The Fifth Liners

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Dave Bolland has been ruled out indefinitely after suffering an ankle injury in their 4-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, where he was injured in the second when Zack Kassian accidentally trod his leg which caused it to break! Bolland was acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in the off season and so far has racked up 6 goals and 10 points in his 15 games played at the Air Canada Center. Also the Leafs have placed center Tyler Bozak on the long term injury list, which is bound to affect their offensive options!

Spoiler. Chicago win. Anyway, how did it happen? First Period After Rene Rancourt's belting national anthem, the Bruins really took the initiative, letting the Blackhawks know that today would not be a formality. The first test for Tukka Rask came three minutes in when Nick Leddy fired a laser from center ice forcing Rask to knock the puck away. Less than a minute later Jonathan Toews linked up with Patrick Kane from behind Rask's net but Kane fired wide. The Blackhawks have been working on their link up play as Alex's man-crush Michal Handzus may have struggled in the faceoff spots but his passing was on target. The Handzus-Sharp pairing proving to be one of the best in the league. The Bruins' third line kept Chicago under pressure but for what seemed like an age, couldn't find the net. That was until the seventh minute when Tyler Seguin found the 'Hawks D-men sleeping and passed the puck in front of Corey Crawford to Chris Kelly who found t...

Patrick Kane continued his impressive playoff performance and put in a first star performance to gain the Chicago Blackhawks an impressive 3-1 win over the Boston Bruins at the United Center last night and as a result they take a 3-2 lead in the series and lie just one game away from the ultimate prize! Kane struck late in the first period and bagged his eight goal of the playoffs 17 minutes in when he backhanded the puck into the bottom left corner of Tuukka Rask ’s net when Johnny Oduya ’s shot shattered Dennis Seidenberg ’s stick and fortuitously slid into his path! The Blackhawks skilfully used their pace and made use of the extra space available to frustrate the Bruins defence- meanwhile Corey Crawford was proving a wall in a net and it would prove to be that way for the remainder of this fixture. Chicago fans didn’t have long to wait for Kane’s ninth goal as after less than 5 minutes played, he scored high into the Boston net put the Hawks 2-0 to good! But the per...

A triple overtime winner from Adam Shaw gave the Chicago Blackhawks a terrific fighting 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins in game one of the Stanley Cup Final at the United Center last night! But this was no straight forward affair and required Joel Quenneville 's men to go deep to produce a result from the bleakest of scenario's! Milan Lucic got the Bruins off to a brilliant start with a goal mid way through the first period off an assist from Nathan Horton and the ever impressive David Krecji and Lucic then went one better and bagged a second only 51 seconds into the second period (thats a lot of seconds there!) with one again Krecji providing the chance, before Brandan Saad put Hawks back in contention two minutes later with his first play off goal. Patrice Bergeron restored the Bruins to two goal lead with a powerplay goal 6 minutes into the third and it looked as if the Blackhawks' final might go the same way as the Penguins before them. But however there was to ...