They kicked off their 2008-09 campaign Friday night on one of the biggest stages in hockey,
"We came out to play hard [but] it's simple, we didn't do the things we had to do to win," Hawks center
The Rangers, who improved to 3-0, got a goal and two assists from Brandon Dubinsky, but it was Nikolai Zherdev's third-period score 2 minutes 20 seconds after the Hawks had trimmed a 3-1 deficit on a
"It's really frustrating," Keith said. "It's your first game and you want to come out with a bang. I think they kind of took it to us. Overall, we just had play that was too sloppy and too many turnovers with the puck. Usually when you do that it's not going to be a good outcome."
The Hawks outshot the Rangers 32-29 and it was missed opportunities that coach Denis Savard was lamenting afterward.
"We had [32] shots and probably missed the net 10 or a dozen times—good chances where we could have buried some of them," Savard said. "It gives you 40 or 42 shots with quality chances and that should be good enough to win."
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead on
The Hawks got their first "wow" moment from $56.8 million man
Aaron Voros and Brandon Dubinsky scored in the second period to give New York a 3-1 lead heading into the third. But the Hawks regained momentum when
Zherdev's goal on a broken play in the neutral zone then ended the Hawks' threat.
"Obviously, that's not the end result we wanted," said Huet, who signed a four-year free agent deal in July. "It's disappointing to lose the first game. We made some mistakes. Myself, I didn't help the team at the moment the team needed me.
"It's a tough place to play. We could have won, but we didn't and we have to learn from that."
ckuc@tribune.com