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How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Blackhawks stay patient, come back to beat Devils 3-2 (SO).
By Tracey Myers
Photo from Patty Fritz Hansen's post in Chicago Sports Fans! (Facebook)
Sometimes, maybe it’s best not to know everything.
The Blackhawks didn’t know much about New Jersey goaltender Keith Kinkaid heading into Tuesday night’s game. Kinkaid was making his first NHL start, and the Blackhawks didn’t have enough info to do their usual pregame prep routine.
“Going into our pregame meeting, we didn’t know what to do with shootouts, we didn’t know what to do in 5-on-5, what you could look for,” coach Joel Quenneville said.
Obviously, they figured it out, especially in that shootout.
Duncan Keith scored late in regulation to tie it and Jonathan Toews notched the shootout winner as the Blackhawks came back to beat the Devils 3-2 at the Prudential Center. The Blackhawks have now won seven in a row and 10 of their last 11.
Bryan Bickell also scored for the Blackhawks and Patrick Sharp, playing his first game since suffering a knee injury on Nov. 4, set up that goal. Scott Darling stopped 22 of 24 for his second consecutive victory.
The Blackhawks didn’t play their best hockey on Tuesday. As Toews said, “I don’t think either team was playing its A game tonight.” Kinkaid was pretty close to bringing that game, however, stopping 37 of 39 in regulation and overtime. As the shootout began the Blackhawks were going in blind, in a way, given their lack of knowledge of Kinkaid.
“First time we haven’t had a shootout meeting in a long time,” Toews said after the game. “Sometimes it’s better to just go down, see what he gives you, just try something and hopefully you get lucky.”
Toews went backhand to Kinkaid’s glove side for the winner. Patrick Kane also got one past Kinkaid to end it, slowing to beat the goaltender stick side.
Meanwhile, for Sharp, Tuesday was a night of adjustments. He was back after missing 14 games with that injury. He was also on the right side, where he hasn’t played in several years. But for first games, it all went well.
“It felt good,” Sharp said. “The biggest adjustment was playing the right side but it felt like it got better as the game went on. For a first game in over a month, it felt pretty good.”
The Blackhawks were good, not great, through most of this one. They haven’t done well in New Jersey in a long time — entering Tuesday, the Devils were 8-1-1 at home vs. the Blackhawks since the 1999-2000 season. But the Blackhawks practiced patience, a necessary trait vs. the Devils, and it paid off. Marian Hossa shot on Kinkaid and the rebound went to Keith, who tied it with 3:13 remaining in regulation. Then came that shootout, on which the Blackhawks are unblemished this season.
“It was a good one for us coming back,” Quenneville said. “We weren’t as effective as recently in our stretch and hopefully we can get back to a little more pace to our game.”
Every team has games where they’re not at their best and, in this case, don’t know much about the opposing goaltender. The Blackhawks found a way to win despite both those hurdles.
“We know it’s going to be that type of game against this team regardless of what we bring,” Toews said. “It wasn’t a pretty win… maybe we’re not firing on all cylinders and flying the way we have been. We have to be patient and find ways to win games. We did that tonight.”
Kane, Toews crack Top 3 in All-Star voting.
By Nina Falcone
Chicago Blackhawks Jonathan Toews (C) and Patrick Kane (88).
Buffalo's Zemgus Girgensons continues to dominate through Week 3 of All-Star voting with a whopping 803,805 votes, adding more than 400,000 votes in one week with nearly 82 percent of his total votes coming from Latvia, his native country.
Girgensons is trailed by Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in second and third place, who have earned 375,758 and 367,962 votes, respectively.
The Chicago Blackhawks have had a good showing from the start of voting this season, and this week both Duncan Keith (361,830) and Corey Crawford (311,166) moved to the top of the lists among defensemen and goaltenders after knocking P.K. Subban and Carey Price out from the top of the leaderboards.
If voting ended today, Girgensons, Kane, Toews, Keith, Subban and Crawford would get the nod as the top six vote-getters by position.
Voting concludes Jan. 1. Fans can go here to get their vote and use #NHLAllStar to join the conversation on Twitter.
NHL in Las Vegas? Bettman approves ticket drive to test market.
By Greg Wyshynski
Colorful original Welcome to Las Vegas sign, a classic of pop art design. (Photo/Getty Images)
The odds on NHL expansion to Las Vegas may have gotten a little better today.
“What I'm about to tell you requires a deep breath and a level of precision that I am requesting because I don't want it misunderstood,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, at the League’s Board of Governors meeting in Boca Raton, Fla. on Monday.
There wasn’t a vote. There wasn’t a formal approval of expansion. But the mutual interest is so intense that the League agreed to allow a potential owner to begin a season-ticket drive to show there’s interest in the market to sustain a franchise.
“Las Vegas is a unique market and both we, owners and the potential expansion team owner, Bill Foley, had some questions that he would like to answer. Bill asked me last week ... what would be our reaction to them conducting a season-ticket drive to measure the level of interest?” said Bettman. “And so that if there is interest there, he will continue to pursue that interest; and if it turns out that there isn't interest there, then he would stop his efforts and stop using valuable time and money in pursuit of a team if it didn't make sense.”
So here we go.
Foley is chairman of mortgage giant Fidelity National Financial and owns over a dozen wineries. He was revealed as the potential owner selected by the NHL to spearhead an effort to bring a team to Vegas.
