A week with no wins makes for a very lively podcast with both Johns (Pullega and Fifth Feather) and Rose here to chime in on things. The tenor of the recording is pretty much what is expected. But that’s not going to stop it from being free to non-subscribers after the jump. Don’t forget to let your life rot you inside out.
Through the first four minutes, this game had all the feel of a sudden onset of diarrhea after your morning shower, punctuated by slipping off the toilet seat because you didn’t have time to dry your ass off. While things got marginally better and there were some bright spots, the song remains the same: a flaccid start and a broken heart at the end of it all. Let’s clean it up.
– We don’t condone fighting usually. We get red and nude when anyone in the broadcast booth starts alluding to physicality and barbaric dickery (more on that later). But it’s not hard to understand Duncan Keith completely losing his goddamn mind and assaulting Miikka “I let a cat walking across the keyboard name me” Salomaki early in the first. It was a blindside hit along the boards. I’m sure people will try to argue that the hit came from the side and THIS IS HOCKEY and all that happy horse shit. Those people are wrong, and the Venn diagram of people who defend that hit and who own more than zero piss-yellow Mike Ribeiro sweaters is the same fucking circle.
Along the boards at an angle that Linda Blair would have had a hard time twisting to see, let alone Keith playing the puck, is inexcusable. I’m not going to defend Keith trying to piledrive Salomaki and getting the match penalty for it, but I sure understand it. There aren’t many good tit-for-tat arguments, but if you wanted to make one for Keith after the no call, I’m open to it.
– Gustav Forsling is still only 22, and he missed a good portion of last year to injury. But with each game, it gets harder and harder to figure out how he fits in among a D-corps that you couldn’t trade for a cup of coffee along with the two dollars in your pocket. When he’s not getting overpowered (by Ryan Johansen on Goal 1 and Kevin Fiala on Goal 3), he’s freezing up in his own zone (Craig Smith, Goal 4). His vision is questionable at best, and are we really sure he has the skill to be the breakout D-man we thought he was? At this point, you let him shit his pants, dive in, and swim, but you wonder if the clock is starting to tick on whether he’s a guy they keep long term.
– A quick word on Erik Gustafsson: You might be able to capitalize on whatever offensive potential he has when Connor Murphy gets back. Maybe. But he’s just as bad as Forsling in his own zone, if not worse. You’d excuse that if he’s a point per game D-man, but he’s playing more like an eleven-year-old with a mustache who thinks running head first into a wall is a good way to impress girls.
– There were some positives here. Brandon Manning was by far the best D-man the Hawks had out there tonight. All of his metrics flesh it out: He had a 55+ straight CF%, a 51+ CF% SVA (score and venue adjusted), and contributed offensively. His assist on Artem Anisimov’s goal was flat-out gorgeous, splitting traffic in the slot and allowing Wide Dick to just be there. He also hit the crossbar off a Henri Jokiharju rebound in the second. You hope that this kind of play continues from Manning, because he’s exactly the kind of guy you can trade for a young flyer or mid-round draft pick later down the line.
– Brent Seabrook flashed some of the old style of play too. Outside of his terrible turnover that led to the Preds’s second goal, he was, for lack of a better word, crafty with the puck. He nearly set up David Kampf with a semi-breakaway off an area pass, and managed to juke Roman Josi out of his skates with a fake shot in the third, which led to a quality chance for Dylan Strome off a Forsling point shot rebound.
– Brandon Saad—who has more goals than Artemi Panarin on the year, thanks—did that voodoo that he do so well again. When Saad gets a full of head of steam along the boards, there aren’t many people who can stop him. And he managed to overpower both Ryan Ellis and Pekka Rinne on his goal, swatting his own attempt out of mid-air. Anyone who doesn’t want to admit that Brandon Saad fucks is a jerk.
– I don’t want to see Alex DeBrincat fighting. In the moment, it’s fun, but let’s not make that a thing in the future.
