Rozner: Red-hot Crawford carries Hawks to victory

For the Blackhawks to get anywhere this spring, you had to believe it would be Corey Crawford carrying them.

Crawford came off an injury and a long layoff and needed to get hot quickly.

And that's exactly what he's done.

Crawford has been brilliant for two games and the Hawks escaped St. Louis with a draw on the road after capturing a 3-2 victory over the Blues in Game 2 at the Scottrade Center Friday night.

"Great job by our guys," Crawford said, deflecting all postgame honors. "They did a great job staying calm when it got crazy out there."

After allowing only an overtime goal in Game 1 Wednesday, Crawford faced 31 shots Friday and stood tall again, giving the Hawks life as they head home with a 1-1 series tie.

"We know every game with them is going to be good," said Hawks coach Joel Quenneville. "For two games, this has been a pretty amazing series already."

Much will be made of two video reviews that went the Hawks way, and they wouldn't have won the game without them, but Crawford was brilliant and he will have to be again in Chicago for the Hawks to take control of the series at home.

"Their goaltender's hot, so it's huge that (Crawford) is playing great for us," said captain Jonathan Toews. "He kept us in both games."

The Blues got on the board first after a bad Hawks line change was combined with a poor decision by Patrick Kane to hang around center ice, rather than help out in his own end.

Michal Rozsival was pressured by Jori Lehtera and gave up the puck to Jaden Schwartz. The Blues had numbers and Schwartz easily found Vladimir Tarasenko cruising down the slot. He beat Crawford stick side for a 1-0 St. Louis lead at 15:20 of the second.

But a late David Backes icing gave the Hawks a chance in the St. Louis end and Toews won the faceoff with a tap back by Kane to Duncan Keith, who fired through several bodies and beat Brian Elliott with a few ticks left for a 1-1 tie heading to the intermission.

"Nice that we got the draw because we had a few options," Keith said. "The big thing there was the screen by (Andrew) Shaw."

St. Louis appeared to take the lead back with 7:46 remaining in the game when Niklas Hjalmarsson and Keith both got caught behind the net, Artem Anisimov was late getting to the front and Lehtera fed Tarasenko for his second goal, but the Hawks asked for a review and Lehtera was determined to be offside before the puck entered the zone.

That huge break mattered a minute later when the Hawks went on the power play after Tarasenko chopped Shaw's stick, and Shaw cleaned up a Brent Seabrook rebound in front to give the Hawks their first lead of the series with 4:19 left in the game.

That goal was reviewed twice - because this is, after all, the NHL - and those calls also went the Hawks' way, so all that was left was for them to hang on for dear life against a ferocious Blues charge down the stretch.

"I knew I put it in with my stick," Shaw said. "That's what playoffs is. You're not going to get pretty goals. Go hard to the net and work for the tough ones."

An empty netter with 86 seconds left gave the Hawks breathing room and that was the difference when the Blues scored with a second remaining in the game.

"Huge to get one here on the road," Toews said. "Last time here (in 2014) we lost two close ones (in overtime), and didn't want to be down 2-0 again. This was big."

Keith, Kane and Shaw will get the headlines from this one, and they all deserve the praise, but it's no secret that you can't win in the postseason without goaltending, and it already feels like this Hawks team is going to need superb goaltending to go a long way.

So far, they are getting exactly that.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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