from Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times,

Sometimes hockey is indecipherable. Monday was one of those times. How do you explain the Hawks looking so sluggish and the Blues looking so invincible in the first period? How do you explain the complete role reversal in the second period?

You don’t. You just say, “That’s hockey,’’ and it will suffice. Two great teams playing hard and momentum wildly swinging back and forth.

There were a lot of compliments flowing afterward.

“You find yourself on bench just in awe of some of the things they can do,’’ Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said of the Hawks.

For the Hawks, it was win and advance, or lose and listen to the sort of analysis normally reserved for geopolitics. The three Stanley Cup titles in six years will be forgotten temporarily as people scream about the team getting older, about Quenneville losing his touch, about the roster lacking depth, about Toews going scoreless against the Blues.

Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one. This wasn’t about what was wrong with the Hawks. This was about everything that was right with the Blues.

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from David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune,