Toews celebrating one of his two third period goals.
There was a lot of scoring in this one. The Blue Jackets were prepared this time around for the Blackhawks and Cristobal Huet. He shutout Columbus just two days earlier. They were able to get Huet out of position – which is never hard to do – and hope he leaves a portion of the net unguarded. They were rather effective at this all night, and the fact that the Blackhawks didn’t offer much defensive help made the task fairly easy.
Four of the five goals scored by Columbus were off the pass. In each instance Huet was unable to recover in time to adequately defend the goal – see Kris Russell’s goal in the second where he was deep in the net, unable to cut off any shooting angles. This has been one of my biggest criticisms of him. I wouldn’t, however, put all the blame squarely on his shoulders. The Blackhawks are a better defensive team then they were this afternoon, and should have provided more pressure on the Blue Jackets in their zone to hinder or halt puck movement altogether.
Luckily, Steve Mason isn’t as good as his rookie campaign led everyone to believe. When the Blackhawks were down 4-3 going into the third – after Columbus scored three straight goals – the Blackhawks were able to rattle off three straight goals of their own. Jonathan Toews scored two power-play goals in the third period, and his game winner that he placed top shelf solidified the Blackhawks a victory. Patrick Kane had himself a great game as well, with three assists.
Next up, the Blackhawks will play another afternoon game tomorrow in Detroit. Playing in back-to-back afternoon games will be tough. Expect Antti Niemi to get the nod.
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