Dietz: Hawks' Saad playing with poise, power
As the minutes ticked away, it was a tense and nervous United Center crowd watching their Blackhawks deadlocked in a 1-1 nail-biter in which one bad bounce could have meant a 3-1 series deficit in the Stanley Cup Final.
But then a puck squirted free to Brandon Saad, and the Blackhawks' big, powerful man-child of a 22-year-old stormed to the net. Instead of circling around, Saad brought the puck back, fought off a poke-check attempt by goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy and backhanded it between the rookie's legs with 13:38 to go for the game-winning goal in a 2-1 Hawks victory.
The 22,354 in attendance went berserk then held their breath in a frantic final minute as the Hawks evened the series with Game 5 set for Saturday in Tampa Bay.
“I was really pretty lucky. I just saw space going to the net, tried to drive and create some chaos,” said Saad, who also gave credit to Vasilevskiy, starting in place of the injured Ben Bishop, for trying to get the puck out of there. “Finally found it to my stick. Just tried to get some wood on it and get it to the net and found a way through his legs.”
Jonathan Toews also scored and Corey Crawford made 24 saves for the Hawks.
“It's a huge win, honestly,” Niklas Hjalmarsson said. “It's good for our morale in here too, get our spirits up and get a smile on our faces.
“This team gets pretty miserable losing games, and a lot of (honked) off faces around here. We can have a smile on our faces tomorrow and start thinking about Game 5 again.”
Saad's emergence this postseason has been a sight to see. The youngster is just in his third full NHL season, yet he plays like it's his 13th with poise, vision, speed and an overall game matched by few forwards in the league.
“It feels like the stage gets bigger and the time of the game gets more critical, Saader's the guy you want on the ice and he's usually going to make the right play for us,” Patrick Sharp said.
Saad is third on the team with 8 goals in the playoffs, with 5 coming in the last eight games. The Hawks are an astounding 7-1 when he scores and 7-6 when he does not.
“He's way better now than he was in September,” Brad Richards said. “Just growing up, getting confident. He's so powerful. I've never seen such a young kid so even-keeled. I don't think anything bothers him.”
Crawford had to turn away a tidal wave of shots as the seconds ticked off the clock, one of which came from Steven Stamkos from just feet away. Stamkos also had a one-timer sail just wide of the left post.
“I think we've got to be proud of the fact we came in here and took a split,” Stamkos said. “Obviously it seems like a wasted opportunity with the way we played and not be able to get a win. But we're still feeling confident in our game.”
Crawford's other big saves came on a Tyler Johnson one-timer with 2:35 left in the first period and on Nikita Kucherov with 9:30 left in the game on a mini-breakaway.
Crawford has allowed 2.25 goals a game in this series and sports a .913 save percentage.
Vasilevskiy made 17 saves in just his 20th NHL game, two of which have come in this Final. Lightning coach Jon Cooper said he expects Bishop to play again at some point.
While the Hawks got the win and were thrilled to even this series up, Richards was pretty blunt in the locker room afterward in telling the media that the Hawks better pick it up if they want to beat the Lightning two more times.
“Yeah, that was probably our worst game in a while for whatever reason,” Richards said of Game 4. “We really wanted it, but we just kept getting in each other's way.
“These guys are way better than anybody imagined at checking and trying to frustrate you. So we're learning that mentality that it might be 2-1 games the rest of the way.
“I think we got caught up thinking it would be run and gun, and if we do that, we just feed them. We've got to be more patient than them.”
• Follow John on Twitter at @johndietzdh.
Three stars
1. Duncan Keith, Hawks. D-man continued his amazing play in these playoffs. Keith blocked 4 shots, played 29:07 and had a great pokecheck on a potential breakaway with Tampa Bay on the power play in second period.
2. Brandon Saad, Hawks. Nets game-winning goal with a sick move in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy.
3. Corey Crawford, Hawks. Makes 24 saves, including big ones on Nikita Kucherov just four minutes after Saad gave Hawks 2-1 lead, and 2 more in the final minute as TB nearly tied the game.