Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville had a tough choice entering the second round. Incumbent starter Corey Crawford had struggled mightily in his team’s first round series against Nashville, while backup Scott Darling stepped in and provided the team with exceptional play.
Would he stick with the red-hot backup or return to his No. 1 goalie?
Quenneville decided to go back to Crawford. He’d done it after a tough Game 1 in the first round and was burned. In the second round, however, Crawford has rewarded his coach’s faith, most notably in Game 3's 1-0 shutout win Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center. In so doing, the veteran goalie addressed whatever questions existed regarding the one position where the ‘Hawks have shown some weakness in these playoffs.
In Games 1 and 2 against the Wild, Crawford gave a strong effort and his team recorded a pair of victories. It would be up to Minnesota to find some way to make him look shaky in the net. As John Dietz of the Daily Herald noted after Game 2, it was the club’s best chance of turning the tide in its second-round series against the 'Hawks:
Other than [a Marco Scandella shot that damaged Crawford’s helmet], a third-period goal from Matt Dumba in Game 2 and a brief flurry in Game 1's first period, Minnesota has done very little to make Crawford waver. If that doesn't change Tuesday, this series will be well on its way to being over as the Hawks look to steamroll to a fifth Western Conference final in the last seven seasons.
Crawford didn’t waver. Instead, he put in his best showing of the postseason in Game 3. In a contest where the Blackhawks were out-shot, out-chanced and only managed to score a single goal, Crawford turned aside all 30 shots he faced.
Quenneville correctly credited him with the victory:
Markus Granlund had what might have been the Wild’s best chance at beating Crawford, taking advantage of a bad Duncan Keith pinch to jump out on a breakaway:
Crawford made several other brilliant saves, including this one through a scramble in which a puck kicked toward the net by Zach Parise forced him to drop his stick to get his blocker hand on it:
In the second round, Crawford has now turned aside 90 of the 94 shots directed on him by Minnesota, good for a 0.957 save percentage. He’s back to the form he showed in Chicago’s 2013 Cup win, in which he posted a 0.932 save percentage, winning all 16 of his team’s games. His struggles in the first round mean that he won’t have that distinction should the Blackhawks win it all again this year, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that he’s back in playoff form.
With Crawford playing so well, it’s getting awfully difficult to find much in the way of weakness in the Blackhawks’ lineup.
The veteran core, which has made the team an NHL powerhouse for most of the last decade, remains in place, bolstered by additions like rookie forward Teuvo Teravainen (who was dangerous with four shots in Game 3) and veteran deadline addition Antoine Vermette, who seems to have found his form after some early struggles with Chicago.
Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane continue to provide the backbone of one of the most frightening forward units in the NHL. Kane has recovered nicely from a scary injury during the regular season and scored the Blackhawks’ only goal in Game 3. This is a team with brilliant high-end talent and capable depth, a team that has Toews and Kane on different lines but also feels comfortable regularly sending out its fourth forward unit against the opposition’s best.
The blue line is equally formidable. Duncan Keith is perhaps the best defenceman in the NHL who isn’t his team’s primary shutdown option; that honour in Chicago falls to stalwart rearguard Niklas Hjalmarsson. And that's not even mentioning Brent Seabrook.
The Wild are a good team that improved this season, a team that was better than any other in the NHL over the back half of the year. Chicago has them four games away from victory but just one away from elimination in the second round. Goaltending was Chicago's one obvious potential weakness, but if Crawford keeps playing the way he has, then it’s unclear how an opponent is supposed to knock out the Blackhawks.
Statistics courtesy of NHL.com, NaturalStatTrick.com and War-on-Ice.com unless otherwise noted.
Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.
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