Any given Friday, right?
The Chicago Blackhawks thumbed their noses at the doubters who bristled at their very inclusion in the NHL’s 24-team playoff format, and ushered the vaunted Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers from the postseason with a 3-2 win in Game 4 of the best-of-five series.
For the 57th time in franchise history, the Hawks won a postseason series. The Hawks are now the Western Conference’s eighth seed and will face either the Vegas Golden Knights or Colorado Avalanche in a best-of-seven first-round series.
“Right from the first game we showed we were ready and committed to doing the little things that give you a chance to win,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “So we still learned some lessons throughout the series and certainly the last period and tonight.”
The Hawks jumped all over an unprepared Oilers team in Game 1 — “shell-shocked” was how Edmonton coach Dave Tippett put it — then took Game 2’s counter-punch before capitalizing on mistakes in Games 3 and 4.
“We know we can play better but we found a way to win,” Colliton said.
Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are now 17-5 in series clinchers.
Here are 10 takeaways from Game 4 and the entire Blackhawks-Oilers series.
1. Jonathan Toews wrestled a Bear — Ethan Bear — and won, just one way he helped his line come up big.
On Dominik Kubalik’s game-winning goal in Game 4, Jonathan Toews engaged in a vigorous board battle with Oilers defenseman Ethan Bear, giving him a little shove and pushing the puck to Kubalik, who dropped to a knee and fired short side past goalie Mikko Koskinen.
“It was huge,” Kubalik said. “I just tried to end up in their zone to get us going a little bit and the battle was huge, and (I) was just trying to find a spot there and shoot it as quick as possible. So happy that it went in.”
Coach Jeremy Colliton said of Toews, “To me his biggest attribute that he has is his compete level. He wins a 50-50 battle on the winning goal, just finds a way to come up with the puck, and that’s the winner.”
Toews was huge in the series, scoring four goals and adding three assists (seven points) in four games.
“He leads by example,” Brandon Saad said. “He says the right things. The experience he has, the respect he has in the room. … It starts from the top with him, and when the team buys into that, we’re going to have success.”
A side note and some nitpicking: Toews moved out of a tie with Denis Savard and into second place with 132 playoff games played.
It’s great that the NHL adds such statistics to players’ playoff totals, but unnecessarily confusing to call this a “play-in” series in the first place. For what purpose? To appease the purists that would’ve taken issue with a 24-team “playoff” format that included certain “undeserving” teams? So, we have “qualifiers” instead. Unless we’re talking about statistics — those are playoff stats. But now it’s all playoffs because, well, we said so. Got it. Makes total sense.
2. Corey Crawford had an outstanding night.
“Crow” seemed like he used every part of his pads to make his 43 saves, the sixth time in the postseason he has stopped 40 or more shots in regulation. In the series, Corey Crawford had .891 save percentage and a 3.75 goals against average.
But the box score doesn’t reveal the hurdles he traversed to make it this far. He contracted COVID-19, and as result missed the voluntary workouts and all but the last day of training camp in Chicago. He had to get his legs under him quickly and track pucks again after not seeing meaningful game action since mid-March with just an exhibition game in Edmonton as a warm-up.
“Obviously it wasn’t the best scenario,” Crawford said. “I would have liked to have had a few more weeks of practice and see more pucks coming into the series. But it is what it is.
Crawford said he felt better each game, but still isn’t 100%.
“I think there’s still some work to do.”
3. Dominik Kubalik joins some elite company.
Dominik Kubalik became the fourth Hawks rookie to score a series-clinching goal, joining Darryl Sutter (1980), Steve Larmer (1983) and Jeremy Roenick (1990).
Kubalik scored two power play goals in Game 1 and had three assists. And then to cap it off, he scored the go-ahead goal in Game 4.
“To be honest, I didn’t even take a look at the net.”
Kubalik, the leading scorer among rookies (30 goals), took advantage of the NHL shutdown.
“I tried to get ready,” he said. “Those four months, I tried to get my game back, because after a little while, you just need to get going right away. The first game helped me a lot, but after that, you just want to keep going.”
4. It got weird in the Oilers postgame press conference. And why are we talking this much about Calgary?
The Oilers said they give the Hawks credit for winning the series, but it sure didn’t sound like they meant it.
Connor McDavid called Game 1 “a wash.” (Um, the Hawks won that game handily.)
He said the Hawks’ Game 3 win came down to “bounces,” as in the “lucky bounces” a teammate mentioned Thursday.
