For several years now, coach Joel Quenneville has said the same thing when the Blackhawks find themselves mired in an offensive drought: “We don’t worry about scoring goals.” And with a roster loaded with prolific scorers, why would he?
But after a 2-0 loss to the Canadiens on Sunday night, the Hawks have gone 150 minutes, 42 seconds without a five-on-five goal. Not counting empty-netters, they’ve scored three goals in three games. They’ve scored more than three goals once in their last 13 games.
Is it time to start worrying about scoring goals?
“Starting to think about it,” Quenneville said.
RELATED STORIES
Alex DeBrincat showing he’s more than just a goal-scorer
Corey Crawford posts second straight shutout as Blackhawks top Wild
The Hawks squandered another stellar effort from Corey Crawford, who kept the Canadiens off the board for two periods while extending his own personal scoreless streak to 173 minutes, 9 seconds. It was a no-brainer to start Crawford again, even though he had started back-to-back nights only twice in the last two years. Not only was he coming off consecutive shutouts, he was going up against his hometown Canadiens — against whom he was 8-0-2 lifetime with a .954 save percentage and 1.49 goals-against average.
“He’s been playing great,” Ryan Hartman said. “We just need to generate some offense for him.”
What makes it particularly frustrating for the Hawks is that it’s not as if they’ve been chasing the puck all the time lately. It was the fifth consecutive game in which they’ve had at least 35 shots on goal. But third-string goalie Charlie Lindgren, making his fourth career appearance, stopped all 38 shots he faced for his first shutout.
The Hawks were firing away. But it was mostly from the perimeter, with little traffic in front of the net and precious few rebound chances.
“We generated some pretty good things,” Patrick Kane said. “Sometimes you want to make it a little bit harder on a goalie you haven’t seen before, but that comes with just the regular things you say about goalies — just getting traffic and shots and trying to make good shots on him.”
Crawford finally relented in the third period, as Jonathan Drouin went top-shelf at 1:54 to snap the scoreless streak. And a Connor Murphy turnover deep in his own zone led to Joe Morrow’s goal through an Andrew Shaw screen at 7:45.
With the Hawks’ offense sputtering the way it has been, that was more than enough.
“It’s obviously frustrating, and we’ve just got to keep working and make sure we get in front of the goalie’s eyes,” Nick Schmaltz said.
Follow me on Twitter @MarkLazerus.
Email: mlazerus@suntimes.com
