NEW YORK (AP) The Chicago Blackhawks are in an uncertain and wholly unfamiliar place.They know they will not have the opportunity to compete for the Stanley Cup Fredrik Claesson Jersey Womens , and morale is low. A franchise used to preparing for the playoffs has been relegated to finishing the season feeling good about itself.And maybe look to see who will make up next year’s squad.”When you’re not winning, it’s not easy to get that confidence and enthusiasm,” coach Joel Quenneville said after the Blackhawks snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over the New York Islanders on Saturday night.”At this stage in the game, build a little something off it,” he added.Patrick Kane and Brandon Saad scored in the second period, and Brent Seabrook added an empty-netter for the Blackhawks. Anton Forsberg made 30 saves.”It was something, I don’t know, I didn’t really expect tonight,” said Kane, who centered Chicago’s top line. ”It was a little bit different. Weird playing a different position. Something I haven’t done in six years.”John Tavares scored late in the third period and Jaroslav Halak finished with 22 saves as the Islanders lost for the fifth time in six games and 13th in their last 15 (2-9-4).”I think we’re better than what we’ve shown,” Tavares said.Chicago was eliminated from postseason contention for the first time since 2008 following its 5-1 loss to Colorado on Tuesday, and pushed the struggling Islanders to the verge of being knocked for the second straight year.”You’ll take a win when you’re (going) through a stretch when you haven’t won in a while,” Quenneville said. ”Any win certainly feels better than what we’ve been going through.”Kane opened the scoring 2:36 into the second period with his team-leading 26th of the year. With the Blackhawks on the power play after Thomas Hickey was whistled for tripping Tomas Jurco as the two battled for a puck along the boards, Kane’s shot from the right circle deflected off Adam Pelech’s stick blade and through Halak.It took the Blackhawks 1:49 to add to their lead as Saad tapped a rebound off of his initial shot – which ricocheted off the end boards – along the goal line before the puck bounced off the back of Halak’s left skate into the net.”It’s a tough one for the goalie,” Islanders coach Doug Weight said. ”It’s a bounce. Two bounces, two goals, we’re down.”Forsberg made the lead hold up, even though he only faced 22 shots in the final 40 minutes. His lone mistake was Tavares’ unassisted goal with 2:42 left, but Seabrook’s empty-netter with 1:14 left ended the scoring.”For the most part Dylan DeMelo Jersey Womens , we generated good chances, had opportunities, even in the last eight, nine minutes had some really good looks,” Weight said. ”Just couldn’t get the puck by him.”Neither team scored in an opening period which was mostly played at even strength, except for an Islanders power play late. New York outshot the Blackhawks 10-9 in the period.”It sums it up,” Weight said. ”We played a good game, it’s not good enough but we played a good game and we generated enough to win.”NOTES: The teams split the regular season series, with the Islanders winning 7-3 at Chicago on Jan. 20. … The Blackhawks went 1 for 2 on the power play. The Islanders were 0 for 2. … New York outshot Chicago 32-25. … Chicago C Jonathan Toews missed his second straight game with an upper body injury. … The Blackhawks scratched LW Anthony Duclair. … D Dennis Seidenberg and RW Chris Wagner were the Islanders’ scratches. … The announced attendance was 13,091.UP NEXTBlackhawks: Host San Jose on Monday night.Islanders: Host Florida on Monday night.— Like he does with so many things, Sidney Crosby makes it look easy.There was the time he shot the puck off the post and swatted the rebound into the net out of midair. Or, the time he waited for the puck to drop and backhanded it in for a goal. Or, when knocked the puck up to himself with his stick before tapping it in.”I think it’s just instincts,” Crosby said.It’s actually a mix of natural talent, instincts, awareness, timing, patience and hand-eye coordination. Crosby’s Pittsburgh teammates are still amazed every time he does it – and they should be.”It’s just a reactionary thing,” Penguins winger Conor Sheary said. ”When you see the puck go in the air Gabriel Gagne Jersey Womens , you just try to bat it. He’s better at it than