Greg Brady: When you’ve got a proven Stanley Cup–winning core, and your team’s the President’s Trophy winner, and they had a 24-game point streak to start the season, and… you get the point.
But no matter what the Blackhawks have done in the past, they’re only going as far as Corey Crawford can take them. The netminder has done his best Peyton Manning impersonation in Chicago’s last two first-round matchups, going one and done in each after the Hawks took the Cup with Antti Niemi tending the crease in 2010. Is this Hawks team as deep as that version? It’s a fair question, but their regular-season dominance playing an all–Western Conference schedule says they are. Thus, time for Crawford to deliver after playing terribly against Phoenix last year and having a brutal start to the series against Vancouver the year before, putting the then–defending champion Blackhawks down 3–0.
Compound all that with the fact that Crawford is on a notoriously short leash. It’s no secret Chicago poked around getting an upgrade in goal once the lockout ended, and backup Ray Emery has pushed Crawford hard for starts all season long. He also proved with the Sens that he can win three rounds in the playoffs.
It’s “get it done” time for Crawford. His mates know they can win a Cup. But do Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Bolland and Hossa think Crawford can?
Jim Lang: No goalie is under more pressure to perform in these playoffs than the Penguins’ Marc-André Fleury.
Memories of last year’s epic first-round meltdown against Philadelphia are still fresh in everyone’s mind. In their six-game series loss to the Flyers, Fleury allowed a staggering
26 goals, for a goals-against average of 4.63, with a save percentage of .834. No team, even one as deep and talented as the Penguins, can survive in the playoffs with that kind
of goaltending.
To heap even more pressure onto Fleury’s slender shoulders, Pittsburgh loaded up for a run at the Cup with some big-name acquisitions before the trade deadline. Jarome Iginla and Brenden Morrow were brought in because the Penguins believe they have a team that is capable of going all the way right now.
But for that belief to become reality, Fleury has to be good in the post-season. I say “good” because with the talent the Penguins have, Fleury doesn’t need to steal games, he just has to do enough not to screw it all up. That means not allowing 26 goals in six games. It means providing the kind of steady goaltending that will allow his team to play their style of hockey.
Shakespeare once wrote, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” For Fleury to lead the Pens to glory, he’s going to have to bear the burden of the crown that comes with being a money goalie in the post-season.
