Blackhawks are slapped silly in Philly

PHILADELPHIA - Whatever momentum the Blackhawks had in the Stanley Cup Finals is gone.

At least the Hawks have home-ice advantage in their favor in what is now a best-of-three series following Friday's 5-3 loss to the Flyers at the Wachovia Center.

With both teams holding serve at home in the first four games it's back to the United Center for Game 5 on Sunday, but the Flyers are asserting themselves in ways where it might not matter where the rest of the series is played.

"The series is wide open now," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We've got to go home now and take advantage of that. We've got to be smart and disciplined and make them play defense."

The Hawks did none of the above until late in the third period when they got goals from Dave Bolland and Brian Campbell to cut a 4-1 deficit to 4-3. They narrowly missed tying the game when another puck trickled just wide of the net.

But it was too little too late. A horrible first period, when they surrendered 3 goals in 8 shots, cost the Hawks in the end.

Just when the Hawks showed some life late in the first period after Patrick Sharp scored with 1:28 left until intermission to get within 2-1, they let the Flyers' Claude Grioux come right back and score 51 seconds later.

"Getting to that first intermission we were thinking we were right where we want to be, just down a goal and not having played our best period," Hawks captain Jonathan Toews said. "But to give up a goal like that is a tough thing to come back from against a team like that."

While the Flyers have elevated their game to another level, the Hawks have not and showed their frustration in the Game 4 loss by taking 7 minor penalties and putting Philadelphia on the power play six times.

The Flyers were 1-for-6 on the power play.

"Obviously we need to be smarter and more solid in the first period," Toews said. "Our penalties have been catching up to us. We have small details to our game that we can change and if do that and bring some energy we're very confident we're going to see things go our way.

"We're not going to kick ourselves and not make it something bigger than it is. They did a great job coming back and tying the series, but we'll go home and regroup and be excited about going back to our own building."

The Hawks dominated the final eight minutes of the third period and will look to build on the things they did right, such as going to the net and getting pucks there.

"We know what can happen when we play like that," Toews said. "As defensive as they were later on in that game, we still found ways ot get it on their net. If we can do that early on in the game, I'm sure it'll be a different outcome."

The Hawks let the Flyers build their 4-1 lead with some poor plays defensively after early penalties to Andrew Ladd and Tomas Kopecky gave the Flyers all kinds of momentum.

While the Hawks killed Ladd's interference penalty taken in the first minute, they couldn't do the same after Kopecky went off at 4:30 for high sticking.

It took the Flyers just five seconds to score on the power play when Mike Richards pick-pocketed an unsuspecting Niklas Hjalmarsson from behind to the left of the net and got off a quick backhander to beat goalie Antti Niemi.

"I thought I had more time there and (Richards) made a good play," said Hjalmarsson, who also had a puck get away from him that led to Matt Carle's goal at 14:48 for a 2-0 lead.

Patrick Kane made a bad read on Giroux's killer goal late in the first period when he failed to pick up defenseman Kimmo Timonen in the slot. Timonen found Giroux in front for a tap-in.

It took a 5-on-3 power play in the third period for the Hawks to get back in the game. Bolland's goal came at 12:01 on a redirection with the two-man advantage. Campbell's goal came off a scramble in front at 15:50.

"Other than the 5-on-3 goal, I didn't think we gave them a lot," Richards said.

"I thought we were playing real well before that," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. "We were playing defense. There wasn't a lot going on, then a 5-on-3 goal and that's when things buckled up."

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