After being a sore-necked spectator when the Blackhawks lost 3-2 the previous night in Edmonton, Jocelyn Thibault was back in goal Thursday night.
“My neck was a little stiff, but I felt pretty good,” said Thibault, who was injured in Sunday’s victory in Vancouver and aggravated it during the pregame skate in Edmonton.
Added Thibault, “It didn’t bother me at all.”
What bothered Thibault in Calgary were the breakdowns in team defense during the 5-3 loss.
“We’re giving way too many chances,” he said after facing 32 shots. “We have to get back to playing the kind of hockey we were playing when we were winning.
“When they get a lot of chances, they won’t score on all of them but they’ll score on some of them.”
Norfolk-bound: Michel Larocque, who took Thibault’s place in the lineup in Edmonton after making his NHL debut in Friday’s 5-2 loss in Colorado, was sent back to Norfolk after Thursday night’s game.
Joining Larocque was fellow goaltender Jeff Maund, who had been recalled to be the backup goalie in Calgary.
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Also bound for the farm team is rookie center Mark Bell, the Hawks’ first-round choice in the 1998 draft.
Scratches: Bell was a healthy scratch as was rookie defenseman Steve McCarthy, the Hawks’ first-round selection in 1999.
McCarthy also sat out the Edmonton game after completing a two-week “conditioning” stint in Norfolk that followed his December trip to Russia to captain the bronze-medal Canadian team in the world junior tournament.
Calgary casualties: Injuries have been a huge headache for the Flames this season. Five players sat out Thursday night’s game and four of them are recovering from concussions–defensemen Brad Werenka and Toni Lydman and centers Daniel Tkaczuk and Jason Wiemer.
Defenseman Igor Kravchuk is recovering from a knee injury.
All told the Flames have lost 189 man-games to injury and illness this season versus the Hawks’ 79.
However, the Hawks’ toll will continue to mount when this eight-game trip continues after the four-day All-Star break that begins Friday.
Defensemen Jaroslav Spacek and Boris Mironov and center Alex Zhamnov all are sidelined indefinitely.
Spacek cracked a bone in his left shoulder on Jan. 14, Mironov had surgery to repair torn ligaments in his left wrist on Jan. 26 and Zhamnov suffered a fractured larynx on Jan. 21.
All-Star: Hawks captain Tony Amonte played in his 298th consecutive NHL game Thursday, the most by any active player.
Unlike his teammates, Amonte won’t be getting a three-day vacation during the All-Star break.
Instead he will be playing for North America against the World in Sunday afternoon’s All-Star Game in Colorado.
On the road again: The Hawks will go back to work Monday afternoon in Los Angeles, where they will practice for Tuesday night’s game against the Kings.
They’ll play in Anaheim on Wednesday, San Jose on Feb. 10 and in Phoenix on Feb. 11 before returning home for a Valentine’s Day rematch with San Jose.