At seven minutes and twenty seconds into the second period of last night’s Flyers Blackhawks red light special, I attempted to completely divest my emotions from the game – Philadelphia had just taken a 4-3 lead on a Blair Betts slapshot, and the game and the series were completely up for grabs. It was clear that any joy or agonizing over a marker was futile – someone else would score within a few minutes. Once we got past the second intermission, the flow of the game settled into the sort of a contest that we are far more familiar with in playoff hockey, much to the delight of my blood pressure. A few thoughts of mine on the opening game of the Stanley Cup Finals:
Philadelphia set the tone early by sending the message that they were going to be a team that would at least try to forecheck the Blackhawks. Chicago has not been forced to deal with such a level of sustained pressure from the opposition in their own end throughout the postseason, and we saw dividends of that pressure paying off for the Flyers on the turnover-created goals that Mike mentioned. While the Flyers did seem to wear down as the game went on (shots were, period by period, 17, 9, and 6), the Blackhawks must adjust to the aggressive defensive nature of the Flyers and limit turnovers going forward.
I thought before the game that Marian Hossa could break out the goal scoring and have a real impact on this series. Instead, Hossa continued to do what he has done throughout the playoffs: possess the puck really well, kill penalties, and create offensive opportunities for his teammates. Hossa was a plus-two with two assists and just two shots in roughly eighteen minutes of ice time. This has been a good enough formula for the Hawks to win with (he lead the team in plus/minus to get them into the Stanley Cup Finals), but he is ultimately a goal scorer. Clearly the Hawks can win if he doesn’t light the lamp (he’s only done that two times in the playoffs), but it sure would make things a lot easier for Chicago if he did.
Instead of Hossa being the goal scorer, it was Tomas Kopecky who tallied the game –winning goal for the Blackhawks. As I watched Kopecky, I found clear similarities to his play to that of his fellow countryman Hossa. He has an impressive wingspan and skates strong with the puck which allows him to buy time and space. Hossa’s assist to Troy Brower on the fifth goal and Kopecky’s assist to Kris Versteeg on the fourth were virtual carbon copies of each other – numbers 81 and 82 created space behind the net and fed it out to the slot for numbers 22 and 32 respectively. Kopecky was only dressing because of the injury to Andrew Ladd, and with his performance, my guess is that if Ladd is ready to go for game two, either Ben Eager or Adam Burish will find himself the odd-man-out.
The play of what has been called “the best line in hockey” by some in the national media was both good news and bad news for the Blackhawks. Unfortunately, it was only good news because the Hawks found a way to win despite Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Dustin Byfuglien all posting minus-threes with no points. The play of Toews especially was troubling for Chicago fans. While Byfuglien was involved in battles with Chris Pronger in front of the net all night, and Kane managed to create space at times as he usually does, it seemed as if one could count the number of times that Doc Emrick used Toews name during play by play on one hand. He was simply not involved. The Blackhawks captain and best player needs to do better – he’s the key to that line as he can play goal line to goal line. Great for the Blackhawks to steal a game with this line playing so poorly, but they will not win the series unless their best players play like their best players in future games.
I don’t think that this was the game that either of these teams wanted to play. It was out of control for forty minutes, and the pace seemed to tire both teams, especially Philadelphia, by the end of the game. I expect game two to resemble the third period of game one to a far greater extent than it will resemble either of the first two periods. If the best Blackhawk line can get into gear and the rest of the team can give the Hawks half of the offensive production that they did in game one, the Hawks should be looking at a two to zero series lead going back to Philadelphia.
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