This game was almost everything I had hoped it would be. The attendance was at a max, 16,000+ people in attendance for the meet up against the Stanley Cup Champs. There was a lot more Red and Indian chiefs than I had hoped to see, but as much as I thought we would be outnumbered, it sounded rather loud and boisterous when the Thrashers scored a power play goal 3:14 minutes into the game to start things off.
It seemed like everything happened in the 1st and 2nd periods. In the 1st, the Thrashers rang up 2 penalties that the Blackhawks took advantage of while only able to take make good out of 1 of 3 penalties that the Blackhawks earned. In the second period, we started strong, scoring our second goal on another power play and following that up within less than a minute with another goal. When the Blackhawks came back and tied it at 3, the Thrashers answered again with the 4th goal of the game, our 3rd power play goal. Somehow, with just over 3 minutes left in the second, Pavelec gets caught BEHIND THE NET and the Blackhawks score one more time.
Going into the 3rd period with the score 4-4, everyone was looking for a goal, all of the fans at least…neither team could come up with a goal during the third, taking the game into sudden death. As the 5 minutes ran off the clock, everyone prepared for the shoot out.
The shoot out started with Antropov, whose shot was saved by Turco. Captain Toews followed and scored against Pavelec to make it 1-0 Chicago. Thankfully, Andrew Ladd, former Blackhawk, answers Toews with his own goal to tie it up. The next two players for each team them fail to make the puck into the net. Troy Brouwer comes up as the Blackhawks and Pavelec makes the save. In eager anticipation we see #33 hop the wall for the next chance for the Thrashers. What a victory this will be! Byfuglien coming up with the shoot out goal to, WHAT? What is that? He missed the shot? My heart sank. I had a sudden deep knowledge that it was over, we had lost. Viktor Stalberg comes up next for the Blackhawks and shoots it in, ending the game, 5-4.
It was an amazing game. I do truly believe that everyone got their money’s worth out of this one. Did we win, no? Did we walk away with over 30 shots on goal for the first time in weeks? Yes we sure did! Did we manage to control ourselves and hold our team to only 4 penalty minutes the entire game? Yes we did. We had more hits, more takeaways, less giveaways and more faceoffs won. We performed very well against the Stanley Cup Champions. But, we still have some work to do…
Meeting of the birds
