June 1, 2013
By: Melissa Jensen
In a postseason that saw the #2, 3 and 4 seeds in the Western Conference of the NHL fall in the first round of play, many wondered if we may have a repeat of last season in the works. During the 2011-2012 Playoffs the #8 seed LA Kings quickly did away with their Western Conference opponents and ultimately beat the New Jersey Devils to win the Stanley Cup. Surely that couldn't happen again, the #8 seed winning The Cup?
Round 1-Minnesota Wild:
Well, it COULD have, but no, it wouldn't happen again this year as the #1 seed Chicago Blackhawks downed the #8 seed Minnesota Wild in a quick 5 game series. The Hawks were the favorites all along after an amazing 36-7-5 lockout shortened season that began with a historic 21-0-3 run and concluded with The President's Trophy! The Hawks saw little to no adversity all season, never losing more than 2 games in a row and posting 7 shutouts. Few even gave the Wild a fighting chance, but fight they did and stole a few headlines in the process!
During the warm-ups prior to Game 1, the Wild’s starting goaltender Niklas Backstrom was injured and back-up goalie Josh Harding was put in to start the series. Harding had only appeared in 5 games all season after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis last fall. Despite the lack of play, Harding was amazing in net for the Wild and managed to steal the win in OT in Game 3.
Toward the end of the 1st period of Game 4 Harding was injured in a collision near the net, but finished the period strong. Darcy Kuemper, who was called up from the teams AHL affiliate to back-up Harding after Backstrom’s injury, came in for the 2nd to finish the game, but despite strong play, the Hawks won 3-0.
Harding returned to start Game 5, but after allowing 3 goals, 2 within about 3 minutes, Kuemper was put in to relieve him, but allowed 2 goals himself and the Hawks ended the series with a 5-1 victory at the United Center. Even without production from top players, the Blackhawks made short work of the Wild, thanks, in large part, to outstanding goaltending by Corey Crawford, a net minder that just a year ago heard critics saying that Chicago COULDN'T win with him. They would never be a top seed and they would never make it past the first round of the playoffs with Crawford in net. Most of those critics were silenced during the regular season, but there were still doubters until the Blackhawks DID advance to the second round with Corey between the pipes. Most would think the Blackhawks would be happy about advancing to the second round after bowing out in the first round the last two seasons in a row, but what we heard from coaches and players alike was that they didn't have the intensity that they needed to have for the playoffs. They had to "find another level" and play harder if they wanted to go further.
With the first round out of the way, they would be facing the Detroit Red Wings in the second round. A FIERCE division rival for many years, the Hawks had not won a playoff series against Detroit since 1992! The most recent postseason meeting was in 2008-2009 when many of the core group for the Blackhawks were just rookies. This year was different though, this year would be the last time they would face the Red Wings as a conference rival, Detroit, would be moving to the Eastern Conference next season. It was time to exorcise some demons.
Round 2-Detroit Red Wings:
In Game 1 it seemed as though exorcising demons would not be much of a problem as the Hawks had the Red Wings looking like they were standing still on the ice! They breezed through the game at a score of 4-1...playing only slightly better than they had against Minnesota. Where was the other level they said they needed?
It is important to note here that Detroit had just finished a 7 game first round series against the Anaheim Ducks (the #2 seed and only team to sweep Chicago in their regular season meetings) and it was widely reported that, with all the travel for that series, the Red Wings were VERY TIRED in that first game in Chicago. Some people dismissed that as an excuse in the 2 days off between Games 1 and 2 in Chicago and the "we'll see about that" attitude came into play with many fans and analysts. The Red Wings were not being given much more of a chance than the Wild were given against Chicago despite their first round win over Anaheim and "we'll see about that" was code for "they just can't hack it".
Well, we DID “see about that” come Game 2 when the Red Wings showed exactly WHY they have won against the Blackhawks so many times in the playoffs, beating them by the identical score from Game 1 of 4-1. All Detroit needed was that 1 road win and all 3 wins at home to take the series and advance to round three, it was in sight!
