Chicago Blackhawks: What makes Game 2 so important

The Blackhawks came away with a huge 6-4 win in game one against the Edmonton Oilers. That win made game two a huge opportunity to walk away with an easy series win.

The Chicago Blackhawks came out and absolutely dominated the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday afternoon. Corey Crawford was solid. Dominik Kubalik picked up where he left off. Jonathan Toews showed why he is the captain. And Patrick Kane was his normal playoff self.

I heard a stat from David Kaplan’s ESPN 1000 radio show today that stated that a team has only come back from an 0-2 deficit in a five-game series one time. Which basically means, if the Blackhawks come away with a win tonight, we can probably relax. Still, though, you never know.

But what does a loss tonight bring? We know Connor McDavid can get hot at any moment in time. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl, and Zack Kassian all can help out McDavid as well. The Oilers also have two very solid goaltenders.

The Oilers have loads of talent and are the higher seed for a reason. We all know how streaky and kind of scary the Blackhawks can be. Especially with their leaky defense. We have to remember, the Blackhawks didn’t just shut the Oilers down. They scored four goals, and I have a hard time believing the Blackhawks will score six goals in each game.

I am not trying to discredit the Blackhawks win from Saturday. We should all be excited about that game! But we have to acknowledge that it wasn’t really a runaway win.

"Blackhawks: My Concerns Going Into Game 2 Against Edmonton"

It’s pretty simple, if Chicago wins, we can probably look ahead to the next series, but if they lose tonight, we are right back to a tied series with the momentum on the other side. You may even be able to go out on a limb and say the winner of tonight’s game will most likely win the series.