WINNIPEG – Captain Serious as he is known around the league got serious as Jonathan Toews was clutch with just under a minute left in regulation when he was parked in front of the net and had a beautiful deflection to give his Blackhawks a much needed 4-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets. Toews, a Winnipeger, had a number of family and friends witness his late-game heroics with his 25th of the season.
Jonathan Toews’ late goal lifted Hawks past Jets – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“I don’t think anybody panicked or anyone lost their cool or anything,” Toews said. “We’ve all been in situations like that before, whether it’s the playoffs or the regular season. We were talking this morning that we can rely on some of our experience there, and I think we did that here.
“When you go down in the third period, for most teams it would cross your mind that maybe it’s not meant to be and you’re not going to win that game. But we stuck with it and it’s nice for us to get a bounce the way we did. It’s huge for us to get a bounce. In a lot of ways, that’s a big win for us. Not only standings-wise, but for our confidence as a team.”
Earlier in the third period with the Jets up 3-2 Toby Enstrom got tangled up with a linesman along the boards and lost his stick then tried to glove the puck away and gave it right to Patrick Sharp who walked in on a breakaway and scored to completely change the momentum of the game.
Jets coach Paul Maurice said when asked after the game about the goal “It’s like an injury you’re angry when it happens but there isn’t anything you can do about it”.
Ondrej Pavelec was in the net for the Jets; he gave up four goals on 24 shots. His record falls to 19-15-7.
“Guys hung [in there],” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “The attitude going out there for the third period was, ‘Hey, a lot of good things are here. Let’s go 20 [minutes] and see what happens.’ At the end of the day, when you look back at some of the big wins we’ve had, this is probably No. 1.”
Blackhawks went with Corey Crawford in the pipes and he was stellar kicking out 31 saves off 34 shots. He made a couple big stops off Lee Stempniak and Blake Wheeler. He also had some help from the iron on a couple of occasions.
The Jets got a pair of goals from Dustin Byfuglien his 17, 18th goals off the season both coming on the power play, Wheeler added his 25th, a beauty effort shorthanded.
Blackhawks got goals from Andrew Shaw his 14th, Brad Richards his 12th, Sharp and Toews rounded out the scoring.
The Jets seemed to play their best when they are playing a top team and the Hawks; although they are not at the top of the Western Conference are still a top contending team.
The Jets dominated most of the game and played there hardnosed high pressure forechecking game and outplayed the Blackhawks but just couldn’t find any more goals. The positives were they outhit, outshot, scored twice on the power play, and even won more face-offs. If they play like this they will have no issues getting in the playoffs.
“You look at the standings every day, especially this time of the year. I don’t want to say you’re comfortable or used to anything, but you see your name where it was [in the standings] for [most] of the season and all of a sudden it slides down. It should be a little bit of a wake-up call,” Sharp said. “I think we responded well.
“At this point, we’ll take the points however we can get them, but to steal both points and keep (Winnipeg) from getting any was really big for us.”
A good sign was seeing Byfuglien playing like the dominant force he is as this was his second game back from injury; he had a couple power play goals, five shots on net, played 22 minutes and had some big hits, Jets will need him going.
Another welcome sign was seeing Mathieu Perreault back in the lineup after being out since mid February and he played just under 9 minutes centering the fourth line.
Jets will welcome the New York Rangers to town on Thursday night.
Follow me on Twitter @hrank94
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