Eric Weinrich had seen the play diagrammed at least 100 times in his career “and never seen it work.” Chris Chelios estimated he’d seen it 1,000 times, but wasn’t saying how many times it worked.
Thursday night, it worked, and it cost the Blackhawks a victory.
With 1 minute 23 seconds remaining in regulation in the Hawks’ 2-2 overtime tie with the Calgary Flames, Calgary coach Brian Sutter called timeout and diagrammed what he had hoped would be the tying goal. It took the Flames three seconds to execute it to perfection.
Marty McInnis won the draw back to the point, Zarley Zalapski sent a perfect pass to Theo Fleury and Fleury’s one-timer beat Jeff Hackett.
“I couldn’t believe I had so much net to shoot at,” said Fleury.
“It was about the only faceoff we lost clean in our own end all night,” said coach Craig Hartsburg. “Sometimes you have to take your hat off to the other team that made a helluva play to score.”
That the Hawks (9-13-4) got a point at all was somewhat lucky the way they played the first two periods. They were outshot 25-13, but Hackett stopped them all and Gary Suter scored a short-handed goal at 1:43 of the second on a great pass from James Black for a 1-0 lead.
Calgary (4-15-7) tied it at 11:54 of the third on Michael Nylander’s rebound goal, but 43 seconds later, Black put the Hawks back on top with a slapper. That set the stage for the Flames’ perfect play.
“Everybody knows that play,” said Chelios. “We hesitated for a second and it was a pretty bang-bang play.”
“When we’re in a position to win a game,” said Weinrich,” we have to learn how to win games like that.”
