The Shamley Cup Playoffs

Writing from Chicago

Thursday, April 19, 2012

There are many words that fittingly characterize this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

Dramatic is one. Ask Vancouver fans if they thought the Los Angeles Kings, goaltender Jonathan Quick aside, would give them more than a moment’s trouble in the opening round. But they forget never to underestimate a team coached by Darryl Sutter.

Confusing is another. If you can figure out in advance what NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan is thinking – or if he is thinking – send a wire our way.

Shanahan’s first five months of rulings made sense. Since then, and especially since his merely fining rather than suspending Nashville’s Shea Weber for his shoving Detroit’s Henrik Zetterberg into the boards face-first on the first night of the playoffs, Shanahan has been harder to figure out than Advanced Calculus, except that players have taken his rulings, as the Globe and Mail’s David Shoalts wrote, as “the equivalent of dropping the green flag at the Indianapolis 500.”

Sham may be the best word of all. The combination of Shanahan’s inconsistency combined with the lack of respect of many players for their peers, combined with the lack of a substantial monetary penalty – about which more later – has brought this edition of the annual scrap for Lord Stanley’s old prize into disrepute.

Yes, television ratings are up both in the United States and Canada, the result of enthusiasm in many cities, including Boston and Pittsburgh, plus the expanded coverage south of the border by the NBC group. Yet, sure as Mike Emrick is a wordsmith on the fly and Bob Cole can still call a big game with brio, what is being seen is often not G-rated, and far enough beyond the pale that CBC News featured the NHL’s latest run of violence as a feature story on its evening television newscast, “The National,” on Wednesday night, immediately following a “Hockey Night in Canada” doubleheader.

The extra attention for what many consider indefensible is understandable. The nine suspensions so far exceed by six the number of playoffs suspensions last season.

Witness Sunday’s internationally-televised cartoon featuring Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Since when is the oft-concussed Sidney Crosby and Claude Giroux gooning it up a good idea, either for their present and future health in particular, or for the health of the NHL in general? (As Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette noted, it was the first fight for both, and looked like it.)

Witness the most egregious foul of the playoffs, one Tuesday that referees Stephen Walkom and Ian Walsh and linesmen Brad Lazarowich and Jonny Murray, four men good and true, but not men of vision, failed to witness live. They presumably caught up with it via Memorex, but people in Maine, Maui and Medicine Hat missed it not.

Here was the Blackhawks’ Marian Hossa, a stride from the boards in front of the bench, spinning and passing the puck to Jamal Mayers. There was Mayers scooting away with it. But here comes Phoenix’ Raffi Torres, a man in motion making a commotion. Like Bubba Watson smacking a tee shot, he came into Hossa without reservation, and likely with malice aforethought, given that he also left his feet.

Torres’ left shoulder connected with Hossa’s chin, right on the button, and Hossa crumpled to the ice, the back of his helmeted head striking the ice. For long seconds, Hossa lay there, only one leg moving, as the play went on, Mayers carrying the puck into the Phoenix zone. That the injury was severe finally dawned on the officials, and they stopped play even as the Hawks still had the puck.

It was that bad. It remained bad. Hossa was on the ice for five minutes while trainer Mike Gapski and team doctor Michael Terry, quickly joined by two EMTs and their assistants, attended to him at center ice.

“A hockey hit,” quoth Torres after the game, prefacing his remarks with the hope Hossa would be all right.

Meanwhile, Torres returned to the bench while Brandon Bollig, who went after Torres, went to the penalty box for roughing and a misconduct. That, the referees saw. Yet, when Torres exploded into Hossa, the zebras missed it to a man, and the Phoenix Coyotes, like members of a secret society protecting each other, didn’t see anything either.

“I didn’t see it,” Phoenix captain Shane Doan said. “I haven’t seen it, but from what I was told, it wasn’t that bad.”

Funny, isn’t it, how nobody ever misses when their guy is maimed, but nobody ever sees when their guy is the perpetrator. Confronted with ugly reality, hockey players sound like a bunch of dock workers who have no idea how the package of diamonds ticketed for Tiffany’s instead made its way into someone’s trunk.

The Hawks sounded just as ignorant when Duncan Keith elbowed Vancouver’s Daniel Sedin into the middle of the following week, concussing him and sidelining him for 12 games, including the first three games of the Canucks’ series with Los Angeles.

That professed ignorance, of course, is part of the sham, as is the spectacle of the coach of the aggrieved party crying for justice when his player is bleeding, but pleading ignorance when his player had drawn the blood.

(On the other hand, it’s hard to believe Phoenix goaltender Mike Smith decided to spin like a top in the instant after the Hawks’ Andrew Shaw barreled into him during Game 2. Smith might have flipped his gloves in the manner of Charlie Brown getting undressed by a line drive back to the mound, if only to feel what was left of his chin, but the laws of physics easily predict the motion of his body given Shaw’s blunt force.)

Joel Quenneville and Dave Tippett, who played together for seven seasons in Hartford, have each worn the tinfoil hats of the guilty and the innocent over the first three games of the series between the Blackhawks and Coyotes, failing to persuade anyone they believe what they say. They may be great coaches – Quenneville directed the Hawks to the Cup title two years ago, and Tippett has coaxed two straight playoff appearances from a team stranded in the desert while the league pays the bills – but they are bad liars.

