When?LGH
Focus turns to The OC:Chicago Tribune
Who Wins:Sportsnet
This is the epitome of tough luck:TSN
Nate, I dig your numbers but the headline….:538
Can’t Wait:Grantland
I never travel far without a little big star:ESPN
Everybody wants to be special here:HockeeNight
Your hand, your answer:LGH
Lights that flash in the evening:Chicago Tribune
There wasn’t a damn thing I could do or say:SBNation
Jesus rides beside me, but he never buys any smokes:DP
…Sorry Killion, I couldn’t resist following your lead.
Haven’t done one of these in a while, and as the Hawks sit on the precipice of being halfway to another Grant Park Drunkening, seems like a good time to do it. Let’s get to it.
63%
That’s the third line’s Corsi-percentage over the past two games. In case you’re new to us and/or these analytics, 55% would be considered dominant. Now, only one of those games did that line see heavy offensive zone starts, and last night their zone starts were pretty evenly split between the o-zone, neutral zone, and d-zone. That’s the third line. 3rd. #3. In case you want to know what separates the Hawks right now.
447
That’s the career goals currently on the Hawks’ third line. It doesn’t really mean much, it just makes me feel good to see.
Seven straight Game 3 losses on the road, huh? Maybe the Hawks pulled this one out just because they were sick of that stat. Or maybe they pulled it out because they basically gave the Wild the Million Dollar Dream for the first 40 minutes, and then Crawford proved why he’s still the best goalie in this series for the 3rd (although he didn’t have to make that many highlight reel saves). Or maybe because Hjalmarsson. Oduya, Keith, and Seabrook were at or near their best. Or maybe all of the above. Still, this series kind of feels like the Hawks listened to all the chatter about how the Wild really meant business this time, and said, “Oh? Watch this.” And now they’ve got Minnesota’s nuts in a vice.
This one will go down in the end as a goalie win, but you don’t get through a deep run in the spring without a couple of those. The encouraging thing is that Crawford was aggressive, not getting too deep in his net and standing tall among the scrambles that took place in the 2nd and 3rd. He could have gotten caught a couple times early when he again dropped down too early and lost his net, but as the game went on that happened less and less, the prime examples being coming out to meet Granlund on his breakaway and stopping the Finn again late in the 3rd on a high rising shot. Also helped that Pominville once again lost his radar on where the net it. Most of all, Crow’s rebound control was superb, and that’s where the Wild really profit. Not so tonight.
Let’s go through the rest:
Coming into this one, the main story was always going to be how Mike Yeo adjusted the way his troops went about playing this one, and would the d-men who all made mistakes in Game 1 leading to goals would tighten up or not. Yeo did change tack, and it was the Hawks’ d-men who certainly tightened up. Sadly for Minnehaha, Ryan Suter most certainly did not.
The Wild came into this one deciding to lean heavily on what they do best, and that is gobble up space in the neutral zone and keep things to the perimeter in their zone. While it wasn’t an out-and-out trap, it certainly was more conservative than they were in Game 1. On the surface, it makes total sense. As we said in the program tonight, when judging how things were going for each goalie in these playoffs, the Wild did seem more likely to win a 2-1 game than they do a 4-3 one.
Time to clean up the rest of this preview, with a brief glance at the special teams and then try and guess how it’s all going to go.
On the power play, the Wild have for years been terrible. That changed in the first round, and you can mostly pin that on the presence of Matt Dumba. The Wild went 4-for-12 in the series against St. Louis, which isn’t a lot of chances in a six-game series but certainly is enough power play goals. Dumba had one, and set up one or two more with the cannon he has from the point. It gives them a second point-man with a big shot, with the other being Jason Pominville, who they don’t always use on the point. With Neiderreiter, Vanek, Parise, and Koivu all bodies that can make plays around the net, and the problems the Hawks had with the Predators down low on the power play, this could become an issue.
Finishing off the other half of our preview of the Green Men from St. Paul, today we move to the forwards. There is a step up in class from Nashville for the Hawks in this one. While the Preds were certainly not bereft of talent and depth among their forwards, the Wild have a higher top end with theirs and probably more depth as well. Whereas the Preds didn’t really have a 4th line, the Wild most certainly do and it’s one that has driven the Hawks nuts for a few years now. While the Wild’s D cannot play at the same pace that the Preds’ defense could, their forwards probably aren’t going to find a pace they can’t handle.
The other change in gear for the Hawks is that the Wild are far better and deeper down the middle than the Predators were. That makes for a problem, but not one the Hawks can’t handle.
So let’s get to it.
