CHICAGO , Ill. – The Chicago Blackhawks did it again in front of a vocal crowd of 22,514 at the United Center as they defeated the Calgary Flames by the score of 3-2. The series now travels to Calgary for the next two games.
As the first game ended in overtime with the Chicago Blackhawks winning on a goal from Martin Havlat 12 seconds in, the discussion or argument came about if forward Dave Bolland interfered with Miikka Kiprusoff to allow the goal to go in. With that on everyone’s mind it was assured that there will be plenty of traffic in front of both netminders as the two teams battled for an advantage.
Both teams came out strong, especially the Blackhawks, who had their confidence raised after having their first playoff game under their belt. With the jitters gone it was onto business. But any advantage the Blackhawks had ended quickly as the Flames quickly doused the Blackhawks with two goals in the first.
The first one came when Dion Phaneuf shot a pass from the blueline to Mike Cammalleri who was right on top of the crease to Nikolai Khabibulin’s right. Cammalleri made a move that caused the Chicago net minder to sprawl down as the Flames player was making a motion to shoot. Instead of shooting Cammalleri passed off the puck to Calgary captain Jarome Iginla who was waiting on the open side for the score on the power play at the 7:44 mark. With 16:15 gone, the Flames closed out the scoring in the first as both sides had a four-on-four going. Former Blackhawks defender Adrian Aucoin grabbed a loose puck that was shot by Iginla near the goal line and snapped a shot that careened off the post and somehow found itself in the net as Khabibulin went down to make the save.
Did the Flames lead affect Chicago coming back after the first intermission? One thing they had going was that they had a power play to start the second and did they quickly forget that they were losing. The Blackhawks zig-zagged a goal in from Cam Barker who went across to Patrick Sharp and down in for the goal from the team’s captain Jonathan Toews only 46 seconds into the period.
The second goal was scored when Patrick Kane charged down the near lane and whipped a shot to Sharp who was sliding down the slot. Sharp took the pass on the backhand and passed it across to his forehand to deke the puck in on Kiprusoff.
With half a minute left in the period Dave Bolland fired a zinger from the top of the far circle towards the net. Kiprusoff let out a big fat rebound right to Toews who got the goal in between the pads for his second of the night which was the eventual game winner.
“We established a real good road game,” said Calgary head coach Mike Keenan, “we took the lead, and played with a lot of authority in the first period. We expected them to come back and push us hard which they did. We didn’t respond like we need too and gave them control of the game in the second period.”
Khabibulin was the third star of the game with 30 saves. Iginla was the second star with a goal and an assist, and Toews was the first star with two goals.
Contact matt.chin@prohockeynews.com
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