Game 3 Live Blog
Let's talk about Game 3 while it's happening
by Taylor Hruby
It's 6:50 pm and I'm in a leadership meeting.
Earlier, we were discussing “opinions vs facts”. The leader of the meeting used this exercise to talk about the Blackhawks. She asked me about facts and opinions, regarding the Hawks and Wild. I made a few dumb jokes, but I finished with the most important fact of all: that Game 3 starts at 7, which is what time we were supposed to finish up. She laughed, some people looked nervous like I was trying to strongarm her into hurrying up. Strongarm is such a harsh word. Let's call it “gently reminding”. We broke at 7, she said good luck or something. I was already out the door. It takes me 15 minutes to get home from work. On the way home, I decided tonight was a goodnight for a “running diary” of Game 3. (I stole this from Bill Simmons, one of my favorite writers. Sorry, Bill.)
I am not prepared for this, but all of my hockey articles have been written on the fly. Hell, in my last preview, I picked the Habs over Lightning in 7. Not off the board, yet, but woah. Not looking good. I was betting Price over Stamkos, even though I've always been firmly on the Stamkos bandwagon. Oh well. Live and die with the spontaneity, I suppose.
I'm interested to see how this devolves into insanity if and when the Hawks are getting pounded; or how my mind wanders if and when it's a boring game; or how I try and hide my excitement when Dubnyk gets pulled and we get our first Kuemper sighting of the playoffs.
I just walked in the door and joined the action at 16:14 in the 1st period. Let's do this!
The Hawks just got their first shot on net at 14:09. That's not ideal.
Dubnyk just had a remarkable save on Toews. The Toews line just had a monster shift off of that save, right out of the TV timeout. Dubnyk reminds me of Crawford. Big save, flexible save, huge save, let's in a softy. I know that struggle.
[12:16] Vermette takes an ill advised tripping penalty and I just remembered to include the times on the events so this kind of make sense... maybe. Hawks are 0-7 in their last 7 away Game 3s. 0-5 in their last 5 when already up
2-0. That kind of stat makes this kill large. Any momentum the Wild can seize early is scary. But it's killed off!
[9:03] The Hawks hadn't had a shot until 14:09, they're now up 5 – 4 on shots. And the Wild had a powerplay in that span.
[6:51] Bickell is tripped and the crowd boos. I hate NHL crowds. That was as clear a trip as can be. Are you booing Spurgeon? Because it's his fault he tripped Bickell. Bad play.
A quick aside, are we done with the opposing goalie name chant yet? It used to be awesome when that goalie would do something dumb, but now it happens immediately and it's awful. The Hawks home fans are SUPER over rated, but I'm proud that they don't do that garbage. This isn't a knock on Minnesota fans only, I have been at 2 playoff games in the “X” and the fans are awesome, as a group. They can suck as individuals. Some dude got up in my face after the Wild beat the Hawks the last time I went. I hope he cried himself to sleep after Hawks finished the Wild off. And his girlfriend cheated on him. And he has herpes. Anyway, no judgements, just a stupid thing that's all over the league.
[5:55] Patrick Sharp with a HORENDOUS pass, but it freezes Dumba, Shaw chips it past him, leaving Kane wide open, and he beats Dubnyk five hole. That thing was WIDE open. 1-0. Kane has as many goals as the Wild do in this series. Might want to get a man on that boy. Sidebar, in 2010, I had a blast making fun of Patrick Kane's “playoff beard”. Kane now has a real beard, but no mustache, and I look like a eye witness sketch of a pedophile. Fantastic.
yikes.
[2:54] Kane just went down in a heap after Dumba smashed his face into the dasher. I just shit my pants, but he's up and we're okay. I hope.
[Intermission 1] Shots are 8-8 at the break. Vanek admires a pass at the buzzer and gets bowled over by Marcus Kruger. If you are going to get knocked down, it should not be by Kruger. He is tiny and never hits anyone. Maybe that'll wake Vanek up.
