Eurolanche

Swede Dreams

Instead, the Colorado Avalanche spoiled the party.

Saturday evening in the Windy City began with Hawks legends Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita getting immortalized with two bronze statues outside the United Center's northeast corner, overlooking Madison Street.

Then the real Hull and Mikita moved inside to watch the current Blackhawks make a stirring comeback from a two-goal deficit. In fact, Chicago even took a late lead on a goal by Marian Hossa in the third, only to see Avs rookie Gabriel Landeskog score the second of two goals late in the game to send it to overtime.

Neither team could decide it in the extra session, and the Avs eventually won 5-4 in a shootout on a Mikita-worthy move by Joakim Lindstrom, who deked Corey Crawford to the ice and earned his team two points.

Lindstrom was the lone player to score in the shootout.

Jonathan Toews, Jamal Mayers and Michael Frolik also scored for the Blackhawks (4-1-2), while Paul Stastny and David Jones found the net to go with Landeskog's two goals.

Colorado built a 3-1 lead nearly halfway through the second period after taking a 1-0 advantage into the first intermission. That's when Chicago's big comeback started, and you could make the argument that Hull and Mikita had a hand in starting it.

The legends were shown on the scoreboard video screens with 4:50 left in the second and the crowd instantly gave them a roaring ovation. Landeskog had just put the Avs up 3-1 with just 6:35 left in the second to make it seem like the most memorable part of the evening for Hawks fans would the touching statue ceremony.

Instead, the Hawks even appeared to get a boost out of the stirring ovation for the hall-of-famers and not long after Toews potted his fourth goal of the season on a late power play to make it 3-2. On the power play, Duncan Keith held the puck in the Colorado zone and fired a shot through traffic.

Semyon Varlamov made the initial stop for Colorado, but Toews scored on the rebound with 55 seconds left in the period. That made it 3-2 Colorado, got the crowd going and gave the Hawks a major lift heading into the second intermission.

Mayers scored off an odd bounce just 4:35 into the third to tie it 3-3 and suddenly the United Center became its alter ego, the "Madhouse on Madison."

Hawks defenseman Nick Leddy carried the puck into the Avs zone, dumped it to Mayers on the right wing and the gritty forward fired a shot from the right circle that Varlamov stopped. However, the puck kicked out front and deflected off both of Colorado defenseman Ryan O'Byrne's skates into the net.

About 10 minutes later Hossa put the Hawks in front, which set the stage for Landeskog's second goal – which he scored by beating Crawford by skating in alone in the slot. Neither team could get one past the goalies in overtime and it went to the shootout.

-by Brian Hedger for NHL.com-