Cup Finals Heat Up as Teams Split Games 4 and 5 Hawks Lead Finals 3-2

Heading into Game 4 Last Friday night the Blackhawks had rarely lost 2 straight games on the road. Well Game 4 was the 2nd straight road loss for the Blackhawks as the Flyers took Game 4 by a score of 5-3. Mike Richards got the Flyers on the board first with a power play goal 4:35 into the game. It was a situation where Richards just powered his way out to the front of the net with nobody touching him and he stuffed it in short side on Niemi for the 1st goal of the night. Philly's lead was streched to 2-0 just over 10 minutes later thanks to a wrist shot from Matt Carle, again on another broken play. Patrick Sharp finally got the Hawks on the board with a little under 2 minutes to go in the 1st period. But the Flyers would take back the 2 goal lead before the end of the period, when Claude Giroux scored with 28 seconds left in the 1st period. So after 20 minutes of play it was 3-1 Flyers.

The 2nd period was quiet on the score sheet with nobody being able to light the lamp. The physical play in period #2 was still very evident but nobody could find the back of the net. So as the 3rd period got underway it was still 3-1 Flyers. It took just over 6 minutes of play in the final period for the Flyers to stretch their lead when Ville Leino scored on a nice wrist shot to give the Flyers a 4-1 lead. The Hawks would not go away quietly in game 4 as they cut the lead down to 4-3 thanks to a power play goal from Dave Bolland and an even strength goal from Brian Campbell. That was about all Chicago could to on offense on that night. The Flyers also added an empty net goal from Jeff Carter to take Game 4 by a 5-3 final. Antti Niemi stopped 26 of 30 Flyers Shots while Michael Leighton was able to turn away 31 of 34 Blackhawks shots.

In Games 3 and 4 it looked like a complete role reversal from the 1st 2 games back in the windy city. The start of the series it seemed that the Blackhawks controlled the speed and pace of the games and were able to take the first 2 at home. Then when the scene switched over to Philadelphia, the Flyers seemed to have all the jump and were the ones getting all the breaks.

Game 5 was last night inside the Madhouse on Madison, the United Center in Chicago. The Hawks seemed to once again find their skating legs and their offense as Brent Seabrook got the scoring going for the Hawks with a power play goal just about 13 minutes into the game. Just about 3 minutes later Dave Bolland gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead. That lead would be increased to 3-0 with about 5 minutes left in the period thanks to Kris Versteeg. So the 1st came to a close with the score 3-0 in favor of the Hawks. The Flyers finally got on the board :32 into the 2nd period thanks to Scott Hartnell. The Hawks took back their 3 goal lead a little over 3 minutes later thanks to Buffalo NY native Patrick Kane. A little less than a minute later Kimmo Timonen scored for the Flyers to cut the Hawks lead in half. The scored stayed at 4-2 until there was about five minutes left in the middle period. That's when the Hawks power play FINALLY struck in this series and the goal came from somebody who had been a little quiet in the goal column in the finals Dustin Byfuglien. Byfuglien was able to get the room in front because Chris Pronger was sitting in the penalty box for hooking. So we move on to the 3rd period with the Hawks leading 5-2. Philyl cut the lead to 5-3 a little over 6 minutes into the 3rd thanks to a goal from James van Riemsdyk. Patrick Sharp scored for the Hawks 10 minutes later to give them a 6-3 lead, then Simon Gagne scored for the Flyers to make it 6-4 and finally Dustin Byfuglien added the empty netter, and capped off a 4 point night for himself, to clinch game 5 for the Hawks by a final score of 7-4.

The 2 big surprises last night were the fact the Michael Leighton of the Flyers was pulled again after the 1st period in favor of Brian Boucher. Also a surprise was the fact thet Byfuglien was able to sort of get himself free from teh grasp of Chris Pronger who really has been dogging Byfuglien all series long. Also, from a Hawks perspective, nice to see Kane and Towes getting going in the past 2 games. Those 2 guys had been held in check for the most part in this series. Game 6 of the finals is wednesday night from the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. Now the apparent trend here through the first 5 games of this series is that the home team has won every game to this point. And if this trend continues then it looks like the Flyers take Game 6 on Wednesday night and then the Hawks take the cup Friday night at the United Center. But from what I have seen over the past few games who really knows. All that is certain is that is going to be entertaning hockey and the greatest prize in all of hockey and the oldest trophy in all of professional sports, the Stanley Cup, will be in attendance over the final 2 games if necessary