A Blackhawks playoff series apparently doesn't begin until they're down two-games-to-one. No one knows why. It just does.
Now stop asking questions and watch the rest of the comeback after the Hawks's 2-1 win in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final:
1. This is what the Blackhawks do. It might not be the way they'd choose to win a Stanley Cup, but it has become their way to fall behind after the first three games of a series before taking over.
Five times in the last three years, the Hawks lost two of the first three games of a series, but came back to win four of them.
They did it again in this Stanley Cup Final, and have begun their customary comeback. The Hawks might not start games on time, as Joel Quenneville describes their lousy opening minutes, but they're certainly on Hawks Standard Time when it comes to taking a series.
The Hawks are 41-14 in Games 4-7 under Quenneville, 23-6 since the start of the 2013 postseason. Going forward, they are 27-8 in Games 5-7 since the start of the 2009 playoffs, 13-3 in the last three years.
This is the back nine Sunday at Augusta. This is when these masters make smarter adjustments and outplay opponents. This is what the Hawks do.
But this series against this opponent is not necessarily the way they do it, which remains a troubling thing.
The Hawks have lost more periods than they've won, which is not completely unexpected with the way these guys go about their playoff business. The Hawks are seeing a team like themselves, except this one has played the speed game better.
The Lightning have done a terrific job of pressuring the Hawks on the forecheck, forcing them to pass earlier than they want and checking through the middle of the ice to cut the puck-moving options in half.
When's the last time you saw the Hawks work their beloved transition game with that quick turn inside their blue line followed by that diagonal breakout pass at the Lightning line?
I'll hang up and listen for Quenneville to change line combinations again.
The Lightning are playing the boards with discipline and confidence because the Hawks repeatedly and sometimes stubbornly continue to use the walls for outlet options that simply haven't been there.
The Hawks shouldn't be surprised at this point. Hawks forwards should be coming back harder and quicker to give their defensemen other breakout options.
"Everybody talks about how offensive they are,'' Hawks center Brad Richards said, "but they're way better than anybody imagined at checking and trying to frustrate you. They're the tightest-checking team we've played all year.
"Hopefully we've figured out that we have to be just as patient.''
It's expected that at this point the Hawks have figured out the Lightning and will go about beating them. Again, it's what they do.
But they haven't faced the prospect of doing it in a final against an opponent that wants to skate instead of punish the way the Bruins did in 2013 and the Flyers did in 2010.
The Lightning have outskated and outplayed the Hawks for much of this series. They're winning most of the 50/50 pucks because they're outworking the Hawks, who turned over the puck a thousand times in the third period of Game 4 alone, many by Jonathan Toews.
The Hawks look tired. Perhaps the physical abuse administered by the Ducks in seven games last series has caught up them.
Or perhaps the Hawks are feeling the effects of the enormous number of games they've played the last three years, particularly high-stress games that included half the roster playing half a world away in the Olympics.
I think the Hawks know they're lucky to be tied now. They sound like they know it because they repeatedly say they haven't played their best game yet. They've said that after every game, even their two wins.
And that's the thing. They have two wins, same as the team that has looked better than they have. Being lucky, then, actually is a positive.
The Hawks haven't played anything close to a dominating game, but these remarkably resourceful players are two wins away from their third Cup in six years. It's what they do.
2. The Corey Crawford scrapbook from the last 120 hellacious seconds of Game 4:
-Crawford came out of his crease to blocker away Victor Hedman's slap shot;
-Crawford covered his left post as Hedman fired a wrister from below the circle;
-Crawford robbed Steven Stamkos point-blank in the final minute, getting his left pad on a shot he knew the Lightning sniper couldn't lift.
-With about 20 seconds to go, Crawford stopped Anton Stralman's slap shot from the right point through several screens.
-As Tyler Johnson, the leading goal-scorer in the playoffs, pounced on Stralman's rebound in the last handful of asphyxiating seconds, Crawford snapped his pads together to smother a shot destined for five-hole heartbreak.
Crawford had some help out front in those last two minutes, most notably from Brent Seabrook, who got a piece of a Stamkos' shot that would sail wide of Crawford's right post. Stamkos fired another shot wide in the final minute, as did Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov. Brandon Saad and Duncan Keith each blocked a shot by Stralman.
Consider that the aforementioned assault followed a 25-minute stretch in which Crawford faced just four shots.
In all, Crawford stopped 24 shots, 11 of them considered high-danger chances. Crawford rebounded from criticism and a soft goal or two, depending what you think of deflected shots, to assert himself in aggressive ways.
