To the next step.
Box Scores: Game 22 | Game 23
Game Logs: Game 22 | Game 23
Natural Stat Trick: Game 22 | Game 23
The Red Wings, last in the league for two seasons now, played well the first game against the Blackhawks this weekend. It’s not a good thing to let a team as offensively depleted as the Red Wings, without their captain Dylan Larkin, as many chances as the Hawks did, but that’s what happened this weekend. We recovered enough to not be a complete laughingstock last night, but it still wasn’t our best work. To the bullets.
- Saturday’s game was of sloppy proportions, as both teams showed up and decided to play quite poorly. Passes weren’t connecting, there were takeaways and giveaways galore, and defense wasn’t a thing anybody was caring about.
- I’m sure the recently demoted Nicolas Beaudin was just thrilled to watch Zadorov taking his NHL spot after watching him being singlehandedly at fault for Detroit’s first goal on Saturday, and then not being able to stop the Red Wings’ fifth goal, and then not being helpful for Detroit’s first goal last night. But at least he’s getting playing time in Rockford, am I right!
- I really have about had it with this defensive structure or lack thereof. I know this is really and truly hard to believe, but FIRST-BALLOT HALL OF FAME GOLD MEDAL DEFENSEMAN DUNCAN KEITH does not need your help behind the goal. I know it’s hard to understand. You think maybe he does need your help and that it’s okay to abandon your guy. But he does not need your help and it’s not okay to abandon your guy. All you need to do is cover your guy and so many goals this season would not have happened. This is how a structured defense works. FIGURE IT OUT.
- Carl Soderberg scored again Saturday, continuing to make it easier for the Hawks to sweeten the deal to get other teams to trade for him at the deadline. A 2nd or 3rd round pick, anyone? He’d be a great depth guy for a contending team. You know who to call.
- Malcolm Subban was…well, not good on Saturday. Hard to watch. Bad to see. While this was happening, Collin Delia was simultaneously also letting five goals in the back of his net in Rockford, where the competition is theoretically easier than in the NHL. But he also hasn’t played for over a month, so let’s try to give him the benefit of the doubt for a little bit longer.
- Meanwhile, Kevin Lankinen stopped over 40 shots last night in order to keep the Blackhawks in last night’s game. Did we mention the Red Wings aren’t supposed to be good offensively? What a series this was.
- As if that wasn’t enough, the Blackhawks were able to reignite the dead Detroit powerplay, after they hadn’t scored on the powerplay in over a month and are ranked 31st in the league. Only a special team with killer instinct could allow this to happen. It was our pleasure to help you guys out with this.
- The narrative this weekend was that Kane would be scoring his 400th goal, and it almost looked like it wasn’t gonna happen. Kane played a bit of a half-assed game on Saturday and had a nice assist on the Hawks’ third goal last night. But he was finally able to score his goal with 10 minutes left in the 3rd last night, and the Blackhawks decided to score three more before letting the Red Wings limp out of Chicago with a split series. Good work everyone.
Shhh, listen. Do you guys hear that in the distance? It’s the sound of the Tampa Bay Lightning actively destroying every team in their path and wanting to get more points against a defensively idiotic club like ours to separate themselves from the Panthers in the standings. The Blackhawks have a few days’ rest and then a triple-header against these guys, which should be nothing but high-quality entertainment, if only in that ironic sort of way. See you then.
vs 
Game Times: 7:00PM (2/27), 6:00PM (2/28)
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network (2/28), WGN-AM 720
Big Money Rustlas: Winging It In Motown
As the Hawks and Jackets showed earlier in the week, even in an abbreviated, intra-division only schedule thanks to the interminable pestilence still keeping the world in its grip, it is still in fact possible to have a completely disinterested late-February snoozefest. It’s all about maintaining a sense of normalcy out there, and those two teams’ efforts were appreciated. And the drudgery continues this weekend with another two games against the visiting Red Wings, whom the Hawks played in Detroit just last week, and against whom the Hawks have half of their six (6) regulation wins in 21 games.
