The Blackhawks’ habit of falling behind early before staging a stirring comeback came back to haunt them Wednesday night. That will happen when you don’t do the comeback part.
The St. Louis Blues scored two goals early in the first period and went on to defeat the Hawks 3-1 at the United Center.
“Every time we get two goals behind, all of a sudden we start playing,” said veteran Hawks winger Sergei Samsonov, who had a team-high six shots on goal. “It’s tough to give teams the lead every game and expect to pull it out in the third.
“We definitely have to start preparing ourselves better for the first period and try to play with the lead once in a while.”
St. Louis took a 2-0 lead on goals by Paul Kariya on the power play and a full-strength score by Bryce Salvador.
With the Hawks’ Robert Lang off for hooking, Kariya picked up a loose puck and put it past Nikolai Khabibulin with Brad Boyes and Keith Tkachuk assisting 2 minutes 14 seconds into the game.
Salvador fired a wrist shot over Khabibulin’s shoulder with 6:31 gone in the period. Doug Weight and Martin Rucinsky assisted, and for Rucinsky, it was his 599th career NHL point.
“We have to learn to start a lot quicker than that,” Hawks winger Patrick Sharp said. “You spot a team like St. Louis a couple of goals — whether it’s on the power play or not — it’s tough to battle back and they showed that [Wednesday].”
The Hawks cut the lead to 2-1 at the 13:40 mark when Jason Williams took a slap shot that hit the end board and ended up on top of the net, where it spun off the helmet of St. Louis goalie Manny Legace and across the goal line.
After a video-review delay of more than 10 minutes, officials awarded the goal. Sharp picked up his first assist of the season and rookie Jonathan Toews his third.
Keith Tkachuk made it 3-1 Blues when he took a centering pass from Brad Boyes and, standing all alone in front of Khabibulin, tipped it in with 14:43 remaining in the second. It was the Blues’ second power-play goal of the night after entering the game with two in their first 21 chances of the season.
“It’s tough to play [from] behind, especially in this league,” Samsonov said. “You have to battle all the way through the game to try and make a comeback and we’ve done it on a couple of occasions, but you can’t do it every game.”
In all three of the Hawks’ victories this season, they have trailed and rallied for the win.
“We’ll prepare our players, but they have to come prepared themselves too,” Hawks coach Denis Savard said. “We know in this league when you have a poor start and fall behind like we did, it’s tough to come back every night. We have to focus right off the start.”
The attendance at the United Center was 10,002 as the Hawks were trying to win four in a row over the Blues at home for the first time since Nov. 17, 1991 to Nov. 12, 1992.
“It’s sad to see this building this empty because this is a team worth following,” Blues coach Andy Murray said. “This might be the best sports team in Chicago.”
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ckuc@tribune.com
