Ducks regain home ice with 2-1 win over Blackhawks
It's a message the Ducks have been sending since the opening faceoff of the Western Conference finals:
We're going to hit hard and we're not backing down - no matter how many power plays the officials want to award the Blackhawks.
The Ducks' bruising style gave coach Joel Quenneville's a whopping five chances with the man advantage Thursday night - including one of four minutes - but the Hawks failed to capitalize on any of them, and that was perhaps the biggest reason Anaheim walked out 2-1 winners at the United Center.
The Ducks own a 2-1 series lead with a huge Game 4 for the Hawks on Saturday at 7 p.m.
Is it a must win?
"We want to play every game like it's a must win," Jonathan Toews said, "but it's easy to find that motivation when you're down in a series - especially since it's a big game at home. … We know what's at stake."
Patrick Maroon and Simon Despres scored for the Ducks, while Patrick Kane scored for the Hawks. Kane nearly tied the game with just seconds remaining, but his attempt nicked the left post, and a dejected group of Hawks left the ice.
Ducks goalie Frederik Andersen continued his stellar play with 27 saves and he now owns a sparkling .957 save percentage in the series.
Quenneville made a couple of major lineup changes for Game 3, pulling Antoine Vermette and Teuvo Teravainen for Kris Versteeg and Joakim Nordstrom. There was plenty of second-guessing behind those decisions in the postgame Q&A with Quenneville, but when a team like the Hawks not only fails to score with 11:18 of power-play time but also manages just 1 shot in all that time, that's where you can point the finger for this loss.
"I don't think our entries were very good; didn't seem to get the puck back when we were battling for it," Kane said. "We let them have some easy clears, too. That's got to be way better. We will be better at that; we'll make some adjustments and figure it out (and) fix it."
The whole reason the Hawks were able to win Game 2 was thanks to power-play goals by Andrew Shaw and Marian Hossa.
So the Hawks were 2-for-5 in Game 2, then 0-for-5 in Game 3, which led Patrick Sharp to point out that you have to expect hot and cold stretches with the man advantage.
But 5 power plays and 1 shot? Eleven-plus minutes and 1 shot? For a team like the Hawks, that can't happen against anybody, and especially at this stage of the playoffs.
"We didn't have zone time, we didn't get them tired - we're the ones getting tired because we had to keep breaking out," Quenneville said of the failed four-minute PP. "I think that was a stretch there where we didn't get the momentum where we should have put a little more heat on them. We had them taking penalties and we didn't make them pay."
Said Toews of the same topic: "It's like a 5-on-3. You want to take advantage of it. When you can't find a way to score a goal, it gives their team a little energy coming off the penalty kill."
Kane got on the scoresheet for the first time in this series when he tied the game at 1-1 with 57 seconds to go in the first period on a wicked backhander that beat Andersen. It was Kane's eighth goal of the playoffs and his 14th point.
Anaheim scored the game-winner with 55 seconds left in the second period on a wicked one-timer from defenseman Simon Despres. The Ducks had moved the puck around the Hawks' defensive zone beautifully, then Ryan Getzlaf (2 assists) passed to Despres, who easily beat Corey Crawford with Johnny Oduya unable to get in the shooting lane in time.
"They're a good team; we're a good team as well," Sharp said. "(We'll) learn as much as we can about the way they're playing, the way we're playing, and try to be better next game."
They'd better be or it might be lights out for the Hawks.
• Follow John's Hawks reports on Twitter @johndietzdh.
Three stars of the game
1. Simon Despres, Ducks: Buried game-winner with 55 seconds left in second period.
2. Ryan Getzlaf, Ducks: Two assists in the game, with the second one a perfect pass to Despres.
3. Frederik Andersen, Ducks: Goalie remains a tough one for Hawks to solve as he saves 27 of 28 shots.
- John Dietz