Before their first matchup in early November, the Chicago Blackhawks and Calgary Flames were trending in opposite directions. The Canadian team was last in the NHL while the Hawks were elevating.
Fast-forward a couple of months — past the Hawks’ stint at the bottom of the NHL — and the teams met Thursday night at the United Center with vaguely similar records. The consistent attribute was the apparent disdain for each other.
After the Flames answered Nick Foligno’s early goal with two of their own for a 2-1 lead after one period, the fireworks launched in the scoreless second. Defenseman Connor Murphy and left winger Joel Farabee dropped the gloves. Oliver Moore was drilled by Kevin Bahl. Fists were flying all over the ice.
The referees were busy at the United Center, handing out 10 penalties in the second period alone. It was a matter of which team benefited from the energy more going into the third.
It was the Flames.
The Hawks lost 3-1, falling short of completing the season sweep after outscoring the Flames 9-2 in the previous two meetings.
Both teams will feel the aftereffects.
“An interesting game, it was a little bit of a weird game,” Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “Where I thought we really got disconnected a bit was in the third for me, more than anything else.”
The Hawks (19-21-7) and Flames (20-23-4) haven’t shown much love for each other this season. Unless, of course, fighting is their way of expressing themselves.
They combined for 48 penalties and 200 penalty minutes in the three games, including 15 for 36 minutes Thursday.
“There’s intensity in the season for sure, every game and season has a life of its own,” Murphy said. “It’s honestly good to have some of that physicality and some of the scrums that gets emotion in the building.”
But there’s a fine line between keeping your composure and matching the energy in those moments.
“Discipline more comes from the stick stuff, the stick penalties and reaching,” Murphy said. “The physicality, if a guy gets a penalty for being rough on a player or getting a hit that caused a penalty, you’re going to kill those and that still brings the edge.
“It’s the stick penalties and the ones that we have from not getting our body in front of guys. It’s habits that we want to have.”
The Hawks’ special teams didn’t do them any favors. They went without a goal on four power plays, unable to get a shot on goal on the first two. The Hawks also allowed a goal on the penalty kill for the first time in 17 opportunities.
Foligno opened the scoring with a shot off of Colton Dach’s centering pass at 2:38 of the first period. But the Flames seized back momentum when center Yegor Sharangovich scored seconds into a power play at 3:14.
Less than three minutes later, Hawks left wing André Burakovsky turned the puck over in the neutral zone. Hawks goalie Spencer Knight (20 saves) could not stop a breakaway from forward Mikael Backlund, who scored the short-handed goal.
“We’ve done a pretty good job of either winning games or putting ourselves in really good position on special teams over the course of the season, and tonight we were minus-2 in special teams,” Blashill said. “It’s hard to win games in this league without a great amount of firepower when you lose that special teams battle by two like that.”
The Hawks found themselves in a similar situation to Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers — unable to tie the game while trailing 2-1.
Knight went to the bench with 1:59 to play. Flames right winger Matt Coronato scored a empty-net goal at 18:59 of the third, sealing the Hawks’ third loss in four games.
“I felt like we had some chances to put the puck in the net and didn’t capitalize on that, so that is frustrating in itself,” center Colton Dach said. “When you have a team that’s always coming at you with speed and physicality, that’s also frustrating.”