Losing is one thing. Losing quietly is another.
And so the Blackhawks, upset by their relative tameness in a Game 4 loss, came out hitting in their 5-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Saturday night in Game 5 of their playoff series. They weren’t going to go down without a fight. Or a hard check. Or, if necessary, something that might be considered felonious off the ice.
All the good things that came out of the first period Saturday flowed from controlled aggressiveness. The Hawks’ first goal, by Brent Seabrook, came on a power play, thanks to Cory Sarich’s crosscheck, which was the result of a severe case of chafing.
Before that goal, Dustin Byfuglien had two big hits and Ben Eager another for the Hawks. The Flames were clearly frustrated by this. What does a frustrated team do? It crosschecks.
The Hawks scored three goals in a little less than two minutes midway through the first period. They outshot Calgary 15-3 in that period. That’s what happens when A) you’re in perpetual motion, B) you forecheck and C) you’re tired of hockey masquerading as a peace movement.
The two teams combined for 86 penalty minutes in Game 3 and only 10 in Game 4. If you can’t count on rough stuff in playoff hockey, what can you count on in life?
The Hawks came into this game looking to set an immediate tone. They had been outhit in Games 3 and 4. If they had been lying on a sports psychologist’s couch, they would have said they felt like lesser men for the lack of hits.
“You have to challenge guys and get in guys’ faces and make it difficult for guys to play,” Hawks forward Adam Burish said a few days before Game 5. “That’s part of my responsibility. I’m going to get in somebody’s face and challenge him physically, and I’m going to challenge him mentally. Over a seven-game series generally that’s going to wear on guys. Whoever is willing to be strong mentally and physically that way, you’re going to win your battles and you’re going to win the series.”
Burish talked about the fine line that players have to walk, or skate, between being aggressive and being in the penalty box all night. Burish broke a stick over Rene Bourque’s shoulder in Game 3 and didn’t get a penalty for it, though it did set off a near-riot.
“You have to still get in guys’ faces,” he said. “You have to still challenge guys and you have to still be confrontational. Because it’s later in the series is there any more or less? I don’t know. I’m still going to get into guys’ faces.”
After Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg scored to make it 3-0, it was clear that the Flames were going to have to come out in the second period with fire in their eyes if they wanted to get back in this. They cut the lead to 3-1 on Dustin Boyd’s put-back of Adam Pardy’s backhand.
Was this it? Was this where the Hawks gave peace a chance again? No.
A goal by Andrew Ladd made it 4-1. Calgary coach Mike Keenan pulled goalie Miikka Kiprusoff after that score and inserted Curtis McElhinney, but the goaltending wasn’t the problem.
The Hawks were just better. They were more together than the Flames.
Togetherness — that’s one of things that stand out about hockey. More than perhaps all sports, it demands teamwork, physical sacrifice and a surrendering of personal goals for the good of the team. You go all out for two minutes and get off the ice after the shift. If you let up at any point during those two minutes, there’s a decent chance you and your team are going to pay. There’s certainly no time for selfishness. And there’s no profit in it. You can’t skate through two defenders and get to the net. A hockey player can’t take over a game by himself, unless he goes by the name of Gretzky.
If you’re a showboat in the NHL, you’re not going to be one for long. You’re not going to have a head for long, either, because it’s going to get knocked off. Perhaps even by a teammate. Self-centeredness is not frowned upon. It’s snarled upon.
In a game as rough as this one is, you’d have to be crazy to try to show up an opponent. And even when the Hawks jumped on the Flames, they did not dance on them. They did what hockey players do after a goal: They looked for teammates in order to celebrate.
What we saw Saturday night was regular-season hockey ratcheted up by about 20 notches. Playoff hockey raises everything: the hitting, the skating, the emotions. It’s why Burish was predicting lots of physical play for Game 5. It’s why Eager and Pardy went at it in the third period.
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“I think it can continue,” Burish said. “I think it can get more physical. We can still walk that fine line and inch a little closer to that line. I think there’s still a little wiggle room there. You could see a big penalty-fest [Saturday night].
“You can get right back to that line, I know that.”
They skated right up to it Saturday night. And then they hit somebody.
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