a lot of other guys, and I don’t know what that is.”Batting a fluttering piece of frozen rubber 3 inches in diameter and 1-inch thick with a stick blade 2 to 3 inches wide is no simple task. Doing it at full speed in an NHL playoff game certainly raises the degree of difficulty. Yet a handful of goals have been scored or saved already this postseason with a player somehow able to connecting their stick with an airborne puck at the perfect time.As recently as Tuesday night, Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin batted the puck out of the air off the post in Crosby-esque fashion for the game-winner to beat the Penguins.”I hit the post and it’s a good thing I didn’t raise my arms up,” Ovechkin said. ”I finished up the play and got lucky.”Teams don’t have drills for this kind of thing, but hockey players are always noodling with the puck, so the familiarity with both stick and puck becomes ingrained at an early age. Playing baseball and other sports growing up can’t hurt. Washington Capitals forward Brett Connolly, who scored a baseball-style goal with Boston in 2015, thinks players learn the skill and try to use it when they can.”Your athleticism kind of takes over at that point,” Connolly said. ”Once your hand-eye is at a high level, you kind of track the puck. I think as hockey players we’re always looking around, we’re so quick, our eyes are all over the place and we’re staring at the puck. You kind of just take a chance at it and sometimes it works out.”It worked out for Toronto’s Connor Brown on his goal in Game 5 of the first round when the puck bounced off a defenseman’s stick and he knocked it in before goaltender Tuukka Rask knew where it was. Columbus goalie Sergei Bobrovsky didn’t know where the puck was when captain Nick Foligno whacked it out of the air to prevent a goal during the first round against Washington, either, a product of years of work.”That was actually my guy, so the least I could do was bat it out,” Foligno said. ”Honestly, I practice it so much with playing around with the puck that you just get used to it playing so many years. Obviously, a little bit of luck to make sure you get it out and not hit somewhere else.”To the surprise of no one, Crosby’s career is full of similar highlights. He once slugged a home run during batting practice at PNC Park some years ago.On the ice James Van Riemsdyk Jersey Womens , Crosby doesn’t have to hit the puck as hard as Aaron Judge hits a baseball or as precisely as Roger Federer hits a tennis ball, but Penguins winger Bryan Rust correctly points out: ”They’re also looking for it to be in the air. Our sport, the puck’s not supposed to be in the air.”Crosby and others figure it out anyway.”There’s a lot of things you’ve got to be aware of, and you need pucks to be in those areas to do it,” Crosby said. ”Sometimes you can go a period of time where you don’t get a puck that sits right there for you. I’ve been around the net when pucks have been able to kind of just lay there for me. There’s a lot of different factors, but I think just being in and around the net trying to expect different things and being ready for it.”Playing peewee baseball explains some of it for Crosby, a two-time season and playoff MVP who works on redirecting and bating pucks so often in practice it has become a routine way for him to score.Not so much for others, like Bruins forward Sean Kuraly, who played the waiting game during Game 1 of Boston’s series against Toronto and batted the puck in while falling over Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen.”You have to wait for the puck to come down,” the otherwise-impatient Kuraly said. ”I’m a terrible baseball player. It has nothing to do with baseball.”Goalies with thicker blades on their sticks get into the act, too. Andersen robbed Rick Nash on a sure-fire goal in the first round in Game 6, and Pittsburgh’s Matt Murray extended his stick to stop Ovechkin in Game 2 of the Penguins-Capitals series.Goaltenders are counted on to keep the puck out by any means necessary.Scoring a goal by batting the puck in? Well, that’s just fun.”It’s a creative game. You’ve got to mix it up and be creative,” Connolly said. ”To score, you’ve got to try and do something different sometimes to get one.”—AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen in Boston and Will Graves in Pittsburgh contributed.—
