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 But when starting goalie Corey Crawford pulled up lame Tuesday
morning with an undisclosed upper-body injury, Raanta got the call
and responded in spectacular fashion in that evening's game with the
visiting Philadelphia Flyers.
Raanta turned back all 32 of Philly's shots, leading the Blackhawks
to a 4-0 shutout at the United Center.
Raanta, who was chosen the No. 1 star of the game for his
outstanding performance, recorded his second NHL career shutout.
"He was real solid, definitely in control," Chicago coach Joel
Quenneville said. "It was nice to see him get the win."
Raanta gave credit to his teammates for giving him an early lead
with three mid-first period goals that helped take some of the
pressure off him in his first appearance of the season.
"We started the game good, it was a good start for us," Raanta said.
"It was important that we got those early goals.
"We have struggled a little bit with goal scoring, so it was good to
see that guys were shooting a lot and we got nice goals in the first
period. It helped of course."
Although Quenneville said earlier in the day that he considered
Crawford's injury not serious, listing him as day-to-day, it may
result in Raanta remaining as the team's starting goalie for at
least the next game or two.
"We'll know more in the morning," Quenneville said of Crawford's
condition. "He could join us (on the roadtrip to Nashville Thursday
and at St. Louis on Saturday), but I don't know if he will."
As a result of Crawford's malady, the Blackhawks scrambled to call
up goalie and suburban Chicago native Scott Darling from its AHL
affiliate 90 miles away, the Rockford (Ill.) IceHogs, to take
Crawford's spot on the roster until the latter returns.
Forward Patrick Kane led the Blackhawks' scoring attack with two
power-play goals, giving him a team-leading three tallies.
With 21,162 fans on hand, Chicago erupted for three mid-first period
goals and never looked back.
The Blackhawks improve to 4-0-1 on the young season, while the
Flyers dropped to 1-3-2.
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Philadelphia goalie Steve Mason remains winless this season at
0-3-1, turning back 39 of Chicago's 43 shots in the game.
"We have to do a better job," Mason said. "Our penalty kill needs to
be a strong point and right now it's not.
"It was a terrible (first) period. Everybody in the room knows it."
The Blackhawks scored first at 11:54 of the first period. Forward
Brandon Saad took a rebound off a shot from center Brad Richards in
front of the net and caromed it off Mason's pad for Saad's first
goal of the season.
Just over 30 seconds later, at 12:26 and on the power play with
Flyers forward Michael Raffi in the penalty box (kneeing), Kane
scored his second goal of the season, sneaking a wrist shot behind
Mason, making it 2-0.
But the Blackhawks weren't done. Forward Bryan Bickell fired a quick
wrister into the Flyers' net at 14:00 for his first goal of the
season and a 3-0 lead.
Kane came back to score his second goal of the night at 3:50 of the
third period.
NOTES: Chicago LW Kris Versteeg, who missed the first four
regular-season games with an upper-body injury sustained during the
preseason, was activated before Tuesday's game. ... Chicago
continues to lead the NHL with an average of 40 shots on goal per
game. Coming into the game, the Blackhawks also were No. 1 in
short-handed goals (two in 15 opportunities). ... Philadelphia lost
21 man-games to injury in its first five games. Chicago lost zero
man-games before Crawford sat out Tuesday. ... The Flyers came into
the game as the least-penalized team (seven penalty minutes in
total) in the league, but saw that number more than double with
eight penalty minutes in Tuesday's contest.
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