The hunger strike continues.
Blackhawks coach Craig Hartsburg has been bemoaning his team’s lack of emotion and hunger of late, and their starvation for victory extended to six games Tuesday night with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Calgary Flames in the opener of a three-game road swing through western Canada.
“Hunger, that’s all it is in this league right now,” Hartsburg said. “Get a bunch of hungry guys, you can win some hockey games. If they’re not hungry, the big question is, how do you make them hungry.”
Hartsburg has tried being patient, yelling, just about everything to get all of his players to give their all for three full periods. Tuesday, they jumped to a 3-1 lead midway through the second period only to see it disappear.
Calgary’s Michael Nylander scored the winning goal at 3 minutes 42 seconds of overtime. It was the sole shot on goal in the extra period.
The Flames (10-18-7) opened the scoring at 6:12 of the first period when Theo Fleury skated around a diving Chris Chelios and beat Jeff Hackett for his 13th goal of the season.
The Hawks (10-17-6) tied it at 8:01 when Eric Daze rebounded Christian Laflamme’s slap shot and recorded his 12th goal of the season and fifth in the last six games.
An aggressive play by defenseman Eric Weinrich set up the Hawks’ go-ahead goal at 13:25 of the first period. He alertly pinched up from the blue line to steal a pass and centered to Steve Dubinsky, whose shot was stopped by Rick Tabaracci. Brent Sutter got the rebound and scored his first goal of the year.
Tony Amonte made it 3-1 at 9:53 of the third period, taking a nice pass from Alex Zhamnov before depositing his 13th goal. Calgary cut it to 3-2 at 15:00 on a laser from the blue line by Derek Morris.
