Hawks prepare to sink the Sharks

Nobody said life was fair, and the Chicago Blackhawks aren’t offering the San Jose Sharks a recount.

Antti Niemi, the lightly-regarded Chicago netminder – at least, until the playoffs started – turned justice on its ear for the second time in three Western Conference final games, parrying 44 shots and denying the full force of San Jose’s firepower until playoff monster Dustin Byfuglien broke the visitors’ hearts at 12:24 of overtime for a 3-2 Chicago victory at the United Center.

The Hawks now lead the series 3-0, and it’s down to a question of if, not when, they finish the job. Game 4 is Sunday at 2 p.m. local time.

The 6-foot-4, 258-pound Byfuglien – who destroyed Vancouver in the second round, scored the winner in this series’ opener, and was a major net-front presence in Game 2 – found himself alone in the high slot, accepted David Bolland’s pass and beat Evgeni Nabokov’s glove hand high, to squelch a spirited effort by the much-maligned Sharks, whose luck never seems to change.

"It was a breakdown in [defensive] zone coverage," said Sharks coach Todd McLellan. "They did a really good job of keeping it alive at the point, worked it behind the net. Byfuglien got lost out high in the slot. I don’t know if we can blame one individual. Collectively, we’ve got to be aware of the shooter. The guy behind the net is not dangerous. The guy in the slot is."

"I just saw from the side of my eye that everyone was coming down, and nobody can miss Buff," said Bolland, the pesky checking centre who had some dominating offensive shifts Friday. "I think Nabokov never saw it coming. It was great to see Buff come in there and bury it with cheese, as well.

"I was ecstatic hearing this building erupt – it was crazy out there."

Like the series opener, this one was there to be had for the Sharks, and only Niemi’s refusal to be beaten kept them from cashing in. Nabokov was good, with 35 saves of his own, but the Hawks’ Finnish rookie was better.

"We were fortunate tonight. I thought our goalie was deserving of any superlative you could attribute to him," said Hawks coach Joel Quenneville.

Asked if he thought he was in the Sharks’ heads now, Niemi said: "I hope so."

Bolland, who had taken three minor penalties earlier in the game – the second of which contributed to the Sharks’ first goal – looked as though he had delivered the telling blow with 6:55 left in the third, snapping a 1-1 tie on a breakaway created when Jonathan Toews blocked Dan Boyle’s point shot and the puck caromed to Bolland in full stride.

But an icing call forced the Hawks’ No. 1 unit to stay out tired, and on the ensuing faceoff, McLellan reunited his big line – and everything broke down for Chicago. Three Blackhawks pursued the puck to the point, leaving them outmanned at the net, and Patrick Marleau – who had scored both Sharks’ goals in Game 2 and the first one Friday – made it 4-for-4 when he converted Dany Heatley’s rebound to tie the game with 4:23 left and send it to overtime.

Staying the course didn’t work after the opener and so, after an off-day of misdirection in which they assured the trusting media that juggling the lines would be a sure sign of panic, the Sharks proceeded, of course, to mix-and-match personnel on their first three lines.

McLellan not only broke up Joe Thornton, Marleau and Heatley to start Game 3, he scattered them to separate units – achieving more balance but, in the end, not the desired result.

The Sharks lost an early video review of an apparent Joe Pavelski power play, which turned out to have been kicked in. The Hawks, meanwhile, plagued by alarmingly bad starts on home ice, weathered the early pressure and confidently awaited the usual San Jose collapse in the middle period.

Only it didn’t happen. The Sharks, with a gratefully-received 5-on-3 manpower advantage, got the first goal at 3:58 from Marleau, when Pavelski’s rebound kicked right out to his stick in the slot. But two minutes later, a gratuitous whack at Niemi put Sharks’ Logan Couture in the box for slashing, and Toews set Patrick Sharp up for the equalizer on the power play – Toews’s 12th straight game with at least a point, breaking Stan Mikita’s single-season franchise playoff record.

The Sharks clearly had the better of the play in the third, but each team missed glorious chances to take the lead, the best of them by the two snake-bitten snipers – San Jose’s Heatley, who shot into the right pad of Niemi, and Chicago’s Marian Hossa, who was robbed by defenceman Rob Blake’s shin-pad with Nabokov out of the play.

The overtime may have been the Sharks’ last chance to make it a series, and they had the puck for most of it, but there is something in the air this spring in Chicago – and something else between the pipes – and it will evidently take more than the Sharks have to overcome it.

They just can’t seem to get over the hump.

"I can’t walk in the dressing room tomorrow and approach that group and say they didn’t give an effort, they didn’t work hard, they didn’t give us everything they had," said McLellan. "We had enough looks at the net. You know, what we have to do now is bottle that game up, find a way to score one more than they do on Sunday afternoon.

"We’re still on the hump. I don’t think we’re under it yet."

Not yet. But the clock is ticking.