The Western Conference First Round series between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues has been pretty tight through two games. In Game 2, a successful challenge by the Blackhawks and an unsuccessful one by the Blues went in Chicago's favor and helped them even the best-of-7 series 1-1.
Andrew Shaw scored the tie-breaking power play goal with 4:19 remaining to give Chicago a 3-2 victory against the Blues at Scottrade Center on Friday. The Blues won, 1-0 in overtime in Game 1 on Wednesday. Game 3 is Sunday at United Center.
A 1-1 game turned quickly when a Blues overturned goal negated a 2-1 lead, and minutes later, Shaw's goal was upheld following a second review.
The Blues thought they had taken a 2-1 lead with 7:54 remaining in the third period when Vladimir Tarasenko scored from the slot off a pass from Jori Lehtera, but the Blackhawks challenged the play that Lehtera was offside, and the call was reversed after a lengthy delay. Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville screamed from the bench to get the officials' attention. The Blues didn't think so.
Shaw was on the doorstep of Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook's shot from the point and was able to pop a puck in from right in front of goalie Brian Elliott to break a 1-1 tie and even the series. The Blues challenged the play for goalie interference but the call of a good goal on the ice stood.
Corey Crawford made 29 saves for the Blackhawks. He got his 46th playoff win with the Blackhawks, passing Tony Esposito for first all time. Elliott made 26 saves for the Blues. Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith scored in his return to the lineup after serving a six-game suspension. He played a game-high 30:59 and had a goal and an assist.
Artemi Panarin scored an empty-net goal with 1:26 remaining to make it 3-1.
Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk scored with 1.1 seconds remaining to make it 3-2. Tarasenko's seventh goal in the past eight playoff games put the Blues ahead 1-0 after Lehtera forced a defensive zone turnover on Michal Roszival, Jaden Schwartz collected it and fed Tarasenko in the slot for a wrist shot at 15:20 of the second period. It was Tarasenko's 11th playoff goal in 15 games.
Chicago tied it late in the period and ended Elliott's shutout streak in the series at 109:00 when Keith's shot from the right point through a screen beat Elliott with 4.4 seconds remaining. After David Backes' icing, Toews won a faceoff from Lehtera, Patrick Kane deflected the puck to the point and Keith used Andrew Shaw for a screen. Kane had two assists.
Blues Quotes
David Backes: "I watched it a couple times and the puck kind of disappears behind Jori and there's a skate in the air or it's on the ice or where's the puck and all those things. I'm obviously a biased individual in what I think happened, but the unbiased guy said, and they had plenty of time to look at it, but we've got to take it up another notch and continue to execute and continue to play and they found a way to get on the power play and found a way to get an ugly one."Brian Elliott: "We have to put ourselves in a position where those calls don't make or break the game. I don't know what the rules are anymore. Every play is so different. It's up to the refs on the ice who make the call, not one person kind of calling everything. I don't know what the call is."
Hawks Quotes
Joel Quenneville: "Someone on the bench yelled, 'it's offside' and we got it late, I was screaming like a crazy man. They give you sometimes the benefit of the doubt. I don't know what the timeline is. This year, it's kind of new; I don't know if there's a real time limit, but I think they give you time to take a couple of looks at it. A player initially said it was offside. Then you have communication between the coach and video and says check it out, let's look at it. Had to get the referee's attention late. ... The offsides ones are the ones that are a little more clear. It's not the ones at the net with contact. There's a lot of leeway, a lot of interpretations, but the offsides are pretty straight, cut and dried."Andrew Shaw: "I didn't know if they were going to look at goalie interference or not, but I knew I was crosschecked from behind. I was confident it was a goal but obviously there was some doubt there as well."
Jonathan Toews: "[Keith's] energy's rubbing off everywhere. I keep saying he's a complete player. He's playing so well and he plays a lot of minutes and he's all over the rink too, jumping up in the play."
Patrick Kane: "Absolutely huge momentum shift. You talk about goals in the first minutes of periods and goals in the last minute. To have a faceoff with seven seconds left, [Toews] wins a draw, we get it back to [Keith] and he made a great shot. But the whole play doesn't happen if [Shaw] doesn't go to the net. Couple big plays by [Shaw] tonight. Just standing in front he gets rewarded with a goal and screens the goalie on the other one. We need more of that as the series goes on."
Other Results
Detroit @ Tampa Bay 2-5 - Game 2 - Bolts Lead Series 2-0Tyler Johnson scored twice and had two assists to lift the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 5-2 win against the Red Wings in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Amalie Arena on Friday. Tampa Bay has a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series. Game 3 will be Sunday at Joe Louis Arena. Nikita Kucherov, Brian Boyle, Alex Killorn also scored, and Ben Bishop made 30 saves for the Lightning.
Brad Richards and Dylan Larkin scored for the Red Wings, who have lost their last five games at Amalie Arena. Johnson's first goal gave the Lightning a 3-2 lead 6:32 into the third period. Killorn controlled the puck in the zone, went behind the net and Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard followed him. Killorn found Johnson in front of an open net for the tip-in. Kucherov set up Johnson's second goal at 14:48 of the third with a pass into the slot, and Johnson scored on the one-timer to make it 4-2. Killorn added an empty-net goal with 2:44 remaining.
