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Kane and DeBrincat refuse to lose on Pat Foley night, Chicago beats San Jose 5–4

  
Kane and DeBrincat refuse to lose on Pat Foley night, Chicago beats San Jose 5–4
The Chicago Blackhawks salute legendary broadcaster Pat Foley after defeating the San Jose Sharks 5–4 in Foley's final career call. (Photo courtesy of the Chicago Blackhawks)

As the Chicago Blackhawks celebrated their longtime play-by-play broadcaster Pat Foley with a plethora of tributes and stories from former Blackhawks and personalities all around the hockey world and more, two teams took the ice that were playing for nothing but pride. However, Foley gave the crowd an excellent speech like we have come to expect.

Early on in the contest, Patrick Kane beat San Jose Sharks goaltender James Reimer with goal No. 24 on the season. Kane made an excellent defensive play at his own blue line, stopping a shot attempt by Sharks defenseman Brent Burns, which lead to a 3-on-1 with Kane taking a pass from Dylan Strome to take a 1–0 lead before fans were even in their seats.

San Jose forward Timo Meier would beat Kevin Lankinen to tie the score at 1–1 at the 4:45 mark of the first period.

Both teams would find some offensive push, but both goalies stood tall, at least in the first period, as the score was all square after one period of action.

Recently acquired Taylor Raddysh netted his ninth goal of the season, on the power play, when Kane made a great cross-ice pass to defenseman Seth Jones, who found Raddysh on the doorstep for an easy redirect goal and a 2–1 Chicago lead.

San Jose would tie the game at 2–2 when forward Scott Reedy beat Lankinen after a harmless shot from Burns deflected to a wide-open Reedy for his third goal this season.

Chicago responded a few minutes later when Calvin de Haan buried his fourth goal when Kane made a “sweet dish,” as Foley belted, for another easy tip-in goal for Chicago to put the Hawks ahead 3–2. The assist gave Kane a point on all three goals.

As the horn sounded on the second period, Chicago led 3–2 in about as an evenly matched contest one would expect from two teams looking to the summer.

Early in the third period, Foley gave an accurate description that “the Globetrotters have just shown up” as a perfect tic-tact-toe passing play ended up in the back of the Sharks’ net for Dylan Strome’s 21st goal of the season.

The Blackhawks’ 4–2 lead would be cut back to one when Lankinen was left sprawling all over the crease and allowed left winger Rudolfs Balcers to score his ninth goal of the season. Lankinen has definitely had a difficult season behind a wonky defense, but has done nothing but give the organization doubt about his future between the pipes.

Lankinen found himself flopping around again in his crease after making two stops on his back, but could not find the answer for the Jaycob Megna attempt, which tied the game at 4–4. A silver lining for fans: We get more time with the great Pat Foley as both teams were off to overtime.

Fans got their money’s worth with Kane and Alex DeBrincat working most of the overtime together, ending on an excellent rush by DeBrincat beating Erik Karlsson 1-on-1, but DeBrincat got in too deep and could not elevate a shot past Reimer. Through five extra minutes of Foley, the game remained tied 4–4.

“Lankinen! Hawks win! Hawks win!” shouted Foley as Lankinen made his third and final save in the shootout after DeBrincat scored to ultimately give the Blackhawks the 5–4 victory in a shootout.

Analysis

Pat Foley will go down as the greatest voice in Chicago sports history and will be missed by fans. Foley mentioned several times during the broadcast that he was the “luckiest man in the building” when us Blackhawks fans were truly the “luckiest fans.” Cheers, Pat! You will truly be missed.

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