2-0: Blackhawks
Is this becoming a thing: PD
Panarin out: CST
Outside again: CSN
Trade season underway: NHL
Devils retire 30: PHT
Shameless self promotion, vote Ken Oda: FH
Recent Posts
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There’s February: Sharks 2 – Hawks 0
Perhaps it took the home schedule in this month to kick in the winter doldrums we’ve come accustomed to. One game of course does not signal anything. The Sharks, as cloudy and weird as their identity might be in a lot of places, were suffocating in their own zone. While the Hawks mustered up an acceptable number of shots, San Jose cordoned off any prime scoring areas for all 60 minutes. Their backchecking was ferocious. The Hawks love to beat a man to the outside and then hit the late man, but couldn’t do it at all tonight with the retreating Sharks’ forwards blanketing that option. Anything from the outside the pretty sizable Martin Jones is going to stop. Tonight’s shot chart tells something of a story. Hawks didn’t get much below the circles.
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Mirror Stares Back Hard – Sharks vs Hawks Preview, Tech Crunch Awards After-Party
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Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
Optimal Tip-To-Tip Efficiency: Fear The FinDue to a fortunate bit of scheduling, the Capades’ stand at the United Center coincided with the NHL All Star game, and as a result the Hawks’ only played four games away from the West Side in their 16 days since last being at home. And they’ll do so tonight against the Sharks, a team no one can figure out what exactly it is they’re doing.
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Morning Links 2.9.2016
Depends on the price:NBC
But it would be awesome:CBS
So is this..Enjoy It:FS
Flair for the dramatic: Blackhawk Up
Exactly why you don’t get comfortable:DMN
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Sharks Spotlight: Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo
As everyone else in the world falls all over themselves to tell you how awesome Jaromir “I Wear These Pants To Accentuate My Bulge” Jagr is, or the remnants of the eight-year long Teemu Selanne goodbye party are still to be cleared, ask yourself why people don’t feel the same about Joe Thornton? We mean other than when he’s talking about pulling out his cock and stroking it after scoring four goals in a game.
Thornton is about to have his 16th season of 60+ points in the last 17, and the only reason it isn’t 17 straight is he only played 23 games in ‘03-’04 after busting his shoulder. Even Jagr can’t boast that, though he’s seven years older. He is in the top 30 in all-time scoring, could crack the top 20 or even 15 next year and certainly will if he plays another two or three years. Considering he’s still producing, there’s no reason he shouldn’t.
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High On The Hog: Blowout At The BMO
The Rockford IceHogs were atop the AHL’s Central Division going into this weekend’s home and home with the Grand Rapids Griffins. They were coming off an 8-2-1-1 January record and were facing a Griffins team that had dropped five straight. Rockford was recharged following the All-Star break and had the hottest goalie in the league manning the pipes in font of a big home crowd at the BMO Harris Bank Center.
How, then, did that all add up to one of the worst losses in the history of the franchise? Submitted for your approval is a blow-by-blow account of a historic defeat.
(Trust me, readers…you’ll dig this…I think)
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The Great Southern Trendkill: Blackhawks 5, Stars 1
Tonight’s game was billed as a few things. We heard that the Blackhawks wanted to avenge their last ugly defeat in Dallas. We heard that the Stars were looking to halt the meteoric ascent of Chicago to first place in the Central. We heard that the Stars are looking to show they’re for real.
Frankly, I figured the Blackhawks would place just as much importance on this game as they have any February game over the past 4-5 seasons. Another factor is the annual tradition that has the Blackhawks having played the most games in the NHL plus a heated affair in the desert had me thinking this might be a sleepwalk through America’s most Napervillesque large city.
Nope. (more…)
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Hockey Tonk Women Give Me The Hockey Tonk Blues
Our friend Cyndi B drops in to update all on what’s going on with the NWHL and CWL.
