Everything Else

dallas-stars-l-green05 vs AltLogo

Game Time: 7:00PM
TV/Radio: CSN, NBCSN (Yanks), TSN2 (Hosers), WGN-AM 72
Texan Book Of The Dead: Defending Big D

After what can be considered a successful stretch by all non-meatball, bloodlust accounts, the Blackhawks will return home after a 6-1 Circus Trip, with the only blemish coming in the opener away from home against the deplorable Avalanche. Tonight they’ll kick off a month wherein 9 of the next 14 games will be on home ice, starting tonight with the Stars. Who says you can’t ever really come home for the holidays?

Everything Else

With the West now officially all sewn up — the Hawks will start at least the first three series on West Madison — let’s take a look at who is going to show up here for Game 1 on April 30 or May 1 (or later maybe, these schedules can get silly).

There are up to six teams that could land in the 8th seed, and they break evenly into two groups of three. One group being the longshots to end up in 8th, either being unlikely to fall there or unlikely to climb there. And the other are the three who are likely to be there. The first group contains St. Louis, Minnesota, and Phoenix. The second group is Detroit, Columbus, and Dallas.

Let’s look at each, and see what would be the best matchup (as if I’m going to pretend it’s not Dallas).

Everything Else

In last night’s Indian, we had the honor of having Daryl Reaugh as our guest in the Q&A section. Although Daryl seemed more excited to do it than we were to have him. Either way, here it is in all its glory.
The Stars jettisoned Derek Roy, Brendan Morrow and Jaromir Jagr and yet got themselves into the playoff race after doing so. How, exactly?
Ya, whiskey tango effin foxtrot?! Three really good players get purged – including the captain and the leading scorer, and the team’s able to win 5 in a row to jump back into 8th in the West? How paradoxical. They’ve morphed into a good ‘team’. Everyone plays the same way, they haven’t been beating themselves (not a metaphor) with penalties and turnovers like they were, the youth has been splendid (Chiasson thinks he’s Selanne circa 92’), there is no diva component, the coach seems both vindictive and more comfortable with this attentive, blue-collar lineup, and they play much, much faster.

Everything Else

In last night’s Indian, we had the honor of having Daryl Reaugh as our guest in the Q&A section. Although Daryl seemed more excited to do it than we were to have him. Either way, here it is in all its glory.
The Stars jettisoned Derek Roy, Brendan Morrow and Jaromir Jagr and yet got themselves into the playoff race after doing so. How, exactly?
Ya, whiskey tango effin foxtrot?! Three really good players get purged – including the captain and the leading scorer, and the team’s able to win 5 in a row to jump back into 8th in the West? How paradoxical. They’ve morphed into a good ‘team’. Everyone plays the same way, they haven’t been beating themselves (not a metaphor) with penalties and turnovers like they were, the youth has been splendid (Chiasson thinks he’s Selanne circa 92’), there is no diva component, the coach seems both vindictive and more comfortable with this attentive, blue-collar lineup, and they play much, much faster.

Everything Else

The Hawks special teams save the day. I’ll now take a break while you try and shake the cobwebs from the embolism you’ll have had reading that.

No….not yet…..

Ready?….

Ok, now we go. The Hawks weren’t great for the first half of the game, and what moments they did conjure were stopped, dropped, and rolled by an inspired Kari Lehtonen (no doubt motivated by McClure’s reminder in the preview that he usually steals one from the Hawks once per season. I’m contagious, apparently). And while they improved in the last 30 to claw back a two-goal deficit, it was their power play that got them there. Along with two important and pretty dominant kills. Isn’t that a welcome change?

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