Canucks Hang on After Hectic Finish, Take 2-0 Series Lead Over Blackhawks at BetLM

Canucks Hang on After Hectic Finish, Take 2–0 Series Lead Over Blackhawks

It wasn’t the kind of dom­i­nant win the Van­cou­ver Canucks might have wanted to pro­foundly shake the Chicago Black­hawks from their psy­ches, but the Pres­i­dents’ Tro­phy win­ners will gladly take a 2–0 series lead from tonight’s win.

Van­cou­ver 4, Chicago 3; Canucks lead series 2–0.

This Game 2 con­test fea­tured a mix­ture of the expected (a great per­for­mance by Hart Tro­phy fron­trun­ner Daniel Sedin, who scored twice and recorded an assist) and the unex­pected (Sedin’s goals being answered by two Ben Smith rebound goals, the first play­off tal­lies of his career). For a while, it seemed like the ‘Hawks might go into Game 3 won­der­ing if they could solve Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo. By the end, there were many left won­der­ing if Luongo still needs to get that mon­key off his back.

Vik­tor Stalberg’s goal might have been the best micro­cosm of the sur­pris­ing sources of Chicago offense, as the forward’s quick release caught Luongo off-guard … but also sur­prised Stal­berg, as he took a notice­able amount of time to real­ize he scored a goal.

Ulti­mately, the Black­hawks made too many mis­takes, espe­cially when the Sedin twins were on the ice. Daniel had his three points and Hen­rik showed up too, pro­vid­ing two helpers. Chicago rarely had a solu­tion for the pair­ing beyond “Let’s hope Corey Craw­ford can han­dle it.”

Craw­ford had some great moments despite allow­ing four goals on 27 shots, but Luongo did enough to win again, stop­ping 23 out of 26.

The best team from the 2010-11 sea­son has the defend­ing Stan­ley Cup cham­pi­ons in a tough sit­u­a­tion, but the Black­hawks host the next two games at the United Cen­ter, an arena that has been a House of Hor­rors for Luongo and the Canucks the past few play­off years. Per­haps Chicago built a lit­tle con­fi­dence in giv­ing Van­cou­ver a late run in Game 2, but the bot­tom line is that they must match the Canucks’ efforts with two home wins of their own if they have a chance to make this a series.

It’s been a thrilling (if occa­sion­ally messy) first two games, but we’ll see if Chicago can get back into this series in the next two games.

Related Posts:

• Van­cou­ver Beats NHL Bet­ting Favorite Chicago
• NHL Bet­ting: Van­cou­ver Top­ples Chicago
• Chicago Downs NHL Bet­ting Favorite Vancouver
• Van­cou­ver Beats Cal­gary in the Bat­tle of NHL Odds
• NHL Bet­ting: Van­cou­ver Beats Colorado

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