The Blackhawks Will Rebound in Game 6
Watching Toews finish off the third period of Game 5, I thought that Chicago just had Anaheim’s number. But with a single bounce of Crawford early into OT, Anaheim took back their victory.
This certainly sets up a tough make-it-or-break-it game 6. Corey Perry always seems to come through when it is needed. The guy is always involved in goal scoring plays.
But I do believe the Blackhawks will win the next game and setup a winner takes all to decide the Western Conference Championship.
Second City Hockey makes some great lineup recommendations:
After Coach Q tinkered with the lineup in Game 3 — seemingly just for the sake of tinkering — most fans were left scratching their heads as to why and how he ever though that those changes would work out. But after last night, it might be time for Q to do some tinkering that actually makes sense, in the form of scratching Bryan Bickell and Kimmo Timonen.
Bickell was easily the worst forward on the ice Monday night for both teams. He was a consistent liability for the Hawks when the puck was in his vicinity. He rarely controlled even the easiest of passes that were sent his way, and even when he did, he did nothing constructive with the puck. At one point, Bickell had the puck while Patrick Kane was wide open at the blue line and calling for the pass. Bickell proceeded to dump the puck in, and Kane was so dumbfounded that he basically just stood there in disbelief for a moment. What could’ve been a scoring chance was wasted on a dumb play. Then there was the Ducks’ winning goal, which started with Bickell failing to get the puck deep into the Anaheim zone. All he had to do was chip it in, but he got greedy and tried to put it in hard, and instead put it right off the shin pads of the Anaheim defenseman. Bad all around.
Then there was Timonen, who saw only 8:03 of ice time but still managed to be a minus-2 in the game, with the second of those goals — the Ducks’ fourth of the game — arguably being his fault, as he failed to clear the puck out the zone (although you could also hang it on Patrick Sharp). He’s largely been a liability in this series, and last night’s game was a prime example. It’s tough to play so little and still have such a negative impact on a game. It might be time for him to come out of the lineup, even if he’s likely to retire this summer and it would be a disappointing way to end his career. Quenneville will surely take all that into consideration while trying to put together the best group possible.
The question is what you do in both cases. I guess with Timonen, you could scratch him in favor of David Rundblad, who was bad in Game 1 of this series, but might deserve another shot, especially with the way Timonen has looked. With Bickell, it’s a little more murky. You definitely don’t want to break up either of the first or third lines, because they’ve both looked great in this series. That rules out putting Sharp or Brandon Saad on the same line as Kane and Brad Richards. One option would be to scratch Bickell in favor of Joakim Nordstrom, who would play on the fourth line, and move Andrew Shaw up to the wing with Richards and Kane. Shaw has looked good when playing on the wing, so getting him on that line could pay off. It might not be ideal, but Bickell is not getting it done right now, and needs to be out of the lineup.
Image by Bridget Samuels.
