Goaltender Calvin Pickard #31 of the Colorado Avalanche talks with Goaltender Scott Darling #33 of the Chicago Blackhawks prior to the game at the Pepsi Center on February 2, 2016 in Denver, Colorado.
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By the time the Blackhawks boarded their flight to Raleigh last Monday for their final game before the All-Star break, a non-conference tilt with the Carolina Hurricanes, Jonathan Toews already had been dealing with body aches and sleepless nights for about a week. Toews wound up with a full eight days between games to get over his illness and get his legs back underneath him. He wrapped up a civil lawsuit filed against him by a former girlfriend, with jury ruling in his favor late Tuesday and awarding Varlamov approximately $126,000 in damages. Calvin Pickard would be just as good the remaining 40 minutes, stopping all of Chicago’s 28 shots on goal.
Pickard, who stopped 40 shots, made a glove save against Panarin on a clean breakaway with 9:02 remaining in the third period to keep the Blackhawks lead at 2-1. He came up big in a pile of players in front of the net early in the third when the Avalanche tried to bang the puck in for the tying goal. “I think the boys were prepared yesterday, they were ready to go, and they did a great job”. “The last number of games before the break were tough for us as a team, but for myself personally, I was (regressing) more and more”. Chicago acquired Panik in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 3. “Obviously scoring’s nice, but I thought he had some jump and I liked his thought process in the game”.
Varlamov was a scratch from Tuesday night’s game against Chicago.
Eventually, though, the Avalanche confirmed the contingency plan: Goalie Roman Will had traveled from San Antonio to Denver, and he officially was recalled from the AHL Rampage under emergency conditions in the afternoon.
This was the third game Varlamov has missed to deal with the lawsuit filed by his former girlfriend stemming from a 2013 altercation.
NOTES: The Blackhawks outshot Colorado by a 42-24 margin…. Chicago D Michal Rozsival missed his second straight game, but Quenneville said after morning practice that Rozsival is “close”. “The fact we were playing that many games, I just didn’t get a chance to recuperate and get back to 100 percent”.
Returning from his one-game suspension, Toews tries to help the visiting Blackhawks continue their success against the struggling Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night. “When you come into the league, 500 seems like a long road ahead”, said Johnson, a first-round pick by St. Louis in 2006….
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“Just because you did well in the last game, or the last little bit, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, ” said Corey Crawford, who has a 1.58 goals-against average while winning 10 of 12.
