Blackhawks hold on, clinch playoff spot

Remember the roller-coaster ride the final day of the regular season provided last year for the Blackhawks?

Here's a quick recap:

The Hawks dropped a 4-3 decision to Detroit that afternoon and it looked like their playoff hopes had been dashed … unless Minnesota could beat Dallas later that evening.

“It's so frustrating it has come down to this,” Jonathan Toews said at the time. “I'm pretty much speechless.”

Remember hours later when Minnesota defeated Dallas 5-3, giving the Hawks the final playoff spot in the West?

“I've never been more excited after a hockey game in my life that I didn't participate in,” coach Joel Quenneville said after watching the Wild's win. “I was acting like a 2-year-old. It was unbelievable.”

The Hawks remembered that day well — too well — and to a man didn't want to go through that agony again this season.

Mission accomplished.

But not without a little roller-coaster ride of a night in Nashville, where they jumped out to a 4-0 lead, then watched as the Predators fought their way back to tie it before Brent Seabrook notched the game-winner in a 5-4 thriller.

“It was a great game,” Quenneville told reporters after the game. “Very entertaining. I'm sure the fans enjoyed the game, but it was nerve-racking for the coaches.”

The victory clinched a playoff spot for the Hawks, the fourth consecutive year they'll be heading to the postseason.

Patrick Sharp, Dave Bolland, Patrick Kane and Viktor Stalberg scored for the Hawks as they built what looked like an insurmountable lead.

It wasn't.

The Preds kept chipping away and chipping away until they finally tied it on Shea Weber's second goal of the game at 7:10 of the third. But just more than a minute later, Seabrook, off a sweet assist by Andrew Shaw, bagged the game-winner.

“It's one of those things,” Seabrook said. “A 4-4 tie, and we just wanted to continue to work hard and continue the little things and try to get one and get the win tonight.”

The Hawks (44-26-9) have registered at least a point in 13 of their last 15 games and pulled within a point of the fourth-place Predators in the Western Conference and also tied idle Detroit with 97 points.

“We'll see how it works out,” Quenneville said. “Where we're at. We've got to catch two pretty good teams right in front of us, and so we'll see how that plays itself out.”

If clinching a playoff berth Saturday wasn't enough good news, the Hawks got even more when Quenneville confirmed that Toews (concussion) has been cleared for contact and perhaps could be in the lineup before the regular season concludes.

mspellman@dailyherald.com