Hawks Fall to Avalanche in the Shootout

The Blackhawks fell to the Avalanche 5-4 in a shootout in one of the more exciting games I have seen in years.  Colorado opened the scoring at 16:09 of the first period when Paul Stastny tipped in a shot from the point.  Michael Frolik tied it for the Hawks 49 seconds into the second period when Avalanche defenseman Eric Johnson made a terrible pass to a wide open Frolik for a gift goal.  But the Avalanche responded with a goal by David Jones at the 7:41 mark set up by Hejduk and Stastny.  Rookie and second overall pick in the 2011 draft Gabriel Landeskog made it 3-1 Avalanche as he kept his stick on the ice while getting hit and poked it past Corey Crawford.  The Hawks would get a late power play and Jonathan Toews made the Avalanche pay jumping on a rebound for his fourth goal of the year.  In the third Jamal Mayers tied the game at 3 after Nick Leddy made some nifty moves and fed Mayers.  Marian Hossa gave the Hawks the lead late in the third and the Hawks looked to be on their way to an exciting come from behind win at home.  Landeskog had other ideas taking a pass from Ryan O’Reilly and coming in all alone to beat Crawford with under two minutes to play.  After a back and forth overtime, that started with the Hawks with nearly two minutes of power play time, the game headed to a shootout.  Joakim Lindstrom scored the lone goal of the shootout for the Avalanche on a highlight reel move that faked Crawford out of his net and left him with nothing else to do but bow his head.  The Hawks fall to 4-1-2 on the season.  The Hawks will take on the Anaheim Ducks at home on Tuesday night.  The Ducks come in with a 4-2-0 record.