Silly enough, incidentally, is the widespread use of “upper body” and “lower body” to generalize injuries – something countenanced by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who was unlucky enough to be on hand on Tuesday, getting a close-up look at the carnage.

Bettman’s take on it? He sounded like a coach. Bettman told the Chicago Tribune, “I was in the stands and it was up against the boards where I was.”

Well, not really. It was a good 15 feet from the boards, and while Bettman isn’t the tallest guy in the world, he was hanging out with Hawks owner Rocky Wirtz, so his seat was better than average.

Leaving aside Shanahan’s curious enforcement policy on the egregious fouls, one reason for the increase may be the lack of a financial hit on players. While this has been true for some time, it’s been noticed that a playoff suspension, however harmful it is to a team’s cause, it doesn’t hurt the player in the wallet beyond the $2,500 fine, the maximum that can be imposed under the league’s contract with the players union. That’s because players aren’t paid by the game in the playoffs, but get a share of the team’s playoff share.

In the regular season, a five-game suspension means losing either five games of salary, or the salary for the equivalent number of days. Keith’s hit on Daniel Sedin, for instance, cost the defenseman $149,688.15. But Shaw and Torres will lose only $2,500, a comparatively small price to pay.

The end result of Tuesday’s mess: Hossa loses a chance to help the Hawks win playoff games while he nurses his aching noggin. Incidentally, at least the Hawks aren’t calling Hossa’s injury an “upper body” affair. They aren’t calling it anything. Given his apparent unconscious state for the first couple of minutes, call it at least a concussion – by definition getting knocked unconscious is a concussion – and perhaps a jaw injury as well.

At least Hossa, for whom the Hawks will now try to win Game 4, the series, and the Cup, didn’t suffer a black eye. The NHL? That’s a different story, and a tired one. And we’re only halfway through the first round.

– Tim Cronin

Hawks’ OT win may presage revival

Writing from Chicago
Sunday, November 14, 2010

Detected at 1901 W. Madison, on the home hockey bench: a pulse.

The Blackhawks’ heartbeat wasn’t nearly as evident in the previous five home games, and several of the road contests, following an Oct. 27 victory over the Los Angeles Kings. What was evident was the defending Stanley Cup champions getting beaten and beat on.

Sunday night was different. Sunday night, the Hawks withstood an onslaught from the Anaheim Ducks, but stuck to the tried-and-true offensive game plan head coach Joel Quenneville has preached since he arrived for the fifth game of the 2008-09 season: Send pucks to the net and barge into the slot.

That is precisely how the Hawks captured their first home victory since the aforementioned triumph over the Kings. With 27.8 seconds left in overtime, defenseman Duncan Keith, stationed at the left point, whipped a puck toward the Ducks’ net. Forward Viktor Stalberg, all 6-foot-3 of him, was in the process of stationing himself some 10 feet in front of Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller. Stalberg tipped the puck, Hiller couldn’t react to the redirection, and the Hawks found themselves 3-2 winners.

The big deal wasn’t that they find themselves 9-9-2, with 20 points in 20 games about to embark on the annual November excursion while the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to the United Center. It is that they commence their six-game jaunt looking more like a hockey team than, say, a bunch of clowns piling out of a circus car.

The game had the typical snafus the Hawks have committed too often this season. Keith had the puck stolen from him more than once, the most egregious theft, by Anaheim left wing Jason Blake, promptly deposited by Corey Perry behind goaltender Corey Crawford. The Ducks enjoyed too many odd-man breaks, though Crawford stood up to everything but Perry’s other shot, a hard wrist shot following a fake that fooled defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Each of Perry’s goals tied the game, erasing leads created by Patrick Kane and Marian Hossa on power plays. Stalberg’s goal finished it, but the entire evening – including a 43-26 shot advantage – may have started something. At the least, it should help clear a few heads.

“It’s always easier to have that mental confidence when you get the results,” captain Jonathan Toews said. “You can work so darn hard for so many games in a row, but if you don’t see any results, any payoff, it’s tough to not get frustrated. So it’s a big thing for our team to see how energetic and positive we’ve been – we never got down on each other. We just stuck with it.”

Perhaps, but Toews, tabbed Captain Serious way back, had looked as if he’d swallowed a lemon after the recent losses. Sunday, he was unsuccessful in trying to surpress a smile. On top of everything else, the Hawks had stopped Anaheim’s six-game winning streak. He was Captain Satisfied, at least for a game.

There are 62 remaining before the games that really count begin.

– Tim Cronin

Blackhawks work overtime, win the Stanley Cup

Writing from Chicago
Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The distance from Chicago to Philadelphia is 760.63 miles, as MapQuest flies.

The Blackhawks will tell you that the distance from hockey obscurity to the pinnacle of their profession is much longer. There was a path, but with countless side roads, dead ends, undug tunnels, unfinished bridges and potholes glaore. And no map.

