Blackhawks Beat Red Wings In OT – NHL Roundup For May 30th

CHICAGO (AP) — It took seven games and more than three minutes of overtime for the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks to oust the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL's Western Conference semifinals.

Brent Seabrook scored at 3:35 of overtime as the Hawks downed the Red Wings 2-1, capping a series in which Detroit owned a three-games-to-one lead. Seabrook took a shot that appeared to hit Wings defenseman Nicklas Kronwall on the leg before finding the left side of the net.

The game was almost decided in regulation. The Blackhawks thought they had gone ahead 2-1 when Niklas Hjalmarsson (HAHL'-mahr-suhn) scored on a point-blank shot with 1:47 remaining in regulation. But the goal was waved off because of coincidental minor penalties that were called just before the shot.

Patrick Sharp put the Hawks ahead at 1:08 in the second period, and the score remained 1-0 until Henrik Zetterberg tallied 26 seconds into the third.

Jimmy Howard made 33 saves for Detroit, while Corey Crawford finished with 26 stops.

The Hawks will host the first two games of the Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Kings, the defending Stanley Cup champs. Like Chicago, the Kings just survived a seven-game series with San Jose by winning the finale 2-1.

NEW YORK (AP) __ Getting the New York Rangers into the second round of the NHL playoffs wasn't enough for John Tortorella to keep his job as coach.

The Rangers fired Tortorella after five seasons and with one year left on his contract. He led the Rangers to the Eastern Conference finals last year and into the second round this year before New York was eliminated in five games by the Boston Bruins.

Tortorella went 171-118-1-29 in New York. He was 19-25 in the postseason, and reached the playoffs in four of five seasons with the Rangers.