– We rag on the broadcast for falling back into the MORE PHYSICAL trope all the time. And while Eddie was guilty of it a few times tonight, nothing was quite as weird as Steve Konroyd after the first intermission. I get being mad about the Keith hit, but Konroyd went so far as to say that a guy like John Hayden should “go after one of Nashville’s smaller guys” to “help bring them [the Hawks] together.” Motherfucker even acknowledged that “that may not be right” and called his own idea “kinda barbaric,” then proceeded to justify it as something to bring the team together. It may not seem like anything more than Konroyd tossing meat to the worst kinds of hockey fans, but this kind of mind-set contributes to guys like Tom Wilson constantly having the chance at gainful employment in the NHL. It’s fucking gross to imply that someone should put a horseshit hit on an opponent as a team-building exercise. Stuff your mouth with my dog’s fart blanket with that suggestion, Stevie K.
The Hawks get a heaping helping of mulligan stew with a tilt against Calgary tomorrow. If they play anything like they did in the second period tonight, it’ll be fun. But at this point, any wins the Hawks get should be considered gravy, because even if the brain geniouses in the front office won’t admit it, this team is in rebuild mode.
Onward. . .
Booze du Jour: Four Roses and Eagle Rare
Line of the Night: “The Mute Lounge was conceived for nights just like this one.” –Matt McClure
@ 
Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Connecting Flights: Arctic Ice Hockey, Jets Nation
After getting their asses shellacked by a Vegas team that doesn’t even really have its shit together relative to how they played last year, the Hawks leave the frozen tundra of Chicago for…the frozen tundra of Winnipeg to face a Jets team with legit cup aspirations this year.
This season is barely more than 25% done and it’s already become a damn chore to watch these games. It’s hard to evaluate what’s going on in games like this outside of “holy fuck this is awful” which makes my job for this wrap all the more difficult. I will do my best to not be dramatic, but spoiler alert, it’s a lot of suck. THE BULLETS (hopefully one lodges itself in my skull):
– Let’s start with a positive: I was rather impressed with Dylan Strome in this game. His skill showed out a few times and his hockey instincts that you hear praised a lot were on full display almost all night, especially on his goal. There was one shift in the first period where he basically just posted up in the slot for about 30 seconds while Kane and Top Cat made some stuff happen on the outside, and he got a few decent looks out of it. His goal was just pure instincts in ending up in the right spot for a netfront scrum, and he made a hell of a play on the Hawks third goal in garbage time, forechecking hard and stripping the Vegas defenseman before making a beautiful pass to set up Erik Gustafsson for a goal. On top of that, with lack of skating speed being his main weakness, there was never a moment where I thought “damn, if only he was faster” tonight. That might be because of the rest of the roster, but he hung with the Hawks two fastest guys in Kane and Top Cat. For this being his first game in the Four Feather Sweater, he made a good impression.
– Now the bad. There are two main players that were absolute garbage tonight, and they are probably the two players the Hawks absolutely cannot have be garbage. Those were Jonathan Toews, and Duncan Keith. Let’s give them each their own bullet so I can really flesh out the bitching.
– Let me take you to the second Knights’ goal of the night, with just under 8 minutes to go in the period. Frustratingly, this play starts in the Hawks zone, with the puck on the Hawks fucking sticks. Toews gets a pass and kinda backs into the near (to the TV) corner, surveying the ice and kind of buying time as the Hawks finish a total change. But then he inexplicably blindly flings the puck to the point, with the only problem being that there’s no one there. It ends up going all the way down to Crawford behind the net. Toews makes absolutely zero effort to get back into the Hawks d-zone, and after Crawford makes a bad turnover (that I don’t really blame him for) Alex Tuch picks a corner with Toews still on the wrong side of the red line. Later on he was almost solely responsible for the Knights’ third goal, as he was way out of position and didn’t shut down the slot as Gustav Forsling was forced to pinch the corner (more on that in a moment). His positioning was awful and Cody Eakin, who should’ve been Toews’ man, was all alone in front of Crawford for a goal. It didn’t get better for the Captain, despite him making the score sheet with an assist.
