While winning the Stanley Cup is never easy, the first goal is making the playoffs. The Chicago Blackhawks began a nine-year postseason streak in 2009 and went on to win three Stanley Cups in six years, becoming the first team in the salary cap era to be labeled a modern-era dynasty.
To win three Stanley Cups over that stretch, there had to be some memorable goals scored at timely moments. And the Blackhawks delivered plenty of them.
Who could forget Patrick Kane’s hat trick in Game 6 against the Vancouver Canucks at the United Center, a performance that announced the Blackhawks’ arrival as legitimate contenders?
The following year, with the Blackhawks entering the Stanley Cup Playoffs as one of the favorites, they drew All-Star goaltender Pekka Rinne and the Nashville Predators in the opening round. It didn’t go as planned.
The Predators won two of the first four games to tie the series before a crucial Game 5 at the United Center. Nashville grabbed a 4-3 lead late in the third period, and Marian Hossa was called for a five-minute major boarding penalty with 63 seconds remaining in regulation.
“I tried to go for the puck,” Hossa said after the game. “The guy turned his back to me. You don’t want to hit a player that way, but I couldn’t stop my motion.”
The Blackhawks were in trouble. Joel Quenneville pulled his goaltender for an extra attacker to make it a 5-on-5 situation, and Kane — who had rarely killed penalties before — was on the ice as Chicago searched for the tying goal.
“Sometimes you catch a break,” Kane said. “Five-on-five with the goalie pulled you’re trying to do everything you can to score a goal.”
With 13.6 seconds left, he did just that. Bedlam ensued at the United Center after what is widely regarded as perhaps the most important goal of the Blackhawks’ dynasty era.
“Nothing tops it,” Kane said. “Thirteen seconds left to tie and keep us in the series, probably. Going to Nashville down 3-2, that would be a tough game to win.”
Andrew Ladd recalled the moment years later to the Chicago Sun-Times: “Being down, being in the box with no time remaining in the game, we didn’t think we really had much of a shot to even get an opportunity to tie it. Ninety-nine times out of 100, you’re not scoring shorthanded with a minute left in a playoff game to take the game to overtime. But we did it.”
But the job wasn’t finished. The Blackhawks still had to kill the remainder of Hossa’s major penalty in overtime.
“I feel shame,” Hossa reminisced 10 years later. “I’m sweating bullets for five minutes. It’s 4-4, we go to the dressing room and I’m sitting quiet in the corner of the dressing room and I’m hoping we can kill another four minutes of my penalties.”
Well, they did, and as soon as the penalty expired, Hossa jumped out of the box, went straight to the net and tapped in the game-winning goal to give the Blackhawks a 3-2 series lead.
“You can see me there in the corner coming from the penalty box [to be] in front of the net,” Hossa said. “The puck is coming to me and all I have to do is just put it into the net. One of the most amazing feelings in my career. I still got the chills.”