Bettman said there isn’t a structure for a season-ticket drive yet and that hitting whatever goals are established won’t mandate the NHL will expand there.
“The sole purpose here would be to give, in this unique circumstance, Mr. Foley and his colleagues an opportunity to measure the level of interest in the market by conducting a season-ticket drive, and that's something that I intend to tell him that we have no objection to him doing as long as we understand the parameters of it," he said.
Bettman reiterated several times that Vegas is a “unique market,” and that’s why this high-profile test of that market’s strength is important in assessing it.
But the bottom line for those eager to see the NHL in Sin City: There’s an owner identified by the League, and he has the green light to begin testing the market’s season-ticket base.
It’s like drawing a face card on the first deal in blackjack: There’s no telling what’s coming next, but it’s a good start.
NHL enforcers - and fights - are slowly vanishing.
By DAN GELSTON (AP Sports Writer)
Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks holds puck which he drove into the New York Rangers' net to score his 50th goal of the season at New York's Madison Square Garden. The Gordie Howe hat trick to this day means a goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game. (AP Photo/File)
Dave Schultz would drop his gloves in a flash, his bare fists pummeling away at unprotected faces in fits of fury so ferocious he became known as ''The Hammer.''
Schultz was the intimidating backbone of Philadelphia's ''Broad Street Bullies'' teams of the 1970s that won a pair of Stanley Cup championships. The Flyers' rugged style of play became their calling card, and by the 1980s every team had a tough guy or two whose primary role was to protect his teammates by brute force.
Fast forward 40 years since the Flyers' last championship and players like Schultz are having a harder time sticking in the NHL. The role of the enforcer is seemingly going down without a fight as speed and skill on every line have become the norm.
In a league that is also facing head injury concerns - and lawsuits - is it finally time to say goodbye to the goon?
''They just wanted to take fighting out of the game,'' Schultz said. ''It's not the same game.''
But not necessarily a worse one.
The true signal the culture in the NHL has changed comes from Schultz's old stomping grounds. For the first time since the organization was in its infancy, the Flyers opened the season without a true enforcer on their roster. Heck, their biggest threat might be goalie Ray Emery, who headlined a fight last season against Washington's unwilling goalie, Braden Holtby.
''We've got some toughness on our team,'' Flyers general manager Ron Hextall said. ''We've got some guys that can handle themselves. But I think when you look, there weren't a lot of fights in the preseason. There are never any fights in the playoffs. In between, there's been less and less.''
The numbers back up the former NHL goalie.
There were 143 fights through the first 408 games of the season, which projects to 431 fights overall, according to hockeyfights.com. That's a dramatic dip from 734 fights in 2008-09 and 714 fights in 2009-10. The number of fights fell into the 500s in 2011-12 and the 400s last season (there were 347 fights in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season).
The NHL has toughened instigation penalties in place since the 1930s. It added a two-minute minor for the player who started the fight in the 1990s, looking to both cut down on brawling and perhaps attract more casual fans. Of late, the NHL is dishing out longer suspensions for cheap shots and illegal hits, erasing some of the players' unwritten code of justice.
''That tells you, let's just play hockey,'' Schultz said. ''And when there's a problem, the league will take care of it.''
That role used to be left to the enforcers, the de facto bodyguards for the stars. Back on the put-up-your-dukes heyday, even Wayne Gretzky had his own personal great one watching his back: Marty McSorley was the Hall of Famer's first line of thuggish defense, serving and protecting Gretzky in stints with Edmonton and Los Angeles.
''I remember when guys like Gretzky said, we want guys to be able to protect us,'' Schultz said. ''(Sidney) Crosby doesn't want to be protected. By the league, yes. But not by one of his teammates.''
Stu Grimson, the color analyst on Nashville Predators' TV broadcasts, was known as ''The Grim Reaper'' with 2,113 career penalty minutes in his NHL career. He said fighting still has a role in the game, especially at home games where one entertaining scrum can shift momentum and liven up the fans.
''I think the fight itself, there is a purpose for it, and you can put your finger on that purpose,'' he said. ''I think it makes sense to keep that in the game, and I think it's valuable to the game for that reason.''
Chicago Blackhawks forward Dan Carcillo said fights aren't going to completely vanish, either.
''I don't think the mindless, senseless, go out and fight, rah-rah, for no reason, I don't think that has a place in the game anymore,'' Carcillo said. ''If guys take runs at other players, I think those players that take the run at them, whether they fight or not, they have to know in the back of their mind that there's still fighting in this game and they're going to have to answer the bell or respond to it if they're going to take dirty runs or cheap shots.''
But in the back of everyone minds is the risk of concussions and other long-term health risks that come with trading punches on the ice. The idea that brawling was as much fun as a nasty wreck in NASCAR or bench-clearing brawl in baseball came to a jarring halt in 2011 when three former enforcers were found dead.
Derek Boogaard, once named in a Sports Illustrated players poll as the NHL's toughest fighter, died from an accidental mix of alcohol and the painkiller oxycodone. Wade Belak hanged himself and Rick Rypien was discovered at his home after suffering from depression for a decade.
The 65-year-old Schultz said he suffered nothing more than a couple of minor concussions and feels fine.
''We didn't hit anyone near as hard as they do today,'' Schultz said.
There are just now far fewer of those hits.
''It's still an exciting sport,'' Schultz said. ''It's just evolving. It's the way it is.''