Not Dead Yet

Tommie Lee
May 28, 2015
3 min read

Game Seven.

Two of the most delicious words in sports. For me, they lift the heart rate better than words like Super Bowl, Final Four, Triple Crown, or World Cup.

A Hockey Game 7 is always fun to watch. If you hate both teams you still watch a Game 7. The panic is real. The clock is ticking. Somebody has to go, and it gets decided now.

The NHL season has been kind enough to give us, for the first time in over a decade, a PAIR of Conference Final Game 7s. Both the East and West have been stretched to that point, with the Rangers & Lightning Friday and the Blackhawks & Ducks on Saturday.

It will be a fun weekend to be a Hockey Fan.

Game 6 on Wednesday night was the kind of game you want out of the Blackhawks. They skated well and looked tight in the scoreless first period. The Power Play was still a disaster but the Defense was dialed in to everything Ryan Getzlaf and company tried to accomplish. Anaheim looked good as well, moving the puck with the same icy accuracy they’ve displayed in the series. Corey Perry continues to be a major factor, an irritating pea in the mattress pile that feels more like a boulder. The drawback is that it was fascinating hockey to watch, and that likely contributed to the oil painting in the stands at the United Center. The crowd just didn’t say much at all in the first. They did spring to life briefly when Bryan Bickell laid out Sami Vatanen behind the net about 5 minutes in. It was a pretty sweet hit. Vatanen got his revenge in the second against Andrew Desjardins.

The scoring flurry in the 2nd Period wowed the crowd and finally got them to make some noise. Saad’s shot from front and center on a breakaway was as sharp as those expensive knives my daughter used to sell, and before we knew it the boys had tallied two more. Marian Hossa, who is My Guy, netted Goal #2 after a pair of great fakes from Duncan Keith. Mr. Showtime Patrick Kane got Goal #3.

The name we heard most for the rest of the game, was Andrew Shaw. Shaw with a big hit in a collision at Center Ice. Shaw getting physical. Shaw nearly getting into scuffles. And after Patrick Maroon (spits) and Clayton Stoner (spits) scored an irritating pair of goals…it was Shaw who gave us some breathing room again with about 3 1/2 minutes to go. Then, in the final minute, he snagged the empty netter for the Chelsea Dagger.

And my scraggly, grey-strewn playoff beard lives another day.

One of the Anaheim goals…the one scored by Stoner…had some help. Corey Crawford complained about it right away, but it fell on deaf ears with the officials. Coach Q did some yelling about it as well.

If you watch the replay you’ll see that Jakob Silfverberg interfered with Crow’s glove hand, which immediately led to Stoner’s goal. It wasn’t called, and it seemed obvious to me even in real-time. Insult to injury came moments later when Chicago was called for interference on the other end of the ice.

(Which reminds me: Young children are always discouraged from reading my Blackhawks Twitter feed, which is rated NC-17 whenever I live-tweet a game.)

The New York-Tampa Bay Game 7 is Friday night. Chicago-Anaheim’s Game 7 will be Saturday night. Each game starts at 8:00 EST.

Both games will be awesome to watch, whether your side wins or not. There’s magic in a Game 7, and we get it back to back. It’s a great weekend to love The Hockey as we figure out who the last two teams skating are for Lord Stanley’s Cup.

Go Hawks!