Thanks to goals from Bryan Bickell and captain Jonathan Toews, the Chicago Blackhawks held on for a home victory Sunday night in a wild Western Conference playoff game against the Minnesota Wild, claiming a 2-1 victory at United Center.
The home team has won each of the five games in this series and Chicago improved to 6-0 at home this postseason. The Blackhawks lead the best-of-7 series, 3-2 and can make their second straight trip to the Western Conference Final with a victory in Game 6 on Tuesday night at Xcel Energy Center.
Erik Haula scored the first goal of the game for the Wild late in the first period, after Minnesota started out playing aggressive offense, the Star Tribune reports.
But the Blackhawks came alive in the second and tied the game on a power-play goal by Bickell. In the third period, Toews scored what what would end up being the winning goal, to make the score 2-1.
The Wild fell to 1-6 on the road. They face elimination if they don’t win on Tuesday night in game 6. The good news is that they’ll be hosting at the Xcel Energy Center, whey they have a 5-0 playoff record this season. They need to win to force a seventh game, which would be in Chicago on Thursday.