– Now let’s talk about Duncan Keith. This is kind of well-worn at this point, and you all know that there is no lack of love for Keith and what he has meant to this franchise from anyone at this site, myself included. But he was just utter ass tonight. Let’s revisit the Knights’ third goal that we mentioned above where Toews didn’t cover his man correctly. Well, the only reason that bad positioning by Toews was so egregious was because Keith went sight-seeing behind the net even though he had tons of time to adjust after his man passed the puck into the corner while skating behind the net. If you’re behind the net skating away from the puck as a defenseman, you’re about as useful as the drunk asshole in the front row banging on the glass in the corner. Keith’s little detour resulted in Forsling being in an awkward position and having to pinch the corner, which led to Toews needing to cover the slot but not doing it, which led to a goal. If Keith goes to the corner with the puck, the Hawks have this defended well. Instead, it ends up in the back of their net. It also didn’t get better for Keith throughout the night, and the Knights eighth and final goal ended up going in off of him.
– My last two major gripes about this game are simple. Number 1 – the Blackhawks have no fucking clue what they’re doing in their defensive zone, both when they have the puck and when their don’t. Their breakout strategy is non-existant. I extolled the virtues of getting away from Q’s slow, methodical breakouts, but even that was better than watching these fuckstick defensemen play hot potato with the puck and not make any real decision to get it up the ice. Gripe Number 2 – the effort in the third period was fucking piss poor. I know it was already 6-2 and the game was pretty much over, but having an 18% CF at 5v5 in a game you are losing at home is fucking inexcusable. How can this team expect us to believe they can compete if they clearly don’t believe it, or don’t care to at least act like they do?
vs. 
RECORDS: Panthers 8-9-3 Hawks 8-10-5
PUCK DROP: 6:00 p.m. Central
TV: NBCSCH
Lift and Sift: Panther Parkway, Litter Box Cats
If all you ever read were press releases and interviews with front offices in denial, tonight’s tilt between the Panthers and Hawks would be as must-see as a hockey game at six o’clock on the Saturday after Thanksgiving could possibly be. We’ve gone over the tipped-over porta-potty that is John McDonough’s “remodel, not rebuild” philosophy for the Hawks, and the Panthers seem to find themselves in a similar mind-set for different reasons.
Since that 103-point campaign and first-round playoff loss in 2015–16, the Cats have missed the playoffs twice, though last year was by the skin of their ass. Yet, you can’t help but wonder what this Panthers team would look like if they hadn’t gone Biff Tannen and replaced their analytically minded front office with HOCKEY MEN. This year has been even worse than expected for the Panthers, and after a 2-4 road trip, they return home to host the Hawks much worse for wear.
In the crease, the Panthers made the superb decision to entrust 39-year-old Roberto Luongo with the bulk of the starting responsibilities. Bobby Lu has been hurt a lot more than not, but even when he’s been healthy, he’s been wildly inconsistent. In his first four games back from his opening-night knee injury, Luongo posted a sparkling .951 SV%. He then followed that up with a .826 over the next four, good for a .902 overall. Not great, Bob.
And he hurt himself again last night, leaving James Reimer in charge of the crease. James Reimer is not someone you want in charge of the crease if you have playoff aspirations. While his .920 at evens is good, Reimer has gotten hosed on the PK to the tune of .791. The Panthers have given up the sixth-most goals on the PK despite playing the least amount of PK time in the league this year.
On the forward lines, there’s some on-paper potential for the Panthers that can never seem to get over the hump. After brain genius Dale Tallon cut Jonathan Marchessault loose for literally nothing last year, he had to go out and find himself a new scorer in Mike Hoffman. Despite the high school drama that brought him to Florida, Hoffman has been the Panthers’s most consistent offensive weapon, with 20 points on the year (10 G, 10 A) through 20 games and a recently ended 17-game point streak. He, Aleksander Barkov, and Evgenii Dadonov round out a formidable top line despite their lack of possession as a unit (48+ CF% together).
After that top line, things start to get dicey. The Panthers lost the well-rounded Vincent Trocheck earlier in the week after his ankle took the road less traveled. Trocheck did a bit of everything for the Cats and played consistently on both the PP and PK in his 18 games. That leaves you with a second line of Nick Bjugstad, the talented Jonathan Huberdeau, and, fuck, Denis Malgin? Frank Vatrano? Any of these names doing anything for you?
