Something of a new approach to this bit today. One of the things that people have pointed to in this current Hawks’ streak of silliness is that the second line hasn’t scored much. Kane and Pantera have only combined for four points in the past nine games. We’ve been commenting that the top line hasn’t really pulled its weight at even-strength for any length of time this season, and I wanted to see if this has affected how teams have played them. It kind of looks like it has:
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Game Time: 7:00PM
TV/Radio: NBCSN, TVA-S, SportsNet 1, WGN-AM 720
Stare Into The Lion’s Eyes: Broad St. Hockey
As the above headline will indicate, Flyers Twitter is a weird and amusing place to dwell in for even a short amount of time. Perhaps it’s their championship drought despite having numerous good to great teams over the last 40 years that’s driven them batty, or their often times confounding management. Or maybe it’s the fact that by and large those fans live in a dyspeptic cracker hellscape of a state with two of the most abhorrent accents in any English dialect; a place that until recently had a legitimate thoroughfare officially labeled on maps as “The Road To Nowhere”. And of course, Travis fucking Hughes still hasn’t paid us our cheesesteaks going on six years later.
And those denizens have had plenty to be excited about lately as the Flyers have unexpectedly surged into the playoff conversation in the Eastern Conference.
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Game Time: 7:00PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN+, NBCSN, SportsNet, WGN-AM 720
Hollywood Bowl: JFTC, Royal Half
On paper, it’s surprising that what’s become very clear as the vocal majority of Hawks fans aren’t more nakedly jealous of Kings fans. With basically an equal amount of success as the Hawks, Kings fans have been able to enjoy the organization from management to players being unrepentant pieces of since the summer of 2012 (when Drew Doughty was also accused of sexual assault and no one even to this day still seems to give a shit about) without having to mansplain themselves to Social Justice Warriors out to ruin the good times of white men everywhere.
Whether that’s a function of no one giving a fuck about the Kings on a national level even after winning two of the last four cups and leading their division for most of this year, or that Kings fans as a whole merely think it’s funny when it happens to other people without the slightest bit of self-reflection, their loyalty remains largely unquestioned to this point. The option of being able to enjoy their shit SPORTS franchise in uninterrupted complacency without being made to ask larger questions is certainly an option most would take.
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PUCK DROP: 6:30pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN for the locals, NBCSN for the outer rim, WGN Radio
THE QUEBECOIS: Habs Eyes On The Prize
The Hawks will take their scorching performance art piece on the road the next two nights, and into the cradle of hockey. If you don’t believe it is, just ask the citizens of Montreal and Toronto. It’s an Original 6 week for the Hawks. What they’ll find when they get to “The Keg” is a team and fanbase that’s been pulling it’s hair out for so long and so aggressively parts of their brain are flicking out of their scalps. No one does panic quite like the Canadiens.
They’re certainly racking up the goalie wins. After a very even first period that ended a deserved 2-2, and a quite simply dull 2nd period that ever so slowly turned to the Sharks, capped off by Pavelski’s goal where their top line got to run around the merry-go-round that is the Hawks’ 3rd pairing, Corey Crawford held his team in the 3rd period where they were outshot 11-5, out-attempted 21-10, and basically simply outplayed. But thanks to Crow, they had time for Shaw to make Paul Martin look like a clown for the second time in the game, forcing both teams into the bull-riding show where one bad change let Kane and Toews in. That basically only ever has one ending.
The performances this weekend, and for most of the season, haven’t matched the results. But in the Suicide Squad Central Division the Hawks won’t care because they’ll need all the points they can get. There will be time enough to improve the roster and hence the performances, and to have it on a higher platform would be beneficial.
On to it.
After something of a wonky week, the Hawks returned to the model that had racked up wins in the season’s first couple weeks, or more to the point before Hossa got hurt. The second line goes nuts, Crawford is excellent, no one else does much of anything of note either good or bad (or at least not bad enough to fuck up the two points), and the Hawks win. The 2nd line accounted for all four goals, Crow makes 22 saves in the 2nd period alone, and against an EdMo team without McJesus it’s just enough. It’s not the sort of win that is going to calm any slightly jangly nerves about this team’s prospects, but after getting pretty much tonked for the last five periods before this, it’ll do.
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.
As you’re probably aware by now, we spend a lot of time, probably more than anyone else because we’re sicker in the head than just about everyone else, piercing through what the Hawks’ front office is telling us and what we think is actually going on. Some take this to mean we think the front office is full of concrete-headed giblets, but that would be pretty moronic to think when they’re currently making their third banner in six years. But we do like to put our conspiracy theory hats on (without drunkenly yelling anti-semitic feelings at cops, though we do occasionally yell at cops [we have friends in blue]) from time to time. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about a couple things going on at the moment, and it’s probably mostly because I don’t have anything else to do. Take these with multiple grains of salt (which still isn’t really much salt if you like to try and stop your heart as much as I do with salt). Just things I think.
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Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, NHLN (US), WGN-AM 720
Love Rollercoaster: The Cannon
“I heard you missed us, we’re back!”
Yeah, no, not so much.
