Blackhawks Light the Lamp Three Times and Play that Damn Tune Four

By Jim Ellis
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Updated: October 31, 2016

(Photo by Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images)

God, that song. The Chicago Blackhawks have this nagging, bragging sort of victory tune that plays over their arena sound system after a goal. And all you want coming into this arena is to never hear that thing, somewhat because it sounds like a sniveling grammar school kid taunting you, but mostly because you don’t want those Blackhawks to score.

But here we were – October 30 at Chicago’s United Center – having the red goal light go on three times for the Hawks in a 3 – 0 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. A total of four times: that damn tune.

In its only appearance in Chicago this year, the Kings had a couple old faces in the lineup: defenseman Matt Greene in for an injured Brayden McNabb and forward Jordan Nolan in for healthy scratch Nick Shore. For the sixth straight game, the goalie nod went to Peter Budaj, who had gone 4 – 1 with a 1.99 goals-against-average, including Saturday’s 1 – 0 loss against a hard-hitting St. Louis Blues team.

For this matchup, the first period saw the Kings giving the red team, as if they needed it, plenty of opportunities to get a goal, with lackluster puck handling in their own zone, along with three penalties. Early on, sloppy play by Dustin Brown lead to a tripping penalty and a Blackhawks’ powerplay. Jinxing the Kings was announcer Bob Miller on this one (he earlier announced how forward Jonathan Toews had not yet scored this season). Controlling the puck, the Blackhawks sent a series of passes along the blueline before Toews’ slapshot got passed a screened-out Budaj.

Yeah, that song played. The crowd got into it.

In a game that saw the final tally of shots favoring the kings 32 – 29, the Blackhawks had higher percentage chances. The second period saw more of the same: Blackhawks out-chancing and outskating the tired-looking Kings. And one more time the playing of the nagging tune. At 13:30, NHL’s newly christened 500-goal member Marian Hossa came in towards Budaj, and as Alec Martinez backed off the play, Hossa passed it over to Artem Anisimov who took the next infinite moment to flip a backhand into the net. Also of note, the second period saw Andy Andreoff leave the ice with an upper body injury.

The third period saw a shift halfway through as the Kings picked up the tempo a bit. But when Kyle Clifford took a high-sticking penalty with 17:46, there was only enough time for one more disappointment, what announcer Jimmy Fox pointed out as something that happens “when things are going bad.” With Budaj pulled so the short-handed Kings could at least play even, a shot by Toews on the empty net hit the post only to bounce off of the referee right to a waiting Hossa who put away the game at 3 – 0. You guessed it, two more renditions of: “Dadadda Dadadadadaa Dadadadadaada” (however you spell the lyrics to the tune).

This would give Blackhawks’ goalie Corey Crawford (3-3-1) his first shutout of the season, saving all of the Kings’ 32 shots.

Kings coach Darryl Sutter, in reviewing the game through LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen’s reporting, said: “I think we were sluggish in the first period, and I think we knew that they’d come out the way they would, and I think their top two lines the first period really controlled the pace of play for them. I thought the second period we got a little better. Again, it was their top two lines against our guys that made a really strong play against us. I thought the third period was our best period.”

Of the two consecutive shutouts, Kings defenseman Jake Muzzin said, “We got to look at some stuff, obviously, and try to create more offensively. I thought in St. Louis the other night we played solid but we couldn’t find the net. We had some chances, and we got to bare down on some of our opportunities.”

Through the Insider, Kings forward Tanner Pearson said, “I don’t think we created too much today. Even if it was one-shot-and-done type of thing, we need to be the type of team where it’s one shot and two guys are filtering to the net and creating chances off of that.”

The 4-4-0 Kings will next:

Play the Anaheim Ducks at 7:30 pm, Tuesday, November 1, at the Staples Center.
Try and wipe that nagging tune out of their heads.

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