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You Can Run All Your Life And Not Go Anywhere: Hawks 3 – Ducks 2

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You have to love this time of year, the routine you know. Time with the family, drink earlier than you’re used to, argument with a family member you wanted desperately to avoid, and then the Hawks collecting two points in Anaheim. I guess I’m said it’s going away. It’s become a fixture of the Thanksgiving holiday. It even happens when the Hawks don’t even play that well.

Oh sure, it’s another win where the Hawks were outshot pretty badly. A lot will be made that they somehow lost 73% of all faceoffs, even though we know now that faceoffs really have no baring on whether you win or lose. Still, that kind of margin would make you notice. It took another heroic effort from Corey Crawford. But after losing two in a row and only scoring one goal in that time, you don’t complain about how the wins come.

Let’s clean it up, shall we?

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Looks Different Now: Hawks 0 – Oilers 5

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Well it wasn’t the Sam Gagner game. But it was probably the worst game the Hawks have suffered through in EdMo since then. That said, the Hawks put up 18 shots in the 2nd period and 28 in through 40, so to say they were completely dominated is just wide of the mark. However, the other team applied the formula the Hawks had been through most of the season. Convert on the power play, have your big stars punch through when they get an opportunity, have your goalie stand tall during a deluge. The Oilers did all that, thanks to McDavid, Klefbom, Draisaitl, and Cam and Magic Talbot. The Hawks didn’t do any of it. This is what you get.

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Now Have Some Delicious Tripe: Hawks 3 – Flames 2

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It certainly wasn’t vintage stuff, other than the Flames’ amazing throwback jerseys that they need to wear every game. Not just home games. EVERY. GAME. Once again the Hawks gave up 30 shots. Once again they didn’t muster that many. Once again they were pretty much reduced to one line and what they could come up with on the power play. But this being the Flames, this being the Flames playing their third game in four nights, and this being the Flames without their best player, it was enough. Because Corey Crawford makes sure it’s enough. That’s been the MO, and it’s worked thus far. As long as it keeps working, it’ll provide enough time for the Hawks to figure the rest out.

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One Month In And Nobody Knows Nothin’

By 1580

This week will see the NHL season move into its second month. While the Hawks are one of the hotter teams in the league, that doesn’t mean we truly know what they are. Yes, they sit atop the West, but you don’t need to look any farther than who they are tied atop the conference with to know how weird the season has been. That would be the Edmonton Oilers. And no one thinks they’re really that good. So what the hell is going on here?

For matters close to town, what’s funny is that the Oilers probably deserve their spot atop the West more than the Hawks do. Edmonton is plus in Corsi and Fenwick, though just barely, where the Hawks are not. The Oilers have a plus shot-share per 60 at evens, and the Hawks are dead-ass last in that category. That isn’t good. If you go by xGF%, and whether you do or not I won’t complain, the Oilers are only slightly outplaying their even-strength performance where the Hawks are massively doing so. What a strange world indeed.

Quite simply, pretty much everything about the Hawks is something of a mirage right now. They have the league’s highest PDO by three full points over Minnesota. Their even-strength save-percentage is a full two points ahead of Montreal’s. We know this. In fact, they could be something like last year’s Canadiens, except they have way more top end talent than the Habs did last year.

And yet I can’t sit here and say it’s totally false.

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Diamond Dallas: Hawks 3 – Stars 2

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I suppose when you lose most of your ammo, as the Stars have done throughout the season and then another tonight in Spezza, you have little choice but to revert to trying to Blues the Hawks (which the Blues don’t even really do anymore). The Stars certainly tried to shrink the ice by turning into heat-seekers all night. Sometimes, this early in the season we’ve seen the Hawks decide it isn’t worth it in early November and kind of just spit it. But when they feel like it, and certainly whenever it truly matters, the Hawks beat it EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME. Learn this, NHL.

