What a great series.
Even in losing, man, the Tampa Bay Lightning are one tremendous hockey team, in many ways a mirror image of the Hawks’ playing style, but younger—and fresher right now.
I pointed out on my message board thread yesterday how dependent the Blackhawks are in this series on good performances by Corey Crawford. Last night, they got a great one.
In Game 1, Crawford was terrific. In Games 2 and 3, not so much. Last night, “on” again. W, L, L, W. Connect the dots.
The difference between the two teams seems to be coming down to more depth and legs for the Tampa defense. Much more. The Hawks are now basically down to somewhere between 3 and 4 defensemen—with a tough, tough 26 minute performance last night by an injured Johnny Oduya.
Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook were both outstanding last night, ushering Crawford out of trouble in a few occasions. But both were clearly tired. More on that in a minute.
What this means is for the Hawks to win in this series, again, Crawford has to be the better goalie. He will see likely more shots and quality chances against over the next 2-3 games. At the same time, the Hawks need to put more pucks on the Tampa Bay netminder and definitely have bodies in front of the net to both screen and pick up some of the slop that is laying there.
I am not here to condemn Andrei Vasilevskiy by any means—he has a great future in the NHL. However, I am not jumping on his bandwagon just yet either.
He gave up two goals on 17 shots, and the Hawks hit two posts, a crossbar and just missed some open sides. Vasilevskiy has all the physical tools, but he looked last night like you would expect a 20 year old to in his first Stanley Cup Final start: pretty shaky at times, a couple of nice saves, but also giving up a lot of rebounds because the speed of the Hawks and their shots was catching him off guard.
Will he adjust? Eventually. Question is, will it be in Game 5, or later, or not in this series at all? Or will the Hawks see Ben Bishop again in game 5? A healthy Ben Bishop that is.
For Chicago, that is the big regret you have thus far in this series, you haven’t put enough pressure on an injured #1 goalie, nor on his inexperienced backup.
Credit there goes to Tampa’s defense which is as tough as nails over 200 feet of ice. But it’s likely not going to change. The Hawks have to battle through it.
An ongoing problem for the Hawks is they can’t (or didn’t) attack in layers. Either because of fatigue or Tampa’s speed or both, Hawk defensemen are laying back too much, creating too wide a gap between themselves and the forwards at times.
A 2-day rest going into Game 5 should assuage some of that—at least as far as fatigue. The Hawk Top 4 has been here before. All things considered—playing time, nicks and dings—they look OK. And they need to be, because the Hawks are just not getting anything from Trevor van Riemsdyk and got, meh, from Kimmo Timonen in limited minutes last night. Actually “meh” is an improvement for Timonen who nearly scored what would have been a huge goal and aside from taking a penalty, wasn’t terrible defensively last night.
Going back to my breakdown of series into Phases, now we enter Phase 3, which is basically Games 5 and 6, where series are typically won or lost.
Historically this has been when Patrick Kane and/or Jonathan Toews take over series. Not going to predict that here.
It appears safe to say that with how well the Lightning are playing, the problems they are giving the Hawks, and the fatigue of the Hawks’ top 4, the series may come down to Game 5—what would be an unlikely victory for Chicago on the road in Amalie, FL.
Some things are going well for the Hawks: Crawford has been huge in 2 of the 4 games and his history would indicate he will probably follow up well on Saturday. The penalty kill is dialed in, taking away the shootlng lanes, giving Tampa fits. And the Hawks have played well on the road throughout the playoffs and at times in Tampa.
Plus, Joel Quenneville appears to have his lines how he wants them now—there can and likely will be some continuity going into game 5. Jonathan Toews’ line didn’t miss a beat with Patrick Sharp replacing Brandon Saad, allowing Saad to give a lift to Brad Richards and Patrick Kane. Sharp had his best game of the playoffs last night.
It’s guys like Saad and Andrew Shaw, young players who have nonetheless won a Cup before that the Hawks will need to assert themselves over the next three games.
And kudos to Kris Versteeg, who played a smart, simple game last night in a third line role—and gave the Hawks a nice energy boost especially in the third period.
I’ll have more tomorrow.
JJ
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