Chicago Blackhawks Sunday Viewing- Nashville Game 5

Chicago Blackhawks Sunday Viewing looks back at some of the best games, goals and saves in their franchise’s history, Today we look back at what could be one of the most pivotal games in this current golden era of Chicago Blackhawks hockey. 

The Chicago Blackhawks carried over their deep run into the 2009 playoffs to one of the best regular seasons the teams has ever had in 2009-2010.  The one problem for the Blackhawks was the team they had to face in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

If you had to pick one team for the Chicago Blackhawks not to face in the first round out of the Western Conference it had to be the Nashville Predators.

The Barry Trotz team was led by all world goalie Pekka Rinne, and a defensive style that made it almost impossible to score goals even for a high octane offense that the Chicago Blackhawks had in 2010.

Nashville had taken the first and third games of the series by identical 4-1 scores while the Chicago Blackhawks had shut out the Predators in both their victories in Games 2 and 4 before heading to the United Center for the pivotal Game #5.

The Blackhawks took a 3-1 lead when Tomas Kopecky scored late in the second period, but Joel Ward scored a minute later and the Hawks went into the second intermission with a 3-2 lead.

The lead didn’t last long Martin Erat scored the game tying goal, and the go ahead goal in the third period to put the Hawks in desperation mode with the thoughts of trailing 3-2 in the series heading back to Nashville.

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The Chicago Blackhawks pulled

Antti Niemi

and with a little over a minute left the comeback looked even bleaker when

Marian Hossa

boarded

Dan Hamhuis

and got a 5 minute major.

The one thing about the Chicago Blackhawks is that when it does appear to be the darkest they find a way to make some magic happen.  Granted it took a pretty silly back pass by a Erat to give the Hawks some help, but some more magic was about to happen.

Somehow

Patrick Kane

was able to get behind everyone on the Predators team and when he knocked in the rebound it was all tied with seconds left and overtime was imminent.

Of course, the game was tied but Marian Hossa still had four minutes of a major penalty to be served when the overtime began.

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The Chicago Blackhawks were able to kill off the penalty, and when Marian Hossa did get back on the ice the game would be over seconds later!

The Chicago Blackhawks would go on to win Game #6 and eventually win their first Stanley Cup in 49 years, but none of it may have taken place if it wasn’t for some pretty wild moments at the end of Game #5 of the opening series against the Nashville Predators!

Next: 6 Questions for 2016-2017

What’s your memory of this wild game?