CHICAGO // Well, that was quick.
On a rainy, windy, lousy night, Chicago Blackhawks fans were no sooner in their seats than they were out of them – standing to cheer and sing along as Jim Cornelison, local legend, roared such a muscular, passionate, patriotic rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner, with a Second World War veteran in a wheelchair by his side, that it filled the arena like a tidal wide.
Then a chant from the 21,711 fans of “Let’s Go Hawks”, and the game was on. The main question this night: would Patrick Kane extend his point-scoring streak to 26 games?
An answer would not wait long. The first period was not yet halfway done when, with Chicago on the power play, Kane picked up a secondary assist on Duncan Keith’s goal.
And in that same moment the other question of the night – who would win, Chicago or the visiting Vancouver Canucks? – seemed settled, too.
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The Blackhawks were better from beginning to end. The Canucks for a half-decade have had a reputation of being soft, and their performance on Sunday night did nothing to show otherwise. They seemed to lack the stomach for battles along the boards, they took useless shots from near the blue line that a 12-year-old could have stopped, and overall they seemed disjointed and listless.
Once they fell behind, there was no reason to expect them to catch up.
The final score was 4-0, which was about right. Dennis Rasmussen scored in the third to double the Hawks’ lead, then Andrew Shaw and Brandon Mashinter finished it off with, respectively, an empty-netter and a shot from in close with 10 seconds left.
Kane was endlessly dangerous on the night and generated plenty of scoring chances. For example, in the second period he had a breakaway after some sloppy Vancouver puckhandling. He tried to deke out the Canucks goalie Ryan Miller before shooting from his backhand, but it was a little too high.
It was Chicago’s night in every way, with Kane’s streak now more than halfway to the league’s all-time mark, Wayne Gretzky’s 51-game masterpiece in 1983/84.
And yet there is something unconvincing about this Chicago team.
Kane’s streak masks their weaknesses.
While the Kane line has carried the team – he and his linemates Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin have 39 goals between them – the top line of Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa and Teuvo Teravainen has only 20 goals.
The other problem is on defence, and this one has been brewing for a while. Their blue line was thin in last year’s Stanley Cup final, and they won only because Keith put in a heroic performance, playing a stunning amount of minutes at a high level.
In the off-season, the team lost Johnny Oduya as a free agent to Dallas, and now the Hawks seem constantly to be auditioning new defenders from their farm team – Erik Gustafsson, Ville Pokka, Stephen Johns, etc. Meanwhile, Keith continues to pile up the minutes, a tactic that must surely leave him spent by the time the play-offs start.
Chicago won cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015. The Hawks have always lain fallow for at least a year between titles, which makes sense: the long grind to the cup wears players out and this lingers into the following season.
So far this season it is other teams that have the feel of cup contenders: Los Angeles Kings, Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals and, if they can get past their injuries, Montreal Canadiens.
But at least Chicago can still boast that they are one of the league’s quality teams.
Unlike Vancouver.
rmckenzie@thenational.ae
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