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What Happened Last Night: Chicago Blackhawks @ Nashville Predators Game 5

Posted on by Dan Bradley

Nashville had never won a game at home facing elimination. Nashville was without Shea Weber, the most feared defenseman in the league. Nashville was playing a banged up Mike Fisher. Nashville was facing the most clutch team in the NHL, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Well, you saw what happened.

Preds “Win One Game” against Chicago

How they won:

The Predators and ‘Hawks traded chances like it was a toughman boxing tournament. You know it’s a fast game when the NHL mandated TV timeouts didn’t have space to occur. That might have been the excuse used to explain how this happened:

Cody Franson is larger than a Ford Ranger, but a wrong move on his part is amplified by his lack of mobility. To heck with him being “Diet Shea Weber”, he was “Diet Hal Gill” on that play. Ugly, ugly stuff on that one.

But it got better.

He just flung it.

The second period featured some traded chances, but it didn’t have the fire of the first. So for all you old-time hockey guys out there, who did you pick to make the big, game changing hit?

Xavier LaFlamme himself. Nashville had a bounce in their step going into the third. And they ambushed the Chicago team like they were evading taxes or something.

In order to score on a wrap around, you have to have some quick feet and have a bit of guile. James Neal has both of those. Slick goal, and good work by Viktor Stalberg as well.

Same here, with Big Willy Style getting one on the man-advantage.

That celebration was smug as hell. I love it.

We’re still not done. We’re going to enjoy every bit of this.

Mike Fisher and Filip Forsberg combine for this simple play. Check out the Prince dropping the knee like he’s Brett Hull.

At this point the game got a bit closer thanks to the most gorgeous pass you’ll ever see in garbage time from Patrick Kane to Versteeg. Enter: Andrew Shaw. He learned that you do NOT touch Seth Jones.

Seriously. Paul Gaustad seems like the kind of guy that trains all year on a farm lifting stuff and dreaming of that one time he fights someone in the playoffs. He’ll punch a guy until his shoulder falls out.

And I spent lots of time looking for Andrew Shaw’s bloody face skating back to the locker room. Thanks PAWWWWWLLLLL.

These posts are in no small part due to the awesomeness of Stephanie Vail, @MyRegularFace on twitter. She’s an asset to the hockey community. And she deserves our thanks and some Paypal deposits from time to time. Because without her, we might not have this minutes after the game:

That’s it for this one. The job is not near done, but you saw enough to make you believe it could be done.

Kevin Wilson came through in the clutch. Have a great weekend.

Talking Points