Stanley Cup Playoffs: How to Lose a Game in 10 Seconds

Give or take a few seconds.

Look, I needed a snappy title for this post.

Step 1: Get a little too overzealous in the offensive zone and press for a game winner of your own in OT.

Granted, had the Hawks scored with the help of that pressure, I wouldn't be talking about this. But they didn't.

When Mikael Samuelsson broke up Brian Campbell's pass on the line. Two of the Hawk forwards, Patrick Kane and Sami Pahlsson, were deep and another, Troy Brouwer, was slow to recognize the two Red Wing forwards that started to break the other way.

And about Patrick Kane?

Well, he's a talented kid. And while he was one the Hawk forwards that was caught deep, I thought he could have done a little more to catch up with the play.

But in retrospect, you could have said that about Pahlsson, too.

In other words, no one player on that shift is to blame. The Hawks just pushed a little too hard for the OT winner, relaxed for just a bit, and allowed the Wings forwards to jump ahead of them as soon as Soupy got pressured at the blueline.

Step 2: Fumble the puck at the blue line

Yeah, that's part of the Soupy package. He's aggressive with the puck. But if you pressure him, he can turn it over. And he probably compounded the mistake by trying to get the puck back instead of peeling back to ensure if it was going to be an odd man rush, it would be a 3-on-2.

And I think Khabi's chances of making that stop go WAY up at that point.

BTW, there's no Step 3. As soon as I saw three Wings coming back towards the Hawks net with only Cam Barker defending, I knew it was over. There was just no way the Wings were going to miss.

And they didn't.

Overall, the Hawks improved a ton from Game 1. But this one's going to sting for awhile.

From a longterm view, that's alright. As us Stars fans found out last spring, you've got to learn some painful lessons throught losing in order to win.

Starting with Game 3 Friday night if the Hawks hope to really make this a series.