As usual, Havlat finds a way

After playing their defensive system to near perfection in Tuesday's victory over the Blackhawks, the Vancouver Canucks very nearly turned in a repeat performance in Game 4 Thursday at the United Center.

All night they again defended their own zone by forcing the Blackhawks to the outside and making the journey to the center a near impossible task.

"There wasn't a lot of room for us and there wasn't a lot of room for them," was how Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault described things.

As Vancouver soon found out, when Martin Havlat's on the ice, he always can find room, and that's just what he did Thursday, scoring the game-tying goal in the final minutes of regulation and then assisting on Andrew Ladd's game-winner early in overtime to give the Hawks a 2-1 victory and a 2-2 tie in the series.

Courtesy of some fine work along the boards by Ladd, Havlat found some open space in the middle and wristed one over the glove of Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo to tie the game at 1-1 at 17:16 of regulation, breathing new life into his teammates.

"Havvy came up clutch late," Hawks forward Kris Versteeg said. "That's what he does."

"He's a big-game player," Ladd said. "It was a huge goal for us. We needed that."

Added Hawks coach Joel Quenneville: "He's scored big goals for us all season. I thought he was a threat all night. He made that line go tonight."

Havlat wasn't hearing any of it.

"It was a great play from Laddie on the board, and it gave me the opportunity to get the puck and I had a 1-on-1 against the goalie," Havlat said. "Ladd had a great game.

After scoring 3 goals in the quarterfinal series against Calgary, Havlat was fairly quiet heading into Game 4, with zero goals, 2 assists and just 6 shots.

That all changed in the blink of an eye in the third period Thursday.

"It doesn't matter who scores," Havlat said. "We kept fighting and believing in ourselves, and it paid off. We were patient and we worked hard."