After that is a veritable who’s-who of what ifs, maybes, and retreads. Jared McCann has a ton of two-way potential, but tends to defer. He might end up tossed onto the second line to fill in for Trocheck at some point. Troy Brouwer plays on this team. The fourth line includes the name-generated Dryden Hunt and Colton Sceviour, who are both fine and perfectly suited where they are, but don’t really provide the much-needed scoring Florida lacks beyond the top line.
The Cats’s blue line hinges on Aaron Ekblad, who turns the ice at a 53+ CF% despite a 47+% oZ start rate. He’s done it primarily next to Mike Matheson, who after a slow and plodding start to the first year of his eight-year, $39 million contract has turned up his offensive contributions, with five points in his last five games (all assists). Still, Keith Yandle takes the mantle as the Cats’s most offensive D-man, with 19 points over 20 games. After that, you’ve got Alex Petrovic—who is definitely “a guy,”—fucking Bogdan Kiselevich, something called Mark Pysyk, and young MacKenzie Weegar, who looks exactly how you’d imagine a guy named “MacKenzie Weegar” would. That’s a whole lot of #6 D-men spread across that blue line.
For the Men of Four Feathers, Colliton ought to consider kicking his Marlboro 72 habit before New Year’s, because Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook have looked like dogshit together. Though there’s not much to work with on the blue line—remember when Brandon Manning was StanBo’s BIG DEFENSIVE SIGNING?—the one thing that seemed to work best was Keith–Jokiharju. Keith might not want to play mentor, but too fucking bad. Henri Jokiharju the best thing they have, so Colliton needs to put the kibosh on his “We’re sitting him for his development” bit and let him breathe. Erik Gustafsson’s spurs have been jingling and jangling far too often, Gustav Forsling still looks lost in this own zone, and Jan Rutta blows. So fuck, I don’t know, 2–28, 56–7, 42–44? Somehow, it looks even worse when you write it down.
You probably won’t see too many changes up front, though we probably should. Brandon Saad–Jonathan Toews–Patrick Kane sounds nice, but the chorus we’ve been singing is “If they aren’t dominating, split them up,” and after last night, it would be hard to describe them as dominant. We’re still waiting to see 12–8–88 at some point, and what better time than tonight? The Fortin–Kampf–Kahun line is at least fast, but you’re tempted to see Anisimov centering it and just having Fortin and Kahun aim for him instead of the net. Suckbag Johnson, Chris Kunitz, Andreas Martinsen, or John Hayden will round it out on the fourth line because someone has to.
You figure Cam Ward gets the nod tonight after Corey Crawford chose to finish out last night’s game rather than sit after the first.
With the Blackhawks in the denial stage and the Panthers teetering toward anger, this game will be a case study in grief. With Reimer in net and Trocheck out, the Panthers look eminently beatable if the Hawks can shut down their top line.
Let’s go Hawks.
Game #24 Preview Suite
A really good team played a borderline mediocre team tonight. The Ning put this away early, but there were a few things that weren’t a complete diaper filling tonight. Let’s do it quick, because there’s a $30 handle of Eagle Rare calling my name.
– I’m not sure about this man-to-man defensive scheme. Goals 1 and 3 looked to be the result of the man system breaking up, and both of them occurred with 20-19-88 on the ice. On the first, you had Brandon Saad and Patrick Kane both shadowing Nikita Kucherov on the far boards, leaving the near-board side open. With Toews covering on the left wing, you get Saad positioned too high and Kane positioned too low, giving Tyler Johnson all the time and space in the world between the circles to shelf an easy shot off a Kucherov feed.
On the third goal, it looked like another instance of missed coverage. After Seabrook belched a clearing attempt in the neutral zone, Erik Cernak shouldered in behind the net, dropped an easy pass to Kucherov, who then hit a streaking Brayden Point through the middle. Once again, Saad looked a bit too high between the circles, but Erik Gustafsson having his back to the play was way more emblematic of why I’m not entirely sure about the man-to-man defensive scheme.
