The Blackhawks came back from a 5-2 loss to Edmonton on Saturday night, to defeat the Canucks on home ice Sunday night.
The Canucks struggles continue, as they run into hot goaltending and find themselves unable to find the back of the net on most occasions. However, there are several reasons to feel optimistic after watching the way they played last night.
Vancouver had no business losing this game after heavily outshooting Chicago 40-24.
This game was quite literally a Post Game for the Vancouver Canucks, who couldn't seem to beat the post once last night. Vancouver hit 5 posts in total. That counts for something, right?
Marc-Andre Fleury had a spectacular game between the pipes for the Blackhawks, Giving him his 68th shutout of all-time.
Fleury has stopped 135/140 shots in his past four games (including this one). Giving him a .964 SV%.
Not a whole lot happened for the first 20 minutes of the game, besides an injury to Chicago defenseman Riley Stillman, who sadly was a victim of friendly fire.
Vancouver held great offensive zone times, and mostly controlled the play throughout the first period. Chicago's saving grace continued to be Marc-Andre Fleury.
The second period of play was no better for Chicago either, after getting heavily outshot by Vancouver.
Chicago was looking fatigued from their current road trip at this point in the game.
Fleury then robbed Podkolzin from point-blank, who was looking for his 4th goal of his rookie campaign. That is tough to watch for any Canucks fan.
After two periods of action, it was still 0-0 heading into the third. Both teams desperately needed to win, there was a glimmer of hope for the Blackhawks when Brandon Hagel broke the scoreless tie to take a 1-0 lead early in the third-period.
At this moment, the game completely shifted. Vancouver found themselves down by a goal and in need of some late-game heroics to tie the game up. This was no stranger to this team, which frequently is playing catch up in scoring.
Vancouver then went nearly 10 minutes in the third without registering a shot on net, which seems to happen quite often to this team during random stretches of play.
Late in the third, Vancouver got a gift power play and had many great opportunities to tie the game up. They pulled Demko from the net to have the 6-on-4 opportunity but still couldn't capitalize.
Gotta love the effort from Conor Garland, who remains a fan favorite in Vancouver despite the teams current struggles. He dazzles fans every night with his slick moves & brilliant offensive plays.
in brighter news, the Vancouver Canucks have not given up a powerplay goal in back-to-back games now. This is massive progress for this team that currently has the worst penalty kill ranking in the NHL.
Here's my tweet of the game. Some of you on Twitter are hilarious.
Ultimately, Chicago got the last laugh.
Marc-Andre Fleury moves to 13-2-2 all time against the Vancouver Canucks.
Here's my three stars of the game:
No disrespect to Fleury at all, he played fantastic. I will actually give him all three stars of this game.
The Canucks will now head out on an East-Coast road trip, beginning on Wednesday night at 4pm in Pittsburgh as they take on the Penguins.
The Blackhawks wrap up their road-trip in Calgary on Tuesday night before heading back home.
