Everything Else

The Path Is Clear, Now You Must Walk It

By Sam Fels 1309 0

Yeah, I know. The light out of the darkness is looking awfully faint, if it can be seen at all. There’s an overwhelming urge to start declaring who takes the fall, who doesn’t, what changes need to be made going forward, what went wrong, all that.

But really, this is not over. Maybe it feels like that to you, but the margins of this 3-1 deficit just aren’t all that large. To overturn it, a massive transformation doesn’t have to be engineered. In fact, a lot of the Hawks are doing already is all that needs to be done. It just can’t be interrupted.

Last night, aren’t we essentially talking about the difference in Leddy and Kindl taking the exact same shot from the same place, both hitting the inside of the post, one going in and one going out? That’s pretty much what separated teams last night.

You can’t win all three games tomorrow night. You can only win the one. So how do the Hawks go about doing that?

Everything Else

Kick Out The Jams: Scum At Hawks – Game 2 – Preview/Pre-Game Thread/Flea Market

By Matthew Killion 1264 0

Mordor vs Minas_Tirith

Game Time: 12:00PM Central
TV/Radio: CBC, NBC/ The Loop 97.9FM
It’s So Cold In The D: Winging it in Motown, Abel to Yzerman

After a pretty much textbook victory on Wednesday, the Blackhawks are simply going to look to do it all over again this afternoon. It makes writing these previews pretty difficult when all you have to say is… 60 more minutes of that again, please.

Both teams used the first period of Game 1 to get re-acquainted with each other and headed to the first intermission with an even score. While the score remained even in the second, the feel of the game was vastly different. The Hawks were clearly outplaying Scum. The three goals in the third period just seemed like they were a given.

Everything Else

Pushing Forward Back – Looking At Jonathan Toews’s Selke Candidacy

By Sam Fels 1241 0

Let’s take a break from analyzing the Hawks bear-mauling of Scum last night — though it is fun to revel in — and focus on some other news that broke this week. As you know by now, Toews is one of three finalists for the Selke Award, given to the best defensive forward (and actually, center, but more on that in a bit). The others are the excellent Patrice Bergeron and the finalist-until-three-days-after-he’s-dead, Pavel Datsyuk. This has been coming for years, as we were trumpeting him for the award as early as the ’08-’09 season.

This is such an odd award, much like the Norris has become or the Gold Glove award in baseball has been (which is why Darwin Barney’s win last year was really a surprise). Because the true defensive centers really get no attention. Jay McClement is one who does excellent work, but he doesn’t score a lot so there’s almost no chance he’ll be considered. Gregory Campbell is another. You get the idea. So in order to win a defensive award, you really do have to score to get noticed.

Everything Else

Pushing Forward Back – Looking At Jonathan Toews's Selke Candidacy

By 1036 0

Let’s take a break from analyzing the Hawks bear-mauling of Scum last night — though it is fun to revel in — and focus on some other news that broke this week. As you know by now, Toews is one of three finalists for the Selke Award, given to the best defensive forward (and actually, center, but more on that in a bit). The others are the excellent Patrice Bergeron and the finalist-until-three-days-after-he’s-dead, Pavel Datsyuk. This has been coming for years, as we were trumpeting him for the award as early as the ’08-’09 season.

This is such an odd award, much like the Norris has become or the Gold Glove award in baseball has been (which is why Darwin Barney’s win last year was really a surprise). Because the true defensive centers really get no attention. Jay McClement is one who does excellent work, but he doesn’t score a lot so there’s almost no chance he’ll be considered. Gregory Campbell is another. You get the idea. So in order to win a defensive award, you really do have to score to get noticed.