For hockey fans the only bad thing about the NHL's Western Conference final is that it has to end.
It has been a series for the ages, and Monday night’s 5-4 overtime win by the Anaheim Ducks over the Chicago Blackhawks was perhaps the best game of them all.
Going into the game, the Ducks had been outplaying the Hawks and deserved better than to have the series tied at 2-2. Anaheim had dominated in every area except the final score. The Ducks were definitely the aggressors.
While Chicago had blocked 67 shots, Anaheim players had put their bodies in the way of 118. While the Hawks had delivered 158 hits, Anaheim’s bruisers had dished out 220.
“No human can withstand that many hits,” the Ducks’ Ryan Kesler said after Game 4.
And maybe he was right, because Chicago were flat in the first period of Game 5. Fatigue seemed to have caught up to them, and especially to their overworked defensive core. Anaheim took the game’s first 10 shots and ended the period ahead 3-0. The Hawks rallied and chipped away at the Ducks’ lead but with two minutes left in the third period the score was 4-2.
Chicago pulled their goalie. With one minute and 50 seconds remaining the Hawks captain, Jonathan Toews, scored on a one-timer from the slot. After Anaheim called a time-out, Toews had possession in the corner, right on the red line. From that impossible angle he fired – and with 38 seconds left the puck went in off the far skate of the Anaheim goalie, Frederik Andersen.
Game tied. Overtime ahead.
The California crowd went quiet. Chicago seemed to have pulled off another miraculous escape.
But in the locker room before overtime began, the Ducks players gathered themselves.
What was their message to one another? “We had to go get it. It was our night. It’s our turn,” Matt Beleskey said later.
Forty-five seconds into overtime it was Beleskey who scored, wristing home the rebound of a shot by Kesler.
Twice before in this series games had gone to overtime. Both times the Hawks had eked out wins – Game 2’s escape in triple overtime (Anaheim hit three posts during the extra sessions) and Game 4’s victory in double overtime on an Antoine Vermette goal.
Part of what makes this series compelling, beyond the pace of play and the talent of the teams, is that it is a match-up of contrasting styles.
Anaheim have size and use it to punish opponents at every chance. Their size also enables them to absorb punishment, as Corey Perry does endlessly in the crease.
In contrast, the Blackhawks hold their positions and use their speed to attack suddenly.
Apparently, this debate goes back a ways because Sophocles provided the following bit of pre-game analysis in his play Ajax, around 24 centuries ago: “When it comes to the crunch,//it’s not the broad-backer bruiser one relies on,//it’s the one with common sense – he scores.”
The “one with common sense who scores”, that is the Blackhawks in a nutshell, and that is Toews, in particular. Whether in a game or a series, Chicago and their captain can never be counted out. And bear in mind that last year Anaheim led the Los Angeles Kings 3-2 in their series before the Kings fought back to win.
The Western champions will play the winners of the Tampa Bay-New York Rangers series. But, really, the Western final feels like the series to decide who wins the Stanley Cup. It is hockey at the highest level.
rmckenzie@thenational.ae
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