Blackhawks can't get much past Ducks' goaltender, lose 4-1
ANAHEIM, Calif - Anaheim, behind goals by Kyle Palmieri, Hampus Lindholm, Nate Thompson and Jakob Silfverberg, took Game 1 of the Western Conference finals 4-1 over the Blackhawks on Sunday afternoon.
Ducks goalie Frederik Andersen stopped the first 23 shots he saw and ended up with 32 saves.
Late in the second period, Brad Richards scored the Hawks' only goal when he beat Andersen after stripping Francois Beauchemin of the puck in the Hawks' offensive zone.
Game 2 is 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Honda Center.
For all the star power in this series, the Ducks got their first 3 goals by guys who came into the game with 2 goals between them in nine playoff games. The first 2 came with Hawks defenseman David Rundblad, seeing the first playoff action of his career because of the ankle injury to Michal Rozsival, playing prominent roles in allowing the chances to develop.
Patrick Kane, who was riding a seven-game points streak, had two golden opportunities to score and was thwarted each time.
His first chance came about 5.5 minutes into the game as he worked his way in front of Andersen and rifled a shot that looked to be a "gimme" to a player like Kane. But Andersen guessed correctly with his goalie stick and managed to deflect the blast up and over the crossbar.
Kane's other chance came early in the second period when, as he was about to fire from about 10 feet out, Simon Despres dove and poke-checked the puck away from Kane.
Corey Crawford ended up making 23 saves for the Hawks.
Rundblad and Kimmo Timonen, the Hawks' fifth and sixth defensemen played only a combined 14:14 minutes with Timonen seeing just 75 seconds of ice time in the first period.
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