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Your Authority Is Not Recognized Here In Torts Kickass: Hawks at Jackets Preview/Sage Burning

By 1387

Hawk Wrestler vs. Chief_Blue_Meanie

PUCK DROP: 6pm Central

TV: CSN

THE HOCKEY BLOG: Jackets Cannon

Projected Lineups

blackhawks-lineup-card

blue-jackets-lineup-card\

SCORE ADJUSTED POSSESSION: Hawks – 50.3 CF% (11th)  Jackets – 48.2 CF% (20th)

POWER PLAY: Hawks – 35.7% (3rd)  Jackets – 40% (2nd)

PENALTY KILL: Hawks – 47.1% (Dead ass last)  Jackets – 85.7% (12th)

Trends: Cam Atkinson only has three goals and seven points in 10 games agains the Hawks. It only feels like has 27 and 43. 

The Hawks take it out on the road again tonight, to face a certainly well-rested if oddly-cobbled Blue Jackets squad in the Ohio capital. It’ll start a three-in-four stretch for the Hawks, who return home tomorrow for the Leafs Saturday and Flames Monday. What they’ll find in Columbus is a team built to play a game that no longer wins in the NHL, and one under that that could be a useful NHL team if they let it.

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Young Ones, Cold Ones: Flyers at Hawks Preview/Aerial Yoga

By 1291

Radio-Flyer-Classic-Red-Wagon-lg vs. Hawk Wrestler

GAMETIME: 7:30pm Central

TV: CSN locally, NBCSN nationally

WOOTER ICE: Broad Street Hockey

Projected Lineups

flyers-lineup-card

blackhawks-lineup-card

POWER PLAY: Flyers – 0% (28th)  Hawks – 27.3% (12th)

PENALTY KILL: Flyers – 88.9% (10th)  Hawks – 46.1% (Dead Ass Last)

SCORE ADJUSTED POSSESSION: Flyers – 52.5% (8th)  Hawks – 47.9% (22nd)

TRENDS: Ghost Bear has seven shots on Saturday against Arizona, Mark Streit had an 83% CF% on Saturday

After battling through perhaps the two best teams in the West for the season’s first three games, the schedule lightens a bit this week for the Hawks. And it starts with a visit from Cold Ones, otherwise known as the Philadelphia Flyers.

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Well That’s A Funny Looking Strike: Blues 5 – Hawks 2

By 2403

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

Should have taken the left at Albuquerque.

I’m not sure we learned anything we didn’t already suspect is going to be some of the issues early this season. First off, you can’t take five straight penalties when Tarasenko and friends are loitering around the other side. And you can’t have TVR anywhere near there either. So there are two problems.

But we knew the Hawks are a bit mismatched at forward, and there’s going to have to be a level of patience while they see if some of the kids can figure it out. Hinostroza and Motte looked quick, but it was in every direction. Schmaltz looked hesitant as the enormity of the task of being an NHL center sunk in. Forsling showed some really promising flashes, and some flashes the other way. That’s just how it’s going to be. So for now and once again, the Hawks are a one-line team.

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Maybe They’re Lookin’ For Answers – C.I.’s Season Preview: Cleaning Up The Rest

By 1368

We’ve been through the biggest questions the Hawks face coming into this season. Next week we’ll spend tooling around the Central Division and Western Conference to see what the Hawks are up against. But for today, let’s try and clear up whatever we haven’t gotten to for the Hawks.

-The working theory for most of the summer, and until they actually show up in camp we have no reason to think any different, is that Marian Hossa is going to slide down to the third line to form some kind of checking line with Marcus Kruger and GTBD (goofus-to-be-determined). Quenneville mentioned it at the convention, Hossa and Kruger have talked about it at the World Cup. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire and all that.

On the surface, this seems like a pretty good idea. Hossa is slowing down, he still has defensive instincts matched by very few, Kruger does as well, and perhaps if they really wanted it to they could free up Toews to not have to keep battling the Kopitars, Seguins, Getzlafs, and whoever else’s of the world. That might free Toews to do more scoring, even if there’s just farmland runoff on his wings.

