CHICAGO, Ill. – Maybe no one wants to win at home in this series. Everyone gets to sleep in their own bed and forget to wake up for the game. That is what seemed to happen as the Vancouver Canucks defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in the United Center by the score of 4-1 to send this Western Conference series back to Vancouver for Game Six.
So far in this series the home team has only won once with Chicago winning Game Two. This game tonight looked very much like the first one at home where the Blackhawks lost by the score of 5-1.
Vancouver quickly took the air out of the Chicago crowd 59 seconds into the game as the Canucks won the face off in the Chicago zone. The puck went to Daniel Sedin who passed it back to defenseman Christian Ehrhoff who fired a blast in to an outreached Antti Niemi.
The next two goals turned Vancouver defenseman Kevin Bieksa into the star of the game. With 6:36 left in the first period, play started all the way in the corner to Roberto Luongo’s left. Every Canuck on the ice touched the puck end to end until Kyle Wellwood launched a centering pass to Bieska who was charging down the slot for the wrister and the score.
Bieska’s second goal came 13 minutes into the second on the power play when he ripped in a one-timer from Mikael Samuelsson at the blue line to put Vancouver up by three. What is amazing about Bieska is that he scored the very first goal of the season for the Canucks and didn’t score again until the final game of the season. Then tonight he got two of the most important goals in his life.
Luongo has only one career shutout to his credit and Blackhawks Captain Jonathan Toews kept it that way. Defenseman Duncan Keith fired a bullet from the point that was tipped in by Toews to momentarily awaken the Chicago crowd and cut the deficit to two.
Niemi was pulled with two minutes left but it didn’t help as Alexandre Burrows backhanded an empty net goal to put the game out of reach.
Chicago outshot Vancouver 30 to 24, with Luongo stopping all but the one goal. Niemi stopped 20 of the 23 he faced for the loss. Only one goal was converted on the power play as the Canucks were one for seven and the Blackhawks had none on five opportunities.
The series now goes to the Vancouver for Game Six. We will see how the crowd reacts compared to the United Center crowd tonight. There were times that you didn’t know there were 22,192 in the stadium. The Canucks finally let their hockey do the talking instead of the physical game that they played the last few games. Even though there were a bunch of penalties called, none really had a negative impact on the team. They were able to take the physical crashing-the-net style of the Blackhawks and took full advantage of it.
Chicago had no flow in the game as they were boxed out of the crease area where they do most of the damage. Luongo shaved his beard to try to change the team’s luck and it seemed to work. The Canuck’s netminder throughout the game didn’t seem to allow a single rebound as he stopped the Blackhawks dead in their tracks.
Last season the Blackhawks won over the Canucks in Game Six in Chicago. We will see if history repeats itself except in a different venue.
Three Stars of the Game: Jonathan Toews (Chicago), Third Star with a goal; Roberto Luongo (Vancouver), Second Star stopping 29 shots; and Kevin Bieska (Vancouver) with two goals in the game.
Western Conference Semifinals (best-of-7) W2 Chicago Blackhawks vs. W3 Vancouver Canucks
Chicago Leads Series 3-2
Game 1 – Saturday, May 1 – VANCOUVER 5 at Chicago 1 Game 2 – Monday, May 3 – Vancouver 2 at CHICAGO 4, Game 3 – Wednesday, May 5 – CHICAGO 5 at Vancouver 2 Game 4 – Friday, May 7 – CHICAGO 7 at Vancouver 4
Game 5 – Sunday, May 9 – VANCOUVER 4 at Chicago 1 Game 6 – Tuesday, May 11 – Chicago at Vancouver, 8:30pm *Game 7 – Thursday, May 13 – Vancouver at Chicago, 7:00pm
* if necessary; All times Central
Contact the author at Matt.Chin@prohockeynews.com
Related
You must be logged in to post a comment.