This stat you can quantify:CSN
Awesome:LGH
Hawks 4..Thrashers 3:HN
The Prodigy:TSN
Even worn incorrectly? ESPN
Tag: Patrick Sharp
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Splat: Hawks -6 — Stars 4
We don’t need to wait around to analyze this one. In a way, this was a good thing. I, and possibly others, possibly the Hawks themselves, had let Wednesday’s win fill our head with dreams and we had to have them all. As my compatriot McClure quickly pointed out, there is no such thing as an important win before April. The Hawks found that out with authority tonight in Texas. Everything that was good in New York was bad tonight.
While the record without Patrick Kane could still be considered gaudy, you’re still talking about a team that’s managed 22 goals in those 10 games. That’s simply not good enough. It’s been shutout three times. It seems when the top line doesn’t binge, they’re not going to score more than two (Sharks meltdowns not withstanding). And each line has its issues, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
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Angry At Numbers – 3/19
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).
