The Chicago Blackhawks were hoping to end 2010 on a positive note coming off a 3-1 loss to St. Louis Tuesday night and also losing captain Jonathan Toews for two weeks to the dreaded upper body injury.   Brent Seabrook took the ice sporting an “A” on his jersey in Toews’ absence.  Jack Skille was also a surprising late pre-game scratch.  “We had some tough decisions.  We’re looking for consistency,” coach Joel Quenneville vaguely said afterward.  This also marks the first time goaltender Antti Niemi makes his return to the Madhouse, only this time he’s donning the opposing team’s sweater.  When asked if this game in particular had been on his mind Niemi said, “Not for a long time. The last twenty-four hours maybe it has been on my mind.”  A shorthanded home team would have some work to do before they head out west for early 2011 matchups against Los Angeles and Anaheim respectively.

The Blackhawks wanted to show their onetime goaltender what he’s been missing at the United Center.  They wasted no time attacking firing off six shots in just over seven minutes.  Niemi was kept busy, but he said no to everything the Hawks were showing him.  The early candidate for save of the game goes to Duncan Keith.  With Turco getting caught chasing a puck and turning it over, Duncan parked himself directly in the goal mouth and denied a wrister.  Patrick Sharp knows in order to score on Niemi, you need to go high.  With a shade over three minutes to go in the first, Sharp did just that.  Credit the assists on the power play goal to Kopecky and Seabrook.  The Sharks would do everything in  their power to fight back as they crowded the net going for slop goals.  Turco would do his best Antti Niemi impression and say no right back.  With just over a minute to go in the opening period, Scott Nichol would find a way to score with a wrister that managed to trickle under Turco’s right arm to even the score at one.

The Blackhawks started the second exactly the way you don’t want to start.  Brent Seabrook was called for hooking on what looked like a trip giving the hungry Sharks a two-man advantage for a minute and a half.  With less than five seconds to go on the two-man advantage, Benn Ferriero caught a rolling Marty Turco off guard and put the puck in the back of the net to give the Sharks a one goal lead.  The second would go on with not much offense being put up until the 13:45 mark when Dany Heatley would once again take advantage of a flopping Marty Turco and score his fifteenth goal of the year.  A dejected Hawks team would not just try to escape the second only trailing by two.  Troy Brouwer had other ideas.  With twenty-two seconds left, he got once past Niemi for his tenth of the year.  Before the echoes of “Chelsea Dagger” could stop, Brian Campbell went high on a rebound to tie the game tying the game up with half a second remaining.  Not a bad way to go into the locker room after a lackluster middle period.    The key now would be to have that momentum carry over into the third. 

The literal last minute rush in the second appeared to wear the Blackhawks out as they came out once again flat and stagnant doing just enough to not fall behind.  The Sharks continued to crowd the net hoping for a bounce or redirect to sneak past Turco.  They got their wish seven minutes in when captain Joe Thornton redirected a Marc-Edouard Vlasic slapshot putting the Sharks up for good.  Ryan Clowe added an empty netter giving the visitors a 5 to 3 win.  “Hockey is a game of mistakes.  We made two more mistakes than they did,” right winger Tomas Kopecky said after the loss.

This isn’t the ideal way to start a two week period in which you will be missing your captain and playing the likes of Los Angeles, Dallas, and Colorado.  This also marks the third time this year the Blackhawks have been defeated by Niemi and the Sharks, a team they swept to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals late last spring.   “We want to become a playoff team and a better team and these are points we have to have.  We’ll find a way to get up in the standings if we get these points, two in particular,” Quenneville added afterward.   The Blackhawks have a couple days to regroup and then it’s off to the West coast to take on the Anaheim Ducks Sunday and Los Angeles Kings Monday.