2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs Blog - VAN vs. CHI

The Vancouver Canucks prided themselves on their defensive play all season long and were virtually unbeatable taking a lead into the third period.

But in this second-round series, the Canucks gave up 14 third-period goals.

Monday night's Game 6 was no exception.

Vancouver gave up three leads in the game, two of them in the third. Daniel Sedin scored the go-ahead goal midway through the period, only to see the lead evaporate 45 seconds later on a goal by Patrick Kane. Forty-nine seconds after that, Patrick Sharp scored the winner on the power play as the Chicago Blackhawks eliminated Vancouver with a 7-5 win at the United Center in front of close to 23,000 fans.

Shane O'Brien of the Canucks, who took a lot of heat throughout the season for taking ill-advised penalties, was in the box for the winner.

Sevens are wild

The Canucks hadn't given up seven goals all season long. In fact, goaltender Roberto Luongo hadn't given up seven goals in his three seasons with Vancouver. Luongo took the brunt of the blame afterward.

"I think I let my teammates down," he said. "I think it's going to take awhile to get over."

Luongo was visibly shaken and apologized, and left the media scrum after answering just a few questions.

Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault wouldn't hang the loss on his captain.

"You win as a team, you lose as a team," he said. "We're all responsible for the loss tonight and in this series."

Everything comes in threes

The teams were tied at 3-3 heading into the third period. Six goals were scored in the final frame. The Canucks managed two leads, but the Blackhawks kept battling back.

Kane had a hat trick, scoring the tying goal and adding some insurance with Chicago's seventh goal on the night. It had been 15 years since a Blackhawk had a hat trick in the post-season.

Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville found the whole thing a little perplexing: "I don't think anyone anticipated the craziness of the third period. The swings, the excitement … it was so unpredictable … it was an amazing ending."

High praise for Blackhawks

Vigneault praised the Blackhawks in his post-game comments.

"They are the best offensive team in the league," he declared. "If they can keep this team together in this salary cap era … they're going to have a good team for a long time."

The Canucks were too consumed all series by what Chicago could do offensively.

Even after winning the opener 5-3, they still seemed to have little confidence in their own offensive abilities - only talking about the Blackhawks were capable of. Once the series shifted to Chicago, the Canucks began to resemble the 2007 version of the team - a trapping, smothering team looking to win games 1-0 or 2-1.

When that didn’t work, they reverted back in Game 6. They tried trading chances with the Blackhawks, mostly because they were playing catch up. Neither style worked and the better team won the series.

Timely first

O'Brien tied the game up at 3-3 on a shot from the point that beat Blackhawks goalie Nikolai Khabibulin high to the stick side. It was O'Brien first goal of the season and first in 148 games.

He last scored as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2007-08.

Mocking tone

Kris Versteeg scored a power-play goal to give the Blackhawks a 2-1 lead in the second period and celebrated with Canucks forward Alex Burrows's favourite move - the bow and arrow.

The move is immortalized on a T-shirt dedicated to the memory of Canucks defenceman Luc Bourdon, who passed away last summer in a motorcycle accident. Bourdon used the move in his rookie year with the Canucks. Burrows has been using the celebration all season long, as a tribute to his best friend.

Cup bound?

This series victory over the Canucks is a good sign for the Blackhawks. Since 1994, the Canucks have made the playoffs eight times and, in six of the eight seasons, the team that eliminated Vancouver went on to the Stanley Cup final. Five of them won the ultimate prize.

The Calgary Flames were the only ones that failed to win it all and they came pretty close, losing 4-3 to the Lightning in Game 7.

Chicago revival

The Blackhawks announced a crowd of 22,629 for Game 6, which pushed them over a million total tickets sold for the season (1,006,920). It is the first time in franchise history that over a million people have attended games in a single season.

Hall of Fame goaltender Tony Esposito, a Blackhawks legend, came out to chants of "Tony, Tony" to drop the puck for the ceremonial faceoff.