They aren’t all going to be works of art.
The Hawks played a pretty good first period, clung to the ropes for the first half of the second, biffed a couple 5-on-3s (they determine the winner of the game according to Q, y’know), and then once again covered up and used the ropes in the 3rd to see it out. They’ll call it a good road game. We’ll call it getting some bounces and posts to go their way, correcting the ones that didn’t in the season’s first five weeks or so.
Before and after the game last night, Darryl Sutter called the Hawks the best team in the league. Before it sounded a little strange, especially as Sutter was saying it because of different stats people should look at and Sutter always strikes people as someone who can’t add (but of course, the Kings are one of the more advanced metric team in the league and Sutter’s a big part of that). It also sounded strange to those of us who watch the Hawks every game, who get in a little deep with picking apart cracks we see because there’s just not much else to do.
Box Score
Event Summary
War on Ice
In what has become something of a tradition, the Hawks once again took on the Ducks in Orange Country for a Black Friday matinee. However, the Hawks bucked tradition by basically taking control of this from the word “go” in what could arguably be their most definitive victory of the year, and would be the most enjoyable were it not marred by predictable Ducks asshattery.
Box Score
Event Summary
War On Ice
I was thinking this morning that it was shocking how little I cared about tonight’s Canucks/Hawks match up. Then I read Sam’s preview and saw I wasn’t alone. Even worse, the rivalry is so dead that the broadcast crew – generally the biggest hypemen in the game – admitted that this was pretty much over. The Sedins just aren’t enough to carry over the hatred that was once there. Bieksa was pretty much nonexistent. Even on the other side it seemed the Canucks faithful could only remember to boo Keith half the time he had the puck. And to be fair, he’s on the ice a lot and has the puck quite a bit. I would get tired of booing someone that much too. It was fun while it lasted but this rivalry is no more. It has ceased to be.
vs. 
FACEOFF: 6pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN for those in the 606, NHL-N for those not, HNIC for those in the hinterlands, WGN Radio
SUFFERING SCOUSER LIKE MYSELF: Pension Plan Puppets
The Hawks take on the second half of the Ontario double tonight, sliding into the ACC for Hockey Night In Canada and a tussle with the constant narrative that is the Toronto Maple Leafs.
One would assume that this is where Corey Crawford returns to the lineup. He was the backup on Thursday so he’s clearly just about ready. He could be saved for tomorrow night at home against the Jets, but you feel like tonight’s the night.
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Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: NBCSN, CSN, WGN-AM 720
Kings Of Prussia: Broad St. Hockey
Pennsylvania is a an underratedly terrible place, in the team photo with the worst that the contiguous 48 has to offer. The roads are stupid, the accents are all nauseating, its institutional support of a Child Abuse Colony in State College reaches all the way to the highest offices in the state, the food is terrible, and the crown jewel of the state, Philadelphia, boasts some of the most intentionally asinine people on the sporting fandom spectrum, as would any place where college football, province of losers and toothless townies, is king. These are people who proudly throw batteries at athletes, boo Santa, beat up opposing fans after a Winter Classic, and need their T&A fix so badly at a hockey game that they boo a male ice crew. Or if you’re Travis Hughes, SB Nation’s hockey editor and one-time chief of Broad Street hockey, go four and a half years without making good on a bet, even if cheesesteaks are far inferior to italian beefs. Seriously, fucking cheese whiz?
vs
Game Time: 7:30PM Central
TV/Radio: NBCSN, CSN, WGN-AM 720
Kings Of Prussia: Broad St. Hockey
Pennsylvania is a an underratedly terrible place, in the team photo with the worst that the contiguous 48 has to offer. The roads are stupid, the accents are all nauseating, its institutional support of a Child Abuse Colony in State College reaches all the way to the highest offices in the state, the food is terrible, and the crown jewel of the state, Philadelphia, boasts some of the most intentionally asinine people on the sporting fandom spectrum, as would any place where college football, province of losers and toothless townies, is king. These are people who proudly throw batteries at athletes, boo Santa, beat up opposing fans after a Winter Classic, and need their T&A fix so badly at a hockey game that they boo a male ice crew. Or if you’re Travis Hughes, SB Nation’s hockey editor and one-time chief of Broad Street hockey, go four and a half years without making good on a bet, even if cheesesteaks are far inferior to italian beefs. Seriously, fucking cheese whiz?
Have to clean up the stuff from last night’s game, so let’s do that.
-The first thing that was obvious is that last night’s bottom pairing of Michal Rozsival and Kyle Cumiskey absolutely drowned against what was basically Montreal’s bottom six and a bunch of Hamilton Bulldogs. No Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Desharnais, Patches, Plekanec, and yet whoever was out against this pairing had their way. Look, I know Rozsival will never look fast, and especially in training camp, but it was hard to not be alarmed. Yes, the games he does play, which won’t be all of them obviously, will be weighted with easy zone starts and opposition. But that doesn’t make me feel better right now, especially with the strong chance that Leddy isn’t going to be around to push the play the other way and save him.
They keep telling me Cumiskey is the surprise of camp, and I see that he can skate pretty well, but he’s playground recess in his own end. His gap to Drayson Bowman was simply awful while Rozie was getting beat to the front of the net, and had it been better maybe that pass is never made. Maybe they’re pumping Cumiskey to soften the blow of any Leddy trade, and he plays the same side unlike Rundblad. But based on what I’ve seen this preseason, that’s not an answer to any question I’m asking.
