Blues at Blackhawks
The Chicago Blackhawks found themselves on the fortunate side of a pair of coach's challenges en route to evening their first-round series with the St. Louis Blues at one victory apiece. The Blackhawks hope their good fortune travels up Interstate 55 to the United Center on Sunday afternoon as the bitter Central Division rivals play Game 3 of their set.
"When you play the defending Cup champions, you're going to have to fight through a lot of stuff," St. Louis coach Ken Hitchcock said following a 3-2 setback on Friday. "Calls aren't going to go your way, you're not going to get the officiating you want. It's always going to seem like it's one-sided. Big deal, fight through it." Vladimir Tarasenko scored his 11th career playoff goal and seventh in his past eight games to open the scoring, but his apparent second tally of the game midway into the third period was overturned by an offside call. St. Louis' troubles continued 3 1/2 minutes later as Andrew Shaw's tally was upheld by review in Toronto and again following a coach's challenge for goaltender interference. The Blues failed to recover from the momentum shift and suffered the loss as the series heads to the United Center, which they have lost three straight playoff games.
TV: 3 p.m. ET, NBC, TVAS, SN
ABOUT THE BLUES: While Hitchcock's comments received plenty of airtime, center Paul Stastny told reporters on Saturday that the team has moved on from the result. "If you worry too much about it, those are the teams that will be unsuccessful and kind of use that as an excuse," Stastny told reporters. "It's early in the series. It's frustrating, yeah, but I think once we woke up this morning, we already forgot about it and we're focused on (Sunday)." Captain David Backes scored in overtime of the series opener and had an assist on Friday to extend his point streak to six games (three goals, five assists).
ABOUT THE BLACKHAWKS: Stud defenseman Duncan Keith returned with a flourish from his six-game suspension, collecting a goal and an assist on Friday while logging one second short of 31 minutes of ice time. "He's a horse back there, so useful in all areas and he's a threat in a lot of different ways," coach Joel Quenneville told CSN Chicago. The same can be said for captain Jonathan Toews, who has recorded a team-high 11 shots and won 27-of-47 faceoffs (57.4 percent).
OVERTIME
1. With his 46th playoff win, Chicago G Corey Crawford moved past Tony Esposito for the franchise lead.
2. St. Louis G Brian Elliott has stopped 61-of-63 shots in the series.
3. The Blackhawks are 1-for-8 on the power play and thwarted all five of the Blues' opportunities with the man advantage.