The Hawks, 49 years in the wilderness, reached the pinnacle at 11:02 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night, when winger Patrick Kane, whose slight physical stature belies his toughness, scooted down left wing, slipped a puck under Philadelphia goaltender Michael Leighton and into the far side of the net 4 minutes 6 seconds into sudden-death overtime.

With that goal, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup.

However, for a few seconds, only Kane knew it. He, like everyone else in the Wachovia Center, saw the shot go under the squatting Leighton’s right pad. But only he knew for sure the puck was not under Leighton, and not leaning against the post to Leighton’s left, but in the net.

Goal! A 4-3 final in Game 6 of the Final! The reward: the Stanley Cup!

Kane, knowing all this, threw his hands in the air, began to dance around the back of the net and toward the Hawks bench en route to goaltender Antti Niemi, his gloves left 175 feet behind.

Everyone else, even his teammates, looked at Kane as if he had three heads. There was no arm pointing at the net by the referee. No goal light gleaming.

But there was a clue. The body language of Leighton screamed defeat.

And so it was. Within three, four seconds, the rest of the Hawks caught on, the referees agreed, and the party was on. The Stanley Cup was theirs to share, to raise, to drink from, to show off from the ice in Philadelphia to the sidewalks of Chicago and beyond.

“I knew it was in right away,” Kane said. “I just kind of tried to take off and book it to the other end and try to start the celebration. It was crazy. At the moment, it’s just like, ‘We won the Stanley Cup!’ and that’s all you’re thinking about.”

* * *

This was a game that lived up to the axiom that the fourth victory of a series is the most difficult to achieve. The Flyers put up a tremendous fight, emerging tied 1-1 after a first period that saw the Hawks hold a 17-7 advantage on shots, taking the best the Flyers could muster physically, with Scott Hartnell’s power-play goal in the final minute of the period matching Dustin Bfuglien’s power-play goal. And Philadelphia led 2-1 on Daniel Briere’s deep-angle goal, set up by Hartnell’s big hit, defenseman Duncan Keith’s fall, and Ville Leino’s nifty puckhandling, precisely eight minutes into the second period.

What now? Would the Flyers, as they had in the previous two games in Philadelphia, wear the Hawks down – and out? Would defenseman Chris Pronger, who sloughed off the Chicago Tribune poster of him dressed more like Benny Hill than a hockey player as the puerile stunt it was, take over the game?

Would Hawks fans – the phrase “long-suffering” is assumed – who recoil at images of seventh games against Montreal in 1965 and 1971, have to dread the prospect of a Game 7 at the United Center on Friday night?

Only the Flyers wanted that.

They would not get it.

The Hawks regrouped. Head coach Joel Quenneville threw Jonathan Toews, Kane and Byfuglien back together – Toews’ board work set up Byfuglien’s first-period score. That forced Pronger and his cohorts to concentrate on them.

Suddenly, Patrick Sharp was open four-on-four two seconds before the midpoint of regulation, took a smart pass from Dave Bolland on a 3-on-3 break that saw Bolland freeze two Flyers in their tracks to spring Sharp, and beat Leighton with a hard shot on the short side from right wing. Tie game, 2-2.

With 2:17 left in the period, Andrew Ladd worked his way into the slot and crafted a brilliant deflection of Niklas Hjalmarsson’s point shot – the puck was 18 inches off the ice when Ladd’s blade redirected it – for a 3-2 lead. And the Flyers were dragging.

For just over 18 minutes, until 3:59 remained in regulation time, Ladd’s goal stood as the Cup-winner. Niemi stood up to the Flyers time and again. Then a Leino sortie became a pinball game, off the stick of Brent Seabrook and the left leg of Marian Hossa, and then to Hartnell, who defelected it past Niemi. Tie game, 3-3.

“We knew they weren’t going to go away,” said Toews, voted the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. “And to protect a one-goal lead for 20 minutes against a team like that, it’s tough to imagine them not getting a bounce like they did eventually.”

By now, the Cup was in the building, polished and ready for presentation. And again came the questions. Tonight? Friday? And to whom?

Niemi, who with Keith and Kane were Smythe candidates, provided a hint at the answer when he stopped Jeff Carter from point-blank range with 89 seconds left in regulation – a Cup-saving stop, and maybe his best, though those on Simon Gagne’s second period breakaway, on Mike Richards in the slot with 4:32 left in regulation, and on Claude Giroux 20 seconds into the fourth period were also stellar – to ensure overtime.

The Blackhawks were playing for history. The Flyers, who had done so to perfection against Boston, were playing for their lives.

History won the night. Kane made sure of that. Well, maybe sure isn’t the right word.

“We didn’t know what to do,” Toews said. “It didn’t matter how it happened, how it went in. We were all proud of Kaner for stepping up like that. It’s a pretty awesome feeling.”

Earlier, on NBC, Toews had said it even better: “Oh my God. It’s like that commercial. I’m speechless.”

* * *

One goal, went the slogan. Achieved, and only three seasons into the team’s new era, triggered by the arrival of Toews and Kane, but accelerated by the emergence of Rocky Wirtz as the owner after the death of his father, Bill. Rocky Wirtz put home games on television, then brought in John McDonough from the Cubs to apply some marketing magic.

