from Jeff Miller of the OC Register,

There’s an old question about whether it’s better to be lucky or good, but the real question today is why do you have to make a choice at all?

It’s best, certainly, to be lucky and good, like Frederik Andersen and the Ducks were Sunday, which is largely why they beat Chicago, 4-1, in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

Andersen stopped 31 of 32 shots from the Blackhawks, prompting his coach, Bruce Boudreau, to say afterward: “He was very good. Our goaltender was very good.”

But it was Andersen’s paddle that made the save of the game, foiling Chicago’s other shot on goal, during a first period that, had the breaks gone the other direction, could have been the reason the Blackhawks won Game 1.

Baseball has its seeing-eye single. Andersen has his seeing-eye stick, a device that Sunday briefly took the game into its own no hands.

Forced by the pressure into an extremely compromised position, Andersen tossed everything he had left – which is to say the only thing he had left – in front of an otherwise naked net to prevent Patrick Kane from scoring barely five minutes into what was still a scoreless game.

continued

Watch the Kane save below...