Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville decided to make a few changes to his line combinations in Game 4, including putting his top three players, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Marion Hossa together on one line. He was well rewarded Wednesday night as the unit aided the team to a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals, effectively making the series a best-of-three.
The Lightning were without starting goaltender Ben Bishop and turned to rookie Andrei Vasilevsky to man the pipes. Vasilevsky played well, especially late as Chicago poured it on, but it wasn't enough to overcome a Hawks team that seemed to finally catch it's stride.
The first period certainly belonged to the Lightning as the Blackhawks looked all out of sorts thanks in large part to Quenneville's decision to juggle all of his lines - the Hawks ended the period with just two shots on goal.
Fortunately for Quenneville, Blackhawks netminder Corey Crawford stoned Tyler Johnson on a try down low during a Tampa power play late in the first and the two combatants ended the game's initial period scoreless.
Blackhawks defenseman Kimmo Timonen's first contribution to the finals came in the form of a penalty for hooking. Timonen, who was diagnosed last offseason with career-threatening blood clots, fought his way back just in time for the Philadelphia Flyers to flip him to the Blackhawks prior to the NHL trade deadline.
A veteran of 16 NHL seasons, Timonen now has one final opportunity to chase the Cup. The rust of his healthy scratch status for the first three games of the series was apparent early, as the grizzled Finn took the hooking penalty, but he drew a power play of his own for the Hawks and seemed to settle in shortly thereafter.
Chicago hit two posts as they began to buzz in the second before Toews finally opened the scoring, knocking home a rebound.
Tampa Bay evened it up with less than ten minutes left in the second as Alex Killorn somehow wound up all alone and with a wide open net in front of Crawford and buried it.
Blackhawks pending restricted free agent Brandon Saad beat Vasilevsky down low after sticking with a bobbling puck to open the scoring in the third and put the Hawks up 2-1.
It would prove to be just as enough as Crawford and the Hawks survived two golden opportunities from Lightning captain Steven Stamkos out front in the last minute to win the game and tie the series up at two games-a-piece.
