March has not been kind to the Blackhawks. The team has gone 3-4 for the month, and has won just one game in the past week, a home, overtime win over the Hurricanes. Though they are still in fourth place in the Western Conference, Columbus and Vancouver are nipping at their heels. It begs the question, from a team who started out so strong and electrifying, what is going on?
First, injuries have taken their toll on the team. Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin just returned to the Blackhawks after being out with a groin injury since Feb. 11. The one-time leader in goal-scoring, Patrick Sharp, has been out since Valentine's Day with a knee injury.
The grind of the season also takes its toll on players, and that wear sometimes shows itself in some lazy play. One blog was so disgusted by the lollygagging of one Dustin Byfuglien that they created a guide on how you can be lazy in your job. The inability to kill power plays has also reared its ugly head. The Blackhawks have given up three goals while down one man in losses to the Blue Jackets and Islanders.
On the other end of the ice, the offense just isn't getting it done, and you can tell how they miss Sharp. It's not that they're not taking shots -- in fact, they outshot New York 42-19 today -- they're just not doing it well. Said another way:
"We had the puck in the offensive zone," Quenneville added. "With the puck maybe we weren't as crisp as we've been most of the year. I have trust we can simplify it."
Simplify it? Yes, please make it simple. As in, just get the puck in the net. That seems fairly simple.
The playoffs start in about a month. Khabibulin should be back at full strength by then, and with good reports coming out about Sharp's recovery, we can hope that he will be on the Blackhawks line. Let's just hope the Blackhawks stop this skid sometime before the postseason. It would be a shame to let this amazing season go to waste.
