It’s a hockey truism that depth wins championships. Right now, the Chicago Blackhawks don’t have any on defence, and it’s starting to cost them. It may end up costing them the Western Conference Final against the Anaheim Ducks.
Looking at the 2-1 score in Game 3, it’s easy to think that perhaps Chicago’s defence wasn’t the problem, to argue that Anaheim only managed a pair of goals and that if the Blackhawks want to win, they have to find a way to get more pucks past Frederik Andersen. It’s certainly true that Chicago needs to score more, and it’s fair to say some of the blame for that falls on the team’s forwards.
But it’s a perspective that misses much of what happened Thursday.
It misses, for example, the massive territorial and scoring-chance advantage that Anaheim ran up in the game’s first two periods—the 40 minutes that decided the contest before the Ducks settled into what might be termed a “Katie, bar the door” approach to defence.
The game-winning goal, from Ducks defenceman Simon Despres, is a solid example of Ch ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Chicago Blackhawks’ Overworked D Too Tired to Handle Physical Ducks in Game 3
May 21st, 2015 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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