Seabrook's Heroics Wins Wild Game Four For Hawks

The first few games of this years Stanley Cup finals have been wild. We have had two overtime games and a shutout in the first three games. Game four was a wild shootout that ended in overtime. After the heroics of the Hawks, the finals are tied at two and we will have a game six. The Hawks had been quieted for most of game two and all of game three. They were finally able to break through in game four.

Chicago got on the board first in this hockey game, at the 6:48 mark, Michael Hanzus scored his 3rd of the playoffs, shorthanded, to get the Hawks on the board for the first time since game two. Boston came back and evened the score at one when Rich Peverley scored his 2nd of the playoffs, a powerplay goal, at the 14:48 mark. Chicago outshot Boston in the opening period 12-9 and both teams had quality scoring chances. Rask and Crawford both had to be sharp in the opening period.

To the 2nd period we go, and the Hawks too the lead back with a pair of goals just over two minutes apart. First at 6:33 Jonathan Towes scored his 2nd goal of the playoffs to give Chicago a 2-1 lead. Then at the 8:41 mark Patrick Kane scored his 7th of the playoffs to stretch the lead to 3-1. For both Kane and Towes it was their first goals in the finals, and for Towes it was a goal that was way too long overdue. It was at this point things started to come undone just a bit for the Hawks, as Corey Crawford was having trouble with his catching glove. Boston cut the Chicago lead to one when at the 14:43 mark Milan Lucic scored his 6th of the playoffs. That goal went in on the glove side of Corey Crawford, and on the Lucic goal he clearly wasn't ready for a shot, as he was expecting a pass and wasn't aware the puck was heading on net till it was almost already by him. Chicago would re-take a two goal lead at the 15:32 mark Marcus Kruger scored his 3rd of the playoffs. Before the end of the period Boston would once again cut the lead to one. At the 17:22 mark Patrice Bergeron scored his 8th of the playoffs, a powerplay goal, to keep the Bruins within shouting distance. So after 40 minutes of play Chicago held a slim 4-3 lead. In that 2nd period Chicago outshot Boston 13-11.

So to the final period of regulation we head, and Corey Crawford was looking shaky, especially on his glove side, where all three of the Boston goals were scored. It took only 2:05 for Boston to get even, when Bergeron scored his 2nd of the game and 9th of the playoffs. Chicago would retake the lead at the 11:19 mark when Patrick Sharp scored his 10th of the playoffs, a powerplay goal, to give the Hawks a lead. it would not last very long, as at the 12:14 mark Boston would knot the score at five thanks to Johnny Boychuk's 6th of the playoffs. Nobody was able to break the tie before the end of regulation so we had to go to overtime for the 3rd time in this series. Shots during the 3rd period favored Chicago 16-8.. During regulation, Chicago seemed to find its game again and really dominated the game, but Tukka Rask stood on his head once again.

For the third time in four games, the series headed to overtime. Last time this happened was the 1993 Stanley Cup finals between the Los Angeles Kings and Montreal Canadiens. With this years finals each team won a game in overtime. Chicago won game one in triple overtime and Boston took game two in the first overtime. Game three's overtime took only 9:51 when this happened:


For Brent Seabrook it was his 3rd goal of this years playoffs. Final shot totals were 47 for Chicago and 33 for Boston. Rask stopped 41 of the 47 shots, while Crawford stopped 28 of the 33 shots he faced.

Now here's the alarming thing about this game and it comes from the Hawks perspective. All five goals that Crawford let in came on his glove side, which on any other night is a little more stable than that. So if Chicago wants to win the cup, then Crawford is going to have to figure things out with his glove hand. I'm sure that he will have it figured out by the time game five rolls around on Saturday night in Chicago. The HAwks dominated game four and Boston needs to try and go back to what worked for them in games two and three and that's contain the Hawks and stay out of the box. So with the way the first four games have gone in this series the final three are going to be a lot of fun to watch.