With a 2-1 win Friday night against the San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks have set the NHL record for the most games to start a season without a regulation loss, at 17 games. The Blackhawks have a 14-0-3 record. One of those 3 “overtime” looses was a shootout loss last week to the Anaheim Ducks, who have started almost as hot as the Blackhwaks at 12-2-1. For some reason, the NHL doesn’t treat overtime or shootout losses as regular losses. If regulation ends with a tie, the losing team receives one point, while the winning team receives two points, for winning the game. Of course when the game ends in regulation, the winning team gets 2 points, and the losing team doesn’t get any points in the team standings.
Even with the 3 overtime losses, this is still an incredible start to the season for the Blackhawks. With the shortened season due to the lockout, the season is only 48 games. So the Blackhawks are just over 1/3 of the way through their season, and haven’t lost a game in regulation. A great start like that almost guarantees a playoff appearance, unless the team experiences a total collapse. With 16 teams going to the playoffs each year out of 30 teams, all you need is around a .500 winning percentage to make the postseason. The Blackhawks probably only need to win approximately 10 of their remaining 31 games to make the playoffs.
Chicago is led by Patrick Kane with 23 points. He has 9 goals and 14 assists in their first 17 games. Following Kane is Jonathan Toews with 15 points, and Marian Hossa has 14. Patrick Sharp also has 14 points, and defenseman Duncan Keith rounds out the double digit scorers with 11 points. You can’t win all those games without solid goaltending, and the Blackhawks definitely have that. Actually they have 2 goalies who have very similar impressive statistics. Corey Crawford is 7-0-3, with a 1.65 goals against average, and a .935 save percentage. While Ray Emery has won all his games, with a 7-0-0 record, a 2.10 goals against average, and a .930 save percentage. Having 2 good goalies is great in the regular season, but they will have to pick one of them in the playoffs to play most of the games. I can’t remember a team splitting time as evenly as the Blackhawks have among their goalies, once the playoffs begin.
Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks for breaking the NHL record for the longest streak of games to start a season without a regulation loss. Time will tell how important this fast start is to the rest of their season. They already have a 10 point lead in the Central Division. Of course, if they do secure the top seed in the Western Conference, that doesn’t mean very much in the NHL. Just ask the Vancouver Canucks about that. Last year was the second consecutive year that the Canucks won the President’s Trophy for the best record in the NHL, but didn’t win the Stanley Cup. That honor went to the Los Angeles Kings, who eliminated them in the first round of the playoffs.
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