On the tail end of a home and home, the Hawks finally corrected a few things and got some bounces that were seemingly long overdue. With the quick turnaround coming back to the west side to face the Senators tomorrow night, it’s bullet time right from Jump St.
Observations
- Hell sure came to breakfast for Nicklas Backstrom. All of the wonky positioning and rebounds on display Saturday night got cashed in on with extreme prejudice tonight. Backstrom was clowned on 4 of the 5 goals against, with only Leddy’s being a shot he never really had a chance on. There were plenty of other opportunities, namely Bickell’s breakaway, as a result of Backstrom absolutely swimming out there.
- Across the rink, Crow had a nice, workman-like rebound effort tonight. Solid and efficient, bordering on non-descript. We’ll see if he gets the crease again tomorrow night, of if Harvey Birdman has dried out enough from his Tampa outing.
- So after being involved in two highlight reel goals, Brandon Saad basically got two minutes for scoreboarding the entire Wild team that was on the ice, laughing at their attempts to goad him into dumb shit. If you felt like calling up Triple Threat Sports right now to order yourself a nice, new #20 sweater, you could hardly be blamed.
- The Hawks were actually out shot 28 to 30, but that’s likely a result of the Wild being a pretty good faceoff team, winning 32 draws of the 56 taken. But the Hawks actually edged the Wild in overall chances, specifically Fenwick.
- Jason Pominville is earning his “Hawk killer” stripes early on. Feels like he’s going to get one regardless of the situation every time these two meet. So glad he’s locked up for a few years in Minny. With him and now smirking shit Matt Duchene in the division, there should be no shortage of irritants.
- Nice to see Sheldon Brookbank get one after some solid play, and he also got the luxury of getting a shower in before his teammates after jumping into the Saad fracas.
- As Sam pointed out in the preview, and as the late-goings of the games showed, this definitely had the feeling of an old-time Norris home-and-home. Unfortunately the Hawks will have to get right back at it tomorrow night with Park Ridge’s other, non-giardinara pimping favorite son Craig Anderson and the Sens in town.