Coach Dave Tippett said the Oilers “dominated” the second half of Game 4. (Really?)
But, hey, judge the full comments for yourself.
McDavid: “I thought we had our moments. Obviously, Game 1 — wash. Game 2 was ours. (Game) 3, bounces. Tonight, whatever, just same type of thing. You know what, they’re real good. Give them credit.”
Tippett: “I thought we were a little shell-shocked coming out in Game 1. … Second game, I thought we were very good right throughout our lineup. Third game was a real even game and the fourth game tonight, if you look at the back half of that game, I thought we dominated the game but we didn’t win the game.”
Even stranger was when defenseman Darnell Nurse said the Oilers showed most of their postseason intensity during the tune-up against the Calgary Flames.
Tippett later disagreed, but Nurse said, “I think a big focus of ours was to bring that type of intensity and we didn’t.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins seemed to suggest the Flames used more physicality, while the Hawks play a “different” game.
“They don’t get into that too much, they want to play the skill game, and they capitalize on their opportunities,” he said.
We’re talking about a practice game. Not a play-in game. Not the playoffs. Practice.
5. The underdogs got the last laugh.
The No. 12 Montreal Canadiens put a real damper on Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby’s 33rd birthday, advancing in the Eastern Conference with a 3-1 series victory.
The No. 11 Arizona Coyotes beat the No. 6 Nashville Predators 4-3 in overtime, clinching their series in four games too.
There’s no disputing that if not for the pandemic, it’s likely that none of the low-seeded winners would have made the traditional 16-team playoffs.
But those are the breaks in a return-to-play world. Win the games you’re given.
Jonathan Toews knows some may be riled by the Hawks — the last entry in the West — advancing in a short series. As someone who has been through three title runs and nine (going into his 10th) playoffs, he has heard it all — good and bad.
“There’s always going to be maybe unwarranted praise and criticism,” he said. “So I think our core group has done a good job of not listening to either. You miss the playoffs for a couple years, you’re bound to have people come down you a little bit.
“I don’t think any of that’s fazed us. We were pretty eager to get this chance and show what we can do. Technically we just made the playoffs now, so the real fun begins.”
6. The pause helped the Hawks.
The four-month pause let young players like rookie Kirby Dach digest the season, allowed veteran defenseman Calvin de Haan to recuperate from shoulder surgery and just let other players mentally or physically regroup.
After a five-game winning streak in mid-January, the Hawks lost six of their next seven.
“It’s very helpful,” said Brandon Saad, who scored the Hawks’ first goal Friday. “We weren’t playing maybe our best hockey. Even extending the playoffs to 24 teams helps us, so just getting that opportunity is huge for our team.
“Then you have that few-month break to rest, heal up, recover and prepare for whatever comes in store.”
7. Matthew Highmore made up for some growing pains.
In Game 3, Matthew Highmore’s costly turnover led to a Leon Draisaitl goal. But then his third-period goal tied the game.
In Game 4, his slashing penalty helped set up Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ second-period goal. But that’s after Highmore’s marker put the Hawks ahead 2-1 in the first period.
Before the season pause, Highmore had two goals in 36 games this season.
8. Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Kirby Dach ‘just keeps getting better.’
The Hawks are the youngest team in the postseason, but they’re not just bench-warmers. Kirby Dach made a noticeable progression in training camp and that growth played out in the Oilers series.
He had four assists in three games, was a good screener and power-play contributor, and was such a compliment to Patrick Kane — along with usual linemate Alex DeBrincat — that they pulled Kane from his usual line.
The heir apparent to Jonathan Toews has been learning on the fly.
“It’s a pretty good situation for Kirby to have guys like Toews and Kane and (Duncan Keith),” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “It speeds up the process for him.
“Kirby as the year goes on, he just keeps getting better. This playoffs here has brought out the best in him.”
9. The Hawks weathered an Oilers onslaught as desperation set in.
The Oilers took 15 shots in the second period — including seven high-danger chances — and a whopping 20 in the third.
Granted, you’ll get a lot of desperate attempts in the last period of potential series clincher, but the Oilers controlled the puck 70% of the third period and had 71% of the scoring chances.
The Hawks helped out goalie Corey Crawford, blocking 21 shots for the game.
“Our D men — our forwards too — everyone was helping out in our zone,” Crawford said. “It seems like there was a lot of pucks laying around our net in the third period when they were pressing and our guys did a great job of getting sticks and letting me cover it or clear it.”
