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Chicago Blackhawks One Game Away From the Second Round of the Playoffs

Written by: EricC on 26th April 2009

The Chicago Blackhawks showed the Calgary Flames no mercy in Saturday night's game. The two teams returned to Chicago, each with two wins and ready to play game five. With this win, the Blackhawks are one game away from advancing to the second round of the playoffs. There are two games left in this series, and the Blackhawks only need one win. The bad news is that the next game is back in Canada, where the Blackhawks received there two losses. The good news is that if the series does go to a seventh game, the teams will return back to Chicago, where the Hawks have won all three games.

The Blackhawks took a huge lead early in the game, really making it tough for the Flames to come back. Before the game started, Blackhawk's coach, Joel Quenneville, stressed the importance of capturing the first goal of the game. Not only did the Blackhawks snatch that first goal, thanks to a goal by Brent Seabrook, but they got two additional ones within the following two minutes. The second two goals came from Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg. Versteeg was recently named a finalist for the Rookie of the Year award.

Only about 11 minutes into the game, the score was already 3-0, Chicago. Early in the second period, Calgary tried to close the gap a little, but it did them no good. Only a few minutes later, Andrew Ladd added another goal to Chicago. Cam Barker smashed one into the back of the net, putting the final touch on the Blackhawk's masterpiece. The final score was 5-1.

Nikolai Khabibulin was a brick wall during this game; or as some would say, the Bulin Wall. He made 19 saves throughout the game and only let one past him. Most of the saves he made were incredible!

The Chicago Blackhawks will be playing the Calgary Flames in game 6 on Monday, April 27 at 8:30 Central Time. This game will hopefully be the Blackhawks last game of the first round.