Red Wings blast Chicago 6-1

CHICAGO, Ill – The consensus was the Chicago Blackhawks would come out strong and physical for this game to even out the edge after Martin Havlat suffered an injury from a huge hit suffered at the hands of Niklas Kronwall. But the experience, composure, and maturity of the Detroit Red Wings prevailed as the Blackhawks quickly unraveled.
 
Marian Hossa was a big part of the win as the Red Wings took it out on the Blackhawks winning convincingly 6-1 to bring the Red Wings within one win to return for a chance to defend last season’s Cup win.
 
Hossa knew that if he had any chance to win a Stanley Cup the Detroit Red Wings were the team to take him there. He signed with the team in the off season with a pay cut just to have that chance.
 
As for Game Four of this Western Conference finals, there was more movement on the injury front, draining both teams of top talent. Detroit was already without Pavel Datsyuk but added Kris Draper with a groin injury and top offensive defenseman Niklas Lidstrom who was scratched with a lower-body injury to their infirmary list. Veteran 47 year-old Chris Chelios defenseman, a former Blackhawks player for many years, took Lidstrom’s place in the lineup. As for Chicago, Cristobal Huet started in goal for the injured Niklas Khabibulin.
 
The first mark on the score sheet came about on the power play for the Chicago Blackhawks. Normally the scoring chances would go in their favor but Chicago was caught deep down low in Detroit’s zone and one off bounce turned the wheels as the Red Wings were off to the races on a two-on-one. Valtteri Filppula took the puck in and made the saucer pass to Hossa who went high on Huet for the goal at 8:41 into the game.
 
A late period goal has a way of killing any possible momentum in a game and Detroit did just that to Chicago. Team playoff scoring leader Johan Franzen skated with speed down the near boards and figured that going high on Huet was the key and took his team to the locker room with a 2-0 lead.
 
Chicago’s Matt Walker took a roughing penalty at the end of the first and the Red Wings made them pay again. This time the players were changed around from the first goal as Hossa returned the favor on the helper to Filppula 1:13 into the second.
 
Just minutes later the Blackhawks got their notch on the power play. Cam Barker fired the puck in as players challenged for the puck around the crease. The rebound was just outside where Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews swept the puck around Chris Osgood and backhanded it in to bring Chicago within two goals at 3:53. As the fans in the United Center we still celebrating their team’s first goal, they were quickly silenced 12 seconds later as the Filppula/Hossa show continued their goal exchange as Hossa wristed a another shot in on Huet.
 
Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville saw enough and wanted a change and placed emergency backup goaltender Corey Crawford in goal to replace Huet. Crawford has played only seven games with the team in the last three years but took the AHL Rockford Ice Hogs deep in last season’s Calder Cup playoffs.
 
On the delayed penalty, Walker was issued an interference call but Kris Versteeg came in and threw a cross check to send the Red Wings on the 5-3 man-advantage. Thirty-six seconds in to the penalty, Henrik Zetterberg backhanded the goal in to give Detroit a commanding 5-1 lead 7:42 into the period.
 
With the outcome decided the game settled down and only one further goal was scored. Both coaches started new goaltenders in the final period. Huet came back in to replace his replacement in Crawford. Ty Conklin came in relief of Osgood with the thought of resting him for the possible conference-winning Game 5.
 
The Blackhawks again took another penalty on pure frustration and the Detroit Red Wings schooled them as Zetterberg took another pass from Brian Rafalski to give him his second goal of the game on the power play.
 
Game Five is going to be do or die for the Chicago Blackhawks. People say that in the playoffs, you play game to game and look forward and not look back. But the hole that they dug for themselves in this game might be difficult to forget. Havlat left the game for the second contest in a row after taking another hit and his status is unknown. For the team hopefully the extra day between games will help the team heal. Reviewing the game will show how badly the team played. 
 
As for the Red Wings, they do what they do best and play the game. They did this with some of their main players scratched out of the lineup tonight. The Blackhawks were known for their depth of scoring but the top lines were rarely seen or heard from tonight. Detroit now knows that going high on Huet is the key and they fired from all angles and distances. Detroit now has the easy path where they just need to score one more goal than Chicago in any of the next three games to go on to defend their title.
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