CHICAGO, Ill – The Chicago Blackhawks broke a lot of rules in defeating the Calgary Flames by a score of 5-1 to send the series back to Alberta on Monday night. The Blackhawks will have a chance to win their Western Conference semifinal series in front of enemy fans thanks to their game five win. Every game in this series, the home team won. That remained the same tonight, but the Blackhawks scored first and that was a bad omen in the first four games of the series in which the team that scored first lost the game. Also the team has not had a two goal lead in the series.
Chicago had possession of the puck for most of the first period and it showed as the defense picked up their game. Halfway through the period, the Blackhawks had an excellent shift on the power play with great passing and puck possession. Martin Havlat shoveled the puck from the corner to defenseman Brent Seabrook who fired a slap shot in from the point to give the Blackhawks the first goal of the game.
A minute and a half later, Patrick Sharp put the Blackhawks up by two goals as Jonathan Toews worked hard behind the net to get the puck in front of the net where Sharp backhanded it in at 10:49 mark. Just 19 seconds later Calgary couldn’t clear the puck out of their zone where Seabrook fired a shot in which took a bad bounce off the boards and near the goal mouth where Kris Versteeg changed towards the net and got the loose puck in on Calgary’s Miikka Kiprusoff.
The defense and puck possession by the Blackhawks dominated the first period and that showed where Calgary only had three shots on goal versus Chicago’s 15.
The Flames tried to place the first period behind them in the second. At 2:45, forward Dustin Boyd was able to get a short rebound and forced the puck in for Calgary’s first goal of the game. But the Blackhawks were able to get that one back. Left winger Andrew Ladd did a great job keeping the puck in deep as his teammates were on the change. The puck got passed out just within the blueline and then back in to Dave Bolland who chopped the puck in towards the net where Ladd swept the puck in between Kiprusoff’s pads. Kiprusoff was pulled after the goal and replaced by Curtis McElhinney.
With about five minutes left in the period, Chicago piled it on as defensman Cam Barker fired a shot on net with traffic in front that was deflected by a defender straight on in to give the Blackhawks a commanding four goal lead. The period ended with the Flames actually out-shooting the Blackhawks eight to five.
The second and third period were actually better for the Flames as they out shot the Blackhawks 17-13 and were able to finally get in closer to the net. Calgary had a great chance to get back in the game with a two-man advantage early in the third for almost a minute and a half but was not able to get through on the Blackhawks’ defense.
Kiprusoff was 14 for 18 with 26:14 played before he was pulled for McElhinney who fared better allowing one goal on the ten shots he faced. Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin had a pretty quiet night facing only 20 shots while letting in a single one.
The Stars of the game were all Chicago. The third star went to Havlat with two assists the second star went to Barker with a goal and the first star was Seabrook with a goal and two assists.
Notes
The Chicago Blackhawks were resilient in this game which was totally different than game four in Calgary. Their defense was one of the differences in the win. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook who have done well in keeping Jarome Iginla and Olli Jokinen but the last game they were both a minus-3. Game five was a total turnabout with Seabrook scoring and Keith a plus-2. Havlat also made the turn going from a huge minus-4 to two assist and a plus-2.
Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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