Then the sun disintegrates
Between a wall of clouds
I summer where I winter at
No one is allowed there
Getting drunk on the beach
Or playing in a band
And getting out of school
Meant getting out of hand
I guess I better think up a way to spend my time
Just when I’m ready to sit inside, it’s summertime
Should I go swimming or get a friend to hang around
It’s back to summer, it’s back to basics, hang around
vs 
Game Time: 2:00PM Central
TV/Radio: NBC, RDS, TSN/WGN720
Hootenanny: Hockey Wilderness
Game 1 was far from perfect. There was yet another two goal lead that vanished and some glaring holes were once again visible. The Hawks are capable of pulling away from a team in a hurry (just watch whenever Kaner decides to freak the fuck out) but they’ve also shown they are more than willing to let other teams right back into games. I would be more concerned with this trait if it didn’t seem to be a league-wide thing this year. It seems every game has had its share of blown two-goal leads. Not sure of the reason for it but at least it makes for some pretty exciting, heart attack inducing hockey.
Sorry kids. Indian duty precluded me from getting this yesterday. But let’s get to it now, Lord knows we’ve got plenty of time before the game tonight thanks to NBC. I always think it’s a great idea to start a game at 8:30 local time on a Friday night. Doubt the UC will be lacking for atmosphere tonight.
Right, the forwards:
Zach Parise-Mikael Granlund-Jason Pominville
This was the formation for most of the Colorado series, even though Mikko Koivu had centered for Parise for most of the season. Granlund is the better playmaker for these two snipers though, and he scorched the Hawks this season with four assists in just three games (he was hurt the other two). Of course, he was able to do that as Q kept tossing Michal Handzus against him, which won’t happen this series (I pray). Granlund was able to feast off Hawks turnovers and cash in on the break, but hopefully the Hawks have tightened that up for good now. He’s a shifty little fucker, with some balls so he’s not going to shy from anything.
Parise is obviously the big gun and brought his A-game at the end of Round 1, almost willing a Game 6 win by himself at home. What scares you about Parise is that his best work comes right around the net, and this type of player has given the Hawks fits before (Daniel Briere scoring 18 goals in the ’10 Final comes to mind). The Hawks don’t really have any crease clearers in their top four, as much as Hammer and Seabrook should be. Parise is too strong and his hands too quick to be completely neutralized by any road grater anyway. He only made an impact in Game 3 of last year’s series, but I’d look for him to do more this year.
Pominville really cooled off in the second half of the season, and only managed an empty-netter in Round 1. But he’s still very effective at ghosting into space to find time for his quick release, and runs a point on the power play where he’s pretty good at getting a shot through. He had his fun against the Hawks early in the year.
They didn’t give us a whole lot of time, did they? About five minutes after Nino Neiderreiter taught the Avalanche about regression and market correction, the NHL announced that Game 1 between the Hawks and the Wild would be on Friday night with Game 2 to follow Sunday afternoon.
While I don’t put too much stock in it, the schedule should give the Hawks something of an advantage. The Wild’s mind might still be in Denver when they show up here Friday (if not their lungs) and they won’t get much more time after that to refocus on Game 2. And make no mistake, they Wild have to take one of the games here this weekend to have any chance. The Hawks are not the Avalanche and are likely not going to biff two road games in a row for the second time these playoffs. So the Hawks may get something of a distracted opponent.
But that doesn’t mean they can start booking their hotels in Southern California just yet. This Minnesota team is better than the one the Hawks curbed last spring, possibly much better, and is playing its best hockey. It’s also coming off perhaps the franchise’s signature win (Andrew Brunette would like a word) and may be riding the high figuring it’s on house money now with nothing to lose. And it’s not exactly like the Hawks dominated the Wild in the regular season.
Let’s go to the tale of the tape, shall we?
Looks like we’re going to have a few days to kill and clean up whatever’s lying around after Sunday’s snuffing of River Scum. So just some points I wanted to get through in the wake.
-I didn’t really have any numbers to back up just how good Duncan Keith was yesterday. I checked them out today. Thanks to Ryan Lambert’s “What We Learned” on Puck Daddy as well for pointing this out. Keith had a 60.6% Corsi-percentage in a game where his team didn’t come close to winning that battle. Even Toews got his head kicked in in terms of possession. Keith’s Relative Corsi Percentage was +27.3%.
Interestingly enough, Keith saw most of his time with Saad, Kruger, and Shaw, and it’s no coincidence that that line had its best game of the series, culminating in the last two goals. Perhaps this was a ploy by Q to get the bottom of the roster going. Or maybe that’s just how it worked out.
Keith also was deployed against Tarasenko and Schwartz. It says they combined for five shots. I certainly don’t remember any of them so I’m guessing they all came on the PP. And look, that line didn’t score, and the Blues are done playing hockey for the season. Easy how that works, no?
All series long, we kept saying and thinking that at some point the Hawks were going to grab this by the scruff, play their game, and wipe the Blues right out of the equation. We saw flashes of it. The first 38 minutes of Game 4, but that was undone by 15 minutes of pissing down their leg. There were moments in Game 5, but that was undone by surges by the Blues. Then you started to worry that the Hawks didn’t have it in the holster any more, that something was missing.
And then the 3rd period happened.
All series long, we kept saying and thinking that at some point the Hawks were going to grab this by the scruff, play their game, and wipe the Blues right out of the equation. We saw flashes of it. The first 38 minutes of Game 4, but that was undone by 15 minutes of pissing down their leg. There were moments in Game 5, but that was undone by surges by the Blues. Then you started to worry that the Hawks didn’t have it in the holster any more, that something was missing.
And then the 3rd period happened.
Our lives are long
But our flesh is gone
It may be wrong
God bless godlessness
We’re walking tall
If we walk at all
We’re living like a Prehistoric dog
