By Michael Calvert
Wednesday marked the first meeting of long time rivals, ex-rivals? The Hawks and Wings hadn’t played one another since Game 7 on the Western Conference semi-finals in late May.
The Hawks came out looking to bury the Wings early but as is their way so often they gave up counter strikes very soon after scoring themselves.
Marian Hossa opened the scoring with his 21st goal of the season at 8:41 of the opening period. Jonathan Toews and Johnny Oduya assisted on the Hossa strike.
Less than a minute after Andrew Shaw cleaned up a second-chance opportunity after a Patrick Kane shot rang off the crossbar to put the Hawks up 2-0 on an inferior opponent, Tomas Tatar scores the first goal for the Wings.
With just under 3 minutes left in the first the Wings tie the game up on a Patrick Eaves wrist shot.
Suddenly this went from a laugher to a real game.
2nd period: 4:57 into the second and frosted tips Drew Miller takes the first penalty of the game on a soft interference call. The Hawks wasted no time in taking advantage Patrick Sharp put a bomb of a slapper past Jonas Gustavsson. The play resulted from both Red Wing penalty kill forwards jumping at Keith. I guess Duncan has come to gain this type of respect, but other teams should know he’s not putting up video game numbers putting in pp goals. Keith’s MO this season has been his passing and he made a perfect one to Sharp.
The icing call that wasn’t results in the second tying goal of the game for Detroit when Kyle Quincey scored on a Patrick Sharp-like slapper at 6:20 in the period. Again, the Hawks let up an equalizer within or damn close to it of a minute.
Just 5 minutes later and Seabrook is beaten badly by Justin Abdelkader to a loose puck. Abdelkader flips it to Zetterberg who makes a great pass to a wide open Nyquist who puts it in an equally wide open net. Wings up 4-3 going into the 3rd.
3rd period: Hawks needed a goal to stay in this one and the 4th line delivered 5 minutes into the final frame. Right as a Hawks penalty expired Brendan Smith turns one over beautifully to a wide open Marcus Kruger who kisses the post with a wrister to even the game at 4.
The Hawks did a good job of not letting up a goal right after one of their own this time. Holding the Wings to only 6 shots all period, the Hawks stave off any threat and take the game to OT.
OT: Again the Blackhawks are able to really shut down any Detroit chances and limit the Wings to 2 shots the whole ot period. Unfortunately, the Hawks were unable to score themselves and to a shootout we go.
Notes:
This is how much I think of the shootout these days, it’s now part of my notes. Wings win in the 6th rd of the shootout, so I suppose as shootouts goes this was a good one.
If ever you wanted to take a wife, girlfriend, friend etc and make a hockey fan of them, show them an overtime period. OT’s are thrilling with the back and forth, the four on four is just great entertainment. I wish mightily they would keep the same format and make the period longer, 20 mins, sudden death, whatever.
Seriously respect the guy, but c’mon Babcock. Are you really still rocking a live strong bracelet? Hopefully it’s as a friend of Lance’s showing some support, he couldn’t be that far removed from trend could he?
The Hawks have done something I haven’t seen before now twice in one week first it was the own goal by Kane and then Saad getting two penalties in one. I suppose I knew you could do both, but hadn’t seen either. Saad gets an initial penalty for Hooking and then one on the penalty delay for slashing. I guess maybe he didn’t like that both Tatar and Jurco spell their Tomas without an H? Funny stuff, didn’t result in anything, but can you imagine if it happened at this point in the game last time these two met?
Crawford looked ok, so did Gustavsson.
Bickell “hit a few guys,” but he is bad bad paper.
Abdelkader is an annoying prick but he’s exactly what a Bickell should be, won’t ever happen though.
Michael Calvert
