CHICAGO -- Al Iafrate can already hear the cheers at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.
'Usually, it (the crowd noise) is nothing,' Iafrate said Thursday night after the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 6-4. 'Now, I think they will be real excited.'
Iafrate, a defenseman, anticipates a raucous response from the crowd when the Maple Leafs take the ice Saturday night holding a 2-0 lead over the Blackhawks in their best-of-five Norris Division semifinal series.
'I expect our fans to be jumping for joy,' said rookie Steve Thomas, an unlikely playoff hero with four goals in two playoff games. 'They (the goals) came at a perfect opportune time. Before this I think I had two goals in 30 games.'
Toronto finished fourth in the Norris Division while Chicago finished first, but the Maple Leafs won six of eight regular-season games against the Blackhawks.
'We keep asking ourselves, 'Why?, why?,'' said Chicago winger Steve Ludzik. 'I can't understand it. For four years we've just dominated in this building.'
The Blackhawks had the game in hand early with center Denis Savard scoring all four Chicago goals. Savard became the first member of the Blackhawks to score four goals in a playoff game.
He scored two power-play goals in the first period, the first on a tough angle shot from the right side and the second on a rebound. He scored twice in the second period to give Chicago a 4-2 lead and earn his sixth career hat trick and second in the playoffs.
Wendel Clark cut the deficit to 4-3 with a goal at 16:09 of the second period, and Peter Ihnacak tied the game at 14:10 at the end of a flurry of shots.
Then Walt Poddubny got the game-winner with 56 seconds remaining on a pass from Ihnacak, who had stretched his body and his stick as far as he could to stop the puck from leaving the Chicago zone.
'I was waiting,' said Poddubny, who scored from the left of goalie Bob Sauve. 'I didn't know if he (Ihnacak) saw me open or not.'
Thomas added an empty net goal at 19:39.
Savard did not want to talk about his accomplishments.
'I've been struggling against Toronto,' Savard said. 'We were down and when you're down you give everything you got and that's what I did tonight. Now it's just another game and we'll come back. We're not done yet.'
The Blackhawks could have more problems going into Saturday's third game in Toronto. Defenseman Behn Wilson was taken off the ice in the first period on a stretcher with a hyperextended back muscle and will be X-rayed today. Starting goalie Murray Bannerman left the game in the second period with a groin pull and a hamstring injury in his right leg which will probably keep him out of the rest of the series.
