as a screen and beating Martin Jones. This is where the Hawks good fortunes went up in flames.
Halfway through the opening period, Joe Pavelski and the Sharks put on a Globetrotters type clinic with the Blackhawks third pair making a bad pinch, then running around a bit, and eventually leaving poor Matthew Highmore to try and defend against three Sharks players. Needless to say, the play ended poorly for the Blackhawks. Welcome to the NHL, kid, how do you like the smell of tire fires?
This is how the first period ended, with the Sharks narrowly out shooting the Blackhawks 9-8 but morally crushing the fragile ego of this team.
Just over two minutes into the second period, the Blackhawks found themselves digging the puck out of their net once again. They had a couple of chances to clear their own end but clearly failed. The defense also had the opportunity to clear a fat JF Berube rebound and failed at that, as well. Eventually, Kevin Lebanc was staring at a gaping net with the puck on his stick and did not miss.
About three minutes after the Lebanc goal, Timo Meier redirected a long point shot past Berube to give the Sharks a 4-1 lead. The wheels were not only falling off the cart, but they were stuck in a firey pile of excrement.
The Shark-a-lanche kept rolling downhill with over seven minutes still remaining in the middle period, as Joe Pavelski scored the fifth unanswered goal of the night, after an awful Jordan Oesterle pinch led to another odd man break, and another goal Berube had absolutely no chance on.
I cannot say I have seen a pro game where the goalie had less of a chance to succeed than JF Berube did on the first five goals of this one.
That said, the sixth Sharks goal of the night was pretty awful, but did not matter. With less than five seconds remaining in the period, Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic threw the puck from behind the Blackhawks goal line, toward Berube. The shot banked perfectly off the back of Berube’s right leg and dribbled into the net with two seconds remaining on the clock.
In hindsight, Berube should have held onto the initial shot, but he tried to run out the remaining few seconds on the clock and toss the puck back behind his net. Brent Seabrook and Carl Dahlstrom looked like they had never seen a loose puck and had already quit on the play. This goal was a perfect encapsulation of the Blackhawks effort in this game.
Needless to say, this was the end of JF Berube’s sour night in San Jose. When the Blackhawks came out for the third period, Anton Forsberg was in net.
It only took the Sharks two and a half minutes to christen Forsberg, as the Blackhawks just allowed Barclay Goodrow and Melker Karlsson to waltz into their zone and crash the net. Goodrow actually scored by throwing the puck towards Karlsson, but it rattled around and ended in the net without ever making it to Karlsson’s stick.
The Blackhawks had a couple of meaningless late chances with a failed Anthony Duclair penalty shot and, finally, a Nick Schmaltz goal with 32 seconds remaining in the game.
Not the way the Blackhawks would have liked to start this road trip.
Pluses
- Pat Foley was clearly elated to have his good buddy Eddie Olczyk back in the booth. The two were like a couple of giggly elementary school girls for the first minute and a half of the game. Those two were the only elated ones from the Blackhawks perspective.
Minuses
- Erik Gustafsson and Carl Dahlstrom had about as rough of a first period as you can imagine. It seemed like every time the Sharks scored, 56 and 63 were standing around looking befuddled.
- Speaking of bad lines, the kid line of DeBrincat-Schmaltz-Highmore were each -3 on the night.
- I want to like Jordan Oesterle, but Joel Quenneville needs to put a shock collar on this kid. He is beginning to look like a puppy chasing a ball around in the park. No focus, and zero attention span. He cannot be your number two defenseman. CAN NOT. Both Oesterle and Keith were -3 and seemed -5. I am all for trying new things and experimentation, but this experiment is finished.
- At this point, I declare Anthony Duclair is the new Viktor Stalberg. A bunch of flash and speed but no finish. His penalty shot attempt was laughable.