Critically, they collaborated on the addition of one W.S. Bowman to the hockey office staff – this is 12 Cups for Scotty, the most of anyone – who couldn’t resist leaving a consulting job in Detroit to work with his son, Stan, who has achieved more important victories in twice beating the cancer Hodgkin’s Disease.

If the forcing out of Denis Savard as head coach by Wirtz and McDonough in favor of Quenneville at Bowman’s urging was clumsy in execution, it can be fairly be said that the Hawks would not be the best team in hockey, the Stanley Cup champions, if Savard was still working the bench. Quenneville is a better coach.

But Savard’s work with Toews and Kane as rookies was crucial. He taught them how to win, how not to accept losing, how to make their way to adulthood in a world of big money and bright spotlights. Toews, who arrived as a 19-year-old going on 35, is the steadying influence in the locker room. Kane is the kid, the Bowery Boy from Buffalo who may by now have learned how to tip cabbies.

“We have pretty different personalities,” Kane allowed. “I think one thing that remains the same with us is we both love hockey and we both love to compete and play the game. Obviously, it’s fun to be around a kid like that.

“He loves to win. He loves to play. He’s a great player. And he’s had a hell of a year. He’s going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future as, I think, one of the greats of all time.”

Six Hawks were in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. Kane came away with a silver medal. Toews, Keith and Seabrook won the gold for Canada, with Toews named the MVP of the tournament, and now has a double-double, championships and MVPs in the Olympic and Stanley Cup tournaments in the same season.

All six Olympian Hawks, and all the others, won glorious silver on Wedneday night.

They were all put together by Dale Tallon, the general manager until the FedEx snafu surrounding last summer’s restricted free agent contracts prompted McDonough to fire him – he was the senior advisor in charge of playing golf until landing the GM’s post in Florida. Tallon, as much as anyone, deserves to get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup. (There’s space for 55 names. Are 55 others ahead of Tallon?)

The notion that a championship might someday be possible began to float around in the mind in the summer of 2007, on a Fourth of July when the Hawks held their first day of a week-long rookie camp, Toews’ poise and ability was self-evident. Kane, little guy that he was, had a couple of good moves, but could he make the team?

The saying went this way: Kane will score goals for you, but Toews will win you the Stanley Cup.

Come training camp, the question about the team’s No. 1 draft pick lingered. Could Kane handle the hitting, the grind? Even Kane wasn’t sure, and moved into a spare room in now-general manager Stan Bowman’s house rather than look for permanent lodging.

Kane proved his worth. The smart plays began to come, became commonplace, and often came at big times. His first goal wasn’t even a goal, officially. It won a game in a shootout, so it didn’t go on his career ledger.

Wednesday’s did, and went into the history books as the biggest goal scored by a Blackhawk since 1961. Kane scored the goal, all right. Toews’ steady leadership made it possible for the Hawks to win the Stanley Cup. They did it in just three years, and without a map.

– Tim Cronin

On the verge of hockey immortality

Tonight? Friday? Some other year? Some other team every year? The answers begin to reveal themselves tonight at 8:15 p.m. Eastern.

Hawks one win from Stanley Cup

Writing from Chicago
Sunday, June 6, 2010

Thirty-six years and one month ago, before the sixth game of the Stanley Cup Final at the Spectrum, Philadelphia Flyers head coach Fred Shero wrote this on the blackboard in the home locker room:

“Win today, and we walk together forever.”

Wednesday night in the successor building to the Spectrum, if he so chooses, Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville can pen a similar thought, for the Hawks are, for the first time since 1971, one victory from capturing hockey’s greatest prize.

Their raucous 7-4 victory over the Flyers at the United Center in Game 5 on Sunday night puts them in that prized position. It was achieved with a gritty effort, beginning with a rousing first period that brought the Hawks a 3-0 advantage.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” center John Madden said. “We’ve got one game left to win. If we win that, things are good for us.”

They have two chances to do so, though nobody in the Hawks’ room wants to be playing on Friday night.

While the Flyers counterpunched, coming within two goals of the Hawks on three occasions, they never came closer, and never played the physical game they brought to bear in Philadelphia. For that matter, they were never closer than two for too very long, for on this night, unlike the first four games of the series, the Hawks also counterpunched. And, when it took a while for the Hawks to answer, a top-to-bottom effort against a Flyers team that struggled as the game went on.

Defenseman Chris Pronger really struggled. The first Hawks’ goal, a power-play score by Brent Seabrook, caromed off Pronger’s right skate before it bounded by goaltender Michael Leighton. Then things began to go really wrong for the big guy, and by game’s end, Pronger had a minus-5 hanging around his neck. Along with, at times, Dustin Byfuglien, who scored twice, including the game-winner on a power play, and added two assists.

“He’s out there to battle and so am I,” Byfuglien said of Pronger. “I’ll try to get the best of him. I don’t think he’s been winning any big battles. He does what he does.”

The Hawks did what they’re supposed to do – move the puck, control the puck, shoot the puck – in better fashion than since Game 2 of the Western Conference Final against San Jose. Even Dave Bolland, who scored the Hawks’ second goal, thought so.

