Blackhawks’ offense sputters again

CHICAGO — Their coach deemed the Blackhawks’ deflating, last-ticks loss a night earlier “brutal.” Perhaps a 4-0 defeat Friday night to the Colorado would send Joel Quenneville scurrying for a thesaurus, or perhaps a libation with a bit of vigor to it.

A generally more-than-satisfactory first half of the season came to a maddening end at the United Center, where the Hawks had ample chances and ample good chances and made absolutely nothing out of them.

Breakaways off the post, backhands of loose pucks flung wide, nifty moves on the doorstep denied … the Hawks offense was under the spell of Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov, who stifled 27 shots sent his way for his second shutout of the season.

David Jones, TJ Galiardi, David Van der Gulik and Chuck Kobasew were the goal-scorers for the Avalanche, who won their ninth out of their last 10 games while sending the Hawks to a fourth loss in five outings.

At the start, it took the Hawks a good six or seven minutes to muster anything resembling a threatening rush, but once the gears began to churn, there were some nifty chances.

Jonathan Toews nearly set up a Michael Frolik score early, Viktor Stalberg almost redirected a pass in for a tally, Patrick Kane and Andrew Shaw just about connected for a score. Toews later had the best look of all, a backhand of a loose puck on the doorstep that sailed high.

Common theme there: The Hawks didn’t bury their chances. The Avalanche took advantage, though, of a seemingly lazy toss toward the crease from defenseman Erik Johnson. Fellow blue-liner Jones redirected the puck in for a 1-0 lead at the 12 minute, 57 second mark of the first period.

That left the Hawks to scrape back into the action. Instead they started a fire in a barrel and jumped in.

The second period was not defenseman Nick Leddy’s best, in particular. First the Avalanche’s Paul Stastny glided past Leddy on a counterattack and found Galiardi on the other side of the crease for a wicked one-timer and a 2-0 lead.

Then came the arrow-through-a-balloon deflation.

Seconds after another fruitless Hawks power play, Leddy turned the puck over behind his own net, with Gabriel Landeskog doing the pilfering. The puck then trickled through three Hawks and onto the blade of Van der Gulik, who whipped home his first of the year for a 3-0 lead.

Emblematic of the night, the Hawks’ most electrifying chance went maddeningly askew a few minutes into the third. A long Toews pass sprung Stalberg on a breakaway, but the winger’s shot from point-blank range bounded off the post.

A few moments later, Varlamov stymied Patrick Sharp’s backhand-to-forehand move. A few moments after that, the Hawks’ Dave Bolland scrapped with Galiardi and skated off wiping blood from his face.

But a Kobasew tip-in goal with two minutes left was the last word of the night, and that figured.

One-timer: Defenseman Steve Montador (upper body) and forward Marcus Kruger (possible concussion) both skated early Friday, per Quenneville, but neither returned to the lineup. Quenneville deemed Montador “close” and said Kruger was “working back slowly.”

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