Everything Else

Just cleaning up after a series sweep, before we all adjourn for the weekend and reconvene… sometime. We don’t know when, really.

-McClure and I were talking about this today, and he was wondering if despite the adulation he does get, if Patrick Kane’s playoff performances are truly appreciated. Kane’s PPG is fourth among active players, behind Crosby, Malkin, and Giroux. And that’s over 103 games, so sample size is not a problem. All time for the Hawks, he’s behind Hull and Savard in points per game. But if you were to weigh it to compensate for how much tougher it is to score now than it was when Hull and Savard played, Kane’s PPG would probably come close to blowing them out of the water. Quite simply, Patrick Kane, right now, is the greatest postseason performer in Hawks history. I’m not even sure it’s close.

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oldschool vs wildthings

Game Time: 8:30PM Central
TV/Radio: NBCSN, SportsNet (Anglo), TVA2 (Franco), WGN-AM 720
Blood Makes The Blade Holy: Hockey Wilderness

Mark it 2-9 in road Game 3’s now. On Tuesday night the Hawks won their first road game three since 2010 in the second round against Vancouver, and even in that series it was to take a 2-1 series lead. And now for the first time in the Renaissance Era the Hawks have the opportunity to end a series unblemished on opposition ice.

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oldschool at wildthings

Game Time: 7:00PM Central
TV/Radio: NBCSN, CBC (Anglo), TVA (Franco), WGN-AM 720
Raspberry Beret: Hockey Wilderness

With the series now shifting back to the Twin Cities for games 3 and 4, the expectation is that the momentum will naturally shift back to the Wild, given the Hawks’ abysmal record in game 3’s on the road under Joel Quenneville. The only victory in 10 tries has been Game 3 in 2010 in Vancouver, but that doesn’t mean that anything is a foregone conclusion tonight.

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Box Score

Event Summary

War On Ice

Natural Stat Trick

Coming into this one, the main story was always going to be how Mike Yeo adjusted the way his troops went about playing this one, and would the d-men who all made mistakes in Game 1 leading to goals would tighten up or not. Yeo did change tack, and it was the Hawks’ d-men who certainly tightened up. Sadly for Minnehaha, Ryan Suter most certainly did not.

The Wild came into this one deciding to lean heavily on what they do best, and that is gobble up space in the neutral zone and keep things to the perimeter in their zone. While it wasn’t an out-and-out trap, it certainly was more conservative than they were in Game 1. On the surface, it makes total sense. As we said in the program tonight, when judging how things were going for each goalie in these playoffs, the Wild did seem more likely to win a 2-1 game than they do a 4-3 one.