Stanley Cup Playoffs 2013: Blackhawks eliminate Kings

It didn’t help that his defensemen were ... well, I’m not exactly sure what they were doing here. But it wasn’t good.

Not quite.

The series will be televised on NBC in the U.S., while CBC and RDS will broadcast it in Canada.

Here’s the full schedule for the 2013 Stanley Cup Final (all times ET):

The next ten minutes or so were spent playing more back-and-forth hockey, but the Blackhawks finally cashed in on a scoring chance when Jonathan Toews setup Patrick Kane for the game-winner.

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And yet, the best chance of the frame came in the final minutes when Seabrook’s shot just went wide of the net off the rush. The way these two traded scoring chances, expect this one to end in the second overtime.

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They almost did. The Blackhawks were called for icing with 14.4 seconds left, and the Kings won the face-off in the Chicago zone, leading to a Mike Richards game-tying goal.

Welp. To overtime we go.

And then the karma police came knocking. Violently.

Yeah. That’s not legal.

If L.A. keeps this up, they could still save their season in the third.

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You can’t really blame Quick on that shot. That puck was just blessed by Lady Luck and slipped through the tiniest of cracks between those two goalie pads.

Energized by the two tallies, the Blackhawks continued to pepper Quick and the Kings. Los Angeles could barely get the puck out of its own zone, and a lot of forays into the Chicago end of the ice ended rather quickly. After getting outshot 10-4 in the first, the Kings need to turn things around quickly (no pun intended) to save their season.

“It’s possible, it’s 50-50,” Los Angeles head coach Darryl Sutter said after morning skate (via ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun).

Richards has been out since suffering a concussion in Game 1 of the series on a hit from Dave Bolland. He had five points in each of the Kings’ first two series of the playoffs and with Los Angeles facing elimination, down 3-1, they could use Richards.

The Chicago Blackhawks have a chance on their home ice to take their second Western Conference Championship in four seasons. A lot of people expected them to be facing a more competitive series than the one the Los Angeles Kings have given them. But enough has gone wrong for the Kings on the ice and in terms of injuries that they have put themselves in a 3-1 hole just as much as the Blackhawks have put them there.

Take, for example, Thursday night’s Game 4. The Kings jumped out to leads of 1-0 and 2-1. Between Jonathan Quick and the Kings’ ability to play defense, that should have been enough to shut it down. The Hawks, however, had other plans. Patrick Kane tallied late in the second. Marian Hossa completed a gorgeous one-timer early in the third. In just two minutes and 29 seconds, the Kings had given away the lead and the game.