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Maybe They’re Lookin’ For Answers – C.I.’s Season Preview: 51 Phantom And The Defense

By 1495

When the Hawks opened camp on Friday, we discussed what their biggest problem is, and that’s forward depth. Today might be a good day to swing at the other side, before we spend the rest of this in the middle (sounds like life). And that’s the Hawks’ defense.

Which sounds strange to say, because the Hawks’ defense last year was most certainly not a strength. And some of those problems could be problems this year, too. Duncan Keith’s knee is not really ever going to be “better.” That may be nothing or it may be something, and that something may be down the line. Once you remove that cartilage though, it’s not like it regrows. And he was clearly off by a half-step last year.

Secondly, if Brent Seabrook is still ordering the menu at Manny’s on the way to the morning skate, then there are still issues that Brian Campbell is not going to solve. So far so good, on that front, but we’ll see what the real games have to say.

What we do know is that the signing of 51 Phantom is going to solve a lot of problems.

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Keith, Bolland, And Other Thursday Notes Except I Never Come Up With Notes That Aren’t In The Headline

By 1772

Couple of notes popping up the past day or so.

-Duncan Keith has dropped out of Team Canada, apparently to keep rehabbing or resting his knee that he had problems with last season. I think this is a good barometer of what these players think of the World Cup, where they sort of like it but they’re not risking much for it. If this were the Olympics I wonder what Keith would have done. And we’ll go more into the World Cup in September, but it feels like a real missed and biffed opportunity on the NHL’s part.

What’s more important locally of course is the condition of Keith. While Keith’s play didn’t really drop off from what we’ve come to expect, and he certainly benefitted from getting to play with Hjalmarsson the most, it was noticeable that he didn’t have quite the jump that he used to.

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Mile High Poaching

By 1346

And no, that’s to referring to cashing out the last of the bowl on a trip to Vail while Tyler and The Bros aren’t paying attention.

Late last night Mike Chambers of the Denver Post reported that Blackhawks assistant coach Kevin Dineen interviewed with Joe Sakic and Avs brass for upwards of three-and-a-half hours, and is a finalist for the job vacated by intractable asswipe Patrick Roy along with Bob Boughner. And potentially losing Dineen behind the Hawks’ bench would be decidedly bad for the organ-I-zation on a lot of fronts.

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About This Time Of Night, 51 Phantom Gets To Feelin’ Right

By 1291

This was just about the worst kept secret around here in a while. The only question for the Hawks and Brian Campbell was just how cheaply they could bring him back. $2 mildo and the answer is, “pretty fucking cheap.” I hope Beavis and Butthead in the booth don’t pull a muscle having to backtrack all the things they said about him since he left.

In case you don’t watch the Panthers much, and there really wasn’t much reason you should unless you’re demented like me, Campbell spent the past two years playing with Aaron Ekblad and the two of them basically kicked the competition’s nuts up into their throat. They were +5.2 and +5.7% relative in Corsi to the rest of the Panthers, with pretty evenly split zone starts. Gudbranson and Mitchell (for some reason) took on the toughest competition most of the time for the Cats, but Campbell isn’t going to have to worry about doing that here either.

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On The Blocks

By 1437

So the frenzy begins tomorrow, and the Hawks are doing last minute stretching and warming before they pick their targets. Both Michal Rozsival and Brandon Mashinter were re-upped today for dirt cheap, barely $1.1 million between them.

The Rozsival one is slightly interesting considering that no matter how much Q loves him, he was absolutely railroaded in the playoffs last year, supposedly what he was being saved for during a regular season where he wasn’t really all that bad. How he’s going to improve in the spring, even if he plays 40-50 games. Whatever.

The Mashinter signing is frustrating because we do this every year. Every year the Hawks have some tomato can on the roster who plays too much during the season and by the playoffs Q has discarded them into the ether, basically telling you that “the element we like” means jack and shit. Or either they/Mashinter/both is an actual player now, which will get hilariously exposed. Again, doesn’t really matter.

So where do the Hawks stand, lineup wise now?