ST. LOUIS — Duncan Keith has sacrificed loads of his offensive inclinations this season for the sake of the Blackhawks’ protection.
On Tuesday, Keith lastly hit the 100-career-goal milestone he’s sat on the cusp of for months, however the Hawks protection correspondingly collapsed in a 6-5 loss to the Blues.
Keith’s power-play rocket previous Blues goalie Jordan Binnington within the first interval made him simply the fourth Hawks defenseman and, fittingly, 100th NHL defenseman all-time to attain 100 targets.
The aim prolonged the 36-year-old blue-liner’s level streak to 4 consecutive video games — a streak that already included his 500th profession help and 600th profession level on Friday. It additionally jumpstarted the Hawks’ energy play, which went 3-for-Four for its highest output of the season after coming into the day ranked final within the league.
But the Hawks but once more melted down within the third interval.
Just like their December journey to St. Louis, when a three-goal lead evaporated right into a regulation loss, the Hawks led 3-1 within the second and 3-2 coming into the third however defended horrifically down the stretch.
Keith, regardless of his three factors, was typically sucked to the perimeter and out of place; Olli Maatta likewise dedicated a number of inexcusable turnovers.
The Blues additionally practically matched the Hawks’ energy play with two man-advantage targets of their very own, and gave Corey Crawford his first poor outing in months.
Lehner tweets about negotiations
Plenty of hypothesis has swirled within the lead-up to — and aftermath of — Monday’s Robin Lehner commerce about what the pending unrestricted free agent’s contract calls for could also be.
Lehner offered some perception himself on Tuesday, although, tweeting that he “was willing to do short term” however that “money was never discussed.”
Asked about these feedback, Hawks basic supervisor Stan Bowman stated Tuesday — simply as he did Monday — that he didn’t wish to disclose negotiations
It’s the second consecutive 12 months Lehner’s negotiations have been drama-filled. With the Islanders final 12 months, he initially needed a long-term deal, however then “we came down to shorter term, and it was a bit off in money,” he stated when signing with the Hawks in July. He stated he took a couple of days to consider it and the Isles jumped on Semyon Varlamov as an alternative.
Bowman: ‘Didn’t flip down higher offers’
Although Bowman didn’t get into the Lehner contract negotiations, he did provide extra perception into the seemingly poor returns that the Hawks acquired for Lehner and Erik Gustafsson of their deadline trades.
“Your goal, when you’re in that position and you’re talking to teams, is you want to get the best deal you can,” he stated. “We didn’t turn down better deals where there were first-round picks involved. The deals happen when the two sides can match… Trust me, we did as much as we could and we got the best deal we could.”
Bowman stated a couple of different notable issues, as effectively.
The GM famous that the Hawks are Max Shalunov, a 27-year-old Russian league star whose NHL rights are owned by Chicago, in addition to “some free agent players” to probably import from Europe for subsequent season, like they did with Dominik Kubalik this 12 months.
He stated the Hawks can have a “proven NHL goalie signed for next year” however didn’t decide to that participant essentially being Corey Crawford, who’s a pending UFA.