Game 3 in Detroit brought more of the same as the Red Wings scored twice in 39 seconds, but the Hawks HAD stepped up their game, they had found another level and came out dominant in the 3rd period! Patrick Kane scored at 4:35 and Chicago thought they had tied the score 67 seconds later when Viktor Stalberg sent the puck past Detroit netminder Jimmy Howard, but the officials saw it differently. To be precise, the officials saw that Andrew Shaw was in the crease and didn’t like it, regardless of whether or not he was ACTUALLY interfering with the goalie, and the equalizer was disallowed keeping the score at 2-1. Chicago coach Joel Quenville said later that he felt they hit a wall when the goal was disallowed and the final score of 3-1 certainly supported that statement. It was only the third time all season that the Blackhawks had dropped 2 straight contests...they needed to find ANOTHER level.
Three nights later in Game 4, they had the opportunity to show that next level. They needed to silence the buzz of a Detroit "upset". For the first 30 minutes of the game it looked as though the Blackhawks might just have found that level, then the unexpected happened, team captain, Jonathan "Captain Serious" Toews, took 3 straight penalties and seemed to many as if he was unravelling. With 1 second left in the second of Toews' 3 penalties, the Red Wings scored. It was the first Power Play goal that Chicago had allowed in 31 attempts in the postseason. Detroit would go on to score an empty netter and win the game 2-0. For the first time ALL SEASON, the Blackhawks had lost 3 games in a row and were now on the brink of elimination.
This is when the statistics folks like to come out and make us all cry! In the history of the "Best of 7" NHL playoffs it has only happened 37 times that a team has been shutout in game 4 to go down 3 games to 1. Of those 37 instances, how many times has the trailing team come back to win game 5? Zero. When going down 3 games to 1 by virtue of a shutout in Game 4, no team has EVER come back to win game 5. The odds were CLEARLY against Chicago. Jimmy Howard was being touted as SUPERHUMAN with his goaltending against Chicago. At the other end of the ice, despite standing on his head to try to keep his team in the game, Corey Crawford was getting mixed reviews and some old critics were coming back to say he couldn't handle the pressure at this level. Surprisingly, MOST of what was said about Crawford was positive and people could see that his efforts were the main reason that this team had stayed in each game as long as they had, he was showing that “next level” in his play, but what about the rest of the team? Where was this elusive next level that THEY needed to get to?
Game 5 was "win or go home" and thanks to those statistics, the latter seemed the most probable outcome. Toward the end of the 1st period though, Chicago got a spark from a goal by Bryan Bickell. In the 2nd period Detroit's Daniel Cleary tied things up, but the Hawks were not ready to end their season just yet, not like this and not at home! The Blackhawks Power Play got a jolt of life and 2 goals got past the short handed Red Wings, including the first goal of the postseason for Toews. They tallied one more in the 3rd period to end the game, for the third time in the series, at a score of 4-1. They had beat the odds, they had made statistical history, they had finally found that next level! The "Madhouse on Madison", as the United Center is affectionately known, was buzzing! Hope had been restored, their team had one more chance! Unfortunately, that chance was in Detroit, where they had lost 2 of the previous 3 games. Could they keep it up on the road?
