Blackhawks Look to Eliminate Wild in Game 5

After posting the league’s best record during the regular season, the Blackhawks will look to be the second team to advance past the first round of the playoffs, as they bring their 3-1 series lead over the Minnesota Wild back to Chicago for game five today.

By most accounts, the Hawks are still playing their top game, but team members aren’t satisfied. They see the drive and the hunger in other teams and that’s what they want to access as they go for the kill tonight and in going forward this postseason.

“You look at some teams that just battled their way into the playoffs in the last 10, 15 regular-season games or so, they come right into it,” Chicago center Jonathan Toews said, according to ESPN.com. “You see the pace. You see the physicality in a lot of those other series. We’re getting better one game at a time, but we need to start bringing that now.”

The Wild are one of those teams that battled all year for a playoff spot, but they haven’t played with that sense of urgency in this series. They’ll need to start tonight in order to see their season continue.

Part of the Wild’s problem has also been injuries. Minnesota was forced to go to their third goalie in game four on Tuesday, after seeing Josh Harding go down with a leg injury. The Wild aren’t saying who will be goaltending for them in game five, partly because they don’t want to give Chicago any clues, and partly because they really don’t know who will be healthy enough to go.

Whoever is in goal will need to feel that sense of urgency and step up with everything on the line.

“It’s desperation time right now,” Wild forward Kyle Brodziak said. “There’s no room for sulking or anything like that.”

With home ice, a healthy productive roster and a new found hunger to rediscover their “A” game, the Blackhawks seem to have just about every advantage going into the fifth game of the series.

With their backs against the wall, the Wild will likely find a spark, but it probably won’t start a fire. And considering the Wild are banged up and that they have lost two of three games in this series by more than one goal, I like the Blackhawks to cover -1.5 today in the win as they advance to the second round.