After an embarrassing home loss to Phoenix on Tuesday, the Blackhawks made some changes, but it didn’t exactly go as planned. Chicago escaped against the Islanders at home tonight coming away with a 5-4 victory in a shootout.
Defense clearly wasn’t a priority for either team tonight. Kyle Okposo got the Islanders on the board first a little over 4 minutes into the first period on the power play. Andrew Brunette tied the game up later on in the period, but Matt Moulson took the lead back for New York several minutes later.
The second period was all Chicago. Ben Smith tallied his first goal of the season while Jonathan Toews scored a shorthanded goal with under a minute and a half left. Blackhawks outshot the Islanders 13-2 in that period.
There was a drastic momentum switch between New York and Chicago in the third period. P.A. Parenteau quickly tied the game 46 seconds into the period with the man advantage. 5 minutes later, Patrick Sharp sniped a shot past goaltender Al Montoya off a nice feed from Patrick Kane on the power play. A little over 3 minutes later, Islanders rookie Nino Niederreiter buried his first goal of the year tying the game at 4. The Blackhawks allowed a season-high 23 shots in the last period of play while they only recorded 7 of their own.
65 minutes wasn’t enough to decide the winner between the two teams. Jonathan Toews scored the only shootout goal for the Blackhawks as Chicago now improves their home record to 8-2-2.
Despite allowing 4 goals, Corey Crawford was outstanding tonight stopping 37 of 41 shots, including a 3-for-3 in the shootout. The defense left him out to dry early in the game and late in the 3rd period, but he came up big.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The Blackhawks take on the Blues tomorrow night in St. Louis; puck drop at 7:00pm CT! Last meeting: St. Louis shut out Chicago 3-0.