Must be relentless: Chicago Tribune
Building Block Win: CSN CHICAGO
I really wanna know how much that jet costs: Verdi
This is Insane: MNWILD
Easy to see the talent gap:Star Tribune
Round and Round: CSN CHICAGO
Two Playoff games in nine years appears to be all: CBC
Scum down to the wire as told to us by Larry Horse’s favorite writer: Det Free Press
Scum Jr. on the brink too: LaTimes (AP)
Oh well…..CBC
The Right Move: CTV
Its time for Handshakes at Home!!!!
vs. 
FACEOFF: 8:30pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN, NBCSN, CBC for you hosers, WIND 560am
HOLLYWOOD DREAM TEENS, YESTERDAY’S TRASH QUEENS: Hockey Wilderness
Tonight for the first time we get to see how the Hawks bounce back from a loss in the playoffs. Whether it was tactics or effort or discipline, the Hawks get a chance to correct it tonight and for all intents and purposes end this series. Because it’s highly likely that if the Hawks take a 3-1 lead back to Fort Kickass on Madison on Thursday, that will be that.
Party Dave and Rayzor are out: Chicago Tribune
Saad is a Calder Finalist: Comcast Chicago
How will the Hawks respond? Daily Herald
This awesomeness is official: NHL
Top line struggles: Comcast Chicago (auto)
I cant help but see a point: CBSSPORTS
This didn’t quite feel like a “Grind My Gears, ” so much as a more general musing. I guess these are things I think I think.
-I find it hilarious that in a week where most everyone was lampooning Hawk Harrelson for his “TWTW” southern-fried bullshit, some people still think it’s perfectly acceptable to then turn around and say a team lost a hockey game due to effort and want. And without any sense of how paradoxical that may be. But then again, it gives me material.
Granted, hockey unlike baseball is a game that can be changed by a team trying harder and pressing, in either direction. You can’t grunt and grimace and sweat your way through an at-bat (unless you’re Kevin Youklis), but you can through a shift and make a difference. So I’ll admit that.
But that’s not really what yesterday boiled down to.
With the series now shifting setting to the Twin Cities, the Wild were essentially facing a must-win situation, and decided to change things up a bit from their neutral zone bomb shelter strategy that yielded no results on West Madison.
Even with the Hawks drawing the first marker on a beautiful feed from Patrick Kane to Johnny Oduya right after a Hawks kill, the Wild pressed on. Coach Mike Yeo made no secret about wanting to ratchet up the physicality and make life unpleasant for Hawk defenders, and did just that, sending wave of cannonballing forwards into the Hawk zone.
FACEOFF: 2pm Central
TV/RADIO: NBC/WIND-560am
THOUGHT THEY WERE JAMES DEAN FOR A DAY: Hockey Wilderness
WHERE WE’LL BE, AND YOU SHOULD BE: Sheffield’s in Lakeview
A lot of people have asked or wondered aloud whether Game 1 was Minnesota’s best punch and if they’re now out of answers. I’ve always thought that we’ll see Minnehaha’s best punch today. This is the first playoff game at Excel Energy Center since well before this blog existed, and you know that crowd is going to baying for blood from the word go (assuming they can get out from the snow).
With that in mind, the more conservative approach we’ve seen from the Wild in this series, at least to start games, is probably not going to be in evidence in the opening frame this time. Expect the Wild to come out flying, getting the puck behind the Hawks defense and then trying to sacrifice those same d-men to Mayan gods against the end boards. It’s almost certainly going to be frantic and pressured. Cal Clutterbuck might spontaneously combust.
I know we only post a video in a wrap for a very certain occasion, but this felt apt. Whereas the Wild caused a few half-heart flutters in Game 1, this one very much felt like a boat race. Once Michael Frolik — and perhaps from here on out he should be referred to by his full name, “Playoff Dynamo Michael Frolik” — put the Hawks ahead in the first, there was never a moment where it felt like the Wild would catch them. And that’s how it played out.
I know we only post a video in a wrap for a very certain occasion, but this felt apt. Whereas the Wild caused a few half-heart flutters in Game 1, this one very much felt like a boat race. Once Michael Frolik — and perhaps from here on out he should be referred to by his full name, “Playoff Dynamo Michael Frolik” — put the Hawks ahead in the first, there was never a moment where it felt like the Wild would catch them. And that’s how it played out.
Zeus adds chemistry: (Comcast Chicago)
Cooler heads must prevail: (Daily Herald)
Backstrom doubtful: (Twincities.com)
Emery and Bolland out: (ESPN)
Ticket prices to rise 30 percent: (Chicago Tribune)
Needless to say, I hope Lars Eller is ok: (TSN)
Don Cherry is still old and needs to go away: (Toronto Sun)
Hmmmm:(Chicago Tribune)
Yes, it’s only been one game. But it’s started already . And if the Hawks make a long run out of this spring (and summer, hopefully), then this is going to get ceaselessly tiresome. It already has in some respects. And that’s the “flat” storyline.
