Blackhawks Sweep Season Series with Maple Leafs

The narrative was suppose to be relatively straight forward today: The Maple Leafs were going to run all over a depleted and dejected Blackhawks roster. I'm not sure Jason Dickinson bought in. The former 1st round pick (29th in 2013 by the Dallas Stars) netted his first career Hat Trick on his 45th career goal this Friday to tie the game at 3 early in the 3rd (que Pat!).

More to the point though, the entire line of Boris Katchouk, Jason Dickinson, and Joey Anderson was absolutely outstanding from start to finish. Their backchecking and board battle wins ignited multiple scoring chances for a team riding a 5 game losing streak.

It was Friday afternoons theme of resilience that got the win. Down 3-1 and with a pressing Auston Matthews and William Nylander on constant attack it was goal tender Arvid Soderblom that came up with big save after big save. Soderblom's end game stats showed it too as the 24 year old Swede stopped 34 / 37 for a .919 save %.

The overtime was one of the more exciting 5 minutes of hockey I've seen from the Hawks in quite some time. There were chances on both ends including a double post breakaway by William Nyalnder. The play switched ends moments later which saw a shot by Connor Bedard hit the glass, bounce on top of the goalie's net, and then get batted in by fellow prized rookie Kevin Korchinski for the game winner (Korchinski's second goal of the season).

This was a suprise victory given the prior days hedlines. You can read about that by clicking this paragraph for the prior article.

For full highlights of today's thrilling victory please see the video below via sportnet. You can visit them at www.sportsnet.ca.