Everything Else

Toews The Dead

By 1574

If I were you, every time I saw the word “narrative” in any post about anything, I’d run screaming for the hills. I know I’m sick of seeing them, and sick of writing them. Maybe I just need a better synonym for the word. It’s hard to find one though. Account? Story? Chronicle? We’ll work on it.

Jonathan Toews’s recent scoring binge is just the latest turn in what has become the complete slapstick-gone-wrong way we watch and cover sports these days. We can thank Twitter for basically ruining everything, and this is just another example. Because once again, we mistake those shouting the loudest for being in the majority, when these are usually two very separate things. But say it enough, and it at least feels like reality if not outright becoming so.

There are certain truths to Toews. He is a great player. He is having possibly his worst season in the NHL (and even with this binge is still in a lot of ways, but we’ll get to that). These two things are not mutually exclusive, but they sure get treated like they are.

Everything Else

Come In From The Cold, We Come Down From The Wire: Oilers at Hawks Preview/Bocce Ball Tournament

By 1229

 vs. 

RECORDS: Oilers 31-18-9   Hawks 37-15-5

PUCK DROP: 6pm Central

TV: WGN in the 606, NHLN below the 49th, Sportsnet above it

YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM AN OIL MAN: Oilers Nation, Copper And Blue

PROJECTED LINEUPS

TEAM ADJUSTED CORSI %: Oilers – 50.8 (13th)  Hawks – 50.5 (15th)

TEAM ADJUSTED xGF%:  Oilers – 49.8 (17th)  Hawks – 48.1 (20th)

POWER PLAY %: Oilers – 20.4 (11th)  Hawks – 19.6 (16th)

PENALTY KILL %: Oilers – 81.4 (15th)  Hawks – 76.8 (27th)

The somehow-controversial (only the NHL could fuck up the concept of a bye week and have it become A THING like this) bye week comes to an end for the Hawks tonight, and they’ll try and buck the trend of teams with a tan getting tolchocked when they go back to work. But the Hawks have usually avoided such pitfalls under Joel Quenneville.

Everything Else

Potemkin City Limits – Hawks at Jets Preview, Customs Detainment

By 1294

 at 

Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: CSN, TVA, WGN-AM 720
A New Name For Everything: Arctic Ice Hockey, Illegal Curve, Jets Nation

As the Hawks stay in the snow blasted prairies of the Midwest, they take their road show to the MTS Center in downtown Winnipeg, where they hope to actually win a game against the Jets this season in their last head-to-head meeting of the regular season.

Everything Else

What’s This Funk, That You Call Junk?: Hawks 3 – Wild 3 (Hawks win bocce ball)

By 1552

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

I guess it depends on what you wanted out of this game to define whether it matters or not. If it was a hope that the Hawks could get back in a race for the division, this probably wasn’t it. Gaining one point, leaving with a five-point gap and the Wild have three games in hand still makes your prospects awfully dark. Maybe if the Hawks take the two remaining games with the Wild in regulation we can talk, but a lot can happen between now and the season series being wrapped up.

If you’re looking for signs of improvement in the Hawks in a game they at least said they were taking more seriously than they normally would in the doldrums of February, well you could find things. Toews’s line looked spritely, Crawford had a performance out of earlier in the season, and the kids looked dangerous at times. So if you just look at that, you can feel pretty good.

And if you’re looking for moral victories because the Hawks won on a power play in gimmick overtime… well then you’re a lost soul who simply hasn’t been paying attention. Because there is no such thing.

Everything Else

Minimum Wage Is A Gateway Drug – Hawks at Wild Preview, Night Sweats

By 1502

 at 

Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, TVA-S, SportsNet, WGN-AM 720
Makes No Sense At All: Hockey Wilderness

And so it is now here, the most important regular season game in the history of the sport…at least until the next one. The Wild are still playing .900 hockey and have three games in hand on the Hawks, and a regulation win tonight should effectively salt the division away for them, and there’s nothing more that Bruce Boudreau likes than the taste of salted divisions. And the entire hockey world, such as it is, will be watching, as this is the only game on the docket tonight.