Dubnyk had some good saves, one horribly open five hole, and an 'easier-than-it-looked' save on Teuvo. Crawford goes 8 for 8 and doesn't look concussed at all. Which is nice after the shot he took to the nugget in Game 2.
We're in the studio with my boy Jeremy Roenick, Liam McHugh and Mike Milbury. Let's talk about something else before Milbury makes me puke.
Patrick Kane has 11 points (6G, 5A) in 9 games. He's not even supposed to be playing in this series. The Wild have Jason Zucker (3 points, but that's not why we're here), Zucker also broke his collarbone and should also not be playing yet. This is a prime example of one of the many giant differences between you and I and professional athletes. Kane is 5' 10” and weighs “178 pounds” (sure he does). I am 6' 2” and weigh 195. If I broke my collarbone tomorrow, I would lay on the ground until some beautiful person helped me to an emergency room. I would take the entire time to heal (and probably more) and I would be complaining and miserable to be around the entire time. Kane and Zucker are playing playoff hockey in the NHL. That is incredible. Both of them deserve way more praise than they're getting.
The second period starts.
[15:20] We're five minutes in and the announcers are talking about the Kentucky Derby, that should give you an idea as to how fun this second has been so far.
[12:45] Wild almost score on a deflected pass on a 2 on 1. This is a highlight for this period. “Almost” is an exaggeration, Crawford didn't even make a save. But, as I'm typing, the Wild have a great shift that ends in an icing by the Hawks. Koivu with a beauty pass, Crawford makes the save.
[11:20] I love hockey organs, but why the hell does the Wild organist always have those bad synthetic drum beats under him? Yuck.
[9:40] Wow. Pominville misses the net from close... somehow. He and Vanek could both use some waking up. Some big stops by both goalies that I can't recount because I was mesmerized by good, actual, end to end hockey being played! That's what this series is! I should only be able to type during commercial, but this period has been not great. These teams are both at their best when they're flying up and down the ice.
[8:36] Granlund ALL ALONE from the blue line in and Crawford makes the stop! That would have sent this arena into hysterics.
[8:00] Bickell penalty. Interference behind the play. Great penalty. -sarcasm emoji-
[6:08] Huge save on Parise from a bad angle, Kruger makes a play at the blue line and this penalty is over.
[5:31] Cooke doesn't get that call because he is a total scumbag. The people booing would know that if they'd ever watched a hockey game before this one. It actually looked like a trip, but they had no good replay and Cooke can suck my balls. In fact, I had a big thing typed up about Cooke after he took a lazy shot that Crawford easily saved, but I deleted it. Maybe I'll revisit him at the break.
[REPLAY] Woah! The Wild almost scored on a little scramble earlier! I didn't see it live, but that puck was almost in. That would have changed this up quickly.
[End of 2] Spurgeon just missed way wide and we've got a 2 on 1 the other way. Sharp hits the outside of the net. The crowd chants “DOOOOOOOBB” anyway.
I'm going to go on record here and say the Wild win this 3 to 1. I just have this feeling. I hope I'm wrong. The Hawks are 28-0-0 when leading after 2 this season which is ridiculous and unsustainable. I'd rather that record fall now then in game 7 of the Cup Final or something because every time I'm reminded of it, I get very nervous.
[Start of 3] I like the song the Wild play before period 3. Don't know who it is, but I like it.
Googled. It's by Hammerfall and it's called “Fury of the Wild”. They wrote it in 2005 for the Wild. Wow. I had no idea.
The Hawks have a song, too. I like it better. Your opinion may vary.
Quick tangent about "Here Come the Hawks" that I'm adding Wednesday: My top 3 video games of all time are Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Tecmo Bowl and NHL 94, in some order. I grew up playing these games way too much. In NHL 94, in the breaks in play, the organist would play some tunes and one stuck with me forever. I've had it on my phone for years, yet somehow I never knew what the song was. You've probably already guessed it, but ...
