The Blackhawks and Predators were the final series to get underway this postseason, but in the spirit of the underdog success we’ve seen in the other series, it wasn’t all that surprising to see the Preds come out on top of this one. A couple of lucky bounces off the stick of JP Dumont gave the Predators all the offense they’d need, and they added two empty netters in the final minute to record a 4-1 victory in Chicago last night.
All four Nashville goals came in the 3rd, after Chicago had dominated play over the first 40 minutes. Pekka Rinne was great in net for Nashville, stopping 21 of 22 shots in the first two periods, and finishing with 25 shots on the night. Patrick Kane had the lone goal of the first two frames, crashing the net and knocking one home to put the Hawks up by one.
In the 3rd, the Predators caught a lucky bounce that changed the entire momentum of the game. Dumont flipped a lazy bounce into the Chicago end and instead of going into the corner, it took a funny hop and beat Antti Niemi to tie the game and give Nashville a badly needed boost. Nine minutes later, Dumont’s hard work paid off with another goal, as he crashed the net and bounced a puck in off a sprawling Niemi to give the Preds the lead. Jerred Smithson and Martin Erat added empty net goals in the final 50 seconds to ice it.
Chicago won’t be looking to change too much from their game, despite the loss. The only thing they did poorly was fail to respond to the tough bounce they got on Nashville’s first goal, as they registered just 4 shots in the final period. Goals will be tough to come by for the Blackhawks if Rinne has his game going like he did in this one, and I’m sure there will be no shortage of debate in Chicago about whether Cristobal Huet should get the Game 2 start for the Hawks.