Everything Else

Mission Report

By 1499

Much like baseball, the NHL has installed its All-Star break after the middle of the season. You get why, as you wouldn’t schedule the All-Star game on Super Bowl weekend or during the NFL playoffs (though the NHL All-Star game probably makes for a better pregame show to The Big Tilt than the actual pregame show. I guess the Canadiens wouldn’t want to give up that slot thought). Much like baseball doesn’t want to put it’s All-Star game anywhere near the 4th of July. So whatever. It’s a nice marker either way.

So where are the Hawks? Well, in some ways this is the earliest the Hawks have been entrenched in their spot, aside from when they didn’t lose for half a season in 2013. The Hawks only sit four points behind the Wild, but have played three games more, and if the Wild win even one of those they’re going to be awfully hard to catch with how things work. Even if they fell off a bit, Dubnyk is going to get them into overtime just enough to prevent complete collapse. On the other side, the Predators are nine points behind, and even with their two games in hand that’s a massive gap. They’re not getting caught.

You know what’s weird? In the Q era, the Hawks have only finished second in the division once. And that was Q’s first year, when it was a conference system and that really meant being fourth in the conference. Since then it’s been 1st, 3rd, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, and 3rd last year. Just a note for all of you there.

Everything Else

Punch The Clock – Hawks 4, Canucks 2

By 1676

Box Score
Natural Stat Trick

During this time of year, particularly at home and against the drecks of the league, any points gained in regulation are to be taken happily. And while the parts of the second and the early parts of the third period reeked of a team taking its foot off the gas against a lesser opponent, the Hawks grabbed a win while inching the Canucks and their fans closer to the sweet release of the season ending.

Everything Else

Rubber And Glue – Blackhawks at Bruins Preview, Inauguration Ball

By 1591

 at 

Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: WGN, NHLN (US), SportsNet (Canada), WGN-AM 720
Who’s Your Favorite New Kid? Call Me Joey: Days of Y’Orr

From one state with legal weed to another, tonight the Hawks find themselves in Boston to take on a B’s team that is once again teetering on the edge of missing the playoffs for a third straight year, and rumors of Claude Julien’s giant bald head being on the chopping block dominate any discussion about the Bruins.

Everything Else

Upon This Rock

By 1476

This week has seen Jonathan Toews be the target of more vitriol and criticism from Blackhawks fans than the rest of his entire career combined. Some of it is most certainly justified. Toews is on pace for less than 15 goals this season, his possession numbers have cratered in a lot of ways, and he just has not been noticeable on the ice most of the time. As we pointed out in the podcast, the coup de grace was doing his angry-Toews act in the press on Friday after the Hawks were picking parts of the Caps’ boots out of their chests for hours, and then getting completely worked over by Mikko Koivu on Sunday in response. This is just not something we’ve seen from Toews very much, if at all, in his now 10 years in the NHL.

It has been this blog’s contention, or maybe just this lone derelict’s, that Duncan Keith’s game has slowed so far this season as well, no matter how much Eddie Olczyk yells at me and no matter how much he piles up secondary assists.

Maybe it’s time we wonder if these things are at least partially linked.

Everything Else

All Your Friends Are Moving To Denver: Hawks at Avs Preview/Metal Spin Class

By 1310

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 27-14-5  Avalanche 13-27-1

PUCK DROP: 8pm

TV: CSN, NBCSN for those outside the 606

CHILLING AT THE INVENTING ROOM: Mile High Hockey

PROJECTED LINEUPS

ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Hawks – 50.0 (15th)  Avs – 44.8 (Dead Ass Last)

ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Hawks – 47.3 (26th)  Avs – 41.5 (Dead Ass Last)

POWER PLAY %: Hawks – 18.6 (15th)  Avs – 13.0 (29th, because the Wings are Dead Ass Last)

PENALTY KILL %: Hawks – 75.6 (28th)  Avs – 78.5 (24th)

If this recent stretch of Hawks hockey, be it this past weekend or the past couple weeks or the last month and a half, would be something you would define as “middling,” or “disappointing,” there simply can’t be a better cure than a visit to Denver for a contest with the Avs. Though the Hawks lost the last tilt to this bombed out structure, that was the game before the Christmas break when the Hawks were clearly had the motor running. Do that again, and you’ll know the Hawks simply could care less right now.