“It was how we played against San Jose and Vancouver,” Bolland remarked on CBC after a first period when the orange-clad Flyers looked, more often than not, like traffic cones. “We were getting the puck in.”

In deep, and on net, in other words, which had not been happening with any consistency since the pond hockey carnival that was played in lieu of Game 1.

The Hawks finally had the Flyers back on their heels, thanks to juggled lines, a forceful forecheck and a propensity to shoot the puck at Leighton, who looked not like the Flyers savior, but more like the netminder who struggled with a struggling Hawks team several years ago. Until, that is, Brian Boucher, the other former Hawk goalie on the Flyers, replaced him for the final 40 minutes.

Boucher’s stint – three goals against in the last two periods, not including the empty-netter by Byfuglien – plus Leighton struggling after dropping to his knees after making a mid-body save in the warmup – makes Philadelphia’s starter for Wednesday’s sixth game an open question. Nobody on the Flyers was interested in answering it.

Nor could the Flyers solve the questions the Hawks posed with their line changes. Jonathan Toews centered Tomas Kopecky and Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp worked with Andrew Ladd and Patrick Kane, Bolland was the wheelman for Kris Versteeg and Byfuglien, and Madden centered Ben Eager and Troy Brouwer.

The line changes, which began in the third period of Game 4, had a great deal to do with it. The Hawks could split up Toews and Kane, but the Flyers couldn’t clone Pronger, never mind his occasional double shifts.

“They came out hard like we knew they were going to, and we didn’t answer their intensity or their physicality,” Pronger said. “The first period, we didn’t get much of a forecheck. We were in our own end. It was just a matter of time. Staving off, staving off, eventually they’re going to get to you. And they did.”

As mentioned, Seabrook’s 25-foot wrist shot deflected off Pronger’s right skate and eluded Leighton 12 minutes 17 seconds into the game. If that goal was unlucky for Philadelphia, it gave the Hawks a mental boost, and they poured it on. Bolland, with a backhand poke sent off Leighton’s right skate from behind the net, and Versteeg, on a screened wrist shot, scored on back-to-back shots late in the first, and the Hawks had a 3-0 lead, the three goals scored in a span of 5:58.

“We were rolling, we were having fun, and we were playing the way we wanted to,” Versteeg said.

It could have been more dominating. Leighton, who stopped 10 shots in his 20 minutes, slid from right to left to stop Sharp from the crease 7:24 into the game. That larceny was committed 30 seconds after Sharp was stopped 1-2 by Leighton.

“We had a lot of chances before we even scored,” defenseman Brian Campbell said.

But the Hawks had more than offense going for them. They were also offensive. Byfuglien jostled the pesky Pronger when he could, and Bolland bothered Mike Richards to distraction.

“You can tell he doesn’t like it, so I’ll keep doing it, right?” Bolland said.

That was the idea, at least. The Hawks proved they were resolute following Scott Hartnell’s goal 32 seconds into the second period. A sloppy save on Leino by goaltender Antti Niemi resulted in the puck laying in the crease, where Hartnell pounced on it. The crowd of 22,305 went, “Uh oh.”

Less than three minutes later, they went crazy, responding to Kane’s redirection of Andrew Ladd’s right-to-left feed for a 4-1 lead.

“I didn’t think I played great, but sometimes you get the puck and make some plays,” Kane said. “But the team had a great game overall. We play like that every night, it’ll be tough to beat us.”

The Flyers cut the lead to 4-2 and 5-3, but the Hawks responded each time. The final florish, two goals in the final four minutes, commenced with Sharp’s hard wrist shot, set up by Kane, with 3:52 remaining. Eventually came Byfuglien’s empty-netter – that line tallied nine points – and one more verse of “Chelsea Dagger” over the speakers.

And that set the minds of everyone in the building – Michael Jordan included – to this: Can the Hawks, empty-handed since 1961, capture the Dominion Challenge Hockey Cup on Wednesday night in the Wachovia Center?

Toews tried to dodge the question in the interview room, but on TSN, he couldn’t suppress a brief smile when asked about the prospect of clinching the Cup.

“We liked our pace and speed tonight, but we have to pick it up if we’re to win a fourth game,” Toews said. “Close? It’s been feeling too close for a while now. We’ll just treat it like another game, and away from the rink, maybe shut ‘er down for a day and forget about hockey.”

Minutes after the game, Niemi had his plan for Monday: “Sleep in.”

Then, wake up come back to work and concentrate on preparing for a game that could have been only a dream entering this season: A game with an opportunity for a share of hockey immortality.

– Tim Cronin

‘Relentless’ Flyers outplay Hawks to tie Final

Writing from Chicago
Friday, June 4, 2010

What was that about a commanding lead owned by the Blackhawks?

About a sweep? Or at least a 3-1 lead after four games and visions of handshakes on Sunday night?

Never mind. The Stanley Cup Final is tied 2-2 entering Game 5 at the United Center, and while the Hawks still have home ice, the Philadelphia Flyers are the team in control.

The Flyers, in scoring a 5-3 victory, outplayed the Hawks for the second game in succession at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, and nearly outplayed them in the third period for the third straight game.

