THREE THINGS: Down with a Fight, Better and Lessons Learned

The Blackhawks season came to an official end on Tuesday night, falling 4-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 5 of the First Round series that Vegas took four games to one.

"Disappointed," head coach Jeremy Colliton said. "We wanted to keep going here. You dream of playing in playoffs and you love to be in these situations and playing in big games. I thought our team played very hard. Ultimately we came up against an excellent team with a ton of depth."

CHI 3, VGK 4

GAME INFO

**GAMECENTER**: CHI vs. VGK - Game 5

RELATED LINKS

**RECAP**: Blackhawks Eliminated in Game 5 Loss

**GALLERY**: Blackhawks vs. Golden Knights - Game 5

**WATCH**: Keith on Competitive Vegas Series

Jonathan Toews, Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane gave Chicago two separate leads in the opening half of a back-and-forth Game 5, but the Golden Knights tied things up on both occasions and found the series-winner early in the third period from the stick of Alex Tuch.

Corey Crawford stopped 35 shots on the night and once again kept the Blackhawks in the game during stretches largely dominated by the Golden Knights.

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday's season-ending loss:

DOWN WITH A FIGHT

The Blackhawks didn't go down without a fight over their final two outings, including the deciding Game 5 carried just about every emotion in the book.

Jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first for the second straight game? Cautious exuberance. A late first period answer and early equalizer in the second from Vegas? The nerves got heavy. Patrick Kane doing Patrick Kane things on a breakaway? Thrilling. Tied once again at the second intermission? Nauseating. An early go-ahead goal in the third from the Golden Knights? Fear. Corey Crawford on the bench for the final 74 seconds in search of overtime? Gut-wrenching.

And at last, the final horn. Heartbreak.

"I liked that we never gave up," Patrick Kane said of his team fighting to the bitter end on Tuesday night. "That's kind of been our motto all year. It was a pretty intense game tonight. Hung in there, fought. Obviously we got some great goaltending. Just feels weird to be done. It's tough to be done with the season and know that we're not going to be playing anymore."

"Can't fault the work ethic and commitment our team had to throughout the playoffs," Colliton said. "We used certainly the opportunity here to come to Edmonton, win a playoff series, but no one can be satisfied with being eliminated."

When all was said and done, the early 3-0 series hole that the Blackhawks found themselves was too deep to climb out of.

"The first three games of the series, I don't think we deserved to be down 3-0. Maybe it would've been nice to have a different outcome in that situation," Kane added. "It's why you play the game, it is what it is. You lose an overtime game (in Game 2), you lose a tight game in Game 3 and all the sudden you're down 3-0. It's tough to come back from that. I thought we hung in there. We fought. We gave it a good chance the last couple games."

BETTER AND BETTER

Without Crawford, things could've looked a whole lot bleaker for the Blackhawks throughout the postseason, but particularly their last two outings. The 48-save performance in Game 4 was already heralded as perhaps the best of Crawford's illustrious playoff career, and despite the scoreboard showing four goals against in Game 5, it was much of the same for the netminder on Tuesday night.

In the first period, Crawford stopped 12 shots, at least half of which were high-chance looks from the Golden Knights. No save, or set of saves, were better than a double denial of Shea Theodore with just under five minutes to play in the opening frame.

"He got better and better every game, especially in this series," Toews said. "A lot of moments where they're coming at us and throwing the kitchen sink at us and 'Crow' had an answer for everything. Could've been a quick four games for us if it wasn't for him the other night giving us a chance to creep back in the series tonight … He's always been great for us, but even better in the big games and he showed that this series as well."

LESSONS LEARNED

The postseason was something that in early March seemed impossible. With the season paused and an expanded playoff field for the 2020 Stanley Cup, Chicago was given an opportunity to contend -- and they took full advantage.

Not only did the team surprise the hockey world by dispatching of the Oilers in four games, they hung with the Golden Knights perhaps more than many expected coming into the First Round series. The series was more highly-contested on the ice than the five-game result might lead you to believe.

But the biggest opportunity was the one so many youngsters had to get their feet wet with playoff experience. Only 10 players on Chicago's 31-man roster for the playoffs had ever experienced playoff hockey before. The ones who got on the ice over the course of nine playoff tilts will be immensely better for it in their development.

"If things had gone the way they were supposed to before this entire situation, we wouldn't have had a chance to play in the playoffs," Toews said. "It was great opportunity for us to come in and play some meaningful hockey. A lot of guys stepped up to the plate and showed what they can do."

"To play in these playoff games, for guys that have never done that, it's a huge way to get experience for those guys," Kane said. "I think we can build off of this, too, as a team. I'm not sure what the team will look like come next year, but the young guys that were around got a chance to play in this postseason hopefully take this as a valuable learning lesson and we can get better as a group from it."

In the immediate aftermath, it's admittedly tough to look at the strides the team as a whole made this season and in the playoffs, but when the dust settles, the building blocks this team has established will serve as the foundation for years to come in the next era of Blackhawks hockey.

"It was good to see us take that next step in our team game to play the way we needed to play to win a playoff series and compete against an elite team in Vegas, the top seed," Colliton said. "I thought we were right with them in most of the games here. Just nice to see us improve and take that step. There's more to come. We've got to use this experience to improve and understand the standard that we need to get to to beat a team like this."

"Ultimately as a player, you see the standard that is there," Duncan Keith said of his team's development. "Feel like we've made a few strides this year. We're going to have to take the positives and try to build."