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Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
Les Incompétents: Habs EOTP
As the Hawks continue through this meat grinder stretch of the schedule where they are consistently taking on the upper-echelon teams of the league, they will complete their season series with the Montreal Canadiens tonight on home ice. The first meeting up at the Molson Centre didn’t go quite so well for the Habs, and it’s still close enough in the rear-view mirror for them to remember it well.
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FACEOFF: 8pm Central (about 6-beer o’clock for most of us)
TV/RADIO: CSN, WGN 720
SO BUTTONS: Mile High Hockey
Perhaps the Avs are being weighed down by everyone in the hockey world’s “I told you so’s”, but it has not been a very kind season to the Snow Drifts Of Denver. And we can’t say that it hasn’t been hugely satisfying to watch. Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic couldn’t wait to tell us how they had the system beat, and now it’s beating them over the head. Delicious.
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FACEOFF: 8:30pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN, WGN Radio
VERDEAZZURI: Nucks Misconduct
Remember when this used to be the first game you’d circle on the calendar? It was only about two or three years ago when this had an argument at the best rivalry in the NHL. The main characters are mostly still here. Luongo and Kesler have gone but The Children Of The Corn, the festering wound known as Alex Burrows, the human jaw Kevin Bieksa, the overgrown elbow that is Alex Edler, and others still call B.C. home. And yet… the thrill is gone.
I doubt you could find a better microcosm of the Hawks’ season so far than this one tonight, the beginning of what will define the early season outlook for the Hawks. Pretty much dominant at even-strength, but a lack of focus and dumb mistakes make it much harder than it needs to be and then eventually barely making it through. The Hawks do enough to look like one of the league’s best while also doing just enough to let an inferior team hang around and then nearly come away with a win (and sometimes they have). It’s not that easy to pull off. The Hawks have basically been Tin Cup this season, having to use the incredible shot they’re capable of when there are much easier options on the table that they simply refuse to take. Hopefully in the end they end up with Rene Russo, in a figurative sense. Maybe literal.
The Rockford IceHogs saw an eight-game win streak come to an end in with two losses to the Milwaukee Admirals in the first two games of a three-game weekend. Rockford finished their first three-games in three-nights stretch of the season with a home win in front of a pseudo sell-out audience at the BMO Center Sunday.
With that win, Rockford reclaimed the top spot in the AHL’s Midwest Division. They remain in the second spot in the Western Conference standings with 23 points in 16 games.
*Quick note: I wrote this yesterday prior to the Blackhawks game versus the Stars so the statistics used herein do not include the numbers from that game*
If you aren’t overly familiar with statistics, you may be new to the idea of regression. Regression basically tells us that things tend to return to their normal level over time. When we are talking about shooting percentage, the normal level is a little different for each player. The point though, is that while we should expect a bit of variance from season to season, we shouldn’t get too bogged down in low spots during the season. Players often talk about how as long as they are “getting looks” or “chances” they don’t get too worked up about whether the puck in going in the net. If they do get worked up about it, they say they are “holding the stick too tightly” and other such common terminology that all boils down to getting in their own heads over having a bad string of luck.
Tonight shaped up as a pretty good test for the Hawks. There is no hotter team in the league than Tampa, and they are considered an Eastern favorite (Eastern Favorite is an excellent Pho place in Uptown). They have as much speed as the Hawks can boast, and a Vezina finalist in net. Considering how the Hawks had done against this season’s glitterati (hint: not all that well), even though there are no such things as big games in the second week of November you did want to see the Hawks get this one. They did, and looked pretty damn good doing it.
The more I work with microstats and tracking the formation habits of teams, the more I get into discussions with people who say “there’s no way teams actually do that” or something very similar. Many of the people telling me this are very smart hockey people from all areas of the sport, not just the stats circles I run in and it makes me increasingly wonder about the processes currently used in hockey. It makes me question whether I am working off of the same information as the people who are closer to the game.
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FACEOFF: 6:30pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN, WGN Radio
WE’RE GONNA HAVE A SANDWICH: Habs Eyes On The Prize
The traveling Viagra promotional caravan stops in Montreal tonight (because they can’t score, see?), as the Hawks invade what used to be The Keg but is now the…Ringtone? Hardline? I don’t know, communications companies don’t make for great nicknames for arenas.