The Hawks have to correct two major things before the puck drops on Sunday night: They have to stop taking needless penalties in the Flyers’ zone – this means you, Tomas Kopecky – and they have to put the puck on the net. In a crash-and-burn series, fancy passing will get you nowhere, except backpedaling toward your own net.

If they succeed in doing the former, the Flyers, held to a college roar in even-strength situations, won’t have power plays to feast on. If they succeed in doing the latter, screens and rebounds could lead to Chicago goals.

“It was a couple of mental errors, and it cost us,” Brent Sopel said after the game. “The third period, we were getting pucks in and battling, obviously.”

Before that, not so much, obviously. But the Flyers had plenty to do with that.

“They were relentless,” Sopel added. “They’ve been relentless all four games. I thought we played a fairly good first period, made a couple of costly mistakes. They capitalized.”

As Hawks head coach Joel Quenneville said in droll fashion, “I thought we were very generous in the first period.”

Niklas Hjalmarsson was especially benevolent. He allowed Mike Richards to strip him of the puck almost immediately after the Hawks won a faceoff in their zone, and before Hjalmarsson could react to the theft, Richards backhanded the puck past goaltender Antti Niemi for Philadelphia’s first goal.

Oh, by the way, it came five seconds into a power play, with Kopecky sitting in the penalty box for high sticking, 4 minutes 35 seconds into the game. It was Philadelphia’s second power play in the game’s larval stage. The Flyers would have seven in all.

“I thought I had more time there,” Hjalmarsson said.

Meanwhile, Custer thought the Indians were friendly.

With Richards’ scalping and arrow, the tone from Game 3 was renewed. The Flyers would outwork the Hawks. It was 3-1 after a period – Game 3 overtime hero Claude Giroux’s 10th goal of the playoffs made it so with 37 seconds left in the first, following Patrick Sharp cutting a two-goal Philadelphia lead in half.

Giroux’s goal made for a long intermission in the Hawks’ bathhouse.

“We were thinking we were right where we want to be, just down a goal and not having played our best period,” captain Jonathan Toews said. “To give up a goal like that is a tough thing to come back from, against a team like that.”

The final 10 minutes – aside from the empty-net goal by Jeff Carter – belonged to the Hawks. Dave Bolland scored on a 5-on-3 power-play at 12:01, and Campbell cut the gap to 4-3 with 4:10 remaining.

At that point, it was a hockey game, and the Hawks took on the role of the Flyers. They buzzed the net, outshooting Philadelphia 34-31 for the game, and took the body. Where that was in the first 50 minutes, who knows. But there was a reason general manager Stan Bowman was scribbling furiously as the contest concluded. Names were going on his snit list.

Yes, the Hawks hit two posts in the late going, prompting Philadelphia goaltender Michael Leighton to smooch one of them, but the Flyers ran a shot off the iron as well. Except for the end, the Flyers ran the show.

It also didn’t matter that Quenneville put Nick Boynton and Andrew Ladd – the latter coming off a numbing injury to his left arm and/or shoulder, sustained when he checked a San Jose player in the Western Conference final – into the lineup. Ladd had an assist and was a plus-1, but took the first Hawks’ penalty, while Boynton, who hadn’t dressed since April 9, and hadn’t been in a playoff game in six springs, was a minus-1. (Adam Burish and Jordan Hendry sat.)

What does matter is the Flyers ability to make the Hawks look over their collective shoulder. And the Flyers can feel it.

“I think their game plan changed a bit,” Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette said. “They started being aggressive in the neutral zone. They started pinching down the wall. I think there’s opportunities there we can exploit if they’re going to play that way.”

Quenneville can’t like Philadelphia’s setting the tone in the last two games – and in controlling much of the last three. The Flyers have beaten the Hawks to loose pucks, and hit more vigorously – Brian Campbell’s crunching of Ville Leino in the early going Friday notwithstanding – and have forechecked as if they created the gambit. If they’re no longer the Broad Street Bullies, they’re at least the Orange Crush.

“We wanted to get on the body early on,” Leino said.

Friday, all that added up to the Hawks skating uphill from the opening faceoff. Who knew that Lauren Hart and Kate Smith could create so much?

“I know we’re playing catch up the whole game,” Quenneville said. “I still thought we were competitive. We were in the game. I don’t know who was controlling (the play), but they obviously had the lead.”

Hockey playoff truism No. 4: Them who leads, controls.

“So they were dictating a little bit more than we would like,” Quenneville continued. “Certainly the goals were all types of goals we don’t generally give up. I thought they came rather easily. We have to make them make plays to score goals.”

If this sounds like a coach wondering why some of his players might more easily be found on a milk carton than in the corners, well, it is.

Toews, Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien are a combined minus-13 in the four games, with Kane a horrendous minus-4 on Friday. That number includes his getting lost in the Hawks’ end when defenseman Kimmo Timonen ventured into the slot late in the first to feed Giroux for the backbreaking goal. Three years into an NHL career, a gaffe of that magnitude is tougher to swallow than a Philly cheesesteak.

So is this: A slow start in Game 5, and the Hawks might be behind in the series entering Game 6. They had best not depend on the raucous crowd during “The Star-Spangled Banner” to rouse them for the game. From this point forward, what the Hawks accomplish has to come from within.