As we’ve seen for the first month, games all over the league have been sloppier than usual for whatever reason you subscribe to. When you have two teams like this that want to play at warp speed, but they don’t have the sharpness to quite pull it off, you get a mess like you had for at least the first half of this one. Throw in some shitty Dallas ice and you’ve basically got a Saturday night on payday weekend in Muskogee (glove tap, JR). But the Hawks muscled through to a 3-2 lead, and then expertly shut the Stars down in the 3rd as we’ve seen so many times. The forwards drop a little deeper in the d-zone, forcing everything to the points. The dump-ins are more carefully placed. When there’s space they’ll make a play, but don’t force anything. Oh, and the Stars had to find a third goal against Corey Crawford and that’s just not happening these days.

Let’s clean it up.

DarylZero

The Two Obs

-One day, part of a philosophy class somewhere should be dedicated to Pat Foley pointing out the farcical nature in which hit stats are tracked and yet championing them a few sentences later. We can’t stress this enough. They’re bullshit. They mean nothing. And they’re tabulated in the same way Lovie Smith’s Bears used to track tackles and would come out every Monday to tell us both Urlacher and Briggs had 46 tackles each the previous afternoon.

-Speaking of that, it’s not that we’re against physical play. But a hit three seconds after an opponent successfully completes a pass doesn’t do anything except prove that you were slow and/or dumb. That was most certainly not Ryan Hartman’s game, who has the feet to get there in time to force a misplaced pass or an outright turnover. This was the Hartman the Hawks envisioned when they picked him, a bowling ball with some skill. That puck was rolling that he blasted by an admittedly slow-to-get-over Niemi, but the balls to try it is enough. Like Sgt. Hartman said (Hmmm…) sometimes guts is enough.

-Yeah your goaltending is fine, Dallas. Niemi saved everything like he was trying to cough something up and there were rebounds everywhere. The first goal 11 seconds in came after a bad one. Hartman’s goal came after another one led to more chances for the Hawks. And Lehtonen is no better. He’s not helped by a decidedly light-in-the-ass defense that let the Hawks just stand in the crease for far too long, but if they hope to make anything of this season they’d better fix it.

-There was a play in the 2nd that pretty much sums up why the organization loves Forsling. It was on a power play and Campbell gave him something of a hand grenade pass right at the center of the line. It bounced off his stick and into his feet, and there are countless young d-men that would have panicked while an on-rushing Benn was certainly envisioning a breakaway. Forsling calmly sorted his feet out, and with inches of space calmly passed the puck to a teammate. Now imagine what TVR would have come up with there. They would have been scraping pieces of him out of the ice for days.

-There is one disturbing trend. This was the third game in four where Keith and Campbell got buried possession-wise. It’s a strange pairing, and I don’t think either is playing to the level they will, but there’s definitely some pains as they try and blend their very similar styles.

-That’s balanced by Hossa and his brother Russian and his other brother Russian all being over 60%.

-The Hawks also probably won’t win too many games where Toews’s line is getting thrown around by the other team’s top line as they were tonight (26%… yikes).

-I know Schmaltz has been saddled with two plugs which decidedly do not compliment what he can do well, but he should have flashed more to get better linemates and I’m going to guess he gets the seat next to Pelico tomorrow to make room for Desjardins.

Onwards…

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Choice Nugs – Hawks 4, Avs 0

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It really is amazing what a little time to get into the flow of things can do for a top heavy team at forward, especially when the vast majority of them played in a useless exhibition tournament right up until the start of the regular season. But since the first weekend of the season, the right names have been appearing on the score sheet for the Hawks, and as a general rule, standings points follow.

So it should be no surprise that with Toews, Hossa, Hossa again, and Panarin with the markers the Hawks walked away with a W.

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Ides Of October: Flames 2 – Hawks 2 (Flames win Paper Football)

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You live by the shootout, you die by it. Or you just take them to mean nothing because they don’t. While some will use this as an excuse to say everything’s fucked, it really isn’t. The Hawks, even as off their game as they were tonight, mauled the Flames at even-strength (which doesn’t say much for Glen Gulutzan Glen Ross). Once again, the penalty kill cost the Hawks a point this time, as it did in Nashville, and in Columbus, and would have against the Leafs if they didn’t get the two minute drill right.