Rozner: Scott Darling carries Hawks to their triple-OT win
As Denis Savard tells it, Patrick Roy walked into the locker room during an overtime in the 1993 playoffs and said to his team, “Boys, play as long as you want. They're not scoring.”
That is a confident goaltender.
Tuesday night and well into Wednesday morning, it had that kind of a feel on the West Side as Scott Darling stood tall in his net and squared up everything the Preds could throw at him, playing brilliant goal and carrying the Blackhawks to triple overtime at the UC, where the Hawks and Preds were tied at 2-2 in a pivotal Game 4.
The triple overtime didn't last long as Brent Seabrook scored on a slap shot one minute in to give the Blackhawks a 3-2 victory and a 3-1 lead in the series heading to Thursday's Game 5 at Nashville..
There's little chance coach Joel Quenneville will do anything other than ride the red-hot Darling now and if Darling continues to play like this, people will begin to think of Roy, who is one of only four rookie goaltenders to have ever won the Stanley Cup as the primary netminder — that one in 1986 — but that hasn't slowed Darling, who is off to a brilliant start to his playoff career.
After five periods, Darling had stopped 50 of 52 shots and Pekka Rinne had stopped 44 of 46.
The first rookie to win a Cup was Hall of Famer Ken Dryden, who played only six games for the Canadiens as a late-season arrival in 1971 and took the job away from veteran Rogie Vachon.
Playing behind eight Hall of Famers, including three on defense, Dryden was magnificent and Montreal eventually met the Hawks in the Stanley Cup Final, overcoming deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 in the series to capture Game 7 at the Stadium and dance with the Cup in front of the Chicago faithful.
Dryden took home the Conn Smythe, won Rookie of the Year in 1972 and won five more Cups in Montreal.
As a 20-year-old, Roy was the youngest Conn Smythe Trophy winner in '86 and carried a surprising Canadiens team to the Final and then victory over the Calgary Flames.
Darling played 14 games during the regular season and the story that most closely resembles his might be that of Cam Ward, who played 28 games in 2005-06 for Carolina in a backup role.
Martin Gerber was the starter for the Canes, but in the first round of the playoffs Gerber struggled and Ward took over.
Carolina came back to beat the Canadiens, took down the Devils and Ward's idol, Marty Brodeur, in the second round, defeated Ryan Miller and the Sabres in seven games in the conference finals and then faced the Edmonton Oilers, who emerged as the Western Conference representative as the eighth seed.
The series went seven games and was a one-goal game late in the third period when the Canes picked up an empty-netter in the final minute, as Ward became the third rookie goalie to win the Stanley Cup.
The fourth, of course, was the Hawks' very own Antti Niemi, who played 39 games during the 2009-10 regular season and was clearly the starter entering the playoffs as Cristobal Huet was definitely not the man.
The Hawks looked to be in some trouble in the opening series with the Preds when they trailed late in Game 5 and risked going back to Nashville down 3-2.
But Martin Erat's risky play from behind the Hawks' empty net led to a Patrick Kane short-handed goal with 13 seconds left in regulation, and the man who had been in the box, Marian Hossa, scored the game-winner in overtime, before the Hawks took Game 6 in Nashville.
The Hawks handled Vancouver in six games and then Niemi played his best series as the Hawks swept No. 1 seed San Jose and on home ice they celebrated their first trip to the Final since 1992.
In the Stanley Cup Final, the Hawks and Flyers split the first four, with both teams winning on home ice, before the Hawks won a wild Game 5 shootout at home and finally finished off the Flyers in Game 6 in overtime with a goal by Kane that Hawks fans will never forget.
Unlike Dryden, Roy and Ward — all of whom took home Conn Smythe honors as rookies — Niemi was far from the Hawks' best player and it was captain Jonathan Toews who won the MVP before he picked up the Cup and skated around in front of the Philadelphia fans.
Darling's story is the stuff of story books, his rise from nowhere to be the starter for a team that is supposed to make a deep playoff run, but so few rookies have ever had the experience before.
But so far, he's looked nothing like a rookie.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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