– Duncan Keith is turning more and more into a question with no answer. Yes, he and Forsling ended up with a 60+ CF%, but the Ning were up their asses the entire first period. The second goal was a direct result of a Keith turnover in the neutral zone, Keith getting overpowered by Kucherov in his own zone, then a back-and-forth Johnson–Kucherov–Johnson connection, all from a spot where Duncan Keith would have been five years ago. Asking Gustav Forsling to cover for Cowboy Keith is never going to end well, and Johnson’s second goal was a direct result of Forsling dropping to cover for an overpowered and out-of-position Keith. He also had a slashing penalty while the Hawks had possession, which had red ass written all over it.
– My initial reaction is always going to be “defend Erik Gustafsson,” because I’m a goddamn idiot. But tonight was simply a pile of horseshit puked on with a belly full of Malort for Cowboy Gus. Gus got pantsed on the Ning’s fourth goal by Ryan Callahan, who would have a hard time juking a box with a roll of quarters. He and Brent Seabrook were just awful today, finding themselves on the ice for three of the Ning’s four goals.
– Anyone who wants to talk about how Jeremy Colliton is this Great Communicator can take that idea, melt it down into a cylindrical wax, use it as a lip balm, and kiss my entire ass with it. On what fucking planet is it acceptable to scratch your fastest, most talented puck possession defenseman in Henri Jokiharju against a team that Daron-Malakian-lookalike John Cooper has flying into the red night in and night out? Colliton said that this was a part of his development and even had the nuts to allude to Joel Quenneville’s (SKY POINT) elusive MORE that Jokiharju has to give to the team. By all the metrics I could find, Jokiharju has been the Hawks’s most effective defenseman all year and especially lately (at least in terms of possession). If Colliton wants to look like Ben Wyatt, he can knock himself out, but don’t turn Jokiharju into fucking Ice Town.
– The Fortin–Kampf–Kahun line is like chocolate-covered mayonnaise. They’re decent at getting the puck in the zone, but once they’re there, they fumble like they’re trying to plug their dead vape pen into the outlet behind the couch in the dark. Any time they charged the zone, it was only a matter of time before the wheels entirely came off, which was no more obvious than on Fortin’s hilarious broken stick on a breakaway in the first.
– Mike Milbury called Corey Crawford “average” since his return to the Hawks and said he “needed to see the wins and the right numbers.” What a stupid asshole.
Super excited to learn what Jokiharju got to learn as a part of his “development” in the press box tonight. They’ll visit Uncle Dale and the Panthers tomorrow.
Onward. . .
Beer du Jour: Great Divide Fresh Hop in the first and second, Eagle Rare with a High Life back for the third.
Line of the Night: “As part of his development, it’s Jokiharju’s chance to watch and learn.” – One of the national telecast weiners paraphrasing THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR on why Jokiharju was heathy scratched.
Adam Hess and Rose Rankin stopped by to assist in this weeks edition, which actually had some relatively positive outcomes to discuss. As always, no subscription is required for the podcast after the jump.
Who was good, who was bad, and the in-between on another week on the Good Ship Blackhawks.
The Dizzying Highs
Brandon Saad – In a week where your team only scores four goals that involved beating an actual goalie (so not Kahun’s empty-netter) and you’ve got two of them, I’d say you’re making a difference. Saad also spent the week playing on three different lines. His Corsi-relative an scoring-change-relative numbers against the Kings and Wild were miles ahead of his teammates, even if most of those games were spent with the nuclear option of Kane and Toews. But hey, if they’re Khalil Mack-ing people around the ice (it’s a verb now), no one’s going to care. His goal last night is actually what you think of when you think of a Saad goal, streaking past a confused d-man who only made one wrong half move, holding him off with barely a thought, and getting around the goalie. Yes, maybe it should happen more often. But it’s happening now, and maybe it will continue. Let’s just be happy about it, all right? All right.
