Chicago Blackhawks vs Detroit Red Wings Game 5 Predictions

Tonight is do-or-die night for the Chicago Blackhawks, as they find themselves in a 3-1 series hole and facing elimination tonight against the Detroit Red Wings in the Motor City. Without the services of G Nikolai Khabibulin, the Hawks were decimated on their home ice by the Wings by the count of 6-1 on Sunday afternoon to give Detroit the comfortable advantage. He’ll probably be out once again tonight, though HC Joel Quenneville hasn’t totally ruled out his starting goaltender. After the embarrassing results of Game 4, the Blackhawks have been lined as hefty +200 underdogs, while the ‘total’ has been set at 5.5 over -135. You can find all of the great Stanley Cup betting lines at JustBet.com right now!

Cristobal Huet
1-1, 4.55 GAA, .844 SV%
in playoffs     Chris Osgood
11-4, 2.14 GAA, .921 SV%
in playoffs

The youthful Blackhawks got a big time dose of reality when they were trounced by the Wings in Game 4 on their home ice. Absolutely nothing went right for G Cristobal Huet, who was making his first career playoff start in relief of the injured Khabibulin. He only stopped 21 of his 26 shots faced, which simply isn’t good enough to get the job done against anyone at this level in the postseason. Even worse for Quenneville’s squad, his top offensive players never really got shots on the Detroit net either. RW Patrick Kane, C Jonathan Toews, and RW Martin Havlat only combined to take five shots for the game, even though Toews did light the lamp with his goal in the second period, Chicago’s lone strike of the game. Huet has the ability of beating the Red Wings. Just look at his effort from April 11th, when he stopped 21 of 23 shots in Chicago’s 4-2 victory in Motown.

As long as Detroit doesn’t get complacent and continues playing like it did in Game 4, this series shouldn’t last too much longer. Stars C Johan Franzen (one goal), RW Marian Hossa (two goals, one assist), and LW Henrik Zetterberg (two goals) finally all came together on the same night, and the result was a six-goal outburst on a young goalie making his first start at this level. Meanwhile, it was business as usual for G Chris Osgood, who stopped 18 of the 19 shots he faced before being relieved by G Ty Conklin for the final 20 minutes of the game. The 6-1 final score in Game 4 looks incredibly lopsided, and an incredibly lopsided game it was. Anything and everything Detroit wanted to accomplish, it did. There’s no doubt who the better team is in this series, but there’s still a big question about the Wings and their killer instinct when they have a team down. They put away Columbus after going up 3-0, but really struggled with Anaheim for an unnecessarily long time. This Chicago club is the stingiest bunch they’ve run into so far in this postseason and won’t go away easily.

Chicago’s spirits are still very high in this series in spite of the bad loss in Game 4. The Blackhawks had every opportunity in the world to steal Game 2 of this series a week ago, and have to feel like they let one slip away. The odds weren’t this high on Detroit in that Game 2, and though ultimately, they’ll go on to defend their Stanley Cup title against the Pens again, tonight may not be the close out night. The young Hawks are almost too stupid to realize that they shouldn’t be here, and they’ve defied the odds all season. There’s a ton of value on a Chicago team tonight with absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Selection: Chicago Blackhawks +200

By Adam Markowitz of JustBet