Showtime Gets The Glory, But Crow Steals The Show

An early goal, an unreal goaltending performance and some overtime magic by a special player was the recipe for a Game 6 victory. It wasn’t pretty, but you don’t need style points in May, just more goals than your opponent. The Blackhawks are back in the Western Conference Finals and still have room for improvement. That is a good thing.

The Blackhawks were looking to get off to a fast start and that was exactly what they got. Just moments after the Wild fans started a goalie chant, during the first minute of Game 6 in a series that they are trailing, their goalie gave up a goal from a bad angle at 1:58. To quote the late, great John Lennon “instant karma’s gonna get you.” Everybody’s favorite whipping boy, Kris Versteeg, made a great play by checking Keith Ballard off the puck in the corner and throwing the puck in front of the net where it deflected past Ilya Bryzgalov. Amazing what can happen when you put the puck on net. The Hawks would take a 1-0 lead into the first intermission despite being outshot nine to eight.

Erik Haula, who I want to like but I can’t thanks to Jeremy Roenick, tied the game 2:29 into the 2nd period. Matt Cooke got credit for a primary assist for blindly putting to puck to center ice and having Johnny Oduya fall asleep while Haula used his speed to get in all alone on Crawford for his third goal of the series. A few minutes later, Patrick Sharp had another breakaway but was stopped after using his same backhand/forehand move that Bryzgalov has already seen in this series. Corey Crawford kept his team in the game because of his play for the majority of the period.

The only sentence I need to describe the 3rd period, is the one I used to finish off the 2nd period. Even though the Hawks were only outshot seven to six, it seemed liked the entire period was played down in the Chicago end. And yet, thanks to number 50 the game went to overtime still tied at one goal apiece.

Patrick Kane and the Blackhawks finally rewarded Corey Crawford for his great play 9:42 into overtime. The legend of “Showtime” started with a roof shot and continues to grow with the same type of shot. Brent Seabrook dumped the puck into the and it took a bounce of the glass right out in front. Kane was right there to put a one handed, backhand shot over Ilya Bryzgalov to break the all the hearts in the State of Hockey.

* The next time you want to rip Corey Crawford for giving up a soft goal, stop yourself and then go lay down in rush hour traffic. As Barry Melrose told me, Crow doesn’t get the credit because of the team in front of him. Well, that team in front of him was garbage most of the night and he won the game for them. Patrick Kane doesn’t write the next chapter in the Showtime Saga without Corey Crawford being the man!

* And Patrick Kane doesn’t score the series clinching goal without Peter Regin tying up Ryan Suter to allow Kaner to get to the weird bounce off the glass. I swear to Christ if Regin is scratched for Brandon Bollig in the next round I will punch a kitten. Thanks Mike Yeo for putting Matt Cooke out there against 88, too!

* Speaking of Matt Cooke, if the Wild want to take the next step they need to cut ties with this turd. His hit on Johnny Oduya was just another garbage play from a garbage player. But at least he’s never done anything dirty in Minne…..oh, that’s right.

* Good for Kris Versteeg for scoring his first goal by doing exactly what we have all been screaming for him to do; make the simple play. Hopefully that was the play that can get him going because the Hawks can use some producton from the bottom six going forward.

* I don’t know if he is hurt, but Patrick Sharp is broken. I can’t ever remember seeing him be virtually invisible for this long of a stretch in the postseason.

* Michael Rozsival back for Game 1 one of the Western Conference Finals, right? Sheldon Brookbank was rough out there.

* One of the biggest differences in this series was the Blackhawks stars coming through when they were needed most. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane scored game winning goals in the biggest moments of the series. The Wild are paying Zach Parise and, to a lesser extent. Mikko Koivu to make those big plays, but they were pretty much invisible this series. The Wild have a good young core with Brodin, Coyle, Granlund and Haula. For their sake, I hope the two big elephants in the room don’t cause them to break up this talented young core.

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*all data collected from www.nhl.com and www.extraskater.com