Friday:DH
Another healthy scratch for 36 year old LW:NBC
He better hope so:CSN
Good:SN
He means every four years correct? TSN
Farewell to a bygone era:PD
The talking point of the Hawks “turning it on” had become just about as tedious as “Good Rex Bad Rex, “Good Jay, Bad Jay,” “Why no one goes to Comiskey Park, ” and “The Wrigley Bleachers.” It had gotten silly, and I fell into it, because the Hawks aren’t selectively playing well or not based solely on their whims. They’re inconsistent because that’s the team that they are.
And then of course they went ahead and turned it on.
vs 
Game Time: 7:00PM
TV/Radio: NBC, SportsNet (Anglo), TVA2 (Franco), WGN-AM 720
Country Music Awards: On The Forecheck
Tonight’s game 6 at home is slightly uncharted territory for the Hawks. Only once previous under Joel Quenneville had the Hawks not ended a series in a non-game 7 situation when they had the opportunity to, and that was at home for Game 5 against the Canucks in 2010. So now they get a second opportunity to end the Predators’ season, and it’s one they had better emphatically capitalize on.
This first appeared in our gameday program’s From The Editor before Game 4.
For the first time in the Quenneville era, the Hawks have a playoff goalie controversy. Hard to believe, given how some people think around here. But whatever goalie issues the Hawks have had in the past have always resolved themselves. In 2009, Nikolai HarveyBirdMan grabbed the job from Cristobal Huet well before the playoffs. In 2010 Huet basically spit up the job to Antti Niemi, as much as Niemi taking it. Corey Crawford was well established as the starter in 2011. As wonky as Crawford got in 2012, Ray Emery was much worse and thus never an option. We all know about 2013, when Crow should have won the Conn Smythe but didn’t thanks to a narrative Pierre McGuire and NBC decided to pound for reasons that still escape me. Last year, Crow was really good until faced with immense pressure by the Kings and Antti Raanta was never an option either.
That brings us to this year. But the seeds for this year were sown before, and I can’t really figure out why. The organization certainly hasn’t pushed Crawford out in front of its marketing like others, and the fans in this town have never really warmed up to him.
Why is that? Are people still scarred from 2012? Because fans are supposed to love a redemption arc, and the fact that Crow was able to recover from that playoff outing and back it up with a Cup run should be that redemption story. Shouldn’t that have won everyone over forever?
Ruh-Roh:HockeeNight
Welcome to my nightmare:Lets Go Hawks
7 PM on Saturday:Blackhawk Up
Steeg in a nutshell:Second City Hockey
Time to regroup:CSN
No Fairytale:Daily Herald
Nachos:CSN
Does it again:Daily Herald
Groggy:HockeeNight
Scoring his way out:Let’s Go Hawks
The little red engine that could:TSN
Oh My God this is real:SportsNet
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Game Time: 8:30PM Central
TV/Radio: CSN, NBCSN (US), SN360 (Canada), WGN-AM 720
God, Country, and Apple Pie: On The Forecheck
After their fourth straight overtime game to open up a playoff year, the Hawks are once again back at it in Music City tonight with a late start that should in no way lead to booze fueled agitation in the stands that Predators management has not fomented at all. But more importantly, while the Hawks emerged from Game 1’s mini-marathon victorious, tonight presents an opportunity to put a vice grip on the series before it even gets back to the west side.
I am actually a bit surprised that Joel Quenneville came out so quickly and so definitively to reaffirm Corey Crawford’s status as the starter for Friday night. It’s the right decision of course, but it wouldn’t be out of Q’s methodology to goose Crow a bit by letting it dangle until the morning skate tomorrow. Once a year it seems like Q would throw the starting job up in the air for a week or two, and Crow would almost always take it back. Even in 2013, Ray Emery got a week’s worth of starts while Crow was healthy, as almost a tease. Of course, behind that team, any of you could have started and it probably would have worked out all right during the regular season.
The real question Q should be asking himself, and the rest of the team for that matter, is why they’re depending on their goalie so much.