Game 6 was another "win or go home" scenario for the Blackhawks, but they were calm and poised as they took the ice. Chicago came out strong opening the scoring at 3:53 with a goal by Marian Hossa, but the Red Wings tied things up before the first intermission. Halfway through the second period Detroit's Joakim Andersson put a seemingly harmless knuckle puck toward the net...Crawford lost it. Everyone seemed shocked for a moment that Corey could let in such a soft goal. It's times like that when a goalie can easily hear the critics in his head saying the pressure is too much, that they can't hack it and they can just shut down. Crawford did the opposite. Detroit put 12 more shots on goal in the last 9 minutes of the 2nd period and Corey stopped all of them. If you were to ask the guys what the room was like during that second intermission, they would tell you it was fine, no one was panicking, they knew what they had to do. They were one period away from summer vacation, 20 minutes that would decide their future. Detroit fans knew that too because they were just 20 minutes away from advancing to the Conference Finals and they were all too happy to remind Chicago of that with roars of cheering as both teams took the ice for the 3rd period. Those roars were quickly muzzled as Michal Handzus scored just 51 seconds into the 3rd frame. Not quite 5 minutes later Bryan Bickell netted his 5th goal of the playoffs and 4 minutes later Michael Frolik was on a breakaway when Carlo Colaiacovo slashed at his hands as he was about to shoot the puck. Frolik was awarded a penalty shot on which he beat Jimmy Howard to a wide open glove side with a quick backhand shot. Frolik became the only player in NHL history to ever make 2 penalty shot goals in the playoffs (the first coming in 2011 against the Vancouver Canucks). The Red Wings managed to get one last shot past Crawford with 52 seconds left in the game, but the Hawks came out on top with a score of 4-3. They had prevailed for a second straight game and were headed home for Game 7, could they keep it up?
When asked the day before the game if he felt like Game 7 was a "do or die thing" Corey Crawford responded, "A do or die? (Shrug) It's game 7," he chuckled, "I'm just looking to go out there and win a game."
The Madhouse was electric as the teams took the ice for Game 7. The first period showed that neither team was willing to yield to the other. When the Red Wings went for a change one minute into the second period Niklas Hjalmarsson decided it was time for his team to put on a passing clinic. He snapped a pass to Michal Handzus and the Hawks were off on a 3-on-1 break. Handzus sent the puck to Patrick Sharp who dropped it back to Handzus then it went to Marian Hossa who sent it back to Sharp who took a tight-angled wrist shot and beat Jimmy Howard. The fans went crazy! The rest of the 2nd period looked just like the 1st with neither team giving up any space. 26 seconds into the 3rd, the Red Wings got a 2-on-1 break and captain Henrik Zetterberg scored the equalizer. With just under 2 mintues left in the game Hjalmarsson found some space on the ice and let a shot rip toward the net to beat Howard and the Madhouse erupted! They were up 2-1...or were they? The referee behind the play, Stephen Walkom, waived off the goal and assessed coincidental roughing minors for what he perceived to be a scrum in front of the Detroit bench just seconds before the goal. The crowd again erupted, but this time they were not happy! The period ended all knotted up at 1 and the teams went to the dressing rooms to prepare for overtime. Analysts used the intermission to dissect the call and it was overwhelmingly agreed that Walkom had blown it! This game should have been over, but instead we were headed to overtime. How do you come back from thinking you've just won, to having to play overtime? You come out strong and hard! 3:30 into overtime Chicago's Dave Bolland did just that putting a HUGE hit on Gustav Nyquist that freed up the puck and Brent Seabrook was able to rip a shot off from the high slot that deflected off of Detroit's Niklas Kronwall and into the net past Howard. One more time the United Center erupted in jubilation on and off the ice! The Blackhawks had done the impossible, they had come back from a 3 games to 1 deficit to win the second round against the Detroit Red Wings! I guarantee you that there was no one in the United Center more relieved about that than Stephen Walkom!
So that brings us to round three, the Conference Final. Today, June 1st, the Blackhawks will play Game 1 of the series in Chicago against the LA Kings, the defending Stanley Cup Champions. Home ice has been HUGE for the Kings in the playoffs this year, but even if the Blackhawks can only manage to win at home, they will win the series. LA is a team of brute force with a little bit of skill while Chicago is a high skill, high speed team. Keys to winning? They will need to play fast, finish checks, effectively screen goalie Jonathan Quick (if he sees the puck he WILL stop it), get the puck to the net, get to the rebounds and collapse the defense to give Crawford some support in their own zone. Crawford himself, will have to show those critics, one more time, that he knows how to stand on his head to give his team a chance. This will be a long, brutal series, but the Hawks have finally seen some adversity in their season and they came out on top, I believe they can do it again.
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