Detroit Defeats Blackhawks - Again

It looks like the defending Stanley Cup champions will be going on to the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Detroit Red Wings managed a 3-2 overtime victory in game 2 of their series against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Hawks maintain high hopes, but after giving a phenomenal effort – and losing again – in game 2, many speculate a series win for Detroit.

The last time a defending champion made it to the finals was in 2001 with New Jersey. The last time a defending champion repeated a Stanley Cup win was in 1998, by – you guessed it – the Detroit Red Wings. The team is hoping to replicate the feat.

Tuesday’s game was Detroit’s fourth in a week, coming after two difficult games against the Anaheim Ducks.

The team needs only two more games to win the series.

The Blackhawks, coming into the postseason at fourth seed, now need to win four out of five games in order to move into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“It’s a brutal loss,” said Chicago coach Joel Quenneville. But neither the coach nor the players have given up yet. “We want to beat them one game, the next one, and that’s our concern,” Quenneville stated.

Chicago scored the first goal of the game with a 4-3 power play advantage. The puck bounced off of Detroit defenseman Jonathon Ericsson’s skate in front of the net moments after Detroit’s right winger Mikael Samuelsson exited the penalty box.

It was the 11th straight playoff game in which the Wings have relinquished a power play goal.

The Red Wings, however, quickly rebounded, taking the lead for most of the game. Brian Rafalski scored on a power play 5 minutes after Chicago and Dan Cleary, in his third straight critical goal, shot the puck over Chicago goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin’s right shoulder in the second. Cleary had also shot two of the Wings’ five goals in game 1 of the series and had scored the winning point in game 7 in the series against the Ducks.

Jonathon Toews, the young Blackhawks captain, kept his team in the game, scoring both of Chicago’s two goals – the second of which came in the middle of the third period, tying the game and leading to a 2-2 overtime.

Then the Hawks crashed. A few minutes into overtime, Chicago blueliner Brian Campbell made a dicey play in the Detroit blue line that cost his team the game. Trying to pass the puck to teammate Cam Barker through Samuelsson, Campbell lost the puck to the Detroit linesman. With a set up from Valtteri Filppula, Samuelsson managed to score Detroit’s winning point.

"I was going to shoot and I saw the guy come all the way over to me, making [Barker] open," Campbell explained. "I tried to go between the stick and the skate, which usually is a tough play to knock down and defend. Obviously, he found a way, but those are the chances you take.”

“I would do it again,” he said.

Chicago had the will but the Red Wings defeated them anyway. Detroit’s strength lay in its depth; all four lines boasted talent and skill, and the Wings scored even when some of their top players – Hart Trophy nominee Pavel Datsyuk and Marian Hossa – gave less-than-astonishing performances.

Goaltender Osgood also gave a typically underrated but nevertheless top-notch performance, stopping 37 of 39, including head shots during a first period 5-3 power play.

The Hawks are trying to shrug off the loss and prepare for game 3. "[W]e're not going to quit," said Campbell, echoing his coach. "We're going to come back hard Friday night.”