Game one of the finals saw the visiting Blackhawks get out early in the first on a goal from Vermette. The home teams third line answered back before the end of the first as defensive specialist Jay Pandalfo got a goal on a great indivdual effort as he jumped on the ice during a line change and sniped in his 7 goal of the playoffs. At the end of 1 it was 1-1 with the home team winning the shot battle at 9-6.
Early in the second the Hawks reclaimed the lead when the All-World center Joe Thornton took a pass from pesky Jason Blake on the powerplay and beat Henrik Lundqvist blocker side. This powerplay goal seemed to anger the home team as the goal was scored after Blake had dove on a phantom high sticking call to Shane Doan. From this point on the game took a totally different route with the home team's top line tying the game with just under 3 minutes to go in the second Eric Cole scored a tap in goal his 6th of the playoffs, on a tic-tac-toe goal with linemates for the finals Shane Doan and Dany Heatley. With under a minute to go the teams new second line scored a beauty goal as Jokinen took the puck off the neautral zone faceoff found Hemsky on the wing who undressed both the winger and d-man (alfredsson, markov) on the play before throwing a 30ft saucer pass over a sliding d-man (bieska) right onto Jochen Hecht stick for his 9th of the postseason. With the home town fans going crazy with their first ever lead in a BRHL2 CUP game the 2nd line dangled again potting a goal scored by Jochen Hecht for his 10th again assisted by Jokinen and Hemsky, the goal was a crippling one to the Hawks as it came with 29 seconds left to put the team down 4-2 a lead they took into the dressing room after 2 and weren't able to come back from. The Thrashers outshot the Hawks again in the second with a 16-8 advantage.
Early in the third the refs tried to make it close again calling a BS penalty on Dany Heatley, but Johan Franzen replied with a SH goal of his own it was only his 2nd of the playoffs but was a key one as it put the game completely out of reach for the Hawks who then packed it in. The Thrashers gave the home crowd a couple more goals to cheer about when Sraios-Neil-Heatley all tallied in a route. The total shots for the game was 38 for Atlanta to only 23 for the Hawks.
The REAL Three Stars of the night were
* Ales Hemsky ** Jochen Hecht *** Dany Heatley
After the game the Thrasher would only deflect questions towards "The Next One" which goalie Henrik Lundqvist was quted as saying. Still when asked about the dominance in game one the players spewed the normal "3 more to go is all we care about" lines like, Zdeno Chara used when asked about shutting down Vinny. The bes and most famous in Atlanta is the, "We still feel like the underdog, know one has given us a chance all year, its about the guys in the dressing room who matter not what people think, we wont talk about tonights game just about how we want to succeed in the next game." a line Shane Doan has been using to the media since getting here midseason.
i'm surprised you didn't give one of the stars to chara... i mean, 4 shots and nothing else for lecavalier, while posting a +1 and playing half the game by chara... you give him that much credit but no reward?
you had more points than chicago, finished higher than chicago, have two goalies rated higher than chicago's starter... arguably has a better defense than chicago and you feel you're the underdog? nah man, you're the favourite of this series... george and dave need a bit of columbus magic....
lol no way dude. lecavlier-thornton-gaborik-alfredsson-frolov-blake-sturm-dumont-vermette-vishnovsky-markov-clark his team is loaded offensively and backstrom isnt rate much worse than lundqvist so not a big advantage his team is the favorite forsure..
i never said you had the advantage up front, but you have a solid all-round team whereas if the forwards struggle in chicago then it would be harder for the hawks to keep the puck out of the net...
