The long wait is finally over for Chicago Black Hawks fans. After a 49 year drought, the Hawks wrapped up the Stanley Cup title when young star Patrick Kane scored in overtime to defeat the game Philadelphia Flyers in game 6 in Philly. The Black Hawks are a surprise champion this year, even though they made the natural progression from being eliminated in the conference finals last year to winning it all. There weren’t many prognosticators picking them to win. It’s a strange situation in Chicago in that most of the moves made to build this team were made by former general manager Dale Tallon, who was fired after last season. The team basically got lucky in finding Cup winning goaltender Antti Niemi, a former backup, and now has a situation where former starter Cristobal Huet is making over $4 million dollars per season. Another strange situation was captain Jonathan Toews winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP even though he was scoreless in the finals, but the trophy is actually given to the MVP of the entire tournament, so Toews is deserving, although Dustin Byfuglien (that’s a lot of letters for a name pronounced Buf-lin)would have been a good choice also. Despite not scoring, Toews dominated the faceoff circle in the finals and just generally provided leadership. Credit has to be given to coach Joel Quenneville also. After the Flyers held serve by winning games 3 and 4 at home, he made the strategic decision to break up his big line of Toews, Byfuglien and rookie Patrick Kane, and the result was balanced scoring and 2 solid wins to secure the Cup.
NHL – Black Hawks End Drought
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