AMANDA KESSEL
Our Beloved And Magnificent Ice Empress, Long May The Hockey Gods Preserve Her Glory, will be on the ice with the Gophers again this weekend for the first time since before the Sochi Olympics. Her last season in Minnesota was 2012-13, in which she scored 46G-55A-101 points in 37 games. Concussions are bastards, and we should all be kissing the dirt in thanks for the opportunity to watch Kessel finish out her NCAA eligibility on the ice.
NWHL
BUF 4 – 2 NYR
You know how TV shows do episodes where the whole cast gets amnesia, and they can’t recognize each other and hilarious misunderstandings ensue? Imagine that but with a professional hockey team. Congratulations, you are now a Riveters fan.
New York went down by two power play goals at the end of the first, dug themselves back out of the hole to tie it up early in the third, but couldn’t hang on. Their scoring was pretty neatly representative of their shooting–Buffalo outshot them 46-22, and despite an uptick in New York shots in the second they really didn’t give Brianne Mclaughlin much to do. Seven penalties didn’t help, either. The Riveters’ PK held firm after the first, but then again most of those penalties came in the first anyway.
I cannot think of a more frustrating hockey team to follow right now than the New York Riveters, and I like the Blue Jackets. The Riveters are not by any means lacking for talent, and when they click they click beautifully. Then they lose it again, or start scrapping instead of playing hockey; last time they played Buffalo they turned a 5-2 lead into a 6-5 shootout loss by setting up camp in the penalty box and never leaving. The highest-scoring Riveter is Brooke Ammerman, who is only 14th in scoring in a league with four teams. The most penalized Riveter is also Brooke Ammerman, who is 2nd in PIM in the league.
Meanwhile, Buffalo is still clawing its way steadily out of an ugly first half to their season. At eleven points behind the Whale with only four regular season games left, they won’t be finding their way into second place. But two consecutive wins over the Riveters have at least let them hop up into third. The Beauts are 4-8-2 over the season, but three of those wins have come in their last four games–a very promising sign for consistent improvement.
BOS 5 – 2 CTW
The Whale bookended the All-Star break by coughing up another ugly loss to the Boston Pride. Boston got three goals in the first five minutes of the second, and Connecticut never recovered; unsurprising, when they were outshot 50-27. Meanwhile, Boston behaved perfectly predictably, by which I mean Knight assisted a Decker goal and Decker assisted one of Knight’s two goals. The Pride could save a few bucks by benching their first line and planting a puck-shooting machine in the opposing crease, but the machine would probably score less.
CWHL
BRM 6 – 0 TOR
The usually reliable Christina Kessler allowed four goals on seven shots and was pulled less than ten minutes into this game. Backup van der Bliek plugged the bleeding, stopping 27 of 29 shots, but too late for the Furies to salvage the game. Toronto was outshot at 36-23, failed to convert on four power play opportunities, and ended up decisively shut out. Rattray and Jones both had four-point nights for the Thunder, with 1G3A each; Fortino came away with 1G2A.
MON 5 – 2 CAL
MON 3 – 1 CAL
The Canadiennes have spent a good chunk of this season third in the league, hovering just behind the deadlocked Inferno and Thunder. This weekend’s back-to-back victories against Calgary finally broke them through. It was an unstoppable force/immovable object matchup of Calgary’s league-leading 4.3 GF/G and Charline Labonte’s league-leading 1.31 GAA, and Labonte came out unmistakably on top, holding the Inferno well below their usual scoring volume on both nights.
With three weekends left in the regular season, Calgary is now two points behind Montreal, and Brampton two points behind them; Toronto is miles back. Defending champion Boston has yet to see a regulation win in 20 games played this season, and I checked the standings three separate times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating that. Speaking of which:
BOS
It was off this week, but I regret any my prior implication that the 112 shots Lacasse faced in a single weekend were extraordinary. I checked her season stats, and in fact she is averaging a steady 51 shots against per game. At a certain point you have to wonder why the Blades aren’t willing to throw in their backup and give Lacasse even one night or weekend off. #PrayForGenevieve2K16
AMANDA KESSEL
Amanda Kessel!
