I’m here for the fun . . .
The Blackhawks needed a hero.
Instead, the Flames found one.
Eric Nystrom banged in a rebound of a Cory Sarich slap shot from the right point to put the Flames up 5-4 with about seven minutes remaining in the third period. Jarome Iginla would score into an empty net with 11 seconds to go, and suddenly this became a best-of-three playoff series.
The Hawks had momentum. They should’ve taken the game. They should’ve won the third period.
But apparently, it took too much out of the Hawks to come back from three goals down in the second. Perhaps an older team, a more veteran team, would’ve seized on their momentum and converted that power play early in the third period.
But after Todd Bertuzzi slew-flooted Duncan Keith at 2:08 of the third period, the Hawks never got anything going and the Flames started taking control of the game. They started pushing the action with speed through the neutral zone. They forechecked hard to get the better scoring chances. They were far more dangerous than the Hawks, and Nystrom finally converted.
You can only hope the Hawks learn from this. You can only hope they don’t duplicate the errors that gave the Flames three straight goals in the second period, starting early with Cam Barker’s egregious giveaway in his own zone that led to an Olli Jokinen goal that began the onslaught. You can only hope they give goalie Nikolai Khabibulin more help.
You can only hope they find a hero of their own.
Until Nystrom scored, this blog was going to begin like so:
Goal, Dustin Byfuglien. Assist, Joel Quenneville.
With 50 seconds to go in the second period, Jokinen was called for slashing. The Blackhawks were down 4-3 --- at one point it was 4-1 --- but now, incredibly, they had a chance to tie it and send the Flames turtling into the dressing room.
So, with his team earning an incredibly important power play, Quenneville could be expected to send out his top unit, his scorers --- Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Martin Havlat.
But no.
Instead, the coach sent out Sammy Pahlsson, Kris Versteeg and Byfuglien. Third-liners or fourth-liners depending on who’s counting. Quenneville recognized which players were giving him great shifts, controlling the puck and creating chances. He rewarded them with ice time the way good coaches do.
And Quenneville was rewarded when Byfuglien tipped in Brian Campbell’s shot to make it 4-all.
When the Hawks fired Denis Savard four games into the season and brought in Quenneville, they envisioned just that kind of bench savvy. The coaching change was engineered by Hawks hockey guru Scotty Bowman, regarded as perhaps the best game coach ever. So, he knows when the guy behind the bench can adjust shift-to-shift. Bowman made the point at the Quenneville news conference that the new guy had what it takes to compete against the veteran coaches in the division. That extends to the playoffs, especially against a Bowman clone in Calgary’s Mike Keenan.
Truth is, Quenneville met the moment about 10 minutes earlier, wisely using his timeout after Calgary made it 4-1. He tried to break the Flames’ momentum. He needed to calm his young, excitable team. Remind them there was a lot of time left, half the game.
And the Hawks proceeded to get the next three goals in the period, capped by a big move on a big power play made by a coach’s coach.
It would’ve been a nice story if the Hawks had won the third period they way they won the seond half of the second.
Wasn’t to be.
All the pregame talk of the physical play, the charges back and forth, the lobbying of the officials -- tell you what, Hawks-Flames ’09 recalls Bulls-Knicks ’91 (and ’92 and ’93). The Knicks didn’t have the talent the Bulls had, so they had to ugly up the game. Same goes for the Flames against the Hawks. The Flames aren’t as fast as the Hawks, so they’ve been trying to drag the Hawks down to their pace. Players who are looking over their shoulders lose their speed and control of the puck.
Another question coming into the game was how the young Hawks would handle tasting their own blood. They rode the home crowd to two big wins. Then they missed an early chance to smother the Flames in Game 3. They created their own adversity and now they were forced to respond. And look who responded early. Patrick Kane converted a slick centering pass by Sharp, blasting a shot past Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff to give the Hawks an early 1-0 lead. Guess Kane got over the flu (or the toilet flushing of a pet goldfish) that kept him out of Game 3. Probably felt a lot better and without the harrassing of injured Flame Rene Bourque, too.
But right after that, Toews committed a tripping penalty, giving the Flames a power play and a chance to get even and get the quiet crowd back to its standard mania. And that’s exactly what happened when Jarome Iginla snapped a puck past Khabibulin to tie it at 1. The Hawks held a precious lead for all of 67 seconds. It’s hard to get mad at Toews after the way Captain Kid has repsonded in the playoffs, but you can’t make lazy plays with your stick. You have to make strong, disciplined plays with your legs.
Take solace, Hawks fans. The Flames have never won a series after losing the first two games. A couple years ago, the Flames lost the first two games to the Red Wings, then won the next two at home before losing Games 5 and 6. Hopefully, this looks familiar
Source of article: Chicago tribune
