It took such an improbable sequence of events to make it happen that even as he watched it unfold before his eyes, Murray Craven never dreamed that he’d be lining up against his old Vancouver teammates Sunday to start the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“I was so wrapped up in our series, and the scenario was so complicated, that I didn’t think it was possible,” the veteran forward said after the Blackhawks wrapped up their series with Toronto Friday night with a 5-2 victory in Game 7 that advanced them to Sunday’s 6:30 p.m. matchup in the United Center.
“Even when I was watching the overtime game in Calgary, I didn’t think we’d be facing .”
Even Hawks coach Darryl Sutter, who had told both his team and the media in the final week of the regular season that finishing fourth in the Western Conference not only would earn home ice for the first round, but might even secure it for a later round as well, admitted “I’d never have guessed that both teams would get knocked out. I was just looking at what happened in the past and playing the odds a little bit.”
Maybe he ought to forget Sunday’s game and head straight to Las Vegas while he’s on a roll. It took a double-overtime victory by San Jose in Calgary and Vancouver’s upset victory in St. Louis to bring about a matchup that, for the Hawks, appeared to be made in hockey heaven.
The Hawks were 4-0 against the Canucks in the regular season, and outscored them 25-10. Twice they ran up nine goals, easily their season high, against Vancouver.
But, “I’d throw those games right out the window,” Craven said, “because it’s not going to be like that. Last year, when I was with them, they turned their game up in the playoffs, and they’ll do it again. They’ll be firing on all cylinders.”
“Anything that happened in the regular season is totally irrelevant,” Sutter agreed. “We hit them at a lot of good times for us and bad times for them. You know I’m supposed to play the role of the underdog here, but the truth is they’re the proven team and we’re not. The Rangers and Vancouver should never be underdogs. They kept the nucleus of their teams, and they were in the Stanley Cup finals last year.”
One player who obviously has turned it up for Vancouver is Pavel Bure. The Russian Rocket, who had 60 goals in the regular season and 16 more in the playoffs last year, sputtered early and had to struggle to reach 20 goals this season. But he scored seven in the seven-game series with St. Louis, including two shorthanded goals.
“He’s a very explosive player,” Craven said. “He’s a game-breaker. He can turn a game around by himself. He didn’t do it in the regular season, but from what I saw in the playoffs he got it going again.”
“It’s impossible to stop him totally,” Sutter said. “He’s a great player.” But the Hawks did stop him during the regular season when Bure had just one goal and one assist against them.
“We caught them at times when he wasn’t playing very well,” Sutter said with a shrug. “For his age he’s a great pressure player. Just look at what he did in the playoffs last year. In watching the St. Louis series he’s got fire in his eyes.”
Sutter intends to fight fire with fire, matching Bure with his own best player, defenseman Chris Chelios, whenever the Canuck star steps on the ice.
“It’s fairly obvious that if there’s a clear-cut best player Chelios plays against him,” Sutter said. “But with someone like Bure it’s not a one-guy deal.”
If the Hawks have an offensive player to match Bure, it’s Jeremy Roenick, and there is every likelihood that the star center will make an appearance at some point before this series ends.
“If he doesn’t have a setback, he’s really close,” said Sutter, who ruled out any chance that Roenick, who hasn’t played since he injured his left knee April 2, would be in the lineup for the series opener.
“We definitely want him back in the lineup,” said right wing Joe Murphy, who has scored five goals in the last four games. “He can take us to the top. He’s a key player, and one of the best in the league. I think we can get the job done without him, but it makes it harder.”
