Blackhawks Streak Comes to A Sad End

Written by: EricC on 18th October 2009

The Chicago Blackhawks came out tough against the Dallas Stars, but in the end, thanks to a bouncing puck, the Stars walked away with the win. The score was never tied, but the Blackhawks fought hard to make a comeback, and after that Calgary game last week, there were high hopes that they were going to pull it off. The offense was on fire, taking 32 shots and making three of them in. One very impressive stat about the Blackhawks, thus far, is that 16 different players have scored in eight games!

The Blackhawks dominated the first period with 14 shots, compared with the Stars five. Chicago was looking like they could easily pull out a fifth consecutive win. However, in the second period, Dallas started the scoring off early, putting in the first goal of the game. Only about three minutes later, they did it again. Troy Brouwer came out less than a minute later and gave the Blackhawks their first goal of the season, along with his first goal of the season. The Stars got another one in a few minutes later, giving them the two goal lead again, now at 3-1. In the final minutes of the period, Captain Jonathan Toews got his first goal of the season too.

It was looking like another comeback match, until the bouncing puck incident. Dallas, making what was meant to be a routine dump, scored a fourth goal on the Hawks. The puck hit off the boards and slid towards the net. Cristobal Huet went in for the grab, but the puck took a weird bounce, hit off his pads, and went in. A lucky goal that would end up costing them the game. Niklas Hjalmarsson had his first goal of the season too, but it just wasn’t enough. Chicago would have to take their third loss of the season.

Cristobal Huet, already criticized by the majority of Blackhawks fans for his current performance this season, was not able to help sway minds. He had a really rough game, especially with the bouncing puck incident. Overall, he had 21 saves. It’ll be interesting to see what Coach Q’s plan for goalies will be after this game.

The Blackhawks have a few days of rest before taking on the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, Oct 21 at 7:30 P.M. This will be the first match up between the two teams since the Blackhawks knocked them out of the playoffs last season.