HAWKS EVEN SERIES WITH BIG BEN OUT
Saad scores winner with injured Tampa goalie Bishop missing game
When coach Jon Cooper addressed reporters after Game 2 with that Every Mother’s Son look of utter sincerity and said, “We’re not going to put anyone in the game who’s going to be in harm’s way of hurting himself,” his nose didn’t grow so much as a single inch.
Sure, Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Ben Bishop had just limped and crawled his way to a 3-2 victory, clearly gutting it out on a bad (knee/ankle/groin/ whatever) left over from Game 2, but you know how paramount player safety is in the National Hockey League.
We’ll pause here and allow the laughter to subside.
So out came the Lightning for warm-up prior to Game 4 of this weird, wild, wonderful Stanley Cup Final, led by rookie goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy and followed in short order by his backup, Latvian Olympic sensation Kristers Gudlevskis. No Bishop. Re-injured? Most likely. Just resting, like the Norwegian Blue parrot nailed to the perch in the Monty Python sketch? Less likely.
But don’t bet against Bishop being back in the net Saturday for Game 5, with a little something to dull the pain, because the goal that evened the series Wednesday night for the Chicago Blackhawks was the kind commentators would diplomatically call “one Vasilevskiy would love to have back.”
Seven seconds after little-used defenceman Kimmo Timonen rang a point shot off the crossbar — the third time a Chicago shot hit iron in the game — Brandon Saad was allowed to walk out from the left-hand corner by defender Anton Stralman, and beat Vasilevskiy’s five-hole with a half-fanned backhand of his own rebound at 6:22 of the third period.
It broke a 1-1 tie, and the goalie no one was talking about, Chicago’s Corey Crawford, took it from there, denying a ferocious effort by the Lightning over the final 10 minutes and preserving the Blackhawks’ victory, despite being outshot 25-19.
It was the fourth straight onegoal game, the first time a Cup final series has begun that way since 1968, when the Canadiens swept St. Louis.
“Bish is going to play again in this series, no question, but I don’t know which game,” Cooper said, post-game.
If the Hawks thought they’d drawn a break with Bishop’s surprise scratch, they did precious little about it, serving three penalties and managing just two shots on goal, both from the perimeter, in the opening period.
It took the home side eight minutes to get the first puck on Vasilevskiy and nearly seven more to get the second, and neither of them could be called a test of the 20-year-old’s nerves, though he did spill rebounds on both of them.
Vasilevskiy was the youngest goalie to start a Stanley Cup Final game since Montreal rookie Patrick Roy in 1986, and just the sixth in NHL history to get his first playoff start in the series final.
The last time it happened, it was Jussi Markkanen replacing injured Dwayne Roloson in the Edmonton goal, a 5-0 loss to Carolina.
“You tell me coming in he’s only going to give up two goals, that’s a hell of a job in my book,” Cooper said.
But when the Hawks took the lead on their fourth shot, 6:40 into the second period, it was another uncontrolled rebound, this one of Marian Hossa’s shot which Patrick Sharp — elevated by coach Joel Quenneville to the No. 1 line — chipped over to Jonathan Toews for the captain’s first goal of the final, and 10th of the playoffs.
The lead lasted just over five minutes. Chicago defenceman Brent Seabrook was about to be called for his third minor of the night, for dumping Steven Stamkos, when Val Filppula made a brilliant pass from behind the goal that caught Crawford looking the wrong way and left half an open net for Alex Killorn’s ninth of the post-season.
And that was that until Brad Richards won a faceoff to Vasilevskiy’s right, and Saad, who’s been as good as any Chicago forward in the playoffs, drove the net for the game-winner.
“I love his game tonight,” said Quenneville, who likened his juggling of the lines to the mystery surrounding the Lightning goaltending.
“There’s elements of surprise. We expected their other goalie in the net. So I guess it’s 50/50.”
Crawford had to make a series of wonderful saves near the end, though the best two chances for the Lightning, by Stamkos, never reached the net.
“I don’t know how one of those didn’t go in,” said Cooper.
One went wide, the second deflected that way off the stick of Seabrook, who otherwise had a rough night.
But he may have saved the game for his teammates in the dying seconds, and earlier, when he headed off an attempted wraparound by Ryan Callahan at the goalpost.