Box Scores: Game 20 | Game 21
Game Logs: Game 20 | Game 21
Natural Stat Trick: Game 20 | Game 21
The first game of this series was filled with lots of offensive FUN (ignore that Kane was in on 80% of the goals and Laine was in on the other 80% for his team) and the slog of a second game was a snooze-a-palooza where both teams decided they were going to bore us all with lots of DEFENSE, CHECKING, and PHYSICAL PLAY that makes up one of those good ol’ fashioned hockey games. Let’s take our 4 points, end this series and get to the bullets.
- First of all, let’s give a round of applause to everybody’s adopted son Brandon Hagel for finally getting his first goal. It was a beauty and an important one in Tuesday’s game.
- It’s mighty unfortunate the dam broke for Laine and co. during Tuesday night’s game, and it’s also mighty unfortunate that twice in this game the Blackhawks “defense” just decided to leave Laine alone and uncovered to do what he pleases. Will our defense ever stop doing this to dangerous opponents? Probably not.
- Taking penalties nearly killed this team. The Blackhawks were unable to stay out of the box and it meant that the Blue Jackets were able to score two powerplay goals in the 2nd and another in the 3rd. Although the Hawks were able to open up the scoring with Carl Soderberg on the powerplay, penalties are not something this defensively-pious team should be taking, even if the Ogie Oglethorpes on the other team are making you mad.
- Speaking of penalties, Adam Boqvist took two bad ones this series. Last night’s penalty didn’t lead to a Blue Jackets goal, but Tuesday’s penalty allowed the Jackets back into the game to tie it up. Do better, please.
- Subban was actually pretty solid last night, gaining his second career shutout, but holy Toledo does he need to learn how to freeze a puck. Whatever he’s been working on with Jimmy Waite, please stop doing it and work on this very important aspect of being a goaltender, thank you.
- Nikita Zadorov getting outmuscled and stripped of the puck by a Blue Jacket last night after the Blackhawks media has been saying he’s supposed to be the one outmuscling others and that’s the greatness he brings to this team…I just can’t help but laugh (again) at this situation. Luckily, Subban was able to make a spectacular stop on the play to keep the game tied.
- Patrick Kane had a hand in 4 of the 5 goals on Tuesday night. He scored the GWG last night. He has 31 points, and he’s had a hand in 18.6% all of the scoring the Blackhawks have this season. To put that in perspective, red-hot Auston Matthews has only been in on 15% of his team’s total points. For God’s sake, even Connor McDavid himself, playing on one of the worst teams in the league when he’s not on the ice, is at 18.5% of his team’s total points. Believe it or not, the Blackhawks might somehow make the playoffs this season, and if they do it will largely be because of Kane and he should seriously be considered as a Hart Trophy candidate, if not winner, this season. It’s just how it is.
The Blackhawks will next face the incredibly bad Red Wings this weekend. Then, like Pat Foley announced on the broadcast, the Blackhawks will be going on a “MURDEROUS ROW” over the next couple of weeks as they face Tampa Bay, Florida, and Dallas way too many times. What could possibly go wrong?
All the robots are in the garage.
We talk existential crises and what any of this Hawks stuff all means long term. Get the audio after the jump.
at 
Game Times: 6:00PM (2/23, 2/25)
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
The Horseshoe: The Cannon
As this abbreviated intra-divisional schedule lumbers towards its halfway point, the repetitive nature its structure is now starting to take its icy grip on things, even as Chicago itself finally thaws out only slightly, with the Hawks now playing their third series of the month against the Jackets, and their first in Columbus.