Quenneville called it a "goalie win. You could make that case in the last two minutes alone. It certainly wasn't a coaching win. See the next item for details.
3. Quenneville decided to get cute.
The Hawks coach instructed his players to skate with their regular linemates during pregame rushes, but they all knew this was a ruse.
When the game began, they would skate in wildly different combinations.
They started Andrew Shaw between Patrick Kane and Brandon Saad, a line that line racked up four goals and 19 points in the last three games against the Kings in last year's Western Conference finals.
But Shaw is not a center and can't play one on TV despite last year's blip. He has proven it regularly and as recently as the last series when Quenneville started the whole cute thing by scratching Antoine Vermette and Teuvo Teravainen against the Ducks.
He got even cuter Wednesday night when he changed every line. Every single line. He even messed with the bottom two lines that had done the majority of the Hawks scoring this series.
Jonathan Toews was skating with Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp. Vermette centered Teravainen and Andrew Desjardins. Then Vermette centered Brad Richards and Kris Versteeg. Then Marcus Kruger centered I don't know who because I'm not sure because I lost track.
One thing I could keep track of, however, were Hawks shots on goal.
Zero.
For the first seven-plus minutes, the Hawks managed zero shots against a 20-year-old backup goalie who was making his first career start in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final on the road.
Cute, cute, cute.
Lightning starter Ben Bishop not only didn't start, but didn't even dress because of what appears to be a groin injury. Andrei Vasilevskiy took the net in his place, and the Hawks made it as easy on him in Game 4 as they did in the third period of Game 2.
That's what happens when there's no continuity in any line that has played together in the final.
The Hawks couldn't complete one pass, so forget about moving the puck through the neutral zone for a clean and controlled entry into the Lightning's zone.
Nobody knew where anybody was going to be or supposed to be. Guys were running into each other's paths, if not actually into each other.
Quenneville said he changed all his lines to get some balance in the offense.
Congratulations. It worked. They were all an equal amount of lousy.
The Hawks managed just two shots in the first period, and this includes parts of two power plays.
"Joel like to mix and match,'' Sharp said. "As a series goes on, he looks for tendencies. Over the season, everybody has played with everybody. There's no excuses.''
If there are no excuses, then this was a bad coaching move followed by a worse response from players.
Quenneville eventually settled on some sane line combinations that stayed together, moving Richards back to center between Kane and Saad. See the next item for details.
4. Saad got the game-winner 6:22 into the third period, Kane got the assist, and Richards made two spectacular plays that went uncredited on the scoresheet but nothing happens without them.
In taking an offensive zone faceoff, Richards muscled Valtteri Filppula to the ice away from the puck as Kane and Saad changed sides of the circle. Kane jabbed the puck to Saad, who spun in the circle and cut to the net.
The reason Saad had a lane to get there was because Richards hooked Stralman's stick.
"I don't think I invented that play,'' Richards said, "but it worked.''
Vasilevskiy poke-checked the puck, but Saad was able to drag it across the slot and backhand the wobbling disk through Vasilevskiy's five-hole.
Saad, known as "mini-Hossa,'' now has a goal in each of the last two games. They've come with different linemates, but always in the tough areas. One goal completed the Hawks' most artistic play of the series, the other looked like he was back playing with a ball of tape on the driveway. Big plays in big games will get the restricted free agent paid this summer.
Sure hope he at least tips Richards.
5. Johnny Oduya played more than 25 minutes of Game 4, which is not unusual for one of the Hawks' "Fab Four'' defensemen.
But what's impressive is he did it with one good arm.
When he rimmed the puck around the boards with only his right hand on the stick in the first period, Oduya was showing everyone how badly injured his left arm is.
It appears Oduya suffered the injury in while breaking a fall in Game 3 after Kucherov kicked the back of his legs in a move cheap enough to make the Lightning winger an honorary Canuck.
Oduya was a question the day before the game, but living up to the warrior mentality that pervades the core of the Hawks defense corps, he still took three shots and finished a plus-1.
We saw why a defenseman with only three useful limbs is better than the supposed depth Stan Bowman has provided.
The Hawks have tried just about everyone as fifth and sixth defensemen, including AARP first-teamer Kimmo Timonen and rookie Trevor van Riemsdyk.
On the Lightning's only goal of the game, the kid showed why the Hawks go with four defensemen. Van Riemsdyk lost a puck battle in the corner, then lost Alex Killorn in front as he beat Crawford off a smart pass from Filppula.
Van Riemsdyk is Kyle Cumiskey is David Rundblad is . . .
a. The team that finished with the most shots has lost each game. That makes as much sense as Quenneville's first period.
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