Blackhawks goalie Jocelyn Thibault took matters into his own hands Sunday, even going so far as to challenge St. Louis shooters with a bare right hand.
Thibault lost his stick and blocker, leaving him barehanded for about 15 hectic seconds just past the midway point in the second period.
But Thibault refused to lose the game. Because of his 35-save performance, the Hawks played the best team in the National Hockey League to a 1-1 overtime standoff before a crowd of 16,998 in the United Center.
“Some guy hit my stick and glove and they both came off at the same time,” said Thibault, explaining his bizarre barehanded adventure. “It was a 1-0 game and you don’t want to get scored on and let them tie it on a play like that.”
One shot went wide. Next Thibault made a pad save. And then he put his bare hand behind his back and caught a puck launched by Al MacInnis, owner of the hardest shot in the NHL and the shooter who broke a finger on Thibault’s left hand on Nov. 27.
Thibault again excelled under pressure in overtime. Left defenseless when teammate Bryan McCabe lost the puck in front of the net, he rejected Jochen Hecht’s point-blank shot. Finally, he made the last save of the game, denying MacInnis, who’d infiltrated from the perimeter.
“They didn’t have enough time left to score, so I cheated and went into the slot, hoping the puck would come to me, which it did,” said MacInnis. “Thibault came out and challenged me–he played it just right. He was the reason they got the tie.”
“They had all kinds of opportunities to win the hockey game,” said Hawks associate coach Lorne Molleken. “Without Jocelyn the score would have been lopsided.”
While the Blues were incessantly attacking Thibault from near and far, their goalie, Jamie McLennan, spent most of the game watching and waiting. The Hawks had only 11 shots on goal, tying the low for the 73-year-old franchise.
“I was thinking of McLennan during the game,” said Thibault. “It’s hard to keep your concentration when you don’t have to make many saves. I was glad I was the one getting the shots.”
The Hawks scored when the game was in its infancy. “It was a bang-bang play,” said Tony Amonte, who connected on the move from the near left. “Alexei Zhamnov made a great pass and put it on my stick and I put it in the net.”
Amonte’s 39th of the season with 1 minute 49 seconds elapsed gave the Hawks a lead that lasted until 2:01 remained in regulation.
The sequence leading to the tying goal began when the Blues’ Marty Reasoner won a faceoff from Josef Marha to the right of the Hawks’ goal. The puck went to Stephane Richer, who sent it to Chris Pronger on the perimeter.
With heavy traffic around the net, Pronger skated a few strides to his left and fired a low shot on Thibault’s glove side, tying the score.
“I couldn’t see the puck,” said Thibault. “If I had seen the puck it would have been an easy save.”
Lower than low: The Hawks also had only 11 shots against the Blues on Jan. 21, but there was no overtime. They lost that one 3-0. In their other 11-shot game during the 1997-98 season, they lost 3-1 in Dallas.
Here today, gone tomorrow: Bob Murray, fired as the Hawks’ general manager in December, was back Sunday, working as a scout for Anaheim.
