The Chicago Blackhawks‘ season has come to an end with a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 on Monday night. I’ve never had to write a post like before since taking over this website in August 2014. I suppose I knew it was always coming, but the Blackhawks sometimes made you believe ridiculous things could happen. That’s because so many times before, they did.
Except not this time, as St. Louis closed out the series in seven games to avoid another devastating downfall. The Blues could’ve had this series earlier after taking a 3-1 lead, but the Hawks showed their resilience in battling back to force the deciding game Monday night. Unfortunately, the magic ran out in Game 7 as the Blues hung on to beat a team that never considered itself out.
St. Louis grabbed the early lead Monday thanks to a pair of goals from Jori Lehtera and Colton Parayko. At that point, you knew the Hawks would start pressing to avoid falling behind any further, and less than five minutes after Parayko’s goal, Marian Hossa fired one past Brian Elliott to cut the lead to 2-1 entering the first intermission.
In the second period, Andrew Shaw scored his team-high fourth goal of the series on the power play to tie the game. Shaw scored in three straight games in this series.
However, it was Troy Brouwer to score the final tally in the third period that put the game away. The Hawks fought from there to try to get one more goal and force overtime, but St. Louis held tight and the game-tying score just wasn’t there. Elliott finished the game 31-of-33 between the pipes to complete the victory for the Blues.
Brent Seabrook came oh-so-close by hitting both posts on a late shot, but it was just that kind of series. The Hawks never quite got the bounces they needed.
There’s going to be a lot to think about after this season, but I just wanted to briefly say thank you to everyone who’s read and commented on Second City Hockey over the past seven months. We’re incredibly lucky to root for a team that gives us as much entertainment as this one, and we look forward to continuing the journey during a busy offseason. In the meantime, we’ll have a lot to analyze from a season that fell short, and there’s a lot of great hockey still be played by other teams.
The Blues win the series, 4-3. It’s a credit to a great team that managed to finish off this series. You know Chicago didn’t make it easy. We wish we could’ve done more games to cover, but just like the Hawks had great fortune in winning three Cups, they had some nasty fortune in stumbling to defeat.
It was still fun. Go Hawks.