Canucks 2, Blackhawks 0
In a game I expected to be a blowout in favor of the Canucks, the Blackhawks actually fought pretty valiantly last night, trying to end their road trip on a high note, but Roberto Luongo was just too much to overcome, as the Vancouver goaltender made 27 saves to blank the Blackhawks, by a final score of 2-0.
The Hawks just looked like they were ready to head home right from the start, as they had very little jump in their skates and the Canucks swarmed the net several times on Hawks goalie Patrick Lalime, getting the start to give Khabibulin a night off. Just 3 minutes in, on the power play, the Canucks got on the board when Brendan Morrison was set up with a great pass and put it into an empty net from point blank range, making it 1-0 Vancouver early on.
The 1st period would end with the same score, but the 2nd wasn’t much different, as the Hawks still really couldn’t get much going offensively, and when they did, Luongo made the stops he needed to make. The Hawks had just 16 shots through 2 and Luongo turned most of them aside rather easily. It was still 1-0 into the beginning of the 3rd.
In the 3rd, the Hawks had their best period of the night, able to cycle in the Canucks’ zone a little bit and getting some more quality chances on Luongo, but it just wasn’t enough, as the Canucks would add an empty netter with 30 seconds to go from Daniel Sedin, clinching their 2-0 victory over the Blackhawks.
So the Hawks ended up going 2-2-2 on this trip, not bad considering they had to deal with that terrible flu bug over the last couple days and were badly depleted. Now they come back home, and with a couple of days off, it’s expected that Patrick Sharp and Jason Williams will be ready to return to the lineup Wednesday against Tampa Bay, along with Martin Havlat, who is supposed to be ready as well, and what a tremendous boost that will be for this team.
SCH Hawks Player Of The Game: Patrick Lalime. He was very ill and lost 10 pounds due to the flu just a couple of days ago, but played a tough game in net and kept the Hawks in this one till the end.