The Terrifying Lows
Duncan Keith – If you’re going by metrics, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook spent the week getting their brains beaten in by whatever opposition was on the ice. They didn’t top a 40% share of attempts in any of the three games, nor in scoring chance share, and on Friday against L.A.–who are staffed by interns on quaaludes, essentially–they managed an 18% mark in scoring chance share. In the words of Muhammad Ali, “THAT’S BAD!” And not like he meant it. If you want to be fair, and you do because this is Duncan Keith we’re talking about, he and Seabrook have been taking more defensive zone shifts than usual. And their ice-flipping days are probably over. But the Hawks also probably need something more than them turtling when their on the ice if they’re going to go anywhere. Pairing them together isn’t helping, but we also saw what happened when Keith was paired with someone he was supposed to take a backseat to in the aggressive department. I’m not sure what the answers are here, and whatever they are and are discovered I’m fairly sure Keith isn’t going to like them.
The Creamy Middles
Corey Crawford – Hmm, Crow’s back to a .922 SV%. The Hawks took five of the six points on offer in his last three starts when he put up only a .981 SV%, including his first shutout of the season. Isn’t that strange how that works. But this is what you expect of Corey, or at least what we expect, given that he’s been, y’know, one of the five best goalies in the league for like five seasons now. Sure, don’t make him have to come up with 39 saves every night. But this team isn’t going to get him down around 27 or 28 a night either. They’ll go as far as he does. Like this, that’s five of six points.
Well, changing coaches hasn’t worked yet. Jumbling around the lines didn’t really either. Though Jeremy Colliton has his first point, a return of one out of six probably isn’t what management had in mind. Or maybe it was and they didn’t tell us?
Whatever it was, tonight was nothing we didn’t know. The roster is short, and there a couple veterans not carrying their weight. This team was probably calibrated on the hope that they would. I don’t know why you’d calibrate it that way, but here we are. At least I don’t have another explanation. If you do, feel free to share.
All right, let’s clean this up and get on with our lives.
The Two Obs
-Not sure where to begin, so I’ll unfairly begin with Duncan Keith again. While his glaring gaffe (alliteration, people) took place on the penalty kill, so I should probably just dismiss it as him getting the inevitable goal against out of the way early so the Hawks could get back to even-strength.
At some point this season, if Jeremy Colliton accomplishes nothing else this season but convince Duncan Keith that he’s no longer DUNCAN KEITH, I’ll call it a success. We went over this on Saturday. Duncan Keith was paired with Henri Jokharju to take that aspect of his game off his plate. It was meant to streamline his game, and keep him more efficient with what he can do. He didn’t listen. Maybe he can’t fight it, maybe it’s been too long.
Pairing him with Seabrook was only going to enforce that feeling, I guess. So there he was, chasing Andrei Svechnikov outside the circles, pretty well contained out there. But Keith can’t get there anymore. And Svechnikov, a budding monster, is going to walk him every time. He did it later in the game as well, So did Aho. But this is the one the Hawks paid for. Svechnikov has a clear path to the net, forcing Seabrook into basically Sophie’s choice. He could maybe do a little more than just amble over there while leaving a passing lane to Michael Ferland, but here were no good options.
Someone get Keith in front of a video screen with nothing but how Ryan Suter plays these days. It’s a super-efficient game, where Suter lets the game come to him and picks his spots when to get outside the normal parameters. Keith is still chasing the game and trying to bend it to his will, He can’t do it anymore. And the Hawks keep paying for it.
-That goal was off a Henri Jokiharju penalty where he braced for a hit at the expense of getting the puck. These are the kinds of mistakes we would normally live with, but now is about the time they have to stop. Hey, The HarJu isn’t going to survive too many hits in the NHL with the puck. But his hands are quick enough to move the puck along before getting hit. Chalk it up to the learning curve.
-Which will bring us to Nick Schmaltz. We generally like Schmaltz around here. Fine player. Clear problems. The refusing to shoot is getting really annoying. And Eddie correctly lit him up for ducking out of a puck battle/hit with Justin Faulk (though Schmaltz did cause a turnover a second later, but still).
And that kind of thing keeps happening. And it’s a tough sell to your fanbase and everyone else when you’re saying you basically did nothing in the offseason to keep your powder dry in big part to re-sign Schmaltz. Because he keeps looking like a second-line player, whether that’s wing or center. You don’t build around second-line players. I don’t want to know what kind of deals Stan turned down that included Schmaltz.
