by Gatekeeper
The Blackhawks made a rare "FOUR O'CLOCK START" Sunday against the Redwings at the United Center. Even Lady Gaga and her hunky boyfriend, Chicago Fire's Kelly Severide, were in attendance. Luckily for the Blackhawks, Pavel Datsyuk was NOT in attendance, though. The Hawks still had to deal with those young Detroit speedsters, which could prove to be a task in and of itself.
Looks like the Blackhawks were much more ready for this tilt than they were for the Bruins on Thursday. The Hawks were up 1-0 before the crowd was able to sit back in their seats for the anthem, and were up 2-0 before the game was ten minutes old. They managed those 2 goals on 11 shots, with the Wings finding the back of the net once on 8 shots. Not a bad start, but it wouldn't continue.
The Redwings completely dominated the second period, at one point out shooting the Blackhawks 12-1. It really didn't get much better, with the period totals ending up 13-3. Luckily for the Hawks, their goaltender held the Redwings to a scoreless period. That is the only good news for the middle frame as far as the Blackhawks were concerned.
Apparently they just took the middle period off because they came out and started up where they left off following the first period. They gave up 13 shots, but had 12 of their own and had 2 goals. This was plenty to walk away with a season sweep of the Wings. Oh how sweet it is.
- It took the Blackhawks exactly one shift and twenty one seconds to take a 1-0 lead. Patrick Kane led a 2-on-1 after picking up the puck at the red line. Kane skated up the wing and snapped a wrist shot through Mrazek. Just that quick Kan had his career high in points and the lone assist went to Rozsival. His 300th of his career.
- With about 5 minutes gone in the first period, after the penalty against Toews, Duncan Keith made the game 2-0 with a long shot from the point. Eddie then went on a jaunt about how even though Mrazek was screened by two of his teammates, he shouldn't have stared them down after because they are good players. Fuck that! It's hard enough getting screened by opponents. Either block the shot or be prepared to be held accountable when you completely stick it directly in your goalie's ass. No excuses. Especially when your dopey teammates earn you a spot on the bench opening the door, like this instance.
- Just past the halfway point of the third period, the Blackhawks went to the powerplay and wasted no time. Artem Anisimov deflected a long Artemi Panarin slapshot up and over Jimmy Howard's shoulder.
- Sixty eight seconds after the Anisimov goal, Jonathan Toews had an Andrew Desjardins shot go off the inside of his knee and into the net to expand the Blackhawks lead to 4-1.
- The Blackhawks were 2-for-3 on the powerplay. Nothing to complain about there.
- Crawford made 33 saves and held the Blackhawks together when they were getting absolutely smoked, in the second period.
- I have to give Michal Rozsival credit. When I noticed him, he was making smart, safe plays. Might be the best game I've seem him play this year.
- A couple of minutes after the Keith goal the Wings took advantage of a borderline offsides play, and caught Trevor van Riemsdyk without his stick. Gustav Nyquist ended up with the puck on his stick and snapped a roofer over Crawford.
- Trevor van Riemsdyk has been an adventure lately. He got caught playing grab ass leading to him losing his stick and, eventually, standing thee watching the Nyquist goal right in front of his face.
- Jonathan Toews beat Brendan Smith after Seabrook and Fleichmann put in some nice work to clear the zone on an early 4-on-4. Toews went down and hit the boards awkwardly and came up favoring his left arm. That's all the Hawks need at this point.
- Just a minute after the Nyquist one of my favorite Wings players, Andreas Athanasiou split Seabrook and Gustafsson but was too close to get a shot off so he dropped the puck to Teemu Pulkkinen while Seabrook completely took Crawford out. Pulkkinen then proceeded to ignore the gaping net and hit Seabrook right square in the dookie.
- The third line had a rough night scraping the bottom of the corsi sheet.
- Thanks to that strong second period the Wings had a pretty healthy overall team corsi advantage.
Ladd - Toews - Shaw
Panarin - Anisimov - Kane
Desjardins - Teravainen - Fleischmann
Panik - Rasmussen - Weise
Keith - Hjalmarsson
Gustafsson - Seabrook
van Riemsdyk - Rozsival