Kucherov gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 15:17 of the first period with his third goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Tampa Bay had a 5-on-3 advantage after Gustav Nyquist and Justin Abdelkader were called for two-minute minors 27 seconds apart. Victor Hedman found Kucherov open in the right circle and he scored on a one-timer past Howard. Detroit tied the game 1-1 at 3:30 of the second period when Larkin took a cleared puck off the end boards, had a 1-on-1 with Bishop, and beat him with a shot through the five hole. The Lightning regained the lead 2-1 when Jonathan Drouin started a 3-on-2 rush and made a backhand pass to Boyle in the slot, who beat Howard on the stick side. It was Drouin's first NHL playoff point. Richards tied the game at 2-2 on a power-play goal 4:27 into the third period. Tomas Tatar won a faceoff and Richards scored on a wrist shot outside the circle to the near post of Bishop with Riley Sheahan providing the screen. Howard made 26 saves.
NY Islanders @ Florida 1-3 - Game 2 - Series Tied 1-1
Florida Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo said he had to be better in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round series against the New York Islanders, and he most definitely was. Luongo made 41 saves, and Reilly Smith and Nick Bjugstad each had a goal and an assist when the Panthers defeated the Islanders 3-1 at BB&T Center on Friday. Luongo gave up five goals on 26 shots in a 5-4 loss in Game 1. He ended a personal seven-game losing streak in the playoffs Friday; his prior playoff victory was 1-0 against the Boston Bruins in Game 5 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. Luongo made big saves, particularly in the second period. His best was a blocker save on a one-timer by Ryan Strome from the slot. Luongo stopped Cal Clutterbuck from close range early in the third period when Clutterbuck came in alone after beating defenseman Alex Petrovic with a deke. Dmitry Kulikov scored an empty-net goal with 9.3 seconds left and had an assist. John Tavares scored for the Islanders. Thomas Greiss, who made 42 saves Thursday in his first Stanley Cup Playoff start, made 28 saves. The Islanders outshot the Panthers 42-31, the second time the team with more shots lost. Florida had a 46-26 advantage in Game 1. In the first period, Luongo had to make a couple of saves while playing 1:43 without a stick before defenseman Erik Gudbranson retrieved it in the corner and handed it to him. The crowd cheered its approval when Luongo finally got his stick back. Jaromir Jagr's streak of playoff games without a goal extended to 33 dating to the 2012 playoffs, but the Panthers forward had good scoring chances. He deflected a shot from Jonathan Huberdeau in the first minute and had a backhand go just wide early in the third period. Smith, who had two goals and an assist in Game 1, gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 4:32 of the first period Friday on a rebound after Greiss stopped Bjugstad's backhand. Bjugstad made it 2-0 at 6:17 of the second period with his first NHL playoff goal off a feed from Smith. After Kulikov backhanded the puck along the boards behind the net, Smith wheeled around and put a perfect backhand pass in front of the net for a one-timer. Smith had another scoring opportunity after Bjugstad's goal on a turnaround shot from the right circle, but Greiss extended his right leg to make the save. Tavares scored with 3:33 left in the third period on a rebound off a shot that bounced off the boards behind the net. He had a goal and two assists in Game 1. Panthers defenseman Michael Matheson, their first-round selection (No. 23) in the 2012 NHL Draft, made his Stanley Cup Playoff debut. He replaced veteran Jakub Kindl and played 13:28 with a plus-1 rating.
Nashville @ Anaheim 3-2 - Game 1 - Preds Lead Series 1-0
Filip Forsberg has scored plenty of pretty goals in his young NHL career.
His third-period goal Friday in Game 1 of the Western Conference First Round wasn't one of them, but it lifted the Nashville Predators to a 3-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center. Forsberg's attempted pass to Craig Smith from the left faceoff circle hit Ducks defenseman Shea Theodore's skate near the crease and got past goalie John Gibson to put the Predators ahead for good at 10:25 of the third period. It was the 21-year-old's fifth career Stanley Cup Playoff goal in his seventh postseason game. Predators goalie Pekka Rinne made 27 saves. Gibson, making his first postseason start since Game 7 of the 2014 Western Conference Second Round, made 30 saves. His performance didn't draw rave reviews, but there wasn't any one player that Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau could single out as having played a good game. Boudreau said he was displeased by the Ducks' lack of effort and physicality.
The Predators struck early when they took advantage of a sloppy start by the Ducks in their own end. Anaheim defenseman Simon Despres failed to clear a loose puck, and Nashville center Ryan Johansen poked it to James Neal near the edge of the left circle for a shot that beat Gibson through the five-hole 35 seconds into the game. Anaheim's slow start continued until late in the period when a 5-on-3 power play gave them a burst of momentum. Predators defenseman Anthony Bitetto was called for holding the stick at 16:15, and Shea Weber cross-checked Ducks forward David Perron into the ends boards 35 seconds later. Ryan Getzlaf scored with 2:21 left in the period when he cleaned up a rebound to tie it 1-1. Ryan Kesler scored to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead with a wrist shot through traffic 48 seconds into the second period. It was his fourth goal in his past five playoff games. The Predators kept coming at the Ducks, though, and Colin Wilson scored to tie it 2-2 when he reached out with one hand on his stick to redirect Ryan Ellis' pass by Gibson on a rush at 7:55. Jamie McGinn nearly gave Anaheim the lead with 2:26 left in the second period, but Ellis dove into the net to make the save. Anaheim defenseman Josh Manson left the game with an upper-body injury after he was hit by Forsberg following a shot late the first period. Forsberg was not called for a penalty.
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