Schmaltz still has 60 games to turn it around and look like a real piece. But it’s year three now, you kind of know where he is. Are you tossing $6 million at this? Or are you hoping he keeps doing shit like this and we’ll have to agree to a bridge deal? And shoot the fucking thing already.
-Brandon Davidson and Jan Rutta got themselves in a tangle when the Canes were on a change and there was literally no forechecker in the zone and they couldn’t manage to pass between each other in the 2nd period. I can’t really sum the third pairing up any better than that.
-Other than the penalty, Goose and The HarJu weren’t a complete disaster, to the tune of a 68% and 64% share on the night.
-It’s nice that the Hawks fourth-line was so effective. But to review, when your fourth line is your most effective, that’s a problem.
Ok, that’s enough. It’s a point. Maybe it’ll be better to snap it against the Blues. Somehow, I doubt it.
Onwards…
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 6-8-3 Hurricanes 7-7-3
PUCK DROP: 6pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MAKES YOU? LARRY!: Canes Country, Section 328
It has to end sometime, it has to end somewhere…
I can’t say that it’s totally encouraging that Jeremy Colliton is hitting the Quenneville Memorial blender in his third game in charge. I’m sure the constant line-shuffling was something that came to annoy the players in the end from Q. But Q drew a lot of water, and it could at least be construed that he was an experienced coach who was just experimenting, and who had earned the right. A coach in his third game in his second season in North America at all might look like he’s just throwing shit at a wall.
But according to the morning skate today, that’s what the Hawks might get. Brandon Saad didn’t skate, and he’s only a maybe to go, so that could confuse things even further. As of now, Patrick Kane and Nick Schmaltz have slotted up with Jonathan Toews in a definite “go-for-it” top line. Sure, fine I guess, Toews hadn’t produced much of late with Dominik Kahun and Top Cat. Then it gets silly.
What a line of John Hayden, Artem Anisimov, and Alex Fortin is going to do is really a mystery up there with the Bermuda Triangle and how Ricky Jay ever had an acting career. Top Cat-David Kampf-Kahun is at least worth seeing as it’s really fast and active. I guess. I don’t know really what I’m supposed to say here. The fourth line doesn’t matter and is basically “Eat Arby’s” territory like the third-pairing.
The changes don’t stop there, as there’s been a shuffle in the top-four on the blue line. Marlboro 72 has been reunited, because apparently they weren’t bad enough separately and can really reach a new level of suck together. Erik Gustafsson paired with Henri Jokiharju only exacerbates the problems that pairing The HarJu with Keith created, in that the Finn has to play free safety for his partner’s directionless wanderings instead of pushing the play and getting involved in the offense which is supposed to be his calling. We know Gustafsson needs a GPS and a guide-dog in the defensive zone.
Let’s get nuts!
I suppose when you’ve lost seven in a row you have license to try anything. Consider that license used. Cam Ward will get the start in his return to Carolina, and hopefully doesn’t decide to relive the old days by giving up four or five as he so frequently did while adorned in the warning flags of Raleigh.
As for the Hurricanes, they’re coming off blowing a two-goal lead to the Red Wings and losing in overtime, somehow. Not that anything could have changed all that much from last Thursday, so you know the drill here. They have great possession numbers, they generally maul teams at even-strength, but there’s no one around here to finish all those chances consistently and Scott Darling (unless he’s playing the Hawks, obvi) can’t make enough saves to let them get by with their sneeze-like finishing. This is why they’re the leading contender for William Nylander, should the Leafs decide they don’t need a dynamically talented forward.
This will sound stupid, and it very well may be. The Hawks have rolled both the Canes and Flyers in the first period of Colliton’s two games. They got stoned by goalies who are supposed to be nothing much more than construction horses. Then they do something stupid to get behind and they lose all their zest. But that luck should turn. If the Hawks can get the same kind of start they’ve gotten, even with this pile of goo lineup, they will get goals. Get a lead, start to relax, get your feet under you, and maybe we can see what this team could look like with Colliton.
Then again, given the defense, the chance of doing something stupid to undo all your good work at the other end is always extremely high. But let’s hope for the best, because there’s not much else to do.
Game #18 Preview Suite
