CHICAGO – Andrew Ladd tipped in teammate Dave Bolland’s long shot less than three minutes into overtime to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 2-1 comeback victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night, tying the Western Conference semifinal at 2.
Game 5 is Saturday night in Vancouver.
Martin Havlat tied it at 1 with 2:44 left in regulation after it looked as if Roberto Luongo was going to shut out the Blackhawks. Ladd shovelled the puck off the boards, and Havlat’s wrist shot from between the circles beat Luongo high.
In overtime, Bolland chased down the puck along the boards and fired a shot from beyond the right circle. Ladd was in front of Luongo and tipped it in at 2:52.
Ladd’s winning goal came after the Canucks had two point-blank shots to score, but were turned away by Nikolai Khabibulin.
In the closing seconds of regulation with the game tied, Bolland had a breakaway before Vancouver’s Alexander Edler caught up to him, hit his stick from behind and then forced him away from the net.
Bolland went down on the play and the crowd at the United Centre screamed for a penalty with 8.2 seconds to go.
Darcy Hordichuk took a pass from a spinning Rick Rypien to score his first playoff goal midway through the second period to put the Canucks up 1-0 – the fourth straight game Vancouver opened the scoring.
And Luongo again appeared too tough for the Blackhawks to crack.
After allowing eight goals in the two games at Vancouver, Luongo gave up just one in Game 3 and looked on his way to a shutout before Havlat tied it.
Luongo finished with 26 saves, and Khabibulin made 14.
After Chicago’s Jonathan Toews had his shot blocked, Rypien scooped up the puck and raced to the other end against Blackhawks defenseman Matt Walker.
Just before reaching the circles, Rypien made his nifty spin move to evade Walker and then passed to Hordichuk, who beat Nikolai Khabibulin on the stick side for the 1-0 lead.
The score came shortly after Luongo made a spectacular stop on a rebound attempt by Chicago’s Troy Brouwer. After the Canucks went ahead and with each team down a man, Luongo made a sprawling pad save to deny Patrick Sharp.
Chicago came out with strong early rush and Luongo had five saves in the first 6 minutes, including another nice pad stop of Toews’ point-blank attempt just as a power play was expiring.
The Blackhawks mustered an 8-4 shots-on-goal advantage but were blanked in the opening period for the fourth straight game.
Notes: Canucks D Sami Salo, who rejoined the team Tuesday night after being injured in Game 2, did not play for a second straight game. … Baseball Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk participated in a goal shooting contest between the second and third periods. … NBA rookie of the year Derrick Rose of the Bulls dropped the ceremonial first puck.
