Dietz: Game 7 may boil down to the goalies
Analyze all the stats you want — zone time, shots on goal, blocked shots, missed shots, whiffed shots, faked shots or evil stares directed at the other team — there's only one number that matters when Game 7 of the Western Conference finals ends Saturday:
And that's how many pucks the Blackhawks got past Frederik Andersen and how many the Ducks slid past Corey Crawford.
Doesn't get much more simple than that, does it? The team that prevails will advance to the Stanley Cup Final June 3 at either the Rangers or the Lightning, to battle for what many believe is the most revered trophy in sports.
If the Hawks win, it will help erase the memory of last year's crushing overtime defeat to the Kings in the exact same situation when Alec Martinez scored 5:47 into overtime.
“You could just feel the air go out of the building, you could feel your heart drop a little bit,” Patrick Sharp said Thursday just before the Hawks boarded their plane for Anaheim. “Being that close, we had a couple of leads in that game as well. Battling back from being down (3-1) in that series against the Kings was a tough way to go out on home ice.
“But you kind of learn from it; you use at has hunger to try and get back to the situation. … Hopefully it's a different scenario this time for us.”
In this winner-take-all scenario, it often comes down to which goalie plays his best. And as much heat as some Hawks fans have thrown at Crawford this year, it's a safe bet almost all of them will take the Stanley Cup-winning goalie over Andersen, a second-year pro, every time.
Crawford hasn't been perfect, but Andersen and the defense around him is starting to fall apart at the seams.
Andersen allowed just 5 goals in the first three games vs. the Hawks, but he watched 13 sail past him in Games 4-6 while posting a sickly .856 save percentage.
“I don't think we've figured anything out,” Sharp said. “I think we've done a better job of capitalizing on our opportunities.”
The thing is, Andersen hasn't been all that bad, making big saves in the first period of Game 5 with his left blocker pad, then denying Marcus Kruger in the second period on a one-timer that looked to be an easy goal.
Andersen was helped by a fearless, block-crazed D early in the series, but he's been hung out to dry more and more, and that's not going to fly against Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Sharp and the rest of the experienced Hawks.
In Game 6, Andersen failed to come up with big saves against Brandon Saad, Kane or Andrew Shaw. You can lay the blame for the Hawks' second goal at the feet of the Ducks' defensemen, who allowed Duncan Keith to toy with them with a double pump fake before he slid it to a wide-open Marian Hossa.
As has been the case all series, the Hawks were careful not to give Anaheim any bulletin-board material about them solving a goalie with just 22 playoff games under his belt.
“He's a good goalie, it's a good defense in front of him, it makes it tough to get to the net,” Sharp said. “When he sees the puck, he's gonna stop it. We expect him to play his best in Game 7. We've got to find a way to beat him.”
So what's it like playing in a Game 7?
“It's just very similar to overtime to be honest with you,” Sharp said. “Right from the drop of the puck in the first period, every shift's important like it always is. But it's magnified that much more in a Game 7.
“Our group has played plenty of overtimes and a handful of Game 7s as well to draw experience from. I like the guys in our locker room — we get excited for opportunities like that.
“We don't shy away. We want the puck. We want to score the goals and play as well as we can.”
And if they play well enough, they'll earn the franchise a third trip to the Final in six years.
• Follow John's Hawks reports on Twitter @johndietzdh.