Chicago Blackhawks

An unpleasant reminder
March 26, 2017, 2:46 PM ET [21 Comments]
John Jaeckel
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As has often been opined here this season, you're never really as good as your best game (or stretch of games) nor as bad as your worst.

That last part is the good news for Hawk fans, who saw their team absolutely humiliated by the Florida Panthers, last night, in an ugly 7-0 rout, the team's worst loss since the 2011 season (and we all know how that year turned out).

Just as Hawk fans started to get kind of all "One Goal-y" again, Team Schizo reminded us yet again how hard it is to discern its true nature.

You can point to all kinds of excuses, individually and collectively, for the loss last night: bad ice, an injury to Artem Anisimov, bad officiating. But both teams had to deal with the ice and injuries and to a degree the officiating.

There were individual failures and a systemic failure. Definitely one of those you just chalk up as a bad night and move on, but it is foolish to assume all is well and good and the Hawks are the Unstoppable Force we thought they were a couple of weeks ago.

I saw a few things last night. First, the Hawks came out guns ablazing and Florida goalie James Reimer stood on his head. So that was mitigating, if not encouraging. After that, the wheels sort of slowly came off, culminating in Scott Darling giving up goals on the first 3 shots he faced, when called on to replace Corey Crawford. Darling came in cold and had no more help than Crawford did.

Brian Campbell was -4, as were Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, Niklas Hjalmarsson was -3. Hjalmarsson and Campbell had the team's worst possession numbers among defensemen.

To the eye, Nick Schmaltz reverted to his early season form, getting beaten or giving up on plays in traffic and with contact. John Hayden had his second straight forgettable game.

About the only Hawk who was noticeable and had pushback for someone other than the referees was Richard Panik, who had some scoring chances generated off his own effort and won a convincing fight over the out-sized (anyway) Derek MacKenzie. Mackenzie may have thought he had an easy mark in a Euro, but Panik basically outlasted anything MacKenzie had before downing him with a series of lefts.

Still the hallmark of a bad team is celebrating a fight win in an otherwise humiliating loss, and the Hawks have bigger fish to fry.

They have played better. They will play better. And they need to soon, because the regular season is winding down and you don't want to go into the playoffs with any of the stink of last night's game lingering in your team psychology. And fortunately, enough, the Minnesota Wild continued their epic swoon with yet another homeless yesterday.

I'll have a Tampa Preview tomorrow.