St. Louis — It’s hard to knock out the champs.
The Chicago Blackhawks were living on the edge in what was essentially a do-or-die game Friday, faced with the grim task of having to come back from two games down to the dogged St. Louis Blues, and got all the breaks for a 3-2 victory to tie the series.
After Vladimir Tarasenko appeared to score his second of the night midway through the third to give the Blues a 2-1 lead, the Hawks called a goalie’s challenge, claiming Jori Lehtera was offside before he set up Tarasenko in the slot. With new cameras on the blue line in the playoffs to better gauge offside calls, they determined the skate blade was barely illegal and the goal was wiped out.
Then with 4:19 left, Hawks’ disturber Andrew Shaw, who had been slashed by Tarasenko to give the Hawks a power play, appeared to bump Blues’ goaltender Brian Elliott in the blue paint just as he shoved it in with his stick. The Blues called their coach’s challenge, but lost it when the NHL’s War Room didn’t feel the versatile Shaw had interfered with the game Elliott, who argued strongly but to no avail.
The Hawks also caught a break with 3.2 seconds left in the middle frame when Trevor van Riemsdyk didn’t bust his butt on an icing and they allowed it. On the ensuing face-off, defenceman Duncan Keith, who had missed the first game because of a suspension, blew a screened shot by Elliott to tie it 1-1.
Artemi Panarin got an empty-netter with 86 seconds left for the Hawks and defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk got a second goal for the Blues with two seconds to play to make it a one-goal game.
Should we have expected a sudden, different script?
Like run ‘n gun as it was in Florida of their game one with the Islanders when we got nine goals?
Nah. The Blues and Hawks have played seven games this season, regular-season and playoffs, and the game’s been tied 87.5 percent of the total minutes. Three of the league games went to overtime, and the last two times they’ve met in the post-season (2104 and this spring), six of those eight games have gone past the 60 minutes.
Elliott, whose nickname is Moose because a father figure named ‘Moose’ took him hunting as a kid and the goalie has a picture of Bullwinkle on the back of his mask, and Crawford, who was only starting his third game in a month because a concussion, were both terrific.
Tarasenko, who has 12 goals in 15 career playoff games, and Keith scored in a frenetic second period.
Tarasenko whipped his first shot past Crawford’s blocker after Lehtera bulled Michal Rozsival off the puck and Jaden Schwartz put it on a tee for Tarasenko who was almost invisible in the opener with one shot over 69 minutes of play in St. Louis 1-0 OT victory.
“What are the odds you can keeping winning when Vlad only gets one shot a game? Not good,” said Blues’ coach Ken Hitchcock after the morning skate, fully cognizant that his gunslinger doesn’t need many openings from danger areas to score, and the goal on Crawford was his wheelhouse.
“He’s not afraid of the stage. He doesn’t shirk any responsibility when the light shines the brightest.”
The Hawks tied it just before the final whistle in the second, however. After an iffy icing call when Hawks’ D-man van Riemsdyk appeared to have it in first gear as he worked his way back on the puck and got a whistle. They won a face-off. Jonathan Toews won the draw, got the puck to Patrick Kane who in turn fed the puck to Keith whose 50-footer’s sailed through a forest of arms and legs past Elliott. He had stopped 53 straight Hawks’ shots over two games until that one found the net.
As wild as the second frame was with 32 total shots and the Blues outhitting Chicago 18-6, it was a ponderous first period where the Hawks could barely get out of their own way.
They had two measly two shots, and they had a power play when Patrik Berglund got a stick into van Riemsdyk’s face. The first came even-strength 11 /2 minutes in from 6’8″ rookie D-man Viktor Svedberg from the blueline, infield practice for Elliott who gloved it. The second by Kane was tougher, an arm stop with 90 seconds left.
At the other end, Crawford had to make two strong saves—one on Tarasenko in a scramble and the other in the slot from Alex Pietrangelo—in a suffocating opening 20 minutes where there were only nine total shots. The Blues had a power play too, but got nothing done on it.
ON THE BENCH: Apart from Keith being back and Erik Gustafsson out on the back-end, they took out fourth-line banger Brandon Mashinter for the more skilled but pacifist winger Richard Panik. They scratched their trade-deadline pickup Dale Weise for a second straight game.
