BLACKHAWKS BEAT PREDS TO CLINCH PLAYOFF SPOT

It wasn’t necessarily a highlight reel victory, but the Blackhawks clearly don’t mind ‘winning ugly’ if it means a trip back to the NHL playoffs.  Chicago clinched their first postseason berth in seven years and only their second in the past eleven seasons by defeating the Nashville Predators 3-1 on Friday night.  The Blackhawks can realistically finish as high as third or as low as fifth, but the important thing at this point is they’re going to the playoffs.

The two teams traded goals in the first period, with Samuel Pahlsson scoring for the Blackhawks at the 5:22 mark assisted by Andrew Ladd and Brent Seabrook.  Cal O'Reilly would even the score at the 10:47 mark set up by Joel War and Steve Sullivan.  Jonathan Toews would score the eventual game winner at 12:26 of the second period assisted by Martin Havlat and Patrick Kane.  The Blackhawks would make it 3-1 late in the third period when Martin Havlat scored into an empty net assisted by Jonathan Toews.

After the game Blackhawks’ coach Joel Quenneville reflected on his team’s accomplishment:

"It's a great achievement. That was our motivation at the start of the year. Our No. 1 priority and objective. We said that this morning, 'We've got to take care of our own business today.'"

Jonathan Toews also gave his thoughts:

"It was exciting at the end. The crowd was going and it was exciting to them, but it means even more to us. We didn't want to wait for Sunday or anything later."

Nashville will now have to fight for their playoff lives down the stretch.  They currently occupy 9^th place in the NHL’s Western Conference a single point behind 8^th place St. Louis for the final playoff spot and two points behind 7^th place Anaheim.  Preds' coach Barry Trotz didn’t pull punches talking about what is at stake for his team when they play the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday night in Nashville:

"We going to have to win. Columbus is sitting there waiting. We've got to play the game of our lives."

Preds goaltender Pekka Rinne added:

"This puts us in a position where we need to win Saturday night. We have no choice."

After Saturday night’s game against Columbus the Preds will host the Blackhawks in a rematch of tonight’s contest on Tuesday night.  They’ll play against the Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena on Thursday.  The Blackhawks will play at Columbus on Sunday before heading to Nashville on Tuesday.  They’ll then return home to play host to the Blue Jackets on Wednesday night.