Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Chicago Blackhawks Regrouped to Win Stanley Cup
The major decision to be made: Keep Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews together or split them up?
With the Chicago Blackhawks down 2-1 in the Stanley Cup Final, the team's internal brain trust had to decide whether to keep its top two forwards together on the same line. That combination had helped propel the Blackhawks into the Final after they trailed the Anaheim Ducks 3-2 in the Western Conference Final.
But three games into the Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Kane-Toews combination wasn't working its magic anymore. Tampa Bay's top defenseman, Victor Hedman, was out there for almost every shift of the Brandon Saad-Toews-Kane line.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Kane had zero points after the three games, and Toews just one. Even more worrisome, the two had combined for only 13 shots on Tampa goalie Ben Bishop. Hedman, the 6'6" D-man of the Lightning, was getting a nice breather at the same time Toews and Kane were. The Toews-Kane combo, which worked wonders after being put together in the late stages of Game 5 of the Western Final, had been figured out by Hedman and Co.
So the decision was made: Split Toews and Kane up for Game 4. But it didn't come easily.
"There was some good debate," Blackhawks executive adviser Scotty Bowman told Bleacher Report. Bowman's son, Stan, is the team general manager. "But what was happening was that Hedman was out there for two of every three shifts against (Toews and Kane). We had to make it so we had (Toews or Kane) coming out one of every two straight shifts, so Hedman couldn't just be matched up against them both every time."
Toews responded to the switch with a goal in Chicago's 2-1 Game 4 win to even the series, with Kane assisting on another. Hedman, who had what his coach Jon Cooper called a "coming-out party" in Game 3 with two assists, was not on the ice for either of the Chicago goals; Jason Garrison, Matt Carle and Anton Stralman (twice) were.
Chicago's biggest worry going back to Tampa Bay for Game 5, though, was how Cooper would adjust to the Toews-Kane breakup. He had the last change, after all, so he could afford to double-shift Hedman occasionally.
As it turned out, Chicago got a couple breaks in the rubber game at Amalie Arena. Nikita Kucherov, the league's second-leading playoff scorer to that point, had to leave the game early on because of an upper-body injury. One of Kucherov's linemates, center Tyler Johnson, was playing with what later was revealed to be a broken wrist.
Suddenly, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville had an easier time not only putting Toews and Kane out there every other shift separately, but he could put his top defensive pressure more on the Steven Stamkos-led top line. Tampa's "Triplets" line of Kucherov-Johnson-Ondrej Palat had now essentially been rendered obsolete by injury.
The 81-year-old Bowman takes no credit for another adjustment Chicago made after Game 3 but acknowledges it was something he passed on to Quenneville and the rest of the Blackhawks staff: Chicago chose to hang back more defensively against the Lightning rather than go with an aggressive forecheck.
Bowman just happens to have his main residence in the Tampa area, so he'd seen numerous Lightning games in person over the years. On the visitors' side of the press box at Amalie Arena most nights, there is Bowman, never one to turn down attending a live hockey game.
"After seeing them a lot, I just passed along my observations, that's all," Bowman said. "I thought, 'If we hang back instead of pressuring the puck as much in the (neutral and offensive) zones, we could maybe dictate the play more in transition.'"
It all worked to near-perfection. Tampa Bay scored only two goals in the final three games. Down to basically one line and facing an opponent playing a more patient defensive game, the Lightning offense looked lost most of the final three contests.
One other overlooked factor in Chicago's three-Cup run in the last six years: the Minnesota Wild.
After a tough six-game first-round series against Nashville, the Blackhawks braced themselves for what they, and most everyone, assumed would be another long series against a Wild team they'd knocked out of the playoffs two years in a row. The Wild were supposed to be the hungrier team, finally ready to stop playing apprentice to their Central Division rivals.
It turned out to be one of Chicago's quickest and easiest series in years.
"When we got a sweep of Minnesota, it gave us 10 days off," Scotty Bowman said. "That really allowed our defense to get a breather. We played with mostly four D the last two rounds, but having all that time off after that Minnesota series helped make that easier to do."
By Game 6 against Tampa Bay at the United Center, everyone around the Blackhawks was feeling confident this would be the night. The Blackhawks had a relatively healthy lineup, while the Lightning had a goalie with a torn groin muscle and two-thirds of their second line too banged up to be effective.
After a 2-0 shutout win, Scotty Bowman took to the ice to celebrate a Stanley Cup championship for the 14th time in his life (nine as a coach, five as an executive). He spent the rest of the night close by his son, Stan, who now has his third Cup championship as a GM.
"I got out of there at about 1:30 or so," the elder Bowman said.
"Everybody else kept going. But I've been to enough of those kinds of things."
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
