VANCOUVER, B.C. — Troy Brouwer and Kris Versteeg scored 36 seconds apart early in the second period, and the Blackhawks eliminated the Canucks in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals for the second straight year with a 5-1 victory Tuesday night.
Dave Bolland scored on a short-handed breakaway with 45 seconds left in the second, and Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien added breakaway goals 35 seconds apart in the third to send Chicago back to the Western Conference finals.
The second-seeded Blackhawks will face the West’s top-seeded team, the Sharks, with a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals on the line.
Antti Niemi made 29 saves for the Blackhawks, who won all three games in Vancouver in the series.
Shane O’Brien scored 3:44 into the third period, and Roberto Luongo finished with 30 saves for the Canucks, who were knocked out in the second round for the third time in four years. Vancouver hasn’t advanced past the second round since 1994, when the Canucks reached the Stanley Cup Finals.
Exactly one year after Luongo melted down when Chicago knocked Vancouver out with a 7-5 win in Game 6, the goalie had a brilliant first period. He turned away Byfuglien and Kane in close during the first two minutes, gloved Patrick Sharp’s breakaway with 6:13 left and kicked out the left pad to stop Byfuglien’s tap-in on the goal line eight seconds later.
Canucks defenseman Sami Salo played just 48 hours after taking a slap shot in the groin that forced him out of Game 5 and required a hospital visit. But his partner on the top pairing, Alexander Edler, left the game favoring his right leg after being thrown hard into the end boards by the 6-foot-4, 257-pound Byfuglien with 3:24 left in the period.
Edler didn’t come back for the second, and the mixed-up defensive pairings quickly allowed two goals.
