Tuesday, April 22, 2014 • Page 3
#CHIvsSTL Northwest Herald • NWHerald.com/sports
B LUES 0
BLACKHAWKS 2
GAME 3
BLUES LEAD SERIES, 2-1 Tweets from Game 3
My ears hurt. #Blackhawks #anthem @MorrisseyCST, Rick Morrissey El capitan.
@Ky1eLong, Kyle Long About 3 St. Louis Blues fans tried getting a “Let’s go Blues” chant going. It went nowhere. @ChuckGarfien, Chuck Garfien Corey Crawford is better with a white glove than Michael Jackson. #Blackhawks @mattlindner, Matt Lindner
AP photo
Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford (left) tries to keep St. Louis Blues left wing Alexander Steen (front) from getting a shot on goal as defenseman Duncan Keith also defends during the first period in Game 3 of a first-round playoff series Monday night at the United Center. The Hawks won, 2-0.
STRIKING BACK Crawford records his 3rd career postseason shutout BY MARK LAZERUS mlazerus@suntimes.com CHICAGO – Corey Crawford and Joel Quenneville had a chat Sunday. It didn’t take long. “The task at hand was pretty obvious,” Crawford said. “The performance we needed was obvious, too.” Crawford made a statement to his teammates and his coach by calling himself out after allowing goals late in Games 1 and 2, then losing in overtime. He made a bigger one Monday by bouncing back with a 2-0 shutout of St. Louis in Game 3, making 34 saves and keeping the relentless Blues off the scoreboard in an excruciating third period. The Blackhawks now trail the first-round series 2-1, with Game 4 on Wednesday night at the United Center. The Hawks needed every one of those saves, as Crawford made Jonathan Toews’ early soft goal on Ryan Miller stand up for more than 50 tense minutes until Marcus Kruger’s empty-netter with 20 seconds left allowed the 22,112 fans at the United Center to finally exhxale.
Michal Handzus called it the Hawks’ worst third period of the series, as the Blues camped out in the offensive zone and peppered Crawford with 11 shots. But they never beat him. “They had the chances, we were kind of on our heels,” Handzus said. “But Crow played great and he stepped up, bigtime.” Toews was glad to see it. He also was glad to see him step up and assume responsibility after Game 2. “It just sets an example for everyone in this room when you have guys with attitudes like that, that are very selfless and not thinking about themselves and whether they’re being criticized or not,” Toews said. “He wants to win. That’s all that matters to him. And I think that shows a lot to the rest of the guys in the room.” With the score so close and the stakes so high, everything else – the scrums, the dirty play, the revenge for Brent Seabrook’s high hit that knocked out Blues captain David Backes and earned Seabrook a three-game suspension – faded away. It was two very good teams
playing very good hockey. And the Blues were the better team for much of the night, playing their best game of the series. They dominated the puck and kept the pressure on Crawford all night. But Crawford stood tall to record his third career postseason shutout. He got plenty of help by the likes of Niklas Hjalmarsson and Handzus, who blocked several shots on the penalty kill; Sheldon Brookbank, who stepped in admirably for Seabrook; and Bryan Bickell, who delivered a game-high eight hits while staying within the bounds of legality. In all, the Hawks blocked 24 shots and killed three power plays – offsetting a dreadful power play (0 for 4) and an offense that was suffocated by the Blues. Toews’ seemingly harmless wrist shot four minutes into the game somehow went through Miller’s legs, and that’s all it took. Blues coach Ken Hitchcock called it his team’s “best game by far.” “We did a lot of the things we needed to do to win the hockey game, but you’ve got to give their goalie credit,” he said. “He was good, especially late.”
Defensive player of the year: Hjalmarsson’s torso. @amandakaschube, Amanda Kaschube Much tamer game between #Blackhawks & #Blues tonight, except for the last older couple on the kiss cam who decided to tongue at each other!! @peggykusinski, Peggy Kusinski So the Blackhawks will have the lead in the third period. What could go wrong? @cotsonika, Nick Cotsonika Tonight’s shoot-the-puck winner at the UC will get to play on the Hawks’ top power-play unit in the third period. #CHIvsSTL @Schaumy, Jason Schaumburg My gosh. Get it out of the zone, get some offense, and add a goal. #Hawks @WaddleandSilvy, Silvy Corey Crawford: shutdown goalie. And don’t you forget it, son. @alexquigley, Alex Quigley
Blues miss their injured captain, get blanked by Crawford CHICAGO – We all can agree that hockey is a brutal game. Players skating at high speed into other players. Players using sticks like scythes on each other. Players punching each other in the face. What says “good, clean fun” more than that? In the context of all of the above – I repeat, in the context of a sport in which nasty play is the norm – were the Blackhawks better off after Brent Seabrook knocked David Backes out of Saturday’s game, as well as Monday’s and possibly beyond? The honest answer is “yes.” It doesn’t mean you have to feel good about it. It doesn’t mean you condone the kind of head shot that Seabrook put on Backes. It doesn’t mean that Seabrook and the Hawks were trying to take Backes out of the series.
It just means that when the NHL suspended Seabrook for three games after he knocked Backes senseless in Game 2, the Hawks got the better end of it. Backes is more valuable to his team than Seabrook is to his. Simple. I’ll be surprised if Backes plays in Game 4 on Wednesday night. I won’t be surprised if he’s out longer than that. A cold way of looking at things? Arctic. But it’s a sober, clear-eyed analysis of how things work in the NHL. Unless the league wants to legislate aggression out of the game, basic math will always come to the fore, as it does in this case: Hawks minus Seabrook > Blues minus Backes. The Blues looked a lot less aggressive in Game 3 than they did in the first two games. Fewer Hawks left the ice limping.
VIEWS Rick Morrissey And the result was a 2-0 Hawks victory and a series that looks a little different today than it did two days ago. You can thank Corey Crawford (34 saves). The more hard-bitten Hawks fan (or the more honest one) will wonder whether Seabrook should get an assist. Backes is the best player on St. Louis’ roster, a two-way star who has an impact on games the way Jonathan Toews does. With Backes out, Patrik Berglund saw his first action of the series. Big difference in talent. How big a difference? “What would Chicago be like
without Toews?” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “For us, Backes is Toews. It’s a big hole, but I think we’re more equipped to handle this than we would have been without Bergie here.” The problem with the clearheaded, Hawks-Have-the-Advantage-Now angle was the human element involved. The Blues believed Seabrook’s shoulder-to-head hit was dirty and, worse, that one or more Hawks were taunting a dazed Backes afterward. Audio from the game seems to show Hawks defenseman Duncan Keith saying, “Wakey, wakey, Backes,” as the Blues star fought to stay upright on rubbery legs. There is no way to measure how emotion affects a team, but there was little doubt that St. Louis was fired up going into Game 3. Perhaps the Blues played harder for a while with-
out their captain, but at some point, it usually comes down to talent. I happen to think the Hawks had more of it than the Blues did before the series began, and even more after the Seabrook-for-Backes swap happened. Hitchcock believes the series will come down to effort. We’ll see. “[The Hawks] know that we’re not going away easy,” he said. “If we’re not good enough at the end, that’s fine, but we’re not going away in any game. This is the level we’re going to play at. “We get Backes back in the next two or three games, we’re going to go even higher. And if that isn’t good enough, that’s not good enough.”
• Rick Morrissey is a Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist who can be reached at rmorrissey@suntimes.com.