Crawford answers bell for his Hawks
Chicago goaltender withstands late Lightning flurry as Western Conference champs even series
CHICAGO — Corey Crawford’s head was spinning. Who could blame him? Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be a Tampa Bay Lightning player, spinning, manoeuvring, threatening to unleash the potential tying goal.
For the beleaguered Chicago Blackhawks goaltender, it seemed as if there were 20 guys in white jerseys dancing all around him.
It was so crazy, Crawford would say afterward, that “I had no idea how much time was left on the clock.”
More often than not, the expectation would have been for Crawford to crack. Too many times in this 2015 Stanley Cup final, he had done exactly that. There were a handful of goals he’d allowed in the first three games that had a distinct odour to them.
But with his team down 2-1 in games entering Game 4, Crawford did not crumble. Anything but.
“He was a wall,” teammate Brad Richards said.
Despite a chaotic scramble around the Chicago net, including two prime scoring chances by Steven Stamkos as the clock ticked down in the final minute, Crawford brilliantly held the fort, going from zero to hero en route to helping the Blackhawks post a 2-1 victory Wednesday night.
“I thought he was outstanding tonight,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “You can call this a goalie win.”
A goalie win. There’s something the Hawks No. 1 puckstopper hasn’t heard much of. This, remember, is a guy who had been slagged for perceived sub-par performances in Games 2 and 3, thanks in part to some questionable short-side goals that had managed to squeeze by or through him.
Crawford Bashing isn’t anything new in these parts. But Quenneville knows that his goalie can handle it. Heck, two years earlier, he helped them win a Stanley Cup, beating the Boston Bruins in the final.
“Goaltenders often get a lot more scrutiny,” Quenneville said.
“(But) he always finds a way to push through it. He’s a battler. He showed that in (2013).”
What Crawford has been battling recently is criticism. Wednesday night’s 24-save performance should muzzle some of that.
“It was probably one of my best games of the last few,” Crawford said. “Then again, you can’t think about what happened before. You have got to worry about what’s next.”
This wasn’t easy. Quenneville didn’t expect this to be. Neither did Crawford. Or Jonathan Toews, who scored his first goal of the series. Or Brandon Saad, whose outstanding drive to the net resulted in the winning goal at 6:22 of the third.
“It’s a pretty big difference going back 2-2 instead of being down 3-1,” Crawford said. “This one was pretty important for us.”