McKnight: 'Hawks In Deep Trouble
By Connor McKnight--
The Blackhawks have fallen into the deepest of holes here in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Down 3-0 to the Canucks, Joel Quenneville knows how unenviable the situation is.
"We're in an awful spot right now," Quenneville said, " I don't think you want to look any further than just trying to get something positive going in our direction. Right now we're definitely disappointed. We're not happy."
For Jonathan Toews, it's more than just the Blackhawks' level of play that's frustrating.
"Everyone wants to look at the stats all year and talk about what [the Canucks] do well and how good of a team they are," Toews said. "That's whats frustrating. We're not exposing them for what they really are. I think a lot of people outside this locker room are giving them too much credit. Maybe we are as well. We know that we can be a better team and we just haven't shown it yet."
Regardless of just what the Canucks are or what the Blackhawks haven't been yet, the series stands at 3-0, advantage Vancouver.
While it's easy to point to Philadelphia's success in last years playoffs after facing the same situation, that can't be done until the Hawks win their first game.
The turning point in the game may have been when John Scott took a bad interference penalty midway through the second period. The Canucks scored right off the draw and then once more 54 seconds later to take a 2-1 advantage.
Scott, who played in his first playoff game, was used on the power play early as a screen on Roberto Luongo. It would be unfair to place all the blame on Scott for the Hawks inability to score more than two goals on the man-advantage, but it was clear he didn't exactly put fear into the hearts of the Canucks.
Canucks winger Raffi Torres also delivered a crushing shot to Brent Seabrook in the second that earned him a minor penalty. After the game, Joel Quenneville admonished the referees saying the hit was "brutal" and absolutely a major penalty. Seabrook refused to say whether it was a dirty hit having not seen it coming while on the ice nor in replay.
