So do I Joel! ST
Fear the beard: CSN
Experience: TMI
Fantastic: LGH
Breakthrough! SN
Groundhog Day: PD
We were just talking:GnM
A legend of the barn in Geneva: CBC
Probably no greater honor in the sporting world:SI
It won’t be news to anyone that I enjoy watching the Hawks win. Well, maybe it is but it’s true. And wins like last night, a wild and frantic last-gasp joint, are cool. Blowouts are cool too. But I think I most enjoy watching the Hawks outclass another team. Maybe it’s because I watched Scum do it to the Hawks for 15 years or whatever and it’s just a relief to be on the other side. But it’s true.
That sort of thing can take different forms. Sometimes it’s a 5-0 shellacking. Or sometimes it’s like tonight, when even on the second of a back-to-back facing a rested team in their building (though you’d hardly call it hostile, would you?) the Hawks just show the Predators why they’re just a little short right now. The scoreline was close, and a bounce here or there and it may have gone to OT. And yet from the start of the 2nd period on, this just felt like the Hawks dangling a treat right in front of the Preds, yet never in reach. Like the Hawks were saying, “We’re not at our best tonight, but we can do enough to carry this one out and there really isn’t much you’re going to do about it.”
And with that, the Hawks are in first for the first time this season’s first week. They may not stay there long with the Preds having a game in hand and not playing again until Tuesday. But whatever. Six is better than five. Get Darryl out here.
It won’t be news to anyone that I enjoy watching the Hawks win. Well, maybe it is but it’s true. And wins like last night, a wild and frantic last-gasp joint, are cool. Blowouts are cool too. But I think I most enjoy watching the Hawks outclass another team. Maybe it’s because I watched Scum do it to the Hawks for 15 years or whatever and it’s just a relief to be on the other side. But it’s true.
That sort of thing can take different forms. Sometimes it’s a 5-0 shellacking. Or sometimes it’s like tonight, when even on the second of a back-to-back facing a rested team in their building (though you’d hardly call it hostile, would you?) the Hawks just show the Predators why they’re just a little short right now. The scoreline was close, and a bounce here or there and it may have gone to OT. And yet from the start of the 2nd period on, this just felt like the Hawks dangling a treat right in front of the Preds, yet never in reach. Like the Hawks were saying, “We’re not at our best tonight, but we can do enough to carry this one out and there really isn’t much you’re going to do about it.”
And with that, the Hawks are in first for the first time this season’s first week. They may not stay there long with the Preds having a game in hand and not playing again until Tuesday. But whatever. Six is better than five. Get Darryl out here.
Let’s roll it all into one. First…
The headline of this one should probably be that the Hawks have won two games in a row giving up over 40 shots at Antti Raanta. As McClure and I walked out last night we joked that has to be a sign of hockey magic. It’s certainly not the prescribed method to go about things.
Let’s roll it all into one. First…
The headline of this one should probably be that the Hawks have won two games in a row giving up over 40 shots at Antti Raanta. As McClure and I walked out last night we joked that has to be a sign of hockey magic. It’s certainly not the prescribed method to go about things.
So Ryan Stimson, a contributor to InLouWeTrust.com, along with our friend Jen LC has been tracking passing stats for the Hawks this year. This stuff is pretty interesting. We ran this in the Indian last night, but I wanted to share it here as well. Follow him on Twitter @RK_Stimson. It’s pretty dizzying. So buckle up.
Much of the analytics community focuses on shot-based metrics as a proxy for puck possession in order to get an idea of which teams and players drive play. However, the two most popular metrics for this analysis, Corsi (all shooting attempts) and Fenwick (all unblocked shooting attempts), merely tell us what happened, but give no depth into how these players drive play for their teams. I endeavored to find out how teams create offense from passes.
Box Score
Event Summary
War On Ice
The first period of this game was pretty great, right? It was just about everything you’d want from a rivalry* game. It was two teams going back and forth, trading chances, and somehow the Hawks ended up a goal. The second was actually a boring period where all the animosity and anger left.. until the Blues scored. Then in the third, the Hawks acted like a cat with a mouse. They toyed with it enough to border on torture and then finally put it away. The Blues, as good as they might be (they aren’t really), still seem a step behind from an elite team.
A couple things to clean up on this practice day before another big game tomorrow.
-So Corey Crawford isn’t going to play tomorrow due to something called an “off-ice” injury. Which could be anything. What’s curious is if it’s off-ice was it during team activity? And if not was it doing something he should be disciplined for, a la Josh Harding? Of course, we’ll never find this out because the Hawks aren’t talking. If they won’t tell you what an injury is when it happens during the game they’re certainly not going to tell you if it happens away from it.
Before and after the game last night, Darryl Sutter called the Hawks the best team in the league. Before it sounded a little strange, especially as Sutter was saying it because of different stats people should look at and Sutter always strikes people as someone who can’t add (but of course, the Kings are one of the more advanced metric team in the league and Sutter’s a big part of that). It also sounded strange to those of us who watch the Hawks every game, who get in a little deep with picking apart cracks we see because there’s just not much else to do.
