Jeremy Roenick insists he will be ready to play in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals Sunday despite re-injuring his left knee in Thursday’s opening period.
“I’ll be there with bells on,” said Roenick, who said the knee “just folded underneath me and I turned it bad.”
Roenick said he could have come back and Coach Darryl Sutter agreed, but “it was 3-0 and there was no need for it.”
Roenick said he planned to rest the knee for the next two days, but, “I’ll be there just as happy as anybody else,” he said. “Sunday now is the biggest game in our careers.”
Young legs: Sutter said he gave Sergei Krivokrasov his first start of the series because “we wanted some more young legs in the lineup after going two overtimes. I give Krivo credit for staying ready.”
“He told me this morning I’d be playing,” said Krivokrasov. “I hadn’t played for a while so I wanted to go out there and finish my checks.” Unfortunately, the first check he finished was against goalie Mike Vernon and it cost him a penalty.
Suter’s sub: Keith Carney again played well filling in for Gary Suter, who was scratched just before game time. Suter, after playing with a cast on his broken right hand in Game 3, had a new cast put on and apparently did not feel he had enough mobility to be effective.
“I found out just before the pregame warmup,” said Carney, who assisted on Joe Murphy’s critical goal that made it a 2-0 game in the first period. “I threw it off the boards and Murphy jumped on it at neutral ice skating into the zone and made a great shot,” added Carney, who has moved the puck flawlessly in all four games he has played since Suter’s injury.
Closing in: Denis Savard’s two goals gave him 59 playoff goals as a Blackhawk, moving him into a tie with Stan Mikita for second place on the team’s all-time list. Bobby Hull–who else?–leads with 62.
Just rewards? Even though the Blackhawks were in a position to win all three of the previous games in the Western Conference final, some Hawks think that is misleading. “We didn’t deserve to win any of them,” said defenseman Chris Chelios. “We could have won, but we were outplayed.”
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“At times it hasn’t been as close as you think,” agreed Bernie Nicholls. “Eddie played well. If it hadn’t been for him it wouldn’t even have been close.”