Hawks blow out Flames, 7-1

Powered by four power play goals, including their first 5 on 3 goal of the season in 5 tries, the Blackhawks rode their special teams at the Saddledome and kicked off their 6 game road trip in fine style, crushing Calgary 7-1.  In a game widely anticipated to be a good measuring stick for both teams after the hawks' stunning 6-5 OT win last month after having been down 5-0, it was no contest after early in the 2nd as the hawks cruised to their 5th straight win.

Kris Versteeg returned to the lineup after missing the last game vs San Jose & picked up two pp goals, both coming in the decisive 2nd period, the first putting the hawks up 2-1 after Olli Jokinen had tied the game 14 seconds into the period with a pp goal of his own.  But the Flames lack of discipline got the better of them as Nigel Dawes went after Nik Hjalmarsson after the hawk defenseman stepped into ex-Hawk Rene Bourque at center with a solid, clean shoulder hit that sent Bourque flying, less than a minute after the Flames had tied it.

It seemed to be a turning point as Dawes picked up a roughing penalty for his trouble, and the hawks powerplay, which had opened the scoring in the first when Troy Brouwer was left unchecked in front of Kiprusoff and finally put the 3rd rebound behind the goaltender for his team-leading 4th pp goal, went to work again.  Versteeg actually came on to replace Madden, who had broken his stick in the offensive zone & gone to the bench - Versteeg made a key play to keep the puck in the zone, then later positioned himself at the left side of the net, using his long stick to deflect a Seabrook blast from the left point past Kiprusoff, in what turned out to be the game winner, less than 2 minutes after the Flames had tied it.

The hawks blew it open midway thru the 2nd, with two even strength goals by Byfuglien & Ladd.  Byfuglien poke-checked the puck from Iginla inside the hawk line, then picked up the loose puck at center to create a 2 on 1 with Sharp on his left.  He skated down the right side & fired a sharp angle shot from almost right on the face-off dot that beat Kiprusoff to put the hawks up 3-1.  A few minutes later, after Patrick Kane hit the crossbar from point blank range, Duncan Keith on the same shift spotted Ladd wide open on at the Flames blueline due to a poor Calgary change & hit him with a perfrect stretch pass from his own zone.  Ladd cut in alone from the left side on Kiprusoff, and made a great play cradling the puck on his stick to disguise where he was aiming, which effectively froze the Calgary netminder long enough to beat him with a wrist shot low into the glove side corner.

Another sloppy Calgary line change a few minutes later resulted in a too many men  bench penalty late in the 2nd, which was followed by more lack of discipline from Dion Phaneuf, who (with his visor still on) challenged Seabrook to a fight & drew the extra two minute penalty along with the offsetting majors. 

The hawks made the Flames pay dearly, first with Kane picking up a rebound in front after Kiprusoff had stopped Sharp from in close, & the birthday boy fired it over the fallen Calgary goaltender for his 8th goal of the season which extended #88's point streak to 8 games in the process.  36 seconds later, Versteeg again stationed to the right of Kiprusoff was set up by a brilliant combination play where Keith on the point made a behind the back pass to Kane in the right circle, who quickly fired a cross-ice feed to Versteeg who snapped a sharp angle one-timer high into the open side before Kiprusoff had a chance to move over, to make it 6-1 at the end of two.

The 3rd period was anti-climactic, with Quenneville giving his 4th line & 3rd defensive pairing of Barker & Sopel lots of ice time and giving Keith, Campbell & Seabrook some rest.  While the hawks only managed two shots in the 3rd, Ben Eager scored on one of them, his first of the season, on a set play where Hjalmarsson fired a shot from the left point deliberately wide to the left of the net. The puck bounced off the backboards behind the net right to Kopeckey on the right side and he found Eager open in the slot, who made no mistake in one-timing it past McEllhinney, who had replaced Kiprusoff to start the 3rd. 

Cristobal Huet had a solid game at the other end, and made a brilliant, diving save early in the 2nd, when the game was still very much in doubt, stopping Bouwmeester's point blank shot after having gone down to make an initial save on Phaneuf, during a Calgary powerplay, shortly after the hawks had retaken the lead.  Moments earlier, he had stopped Craig Conroy, who had cut in alone in front from the right side, to keep the hawks in front.   Those saves made up for the earlier (& only) goal he allowed, where he was caught too far back in his net on Jokinen's shot, and had gone down early, giving the Flame sniper too much net to shoot at & he found the top corner, glove side to briefly tie the game.

The hawks may have caught a break in the first period when Jerome Iginla blocked a Duncan Keith shot at the Flames blue line & looked like he had a clear breakway until a desperate Keith finally tackled him from behind in front of Huet after unsuccessfully trying to harass & strip the puck from him as they skated down the ice.  Keith was assessed a minor on the play for holding while Iginla argued for a penalty shot & replays suggested he had a case.  The league's best penalty kill to date, thanks in large part to John Madden, killed off the ensuing Calgary powerplay with no damage done & the hawks maintained their 1-0 lead.

Aside from the Phaneuf-Seabrook tilt, Colin Fraser went at it with Eric Nystrom early in the second, tho no major damage was done by either player.

The hawks head off to Edmonton to face the Oilers on Saturday before finishing the Western Canada portion of their road trip in Vancouver on Sunday.  With 11 players on the roster hailing from Western Canada, the hawks seem to enjoy their trips back "home", having swept their first trip last year, where they started with a lopsided 9-2 win in Edmonton.