The unanswered question: Do they have it within them?

– Tim Cronin

Flyers bounce back as Giroux says hello

Writing from Chicago
Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Now it’s a series, this Stanley Cup Final.

Two games of crunching Blackhawks at every turn finally paid off for Philadelphia in the form of an overtime victory in Game 3. The 4-3 outcome, courtesy of Claude Giroux’ goal 5 minutes 59 seconds into sudden death, trims the Hawks’ lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1, and gave the Flyers partisans in the Wachovia Center hope for a comeback.

Not just the score ignites that notion. The Flyers have dominated the Hawks in the third period for the last two games. It was for naught on the scoreboard in Game 2, but it was a message to the Hawks that Game 3 would feature more of the same, and the Flyers delivered in Philadelphia. The bodily contact wore the Hawks down physically, and perhaps mentally. They took only four shots in the third period to Philadelphia’s 15, and, once Ville Leino took advantage of a carom off the skate of defenseman Jordan Hendry and answered Patrick Kane’s lead goal to knot the affair at 3-all, it was Philadelphia’s game to win.

Giroux’ goal was a nifty deflection of a drive by Matt Carle. Giroux, with two assists in regulation, rolled into the slot and got his stick a foot in the air to carom Carle’s drive between the pads of Hawks goaltender Antti Niemi.

The score came 20 seconds after Kane’s breakaway wrist shot that blurred by goaltender Michael Leighton, and shocked the Hawks to their toes.

“We lost momentum there,” Hawks head coach Joel Quenneville admitted. “We spend some time in our end, not as bad as the last game.”

Really? The Flyers were buzzing again, the Hawks unable to catch them or clear the puck. Philadelphia had scored its first two goals on power plays, and this appeared to be a continuous power play. It is to Niemi’s credit the Hawks were able to get to overtime.

That trend must change if the Hawks are to win on Friday night, when the Flyers host Game 4. Otherwise, the series will return to Chicago tied for Sunday’s fifth game. And at least one Hawk is either in denial or trying to deflect the idea that Philadelphia rules as the game gets late.

“I don’t notice,” defenseman Duncan Keith said. “Seemed like we had some chances too. I thought I had one right at the end there. I mean, they get some shots, but Antti is seeing them.”

The razor’s edge this series is perched on can cut both ways. The Flyers benefited from a video review that proved Scott Hartnell’s power-play shot tumbled across the goal line before Niklas Hjalmarsson fished it out of the corner of the net. That erased a 1-1 tie. Later, the Hawks benefited from an overtime review that showed a Flyers’ sortie dancing along the goal line, and ended up tucked under Niemi before referee Bill McCreary called the play. A few minutes later Giroux made that call academic, and sent the 20,297 in the building up for grabs.

“We have to take five minutes, learn from this and get back (to) working harder on Friday,” Tomas Kopecky said.

Giroux, meanwhile, can bask in the spotlight for a day. Instead, he wants to see improvement.

“In Chicago, I don’t think we played good,” Giroux said. “We didn’t play even close to what we should have been playing. Tonight, the third period, that was our game. Just skate.”

Skating, and perfect timing, is why Giroux was open on the game-winner. The Hawks were caught on a bad change when the puck was chipped into the Chicago zone. Daniel Briere headmanned the puck to Carle. He shot, Giroux tipped, and the party was on.

“I expected to have a lot of pressure,” Briere said.

Instead, he was alone, as was Carle, as was Giroux.

And the Hawks get to think about it for 44 hours. Game 4 begins at 7:15 p.m. on Friday.

– Tim Cronin

Hawks turn defensive, take 2-0 lead

Writing from Chicago
Monday, May 31, 2010

The Stanley Cup Final began in earnest on Monday night.

This wasn’t pond hockey, as was the cartoon masquerading as Game 1. This was a battle, with pucks fought for rather than surrendered. Checks were finished in vigorous fashion. Every shift was a scrap. As former Philadelphia Flyers coach Fred Shero insisted, players arrived at the puck in an ill humor.

The Blackhawks were the better scrappers. Second-period goals 28 seconds apart by Marian Hossa and Ben Eager gave the Hawks a 2-1 victory over the Flyers at the United Center, and thus a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven clash, which shifts to Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The Hawks haven’t been in such a prime position to capture the Stanley Cup since 1971, when they held a similar lead over Montreal. That squad lost the Final in seven games, dropping four of the last five. No team had blown a 2-0 lead in a Final before, and it didn’t happen again until last year, when Detroit stunningly surrendered to Pittsburgh.

The evidence shows, then, that a 2-0 lead is formidable, but it’s also nothing. And the Hawks seem to realize it, especially after a contest that saw the Flyers outshoot the Hawks 15-4 in the third period, when Philadelphia got its only goal – Simon Gagne’s drive through a screen from the left circle – and the 22,275 fans in the building felt their heartbeats skip on several other occasions.

“We’ve got to be better,” defenseman Brent Seabrook said. “They’re great at home. We’ve got to come out and treat Game 3 as if we’re down 2-nothing.”

