Everything Else

I feel like I need to state at the top that I am hardly an expert. Not even close. What will follow, and really what will follow and pretty much has been going on here (despite whatever has been thrown at us) are simply fans like you trying to find anyway to get their arms around all this and comprehend what is going on. Today, that feels like a Herculean task at the very best.

By now you probably know the news, but a quick recap of the facts that we know. The lawyer for the accuser had a press conference, where he revealed that the rape kit, which is supposed to be sealed and inaccessible, was left at the accuser’s mother’s doorstep. The bag it was sealed in had been ripped open, which makes it clear (or very close to it) that it had been tampered with.

What all that means beyond… I and many others are having a hard time figuring out where the first step is.

Everything Else

And now for the final member of the Wild n’ Crazy Guys that have taken residence in the bowels of the United Center – Viktor Tikhonov.

Little background here: Tikhonov is the grandson of Viktor Tikhonov, a chief architect of the famous Red Army teams as well as one of the most successful coaches in the Soviet Union’s history. Tikhonov, the younger, was a first round pick of the Coyotes in 2008 and was drafted in his final year of eligibility (meaning he had been passed his first two years, similar to Andrew Shaw).

Tikhonov made the Coyotes out of training camp, played for the insane Wayne Gretzky for 66 games before being reassigned to their AHL affiliate for the remainder of the year and then played 18 games there the following year before heading back to the KHL to get the hell out of his contract. And that’s where he’s been since.

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The acquisition of Arty The One Man Party has provided the Hawks more depth down the middle to start a season than they’ve had since they went Toews-Sharp-Bolland-Madden at the beginning of 2010 (I actually had to remind myself that Bolland was a Hawk, which is weird. And remember Sharp as a center? We never, ever talked about that!) And he wasn’t just some name the Hawks came up with in desperation when they realized they couldn’t sign Brandon Saad. They had been after him before he was traded from New York to Columbus. This is a player the Hawks have eyed for a while. Hopefully, he’ll show us all why this season.

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I think we’ll keep circling through the new forwards as Matt started that trend yesterday. It’s more interesting that way, as basically you know what you’re getting from the holdovers. So now we’ll get to the main prize in the Brandon Saad deal, or what the Hawks will hope becomes the main prize, Marko Dano.

Last Season: 35 games, 8 goals, 13 points, 21 points, +12, 14 PIM, 54.0% Corsi Percentage (+7.4% Relative), 48.9% Corsi Competition

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Moving onto the forwards, Artemi Panarin is the biggest wild card of the recent influx of Russians to the Hawks, who have not had a Russian forward in nearly 8 years after Sergei Samsonov (remember him?) was dealt to Carolina. Panarin will undoubtedly be labeled an highly skilled, an enigma, a malcontent, lazy, or all of the above because that’s just the way it works with Russians in the NHL. But with Patrick Sharp and Brandon Saad now gone, there’s a real opportunity for Panarin to make some noise on the left side.

Everything Else

And won’t it be a blast?

If you’re new to our little commune of drunkeness and wayward thoughts, we’re more than just a blog. And I don’t mean just spiritually. Every Blackhawks home game, we produce a game program that we sell outside the United Center. But hey, Hawks tickets are expensive and you probably can’t make a lot of games. We get it. So we provide them digitally as well! It arrives every afternoon of a home game in your inbox like a bag of earlobes in PDF form. It’s just $95 for the whole season. That’s 41 issues plus however many playoff games there are.

So jump on in! It starts with our training camp preview issue which you get when you sign up. Just hit this button right here! And this year, $5 from every subscription will go to the RVA Chicago.