The long-awaited Western Conference champion. The Western Conference has been a death trap for teams all season, as the level of skill is extremely high. The Hawks and the Ducks were the two teams that battled through all the adversity and found themselves in the WCF. It was the Chicago Blackhawks that fought off the persistent Ducks in a seventh game to win the highly-anticipated Western Conference Final. Let's take a look at how Chicago took out the Pacific Division champs in a tight, seven game series.
Those Chicago Blackhawks. They really can never be doubted, no matter who they're put up against. I predicted that the Hawks win this series, as they did, because of one important fact: they are the Chicago Blackhawks. These guys are the closest things to a modern day dynasty. They've made the Conference Final 5 of the last 7 years, and have won 2, now possibly 3 cups in that span. It seems they just don't lose - they have enough of those guys that are all about leadership and winning, all of those good "Good old Canadian kids" Don Cherry always rants about. This team has been destined for greatness ever since they took Jonathan Toews 3rd overall and Patrick Kane 1st overall in 2006 & 07 respectively.
You have to give credit where it is due, and Bruce Boudreau's Anaheim Ducks put up a great fight against Toews & the boys. Anaheim showed they are a relentless forechecking team, lead by players like Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler, Matt Beleskey for goodness sakes! They have an incredibly young and mobile core of defense including the likes of Lindholm, Vatanen, Fowler & more. Chicago's defense withstood that relentless forechecking, as this series continued to show if the Hawks win the cup you have to give the Conn Smythe to Duncan Keith. The guy continued to log massive minutes this series, and was an absolute horse back there.
Every game except games 1 & 7 were decided by 1 goal, as the closeness of the series continues to be highlighted. The Ducks jumped to the 1-0 series lead with a 4-1 win, but the Hawks responded with the thrilling 3OT Andrew Shaw header controversy, and the Marcus Kruger GWG. Anaheim held on for the stingy 2-1 win in game 3, followed by a 5-4 Hawks OT win, thanks to Antoine Vermette. Game 5 was a big one with a 2-2 series, and it was won in OT fashion 5-4 by Anaheim, thanks to Matt Beleskey. They won this game despite being up 4-2 with 2 mins left, and blowing that lead to 2 Toews' goals, one of which I still have no clue on how it got past Andersen, who had a shaky series end after a great postseason run. Game 6 Chi-Town was on the ropes, but you know how that goes, as they broke out late to win 5-2. Game 7 was an outstanding performance by the Ducks, as they continued to forecheck hard, and play a great game, but not enough so to beat Jonathan Toews, who seems to ALWAYS show up in these big moments. His two goals put the Hawks ahead 2-0, as they went on to win 5-3.
Chicago beats the Ducks depth-wise & playoff experience-wise, and that in my opinion is another reason they were able to outlast the Ducks. Corey Crawford has a lot more playoff experience than Freddy Andersen, the Hawks group of horses Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson & Oduya (especially Keith tho) is a lot more experienced than the likes of Fowler, Lindholm, Vatanen, and even Beauchemin (with all-due respect those guys had a great postseason as well.) Even up-front, Toews, Kane, Sharp, Hossa, the list goes on have a boatload more experience than Getzlaf, Perry, Kesler, they just do.
In the end, the team with the better playoff-roster won, but it really was a toss-up since game 1. I'd like to hear other opinion and thoughts, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!
Cheers,
~UWNHL TEAM
No comments:
Post a Comment