In a couple of long overdue moves, GM Stan Bowman finally cleared out enough room to bring back Marcus Kruger for one year, at the expense of Kris Versteeg and Joakim Nordstrom.
Grand Jury to reschedule: ESPN Chicago
Poppin’ that bottle: YT
Discount bin: TSN
Just got my first look at 3v3 ot, it’ll be fun: PD
Ummm okay then: PHT
It’s funny on this blog, because there are certain players who we have spent as much time defending as we have criticizing. Brent Seabrook may top the list. After he signed his extension, it felt like once a week we had to explain to people why having two Canadian Olympic defensemen on the team for the long haul was a good idea. Then, when Seabrook was carrying around three pounds of nachos in his upper intestine, or at least sure skated like it, we kept having to point out just how sluggish he looked and how much Keith was bailing his overstuffed ass out (in particular to one certain Hawks blogger).
And then Seabrook had last season, where he looked better, skated better, played better, cemented himself as something of the heartbeat of the whole dressing room, and no one said anything. Which is preferable. Of course, with Biscuit heading into a free agent season and every Hawks fan having Cap Paranoia (Self-Destroyah’!…AND IT GOES LIKE THIS!), he’s probably headed in for a season of everyone looking at him quite intensely, trying to figure out if he’s worth paying what he very well might ask (which could be somewhere between $7-8 million per).
We did Corey Crawford last week, and then I opined that either he or Keith will be the most important Hawk this season. But Keith is pretty much the most important Hawk every season. When he’s good, the Hawks are one of the best teams in the league. When he’s bad, the Hawks suffer. When he’s other worldly, the Hawks can do things like win a Stanley Cup playing with four d-men, taking out offensively gifted teams like Anaheim and Tampa in a row.
Two Norrises, two gold medals, three Cups, and now a Conn Smythe, and yet it feels like when discussions in the national press come up of the best d-men in the league, I still see names like Weber, Suter, Subban, Karlsson more often than I see Keith’s. That’s ok, we know the truth here. And last spring’s utter dominance probably shifts that discussion. No one would argue that Keith is a surefire Hall of Famer now, and he might even be first ballot.
What does that leave in store for Keith this year? Let’s dig in…
Let’s get back to hockey for the seven minutes before something else breaks.
Much like the backup quarterback in this town, although I suppose that’s a lot of towns (and recently the backup point guard), the backup goalie in Chicago has become something of a revered figure. I’m exactly sure when this started. Hackett over Belfour? Passmore over Thibault? When Khabibulin was stealing all his money after the lockout? Maybe it was two consecutive seasons of Niemi outplaying Huet and then Crawford outplaying Turco. Maybe we’re all scarred from watching Hasek leave after backing up Belfour and just assume every backup is now a multi-Vezina winner in waiting (KEENAN WANTED A TEAM AROUND LINDROS AND HASEK MY GOD!!!!).
It doesn’t hurt when that backup also happens to be from Chicago.
There will be more eyes cast on Scott Darling this year, as some still view him as a path to get some salary cap relief if he can prove to be starter-quality in the NHL (those “some” might be in the front office as well). Will he? Let’s find out (not really)!
The gift that just keeps on giving roared awake again late this morning/early this afternoon, as reports broke that the grand jury that was supposed to hear the Patrick Kane investigation/case has been postponed, with reports suggesting it was due to settlement talks between the camps.
At this point, we all know the various reasons both sides could have for seeking a settlement, and to have a debate on it would lead to a lot of yelling and anger on both sides. So I’m not going to do that today. And we don’t know that a settlement is going to happen, though most with a better feel for these sort of things are leaning that way.
But if it were to, there is a practical and then theoretical fallout for the Hawks organization, and Hawks fans.
Big Day:WGN
This might become a trend : Blackhawk Up
This surprises me:DNA
Hence why Mario won’t get 750 million:WP
Hence why I played in High School…and the study hall:NHL
FrankenDuck:SportsLogos
