Everything Else

Cleaning Up After The Furor

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Now that the siege of July 1 is over and the Hawks have picked their lot, we’re left to sit and wait out the rest of the summer as the Hawks bleed out the rest of the moves they’re going to make. So just want to clean up some thoughts as we begin to hit down time.

-The Hawks only made one move, signing Viktor Tikhonov, which is interesting if nothing else. He has first round pedigree, and was somewhat unlucky to be promoted to the NHL too soon and under coach Gretzky, which you’ll remember was not a very pleasant experience for anyone. That clearly stunted his development. I don’t know that his numbers in the K make anyone spit out their drink, and he may just end up Rockford depth. But it’s clear the Hawks are going to give themselves plenty of options on the wings.

The only wings for sure on next year’s roster are whichever of Teuvo or Dano isn’t used as a center, Kane, Hossa, Panarin and Shaw. Any or all of Sharp, Bickell, and Versteeg could be gone. And Danault (also could be a center), McNeill, Morin, Tropp, Tikhonov, Hartman and maybe one or two more are going to scrap for what could be as many as three spots open or as little as one, depending on who’s traded. Someone’s going to earn it, that’s for sure.

Everything Else

The Fallout

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It’s rare that the Hawks do something so large that we need a full day to clear out all the feelings and stories from it. But here we are with Brandon Saad’s trade to Columbus.

A day later, I think it tells us a lot when Stan Bowman comes out and says that they weren’t even close in negotiations. Because look at Bowman’s record on this sort of thing: Kruger (possibly twice), Hjalmarsson, Oduya, and even Sharp and Seabrook for what they are have all signed deals probably below market value to stay in Chicago (you could argue Kane and Toews as well, if you really want). When Stan wants to get this done, if it’s in any way possible it almost always gets done. When he tells you they were miles apart, they were probably miles apart.

Everything Else

Angry At Numbers: The Cap Edition

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Ok, so it’s time to get detailed. I’m not sure any of this will be anything you don’t already know, but we have to get through it anyway. So let’s do this. For this exercise, I’m going to assume the cap is at $71 million as that’s the number I keep hearing and even though the players have made serious noise about not using their escalator, I would be surprised if they didn’t help out their free agent brethren by bumping it a little, as well as the owners having the option of doing so as well and these guys want to sign their own and other players as well because they do want to win for the most part (and at this point, it feels like Rocky should say he wants it at $71 million and everyone else will fall in. Certainly Bettman should listen to the owner of his league’s signature franchise at the moment. This is all half in jest).

Ok, so let’s do it.

Everything Else

The Road Never Ends And The Party Never Stops

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While us fans are still going to bask in the glow of Monday’s victory and Thursday’s parade (or in my case, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s Kyle Schwarber performance), this week is when the Hawks front office has to start to pivot toward next year, and namely to the point clearing out cap space to get Saad, Kruger, and whoever else they might like into the fold so we can attempt to do this all again in a year’s time.

Watching this unfold, I have to say I’ve been impressed with the local media’s reserved, optimistic tone about what the Hawks can do next year while the national — both here and north of the 49th — have been forecasting doom and gloom and it’s 2011 all over again! As it’s our job to piss on national and local narratives alike, let me poke some holes in this latter view, if you don’t mind.

Everything Else

You’re Jammin’ Me: Lightning 1 – Hawks 2 (Series Tied 2-2)

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Box Score

Event Summary

War On Ice

Natural Stat Trick

That was something of a departure.

We saw last year against the Wild that the Hawks can struggle against a team that changes its style from a previous game (or in Minny’s case, the previous period). The Hawks probably expected the Lightning to once again come out flying as they had basically done in the first three opening frames of this series. Instead, the Bolts in trying to protect their rookie goalie being dropped into a near impossible situation tweaked their system a bit. Instead of those pinches along the wall being meant to keep offensive zone time going and force openings, the Lightning basically used them as time to get their forwards back to clog the neutral zone. If chances came they took them, but they certainly weren’t going to force anything that might leave them exposed at the back. Constantly, whenever the Hawks did actually manage to break cleanly out of their zone ( I think it was twice), they saw three or four Bolts simply lined across the red line.