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Exit Interviews: Sheldon Brookbank

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Regular Season: 48 games, 2 goals, 5 assists, 7 points, +2, -0.16 Behind The Net, 3.28 Corsi/60 (-10.1 Corsi Relative). 

Quick note for those somewhat new here. Behind The Net Rating is the difference in the team’s goals-for and goals-against for every 60 minutes the player in on the ice versus every 60 he’s off.  Corsi Relative is the player’s Corsi number relative to the team’s overall rate. 

Playoffs: 7 games, 2 assists, 2 points, +3, o.21 Behind The Net Rating, -4.98 Corsi (-7.5 Corsi Relative)

What We Liked: When talking about your 6-7 d-man, it’s not so much what you liked as what you didn’t hate.  And for the most part, Brookbank didn’t provide much to hate. In a lot of ways and for a lot of the season he was more effective than Rozsvial, though he didn’t play as regularly and was perhaps as screwed as anyone by the insistence on eight defensemen for reasons we’ve yet to hear. Brookbank was solid enough. He wasn’t fast but didn’t get chased down as much as he did the year before. His work with the puck, especially in the playoffs, was far more assured. His play during Seabrook’s suspension in the first round was a real surprise when we were hiding behind the couch. Didn’t do anything spectacular or even great, but considering what he is I didn’t think there was anything that bad.

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Exit Interviews: The Goalies

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It’s time for a season review, and as we have a lot of time to kill between now and the draft, we might as well comb the whole roster. Normally, we would do this one player at a time and we will, but it’s easier to knock out the goalies together. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Corey Crawford 

Regular Season Stats – 32-16-10, 2.26 GAA, .917 SV%

Playoffs – 11-8, 2.53 GAA, .912 SV%

What We Liked: Basically, everything that happened in 2014. Once Crow came back from his groin injury on January 2nd, he was exemplary. From that date until the end of the regular season, Crow’s numbers were a 2.06 GAA and a .920 SV% in 32 games. And while Toews and Kane got more of the spotlight for OT or game-winning goals, the Hawks do not get out of either the first or second round without Crow. His performances in wins in Games 3, 5, and 6 against St. Louis and Games 5 and 6 against Minnesota were just about as good as anything he put up in 2013 if not better. And at least there wasn’t as much talk about his fucking glove-hand this time around. Anyone who truly complains about Crawford has basically marked themselves out as a moron.

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Friday Randomness

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If you’re new to the blog, you’ll find that on Fridays during the summer, we tend to throw off the hockey shackles and write about whatever we want. There isn’t much going on, and it’s nice to stretch the legs. Usually it’s about music, because that’s the subject we love as much as hockey and booze. Sometimes it’s about other stuff, and we’ll touch a lot over the coming months. We’ll get to our exit interviews next week, but for now I’ll just clear out whatever’s bouncing around my emptying skull.

-If you haven’t got the new Bob Mould album, you should. Mould has become one of my favorite artists, and has been putting out consistently good stuff for over 20 years now. And I’m not even that big of a Husker Du fan. This one is just about as loud as Silver Age was, but Mould can equally fade back into an acoustic stretch. Workbook is as good in that genre as you’ll ear anywhere. He’s sort of surpassed Tom Petty as my reliable go-to when he releases something new, as Petty’s last few efforts have been ho-hum. Check it out.

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The Empire That Wasn't

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In last year’s Stanley Cup commemorative issue of the Indian, I believe in the first paragraph I declared that this was “The Blackhawks Era.” It felt like that at the time. And having a few days to reflect, maybe that’s the pain that won’t subside now. Because at best, the Hawks are going to have to share this era.

Last night didn’t really do anything to dissuade most of us that the Kings will make quick work of the Rangers and collect their second Cup in three years. And once that happens, we’ll have to wait another year before making that claim again, and even then it will sound pretty hollow with another team holding multiple championships, if the Hawks return to the summit.

I fully recognize that this would be the hockey definition of #FirstWorldProblems (a phrase I abhor, by the way). Fans of 28 other teams wish they had this conundrum, and I get that. But being a sports fan means being greedy. One championship is never enough, unless there are extenuating circumstances like a certain Northside baseball team (I don’t know if Sox fans think 2005 is enough or not, but I’m guessing no). Two means you have a chance to go down in history forever. And you don’t want anyone else doing that with you.

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And Off Silently

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Yesterday was just about the last formal time that the Hawks’ brass meets with the media, barring a trade or something, and the players are not seen again until the Convention. I’m sure they’re heartbroken to not have to answer the same questions over and over again.

Usually at these season wrap-up things is when you find out all the injuries that players were carrying but weren’t talking about during the playoffs. There wasn’t much from the Hawks, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I’m sure there were some, Sharp especially, but I appreciate not running to that as an excuse. One of the hallmarks of Q’s teams is that they don’t run for excuses and generally take responsibility for everything that goes on (except for Q himself, of course).

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At 6s and 7s

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If you’re somewhat new to our blog, you probably have seen a reference to an at-best odd working relationship between GM Stan Bowman and coach Joel Quenneville. You may wonder why we think that, so it may be best to go through the years and see how we got to this point.

Stan Bowman became GM of the Hawks in July of 2010, not long after Dale Tallon was strangely allowed to run the draft and free agency but then saddled with the whole Qualifying Offer Fiasco, even though it certainly wouldn’t have been Tallon’s duty to actually stick these things in the mail. Whatever. Tallon took responsibility, the axe came down, blah blah blah.

The ’09-’10 season obviously couldn’t have been much smoother. Bowman only made the one deal, which was Cam Barker–a player Q never cared for–out for Nick Leddy and Kim Johnsson (God rest him). We make that joke about Johnsson being dead because he only played eight games with the Hawks before suffering a “concussion” that ruled him out for the rest of the season. The rumors of what actually happened have flown, and someone will fill you in in the comments if you don’t know I’m sure.