A tentative start saw The Hawks down two goals before everyone had even found their seats, one in which Andrew Ladd just plain beat Scott Darling, the second when Casey Cizakas pounced on a rebound. Midway through the first The Arthurs went to work, each scoring entirely typical goals on consecutive power plays, and Marian Hossa shoveled in a diiirrrrty pass from Ryan Hartman to go up 3-2. The Islanders would score an annoying, twice-deflected goal before the period ended.
After yet another tipped-in goal put The Islanders ahead once again, The Hawks spent much of the second period in an apparent fugue state, indifferently chugging up and down the ice, before another PPG by Small Arthur tied matters. The Hawks held the balance of play in the third period but it took some demonic forechecking by Marcus Kruger to allow Dennis Rasmussen to find Richard Panik in the slot; he beat Thomas Greiss with a quick release shot to put The Hawks ahead for good.
Well, Michal Kempny has obviously not been invited into Joel Quenneville's Champagne Room. A healthy scratch for three (four?) games, he found himself -3 after the first period and on the bench for nearly all of the remainder of the game. This short-leash treatment has gotta be awesome for his confidence. We've seen this before and it's never ended well for the player in this position.
Meanwhile, He Who Should Be In Rockford, Trevor van Riemsdyk....actually had a decent game, highlighted by a deceptive little jink to avoid a forecheck and, earlier, taking a hit to make a play, rather than the usual cringing and shooting the puck blindly. He still has no business being on the PP.
Duncan Keith was not especially good, but one play stuck in my mind that made me consider what it is that Keith does, or fails to do, that leads to the majority of his shot attempts going nowhere; when he's in a shooting mode he stops moving. Tonight, there was an instance where he crept in off the point and called for a pass, getting a shot on target from the high slot. Nothing came of it, but it was an actual chance to score and not merely a "I'll chuck it and see what happens" gambit. More of that, please.
Andrew Desjardins had about as good a game as one could hope for without him getting onto the score sheet. He had a good forecheck going all night, created a scoring chance from basically nothing in the first period and ably filled in on the PK when Rasmussen took a penalty.
I guess it was just a matter of time before Scott Darling had an iffy start. That's fine, that happens and there's no harm done.
Panarin appears to have scored 106% of his goals from within six feet of the dot in the left face off circle. It's almost more surprisingly when he doesn't score on one of those one-timers he launches from there. How long will he get away with this, I wonder? Anyway, I'm glad it's working well and I don't want to take those goals for granted, but...
I gotta go with Ryan Hartman, despite having tallied a solitary assist in the game. His hit on Cizikas changed the momentum of the game entirely; he managed to not rise to Cizikas' retaliation and The Hawks scored on the ensuing power play. At the beginning of this season who would have expected that? All indications based on his brief audition last season suggested that Hartman was kind of a meathead, which is turning out to be a big misapprehension. He followed that up with the aforementioned impressive pass to Hossa to set up the third goal and drew another penalty in the second period that led to Panarin's second PPG. His critical contribution, though, was the hit, the penalty drawn and being smart enough to keep his cool and not negate the power play, as that's where the game began to tilt in The Hawks' favour.
No, I'm tellin' ya, Long Island isn't even an island...it's a glacial moraine.
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