Facing a win or go home game at home on Wednesday night, the Chicago Blackhawks pulled out an intense win to force game seven against the Anaheim Ducks. Even though the final score was 5-2, it was a much closer game than the score indicated. 

After an uneventful first 28 minutes of the game, the floodgates opened. Brandon Saad got the game’s first goal, his fifth of the playoffs, with assists from Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith. 2:18 later Marian Hossa scored his third goal of the postseason, assisted by Keith and Brand Richards. Kane got his third goal of the series at the 12:08 mark of the period, assisted yet again by Keith. It was Kane’s 10th goal of this postseason.

Chicago scored the first three goals of this game, just like Anaheim did in game five. Just over two minutes after Kane scored Patrick Maroon scored his seventh goal of the playoffs on a power play, just seven seconds after the Richards penalty. 

Just 1:57 into the third, Clayton Stoner drilled a snapshot over the glove of Corey Crawford to pull the Ducks within one at 3-2. Nate Thompson and Jakob Silfverberg, who likely got away with goalie interference on the play, assisted. For almost 15 minutes, the game was intense as can be and neither team scored.

But the most unlikely of heroes came through as Andrew Shaw scored the next goal, off a long pass from Antoine Vermette to Andrew Desjardins, who passed it to Shaw on the breakaway as Shaw put it in to put Chicago up 4-2. It was his third goal of the playoffs, and later he scored on an empty net to make it 5-2.

Anaheim outshot Chicago 32-23 and outhit Chicago 43-38, but Chicago dominated the face-off circle, winning 33 of 50 draws. Corey Crawford played well as he saved 30 of 32 shots while Frederik Andersen struggled once again, allowing four goals on 22 shots faced. It is the third game in a row that Andersen has posted a save percentage under .900.

With a three goal win for Chicago, the teams have now both scored 19 goals in the six games. Four of the games in this series have been one goal games with a three win game for each team. It doesn’t get more even than that.

This series has alternated wins every game, with Anaheim winning all the odd games and Chicago winning all the even ones. Will that trend hold in game seven? We shall find out on Saturday night as one of these teams will win themselves a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals.