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Now Here Is Nowhere: Hawks 1 – Sharks 3

By 1454

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

The sad thing is, however infinitesimal, that there was a good portion of this game that the Hawks played with some gusto, verve, pepper, whatever word you want to use there. But it might be a while before we see that again. Tonight’s loss leaves the Hawks six points behind the Zack Wyldes, having played three games more. Unless they take both the games in the next month in St. Paul in the reg, they’re going to finish second. There simply just isn’t much to play for the rest of the season, which is going to lead to some awfully snooz-y hockey.

Anyway, for tonight, both teams came out of the break rested and wanting to push the pace. The mini-problem was that neither teams is really capable of playing at the pace they attempted tonight, at least not for any long stretch. Thankfully they didn’t stop, which made for some wonderful entertainment. But there were a lot of missed passes, turnovers, scrambles at both lines, which did open things up for chances, at least for the first 40 minutes.

In the end, the Hawks were undone by two bits of bad luck and two bits of Hjalmarsson and Keith getting caught just a tad out. They also may have fallen victim to going a bit conservative in the 3rd period, only managing one shot in the last seven minutes or so. But I won’t hate on them for thinking at least a point at a Western Contender’s garden (in the shade) is a nice enough haul. Two shots wide that kick right back out in front, with Hammer on the first and Keith on the second not really having time to go from trying to front the shot to tying up whoever was in front (and on the second it caught up in Crow’s pads anyway). That’ll happen.

Everything Else

Wounds Won’t Last Long, But An Insulting Song Burns Will Always Carry With Him: Sharks at Hawks Preview/Roadblock Preshow

By 1566

 vs. 

RECORDS: Sharks 19-11-1  Hawks 21-8-4

PUCK DROP: 6pm Central

TV: WGN, NHL-N outside the 606

CHUM: @ItWasThreeZero

PROJECTED LINEUPS

ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Sharks – 52.5 (8th)  Hawks – 50.1 (15th)

ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Sharks – 53.2 (6th)  Hawks – 47.5 (20th)

POWER PLAY: Sharks – 17.8 (14th)  Hawks – 18.4 (14th)

PENALTY KILL: Sharks – 81.7 (17th)  Hawks – 73.3 (30th)

TRENDS: Joel Ward was a healthy scratch in Montreal… Brent Burns leads the league in shots

After quashing whatever was being vocalized from St. Louis about being a competitor in the West, the Hawks will welcome the San Jose Sharks tonight, and these two look for all the world to be headed toward each other again in deep spring. So while there’s no such thing as statement games, if you want to toss around the phrase “playoff preview” it’s actually somewhat apt.

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Tank Statement: Hawks at Sharks Preview/Booze-Up Before Dealing With Family

By 1302

Hawk Wrestler vs. shark

RECORDS: Hawks 13-5-2   Sharks 10-8-1

PUCK DROP: 9PM 

TV: WGN Local, NBCSN Elsewhere

SHARKS TWITTER (Because it’s better): @ItWasThreeZero, @Stace_OfBase

Projected Lineups

blackhawks-lineup-card

sharks-lineup-card

TEAM CORSI: Hawks – 51.0% (11th)  Sharks – 54.0% (2nd)

POWER PLAY: Hawks – 18.1% (14th)  Sharks – 16.4% (17th)

PENALTY KILL: Hawks – bit of a setback!  Sharks – 87.8% (3rd)

It’s the traditional Blackout Wednesday fare, where if you’ve played your cards right you should be in the bag by the time the puck drops. Hopefully the players won’t be. But the Hawks and Sharks have met in the Tank on this day before Thanksgiving for years now, except for that one year they were in Colorado which threw all the timing off. The Hawks will be coming in after getting shutout, and the Sharks will be coming in after pitching one themselves against the Devils. Not that shutouts of New Jersey really count.

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We Like To Watch – After All Is Said And Done, Gotta Move While It’s Still Fun

By 1440

So it took one game longer than I thought it would, and most thought it would. And for at least two periods, it was probably the best the Sharks have looked in this series last night. But because their coach couldn’t stop playing Polak and Dillon, they immediately surrendered the tie they had just gotten, and couldn’t find a way through the smothering Pens defense. It’s too simplistic to pin it all on the Sharks’ third pairing (though awfully tempting), because the Penguins were clearly the better team in this series. But still, that was opening the door and rolling out a red carpet sprinkled with flowers for Pittsburgh to stroll on in.

