ST. LOUIS — Duncan Keith has sacrificed a lot of his offensive inclinations this season for the sake of the Blackhawks’ defense.
On Tuesday, Keith finally hit the 100-career-goal milestone he’s sat on the cusp of for months, but the Hawks defense correspondingly collapsed in a 6-5 loss to the Blues.
Keith’s power-play rocket past Blues goalie Jordan Binnington in the first period made him just the fourth Hawks defenseman and, fittingly, 100th NHL defenseman all-time to score 100 goals.
The goal extended the 36-year-old blue-liner’s point streak to four consecutive games — a streak that already included his 500th career assist and 600th career point on Friday. It also jumpstarted the Hawks’ power play, which went 3-for-4 for its highest output of the season after entering the day ranked last in the league.
But the Hawks yet again melted down in the third period.
Just like their December trip to St. Louis, when a three-goal lead evaporated into a regulation loss, the Hawks led 3-1 in the second and 3-2 entering the third but defended horrifically down the stretch.
Keith, despite his three points, was often sucked to the perimeter and out of position; Olli Maatta likewise committed several inexcusable turnovers.
The Blues also nearly matched the Hawks’ power play with two man-advantage goals of their own, and gave Corey Crawford his first poor outing in months.
Lehner tweets about negotiations
Plenty of speculation has swirled in the lead-up to — and aftermath of — Monday’s Robin Lehner trade about what the pending unrestricted free agent’s contract demands may be.
Lehner provided some insight himself on Tuesday, though, tweeting that he “was willing to do short term” but that “money was never discussed.”
Asked about those comments, Hawks general manager Stan Bowman said Tuesday — just as he did Monday — that he didn’t want to disclose negotiations
It’s the second consecutive year Lehner’s negotiations have been drama-filled. With the Islanders last year, he initially wanted a long-term deal, but then “we came down to shorter term, and it was a bit off in money,” he said when signing with the Hawks in July. He said he took a few days to think about it and the Isles jumped on Semyon Varlamov instead.
Bowman: ‘Didn’t turn down better deals’
Although Bowman didn’t get into the Lehner contract negotiations, he did offer more insight into the seemingly poor returns that the Hawks got for Lehner and Erik Gustafsson in 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 said. “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 said a few other notable things, as well.
The GM noted that the Hawks are looking at Max Shalunov, a 27-year-old Russian league star whose NHL rights are owned by Chicago, as well as “some free agent players” to potentially import from Europe for next season, like they did with Dominik Kubalik this year.
He said the Hawks will have a “proven NHL goalie signed for next year” but didn’t commit to that player necessarily being Corey Crawford, who is a pending UFA.
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February 26, 2020 at 10:39AM
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Blackhawks score: Hawks collapse after Duncan Keith scores 100th goal - Chicago Sun-Times
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