Box Score
Event Log
Natural Stat Trick
Well that looks more in line with what’s to be expected. The Hawks play an obviously better team, keep it close for long enough through a couple of highly skilled plays including a flash from a kid, while the deeper truths about how far this team has to go are ultimately revealed. It’s not that losses are good, except when they are. It’s about the results matching the output, and the Hawks have been mauled for three straight games at times, and only once by a team with any kind of hope whatsoever. To the bullets.
at 
Game Time: 6:00PM
TV/Radio: NBCSN Chicago, NHL Network, WGN-AM 720
Brass Bonanza: Canes Country
Despite largely avoiding covid-induced difficulties, it was only a matter of time before the cascading effects of the league (and world) being ravaged by the plague hit the West Side Hockey club, and as a result the back half of the straight doubleheader with the Hurricanes has been banged so that they and the Bolts can make up a previously postponed game. It’s more schedule making geniusness from the NHL brain trust, but there’s a fairly good chance that this was the least impactful way to make the games up. But this is another reason to look at winning percentages in the standings and NOT the point totals. Hint hint, the rest of the hockey observing universe. But at least everyone gets to see the Hawks against the Canes in their Reverse Retro Whalers threads this evening.
Box Scores: Game 17 | Game 18
Game Logs: Game 17 | Game 18
Natural Stat Trick: Game 17 | Game 18
The scoresheet says the Hawks won these games, sure, but it is a bit concerning that they were losing the possession battle to the league’s bottomfeeding Detroit Red Wings four out of the six periods of hockey played. Something needs to be done about that. Let’s get to the bullets.
- It’s never good news when the Red Wings are beating you in possession, but that’s exactly what happened in the 1st and 3rd periods of both The Red Wings had all the momentum in the 1st period Monday, sporting an obscene 73 CF%. Luckily, starter Malcolm Subban was able to make some important saves, long enough for the Hawks to score on their first shot thanks to a nifty Carl Soderberg pass to Mattias Janmark.
- With numbers like those, it’s impressive the Hawks won the game in overtime, thanks to a late Dominik Kubalik five-hole with just 15 seconds left in extras. This is good news because the Blackhawks are trash in a shootout and very legitimately could have lost if it had come to that.
- The Blackhawks also got domed in the 3rd period of Monday’s game to the tune of a 26 CF%, and the Wings also won the possession game in the 1st and 3rd periods of last night’s tilt at 55 and 59%, respectively. This is actually not a new trend, as a similar situation happened to the Blackhawks in the Blue Jackets game on the 11th. Generally, the Blackhawks seem to get crushed possession-wise but use their powerplay abilities to get past teams and win games in OT.
- Brandon Hagel continues to shine in every way but scoring. On Monday night, Hagel had a great pass to Kubalik to get the second Blackhawks goal at the end of the 1st. We still await a goal of his own, but he’s definitely fun to watch.
- The Red Wings powerplay really was the steaming pile of hot garbage the numbers told us it would be. I really thought I’d never see a powerplay as bad – worse, even – as the Hawks of yore, but this really was horrendous. Even more horrendous is that there’s an NHL team with a worse powerplay – congratulations, Minnesota Wild!
- Speaking of Red Wings power plays, a too many men penalty while you are up a skater against a dumpster fire penalty kill team is completely unacceptable coaching-wise. We were lucky the Red Wings powerplay sucks enough that a goal wasn’t scored – against a good team, we would not have been so lucky.
- The Blackhawks had another great powerplay goal last night by Philipp Kurashev, who received a pass by Duncan Keith and then outskated and outmaneuvered two Red Wings like it was nothing, going five-hole on Bernier. I like Kurashev and he’s just getting more and more fun to watch as he gets more confident on the ice.
- If this had been literally any other team, that attempt with a little over four minutes left in the 3rd period of last night’s game would’ve been a goal. Lankinen slid way out of position and only by the grace of God did the Red Wings miss on a legitimately wide-open net.
- I don’t know where the Hawks get off on playing Zadorov in the final minutes of every game, but please stop; it burns my eyes.
The Blackhawks head south on their road trip this weekend to battle the Carolina Hurricanes, who will not be as forgiving if we continue with these possession numbers (which we will). The Hawks are going to need to figure out a way to not flounder in this metric and also win games without going into extra time if they want to continue being a FUN PLAYOFF CONTENDER or whatever the journalists think this team is. Onward!
The Hawks continue to buck the numbers, and we continue to shit all over the results. There’s a peppering of Chicago sports miscellany as well. Get it all after the jump.