Whenever we have a new Cup champion, there is a rush to see what we can learn from them and how teams should apply their plans going forward. That’s a little harder to do with this one.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – June 9th: In The House And An Anniversary

By 1367

There’s an added buzz to the hockey world when the Stanley Cup actually enters the building. It will be in Pittsburgh tonight, and one gets the feeling it’s almost certainly going to come up for air. You tend to feel like that when one team hasn’t had a lead all series. At this point it almost feels like we’re just putting the Sharks out of their misery.

You would think that being on the brink would finally force DeBoer to empty the tanks, tell Dillon and Polak that they’re playing eight minutes each at most and try and keep his top four d-men out there as much as possible. But if it hasn’t happened yet it probably won’t now. And basically no matter how well the Sharks play tonight, one shift or two from those will turn the tides.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – June 2nd: High Speed Dirt (Penguins 2-1 Sharks)

By 1375

Well I didn’t get that one right. I thought the Sharks’ PP would clock the Penguins’ high-action PK (they only got one look). I thought the Sharks would get a better handle at the pace the Penguins play. They didn’t, though Martin Jones almost made it hold up to take a split back to California. Wasn’t to be though when the Penguins ran a pretty brilliant play off a faceoff in overtime.

Only when San Jose’s top line is on the ice are they consistently getting things going, because those guys are generally skilled enough to weave around the Penguins flying at them and then can mash them along the boards until something else opens up. All the other Sharks’ lines are having problems.

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We Like To Watch – June 1st: You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine (Sharks at Penguins Game 2 Preview)

By 1359

shark vs. Ron-Cey

PUCK DROP: Just after 7pm Central

TV: NBCSN

THOSE HYPERVENTILATING: Pensblog, Pensburgh, Battle of Cali, Canafornians

Figure with only the one game we can give it the usual preview treatment.

You may recall a few years ago, when people still scoffed at the idea of puck possession and Corsi and all that and that having the puck was a good thing (hey that’s today too!), there were some out there who claimed, usually from Toronto, that they were opportunistic. That they played counter-attacking and hence would purposely give up the puck to then spring out faster when it was turned over.

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We Like To Watch – May 26th: #ThisTimeWillBeDifferent

By 1579

Sharks beat Blues in Game 6

It is for one team. Was it really for the other?

I suppose a trip to the conference final is different for the Blues. Winning it certainly is for the Sharks. But all the noise and concerted effort to make it clear that this was a different Blues team than before makes me wonder who were they really trying to convince? It took the Blues seven games to beat a team that basically didn’t have a blue line in the first round. It took them seven games to beat a team that certainly didn’t have a goalie in the second round. And winning is obviously better than losing to those horrifically flawed teams, and that’s what we all thought the Blues would do, but how much of a triumph these things really were is debatable.

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We Like To Watch – May 25th: It’s The Goalies, Stupid

By 1264

Penguins-Lightning Game 6

Sometimes this hockey thing is silly and simple. Now that this series is going to a seventh game the story out of it will be how evenly it’s been played and how it could have gone either way. And on the surface, that’s true. This series could well be decided tomorrow night on a high-sticking call or another offside review or some goal that goes in off Tyler Johnson’s ass (again). By definition these are all coin-flips.

But in reality, the Penguins have spent a great majority of this series kicking the ever-loving shit out of the Lightning, but Andrei Vasilevskiy has simply held them in.

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We Like To Watch – May 19th: The Cream… Rises To The Top

By 1236

Pens-Lightning Game 3

As the Lightning learned, or should have learned last spring, you simply can’t hide their dreck of a blue line behind Hedman-Stralman forever. Hedman makes up for a lot, and sometimes can do it all on his own as we saw in Games 1-3 in last year’s Final. But that’s not a sustainable model. The Penguins have essentially steamrolled the Lightning in three games, and Tampa only has Andrei Vasilevskiy to thank for not being pretty much finished at 0-3 down right now. The past two games the Penguins are carrying a 62% Corsi-percentage. That’s borderline ridiculous.