Chicago Sports Then and Now

A poor showing from Cristobal Huet proved costly for the Hawks Tuesday night, allowing the Dallas Stars to gain a 5-4 victory, their second straight over Chicago.  Huet allowed 4 goals on only 10 shots before being replaced by Antti Niemi early in the second period.

Steve Ott scored twice for the Stars, including the winning goal on a power-play breakaway early into the third.  Mike Modano, Loui Eriksson, and Mike Ribeiro also scored for Dallas.  Modano’s goal was his 549th career goal tying him with Ron Francis at 25th all time.

For Chicago Troy Brouwer and Colin Fraser scored one a piece and Patrick Kane added two.  Kane has 7 goals in his past 5 games.  Jonathan Toews and Dustin Byfuglien added two assists each.

Chicago opened the scoring 3:10 into the game when Brouwer buried a rebound past Marty Turco on an early power-play.  Dallas replied with a power-play tally of their own just over two minutes later.  Modano got a shot past Huet, who seemed to stumble on the play, leaving him unable to make the stop.  It was Dallas’ first shot of the game.  Ribeiro gave Dallas the lead at 15:37 with a wrap-around goal.  Chicago responded 1:13 later with a power-play goal from Kane.  Chicago took the lead before the period was out when Fraser took a beauty pass from Kris Versteeg and put it past Turco.

The second period started off poorly for the Blackhawks.  Dallas scored 57 seconds into the period when a Loui Eriksson shot trickled through Huets pads and into the net.  Only 35 seconds later Dallas scored again when Ott had an attempted pass take a strange bounce off a Blackhawk defenceman’s skate and into the net.  Although there was nothing Huet could have done on that particular goal, it spelled the end of his night.  Chicago was able to tie the game at 4’s with 4 seconds left in the second when Kane netted his second of the night.

Dallas scored the final goal of the game, via Ott, on the power-play, at 4:07 into the third.  Turco and the Stars held strong and were able to secure the victory.  Turco had 33 stops total, including 18 in the first alone thanks to 3 Blackhawk man-advantages.

Not to take anything away from Dallas, who played a good game Tuesday, but had Huet played well this game likely would have ended with a Chicago victory.  With the exception of the fluke fourth goal, all the goals Huet allowed were questionable for a starting goaltender in the NHL.  He clearly had an off night and Chicago fans expect him to rebound when the Hawks host the Devils on New Years Eve.