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Why the Chicago Blackhawks can't seem to keep a lead

When a team scores first in a hockey game, there's a good chance it will go on to win.

That has been especially true of the Chicago Blackhawks over the past three seasons as coach Joel Quenneville's teams have an incredible 113-23-13 record after taking a 1-0 lead.

But that hasn't been the case in 2017-18 - and especially over the past month as the Hawks are a pathetic 2-6-2 when scoring first.

Why is this happening? Why can't this team build on a lead? Can they not panic when the opponent scores?

There are likely several factors at play:

• Inexperience. The Hawks' struggle may come because there are too many young players who haven't learned how to deal with in-game adversity.

Not everyone buys this theory, however.

"Look around the league," Jonathan Toews said after practice Friday. "How many teams are in the same boat as us as far as experience and youth? I don't think that's an excuse.

"If anything, that would fall on our experienced guys to find ways to help not only calm the nerves but also get everyone on the same page."

That's true, but the number of "experienced guys" has been drastically reduced in recent years. Past rosters were full of veterans such as Marian Hossa, Marcus Kruger, Bryan Bickell, Brad Richards, Andrew Shaw, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Johnny Oduya, Michal Rozsival and many more who knew how to play with a lead and didn't get rattled when something went awry.

And while Toews' point about the league getting younger is true, a team like Winnipeg has a 19-year-old Patrick Laine with 130 games of experience, 22-year-old Nikolaj Ehlers with 211 games, 23-year-old Jacob Trouba with 321 games, 23-year-old Andrew Copp with 199 games and 24-year-old Mark Scheifele with 347 games.

The Hawks' roster is loaded with players who haven't sniffed 100 NHL games.

The Jets struggled in 2016-17, but are 33-15-9 and in second place in the Central Division this season with a very similar roster.

Perhaps the Hawks are on the same path and they simply must learn how to win.

"Winning's hard in the league," said Connor Murphy. "When you look at (our) games, it's not like we're getting outplayed by a lot of these teams. Yeah, you've got to know how to win and take care of shifts in the game to keep moving forward. That's definitely part of it."

Of course, you can't put all of the woes on youth. The inability of Patrick Kane and others to get on a roll has been a huge problem over the past month.

"It obviously hurts when you're not producing and the team's losing," said Kane, who has just 3 goals in the past 15 games. "I felt like if I could have come up with something the past couple of games it could have been a different game."

• Another problem is poor puck management or puck control. Misplays by Murphy and Michal Kempny led to Anaheim's first 2 goals in the Ducks' 3-2 victory Thursday.

Carl Dahlstrom and Jordan Oesterle also mishandled passes from Kane that could have led to goals, and Toews and Patrick Sharp each inexplicably lost control of the puck a couple times. This has been a serious problem and has meant blown scoring chances, as well as turnovers and odd-man rushes all season.

• Puck management extends to the goalies as well. Anton Forsberg, who has played in just 32 NHL games, has given up to many Grade A chances by misplaying the puck behind the net and not getting back into position quickly enough.

On Anaheim's go-ahead goal Thursday, Forsberg attempted to play a dump-in but missed the puck. Five seconds later, Adam Henrique made it 3-2. (Now, don't place the blame totally on Forsberg. It was Kempny who hit Nick Ritchie along the boards rather than play the puck, and Sharp who lost track of Henrique in front of the net.)

"With time, (goalies) get way better at handling the puck and reading situations," Quenneville said.

With time, experience, a healthy Corey Crawford and a more productive power play, the Hawks figure to evolve into a better team in 2018-19.

First things first

Record of Central Division teams if they score the game's first goal

Team Record Points

pct.

Winnipeg 26-2-6 .853

Nashville 26-3-4 .848

Colorado 27-5-2 .824

Dallas 23-5-1 .810

Winnipeg 22-4-4 .800

St. Louis 27-6-2 .800

Blackhawks 17-10-5 .609

(Last 10 times: 2-6-2) .300

<b>Hawks last 3 seasons:</b>2016-17: 37-8-5 .790

2015-16: 41-6-6 .830

2014-15: 35-9-2 .783

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