But for Tomas Kopecky’s score in the third period of the opening game, and goaltender Antti Niemi’s thwarting of all but Gagne in Game 2, it might be that was. Instead, the Hawks can feel free to play desperate hockey, doing so from a position of strength.

“Antti was really big for us, making those first saves, giving us an opportunity to clear the puck,” defenseman Brent Seabrook said.

And clear it, and clear it, and clear it. When, that is, the Flyers weren’t shooting it past Niemi’s ear.

“We certainly didn’t want to spend that much time in our own end,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said, thinking back to the third period. “The quality (of shots) they’re getting we had to be better. They’re coming, they’re pressing, and they’ve got a lot of guys that can make plays.

“That was one of those games where we’d like to spend some time in their end.”

The Flyers can say the Hawks had two good shifts, back to back, and otherwise did little else, and have a good argument.

“I’m not sure we should be frustrated,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I don’t think we got outplayed. I think we probably outshot them, outchanced them a little bit, and didn’t get the results we were looking for.

“We had more than enough looks to tie up that game.”

Except that Niemi, the unflappable Finn, was guarding the net. He stopped 32 shots. Other Hawks blocked 18 more, with defenseman Duncan Keith blocking a half-dozen himself.

The Hawks are trying to give Niemi help when the Flyers have the puck by having one defenseman, the one on the puck’s side of the ice, drop down to block shots, and thus block half the net. That allows Niemi to position himself to better cover the weak side of the net, to use a basketball term. There’s a risk that the Flyers will fire a shot over the defenseman and into the upper corner of the net, but it’s an acceptable risk.

It was a far cry from the previous outing, but Niemi, unlike Cristobal Huet, has bounced back with huge games after other shellings.

“It’s a great thing that it’s been that way,” Niemi said. “I want to keep it that way (in) later (games) too. Maybe it comes out of how I feel after the bad game, allowing five or four goals.

“I don’t know how it happens.”

The identities of the Hawks’ scorers in Game 2 show how democratic the playoffs can be. Hossa was a high-priced free-agent signing last summer, agreeing to a 12-year deal valued at $62.8 million (and $7.9 million this season), one of the last moves Dale Tallon made before he was ousted as general manager. Eager’s your typical journeyman cruncher, earning $965,000 this season.

In the playoffs, the salary doesn’t matter. Even the playoff money is moot. What matters is the contribution, night in and night out.

Hossa had been contributing everything but goals. He had scored twice in the first three series, adding 11 assists, his plus-10 the best in the team. But to score a goal …

“It bugged me not getting goals,” Hossa said. “I’m trying to create offense, either passing (or shooting), but when I’m shooting, the puck doesn’t want to get it. I try not to get frustrated, but it’s in your head.”

Hossa’s right doorstep rebound of Patrick Sharp’s shot at 17:09 of the second period wasn’t the “garbage goal” Hossa described it as. He had to beat Philadelphia defenseman Lukas Krajicek to the corner of the crease, then beat goaltender Michael Leighton, who to that point had stopped the first 20 Hawks shots.

The crowd was roaring at that point, and it kept roaring when Eager used defenseman Matt Carle as a screen, and perhaps as a deflector, to beat Leighton at 17:37. Two goals in 28 seconds, and all the Hawks would ultimately need.

The style of Saturday night’s opening game had to be viewed as an anomaly, based on how both teams had played in the first three rounds. The Hawks, to use but one example, throttled San Jose the deeper the semifinal series went. The Flyers beat on the offensively-confused Boston Bruins relentlessly, and their physical pluck paid off in dramatic fashion, with the rally from a 3-0 series deficit.

Another 6-5 contest would have been cause for inquiry. A 2-1 game was cause for chewed fingernails and crossed fingers in the gallery.

The difference was clear from the opening shifts. Chris Pronger was ornery, Ben Eager was stapling Flyers to the glass, and Kopecky and Philadelphia shift disturber Dan Carcillo butted heads. All that happened within the first seven minutes, and none of it drew a penalty. This would be a man’s game, and the Hawks, especially defensively, were the better men.

“I think they just cashed in on the chances they had the other night,” Hawks center John Madden said of the Flyers. “They moved the puck around well in our zone, and moved it up the ice. We’ve got to make a few changes in the next game in order to counter that. We know how they play in their building.”

The Flyers are 7-1 in the Wachovia Center in the playoffs. The Hawks, winners of their last seven games, have also won seven straight on the road.

“It was a tough playoff hockey game,” Flyers center Mike Richards said. “The refs let us play. Unfortunately, we had lapses in the second period (and) we didn’t do the things that we needed to do, and eventually it cost us the game.”

A similar series of lapses from Philadelphia on Wednesday, and the Flyers will be down three games for the second series in succession. And Champagne will be on ice in households of hockey-mad Chicagoans who have been waiting to quench their thirst for 49 years.

– Tim Cronin

We’re back

Writing from Chicago
Monday, May 31, 2010

With the Stanley Cup Final back in Chicago for the first time in 19 years, we bring back the Hockey in Chicago website. Later tonight, a full report on Game 2 of the Final between the Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers. The Hawks lead the series 1-0, but Game 2 is scoreless with 11:28 remaining in a second period that isn’t quite as tight-checking as the first period.
– Tim Cronin