Blackhawks-Senators: Chicago Loses Burish, Still Plays Physical

With their physicality subdued by the placing of Adam Burish on injured reserve, the Chicago Blackhawks rallied to play one of their more bone-crushing games of the season on Wednesday evening. The slashing play led to a hard fought 2-0 victory, and gave many fans hope that this is one small step for the Blackhawks going forward.

This was not the Blackhawks style of play.

Heck, it wasn't even the Ottawa Senators style of play.

Yet, the game plan by Ottawa seemed to encourage chippier play to get Chicago out of rhythm. It worked only a handful of times, as Chicago controlled the overwhelming majority of play on both sides of the ice.

The Blackhawks scored their only non-empty netter on a power play flutter goal by Patrick Kane.

The rest was scraped up by Cristobal Huet's stellar play and the surprising footwork of Brent Sopel and Matt Walker, two defenseman that have struggled mightily at times this season. Both men came together to play one of their finer games of the year.

One of the more surprising performances came from Pascal Pelletier. The man wearing Roenick's number spent much of the first period around the puck and even forced the Sens into a 'holding the stick' penalty.

Much of the recognition needs to go to Huet, however, who played his final game as a Blackhawk. His frenetic style that was seen regularly in Washington was finally being seen on the rink in Chicago. Ottawa had multiple opportunities throughout the game to come through with a tie, and they just weren't able to.

It was a fantastic crowd tonight, and the Hawks continue to receive big lifts from the UC crowd.

"The Stache" heads to Denver this weekend for a reunion with his old mates on Friday. Time for a beat down.

Til Friday...