from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

For a while Wednesday night, it appeared as though the Chicago Blackhawks were stuck in the Western Conference finals and forgot they had switched opponents.

Someone had to remind them it wasn’t Game 8 versus the Anaheim Ducks, but rather Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

After playing a grueling series with the physically imposing Ducks, perhaps at times a more stationary or stagnating flow because of the hard-earned ice, the Blackhawks looked almost like a deer in the headlights in the opening period and a bit more of Game 1 on Wednesday, the blazing speed and pace of the Lightning was a complete changeup from what they had just lived for two weeks.

The Ducks aren’t slow by any means, but when you’re comparing anyone to the Lightning, well, they’re going to look slower.

The Bolts got to loose pucks, got into lanes and simply just looked faster in the opening 25 minutes or so.

"Yeah, I think we’re going to look to do better next game at the start," Conn Smythe Trophy contender Duncan Keith said after his team’s 2-1 comeback win. "Whether it was having time off or what, we had a slow start. I’m not making any excuses because that team has speed and skill and they make plays. We need to be ready from the get-go. We need to be moving our feet against this team."

And that’s just what the Blackhawks began doing, especially in a third period when they dominated territorially, moving their feet and matching Tampa Bay’s speed and skill.

The beauty of the two-goal third period and comeback victory is that the Blackhawks got to learn their lesson while still enjoying the spoils of victory, having their cake and eating it all at once.

continued

Watch the game highlights below...