More importantly, the Hawks killed all five penalties and survived a total of 51 minutes between Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, as well as 25 minutes from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored his second goal of the series in the second period.
And they completely neutralized late-season wonder Kailer Yamamoto, who was playing in his first postseason. He had no points and took only three shots in the series.
“We never really got our A-game going,” Draisaitl said. “Without that, this league’s too good to beat anyone. That’s obviously very frustrating.”
With seven minutes and 41 seconds left in the third period, coach Dave Tippett reunited the Dynamite Line that had shown so much late-season chemistry — Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins and Yamamoto — but it was too little too late.
The McDavid and Draisaitl pairing also had regular-season success early on, but Tippett hardly put them together in five-on-five situations either, a strategy that has been criticized.
He explained his thinking.
“It’s too easy to say, ‘Oh, that line scored a lot,'” Tippett said. “… You can’t be a one-line team and expect to win on a consistent basis. We’re trying to balance our team long-term, not to have one line go out there and feel like they’re getting everything done. You’re not going to win like that.”
10. Whether it’s the Avalanche or Golden Knights, the Hawks aren’t in Kansas anymore.
Who should the Hawks root for in Saturday’s round-robin game to determine the top seed in the Western Conference?
The Hawks went 1-1-1 against the Golden Knights and 1-3-0 against the Avalanche.
“Yeah, both excellent teams,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. They’ve had great seasons and they’re coming into this playoffs with the expectation that they’re gonna win the Cup. It’s a great challenge for us and I’m happy that we get the opportunity to prepare for them and compete against them.”
The Westgate Las Vegas sports book gave the Golden Knights 6-1 odds (Avalanche at 8-1) of winning the Stanley Cup, but only the third-best chance of winning the West’s No. 1 spot. Which just goes to show what Vegas knows about, um, Vegas.
Here is more coverage of Game 4.
No need to use the “play-in” disclaimer anymore, the Chicago Blackhawks officially are a playoff team.
The 12th-seeded Hawks beat the No. 5 Edmonton Oilers 3-2 Friday night on a third-period strike by Dominik Kubalik to advance to the Western Conference first round, where, as the lowest seed, they’ll play the winner of Saturday’s round-robin game between the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights.
“To be honest, I didn’t take a look at the net,” Kubalik said. “I was just trying to shoot it as quick as possible and take a one-timer if I can.”
Kubalik is the first Hawks rookie to score multiple game-winning goals in a postseason.
It’s the first time the Hawks have won a postseason series since winning the 2015 Stanley Cup. They were swept by the Nashville Predators in their 2017 first-round series and lost to the St. Louis Blues in seven games in the first round of the 2016 playoffs.
The Hawks are now 57-30-3 in potential series-clinching games.
The Hawks were down 1-0 on Josh Archibald’s goal 45 seconds into the game, but they answered with first-period goals by Brandon Saad and Matthew Highmore, who snuck a deflection into the net for the second straight game.
“Across our lineup guys stepped up their game,” Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews said. “Got a lot of young guys, not a ton of playoff experience, showing what they can do.”
Corey Crawford had an outstanding second period, facing 15 shots — with six high-danger chances, according to NaturalStatTrick.com — stopping all but a goal by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins seconds after an Oilers power play expired. The Hawks had just nine shots on Mikko Koskinen in the period after putting up 12 in the first.
Alex DeBrincat drew a five-minute major for boarding Ethan Bear in the second period, but Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse killed off two minutes of his team’s power play by interfering with Drake Caggiula.
The Hawks got lucky in the third when Andreas Athanasiou hit the post on an open shot on Crawford’s left side.
Crawford came up big again in the period when he gloved what looked like a sure rebound goal by Zack Kassian.
Crawford had 43 saves in the game, including all eight shots he faced during Oilers power plays.
“I felt better each game, playing each game, seeing different scenarios,” Crawford said.
The Hawks got a power play with two minutes remaining after the Oilers were called for too many men on the ice but opted to kill the clock.
The series victory was significant not only because the Hawks pulled off an unlikely upset as the No. 12 seed. The win showed the team’s championship window hasn’t shut just yet, Toews said.
“There’s always going to be maybe unwarranted praise and criticism,” he said. “Our core group has always done a good job of not listening to either. … We were pretty eager to get this chance and show what we can do. Technically, we just made the playoffs now, so the real fun begins.”