It's like fate, folks.
[17:50] Richards just rocked the post on what would have been the back breaker. Oduya hit a crossbar in Game 1, up 3, which also would have been the back breaker, but, instead, the Wild pounced, turning a 3-0 lead to a 3-3 game. Uh oh.
[16:20ish to 15:35] Long shift for the Wild in the Hawks zone. Nothing terrifying, but not a great sign.
[13:18] Suter was just on the ice for 5 minutes. Maybe not that much, but damn. He has not had a good series, but he's a god damn machine.
[11:20] Crawford just caught a puck right on the goal line with his stick hand, without his stick. Holy shit. Now would be a great time to wake up. Parise kicked at it. Would it have counted? Who knows. After seeing it again, I say no goal even if it went in, but the NHL replay system is a coin flip. (Wednesday addition: crazily, a disallowed goal that "went in" was waved off a few hours later in Calgary!)
[10:10] Too many men on the ice because Kane makes lazy dump ins. So talented, so frustrating. Huge PP here.
[8:10] Gigantic kill. No shots. All Wild before that though.
[5:11] TV timeout. Still all Wild. Getting a bit nervous. I absolutely hate this all defensive, dump and change strategy. It screams late Wild goal / OT loss to me.
[3:06] This is Cleveland Browns prevent defense when up by 5. I have seen this movie before.
[1:10] 2 misses on an empty net.
[45.2] HUGE save by Crawford off of Granlund's stick. Timeout Wild. Gotta stand up for the rest. Talk to you soon.
[15.7] Wild offside on a promising stretch pass. Gotta breathe.
[HORN] Kane has an open net shot blocked and that's that. Hawks take Game 3, 1-0. Wild fans should chant “CRRAAAAAWWWWWW-FFORRRRDDDDDD” a bit more. Suck shut out, chanting fans.
[Just turned on the Flames game] Colbourne just had a RIDICULOUS shorty. Holy shit.
WOOOOOAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
Wild fans! Real Wild fans, listen up. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to start shit and I hope you understand what's up. I have been trying to keep my thoughts real and not troll people since this is a website for everyone. I was obviously kidding about the Blues series and I honestly thought this series would be super tight. I figured Dubnyk would collapse, but he's been realtively solid. He's a rebound machine, but he's making saves. Where is anyone else? Suter is playing like shit, Parise has been good offensively on 4 shifts that I can think of, Koivu hasn't done a thing. Pominville? Vanek? What are those 2 even doing on a roster anymore? Especially Vanek. Dude is a joke come crunch time. He is the anti Patrick Kane.
As far as the Hawks go, they look great. I haven't believed in a playoff “switch”, one that you can just turn on, whenever you want, since 2011. The Hawks limped into the playoffs, matched up against a great Vancouver team in the first round and I was hoping for that “switch”. A Chris Campoli turnover in game 7 at the blue line dashed any hopes of the “switch”. But if I believed in it... it's flipped now, right? The Hawks are doing exactly what I didn't think would happen. They limped in again (albeit without Kane) but are now firing on all cylinders. I don't want to toot my own horn, but Teuvo has made that 3rd line dangerous, which I mentioned in my preview, and that in turn has let the 4th line do it's thing. This is the most balanced Hawks lineup in a long time. I don't care for Rozsival, but he's had a great series. If the Hawks do win this, I look forward to the matchup with the Ducks very much. They have played an overachieving Jets team and an almost impossibly lucky Flames team. They might sweep both of them. (Wednesday: Nope! Flames won last night to make it 2-1) The Hawks will be their reward for going 8-0. Can't wait.
Game 4 is Thursday at 8:30 central. I was going to predict the sweep just to piss people off, but I took it seriously. I honestly thought we were going 7 and we still could. I never, ever would have thought the Wild would face the broom this Thursday. I don't think they get swept, but I don't know if they have what it takes to beat the Hawks 4 times in a row.
Insanity.
© 2015 by Taylor Hruby