Blackhawks Beat Canucks in OT, Tie Series
May 8, 2009 by Jeanne Dupuis
Filed under Chicago Blackhawks, NHL Playoffs, Vancouver Canucks
I’m not sure what was going on with the Vancouver Canucks tonight but the Chicago Blackhawks managed to skate away with a 2-1 victory, tying the Western Conference semifinal series.
In what must be called an amazing comeback, Andrew Ladd received the puck from teammate Dave Bolland (Chicago) and tipped it right in behind Luongo to secure the victory. It felt like poetic justice since, with less than 10 seconds left in regulation, Bolland was on a breakaway and Vancouver’s Alexander Edler caught up to him and either hooked or tripped him. Bolland went down and the crowd at the United Centre (along with the coach and GM) was screaming for a penalty and it never happened. That was one of the more disappointing failures in officiating I’ve seen in this series.
It was crazy because the score had been 1-0 in favor of the Canucks for what felt like an eternity and the, all of a sudden, with less than three minutes left in the game, Martin Havlat sprung to life and tied the game. “We were a couple of minutes away from winning this game,” Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said. “It happened. We’ve got to deal with it and get ready for the next game.”
Well, that was definitely a problem but the thing that Vigneault should really be concerned about is the fact that Chicago netminder, Nikolai Khabibulin, only had to make 14 saves whereas Vancouver goalie, Roberto Luongo, turned away 26 shots on goal. If Vancouver is going to compete with a young, fast team like Chicago, they are going to have to shoot the puck a lot more than 15 times.
Game 5 is Saturday night in Vancouver and the Canucks will have to
image: TSN
