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Blackhawks send Wild on summer vacation

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CHICAGO

Wild thing, I think I shoved you ... right out of the playoffs.

If you wanna know for sure why everyone in Chicago has that song running through their heads, ask the Blackhawks.

They buried five goals, 20 players and $196-million worth of Stanley Cup dreams Thursday in Game 5 of their NHL Western Conference playoff series against the Minnesota Wild.

Marian Hossa scored twice and Patrick Sharp, Marcus Kruger and Andrew Shaw added singles in a 5-1 victory to eliminate Minnesota and put in Chicago in a second-round series for the first time since their 2010 Cup season.

“It feels good, we worked all season to get to this point,” said ‘Hawks captain Jonathan Toews. “Nothing is for sure, whether you’re the first or the eighth seed, it doesn’t matter. You have to go out there and work hard to get out of that first round. We can be happy with the way we played to close out this game.”

It was the result many expected – the Presidents’ Trophy winners against a team marred by injuries and backstopped by a guy with a bum leg – but Minnesota put up the good fight, controlling much of the play in the early going. The Wild, however, couldn’t get the goals and they couldn’t get the saves.

“We weren’t good enough,” a terse Mikko Koivu said after the game. “That’s the difference for our team. We had chances, but in the end it doesn’t matter , the difference is whether you put the puck in the net or you don’t.”

Josh Harding gave it everything he had in the Wild net, but got a merciful hook after giving up three goals on 18 shots through the first 26:26 of the game. The second and third Chicago goals made it obvious that he just didn’t have the mobility to stay in. The game was over before rookie third-stringer Darcy Kuemper saw a shot.

“They have a great team,” said Hossa. “They were missing some players but the good thing is we found a way in five games and we’re going to the next round.”

“It’s been a lot of hard work,” said Chicago goalie Corey Crawford, who was outstanding in the series. “The last couple of years we felt we could have gone farther, so this is definitely a good start for us. We didn’t want to go back to their rink so we made sure we left everything on the ice.”

Including the Wild.

In the end, the ‘Hawks were simply too much. After two close wins and an overtime loss to start the series, they finished it by out-scoring Minnesota 8-1 over the final six periods. They didn’t allow a power-play goal against in the entire series (0-for-19).

“We did a lot of good things this series, we can be happy with that,” said Toews. “But we know going forward that it’s only going to get tougher and we have to be better. We’ll keep stepping up our game. We can look at the positives from this series and be prepared for whatever’s next.”

What’s next for Minnesota is a long, sad summer. They had high expectations for this season after signing Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to massive long-term contracts and adding the likes of Jason Pominville and Mike Rupp at the trade deadline, but the big push never happened.

Not in the regular season and not in the playoffs, where Koivu, Suter, Parise and Devin Setogichi combined for two points and a minus-20 rating.

“You’re not going to go far if you don’t put those in when you get the opportunities and that was kind of the common theme in our losses,” said Parise. “We couldn’t bury the puck. Crawford played really well and we just couldn’t get it past him.”

Follow me on TWITTER.com/SUN_TYCHKOWSKI

ROBERT.TYCHKOWSKI@Sunmedia.ca

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