This stat you can quantify:CSN
Awesome:LGH
Hawks 4..Thrashers 3:HN
The Prodigy:TSN
Even worn incorrectly? ESPN
Lately I’ve been expressing concern over Jonathan Toews, and as I normally do I ripped it off one of my blogmates because they’re smarter (and handsomer!). Fifth Feather was the first to raise a question about Toews’s condition, noticing that he was misplacing passes and losing board battles more often than we are accustomed to seeing (basically, at all). I thought I’d dig a little deeper.
I guess the most concerning number bouncing out at me is that over the past four games Toews only has four shots. That’s his lowest stretch of that length all season. If it wasn’t for Michal Neuvirth pretty much gifting him two goals against the Islanders, he wouldn’t have scored for nine games. His only points in the last four were the result of a blocked shot leading to Shaw’s empty-netter against Carolina.
There’s still a bit of a glow about last night’s win, though around these parts we know there’s really no such thing as a signature win in the regular season. But still, holding the Rangers to 25 shots when they average 31, and to shut them out when they’re the 4th highest scoring team in the league when they’d had three days off and the Hawks were on the second in two nights and now this has become quite the run-on sentence but hey that’s how things go, there’s a half bounce in the step. So let’s check out some trends, shall we?
58.3%
That’s Brad Richards’s Corsi-percentage the past six games. As we’ve said all year, we’ve had a real fear that Richards would fade as the season went along as he did last year with the Rangers, which got him the buyout that landed him in Chicago in the first place. So this is pretty encouraging. It hasn’t resulted in an avalanche of points or anything, just a goal and an assist in those six. But if you keep pushing play this much, the points will follow (Bickell and Desjardins won’t biff every chance they’re presented you hope, and a motivated Versteeg would really help).
at 
Game Time: 3:00PM Central
TV/Radio: WGN, SportsNet (Canada), NHLN (US), WGN-AM 720
Josh Costine Is The Antichrist: Fear The Fin
With the riveting thrill ride that is the Big Ten college basketball tournament taking over the United Center for the remainder of this weekend, the Hawks now find themselves subjected to the extremely rare California matinee. And unlike Thursday in the desert, these two points are actually critical for both teams to obtain.
at 
Game Time: 9:00PM Central
TV/Radio: WGN, WGN-AM 720
Sherrif Joe Arpaio Is A Fucking Piece of Shit: Five For Howling
If nothing else, the schedule has lined up for the Hawks to get themselves back into a position to grab home ice in the first round during this final kick of the season should the decide to give a shit. With the post deadline Coyotes in full tank mode now having sold of nearly all of their useful parts, tonight should be an exercise in that. SHOULD BE.
Few things floating in space today. Let’s clean them up.
-While the main goal of these last five weeks is tightening up the Hawks’ game and that alone, so that they hit the playoffs with momentum and a confidence, that doesn’t mean things aren’t up for grabs in the Central. Because of the Preds regression, anything is possible here. Though thanks to the Wild’s surge, there now really isn’t anything you’d call a “good” matchup. If you think getting the Wild at any point in the playoffs will be easy, then you’re very much mistaken.
As to be expected:CT
Way to go morons: Chicagoist
So lets keep talking:CBS
A smaller lot: LGH
That’s one way to get out of media engagements:TSN
I thought it was pretty cute when the Hawks pulled off two of their better wins this season last weekend against division opponents. I thought it was encouraging that they did it by stripping things down to basically their most elemental level, i.e. being defensively secure and concentrating on their breakouts and taking the chances when they showed themselves.
Little did I know the Hawks would go total fucking prog rock for the first two games of a homestand that could have spun the meaning of this season. It went from three chords and three minutes songs to everyone getting a fucking solo, which is why the Hawks have basically coughed up a hairball for at least 4.5 periods of the six on this homestand already.
