Everything Else

Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! Kill!: Jackets 3 – Hawks 2

By 1445

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

Yes, I’m well aware these aren’t the same movies, but just allow it, all right?

Once again, the Hawks had an ugly period (no, don’t make your menstruation joke here, because as Ash vs. Evil Dead taught us vaginas are powerful and life-affirming and should never be mocked). That one segment kind of colors everything else about the game, perhaps unfairly. The penalty kill remains a tire fire inside of a dumpster fire contained in a landfill fire. But as always, there are things to be learned. Oh, and some bad luck didn’t help the cause. Let’s get to it, shall we? We all have drinking to do.

Everything Else

Let’s Kick This Pig: Blues at Hawks Preview/Street Cleaning

By 1332

get-a-brain-morans vs. Hawks Culture Club

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN

GOOD GOD DON’T GO THERE: St. Louis Gametime

Projected Lineups

blues-lineup-cardblackhawks-lineup-card

Power Play (’15-’16): Hawks – 22.6% (2nd)   Blues – 21.5% (6th)

Penalty Kill (’15-’16): Hawks 80.3% (22nd)  Blues – 85.1% (3rd)

Trends: Tarasenko has 13 points in 15 regular season games against the Hawks, Allen has a .934 career SV% against the Hawks

It’s finally here, after the World Cup made an already interminable-feeling training camp feel even longer. And as the preseason has gone on I’ve felt better about the Hawks and worse about the Blues, which is actually better, because no one wants to feel good about the Blues. That probably goes for the music as well.

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High On The Hog: First Round Exit

By 1492

The Rockford IceHogs exit from the Calder Cup Playoffs was certainly swift. The Hogs were fortunate enough to get to begin their first-round series with Lake Erie at home but made zero use of having home ice for the opening games.

Rockford dropped both games at the BMO Harris Bank Center, then traveled to Cleveland and had the Monsters complete the series sweep Saturday night. With little exception, Lake Erie was the better team and dominated play.

I’m not ready to forecast the state of the farm just yet, so I’ll focus this week’s gaze on the first-round debacle and how it came to be.

Everything Else

High On The Hog: Who’s In Goal For The Playoffs?

By 1426

The Rockford IceHogs reserved their spot in the Calder Cup Playoffs this week. However, Chicago’s AHL affiliate continued to scuffle along as the regular season comes to a conclusion this week.

Rockford dropped three of four on the road this past week. Three points in Charlotte early in the week assured the Hogs of a postseason appearance for the second consecutive season. This team is not giving off the shine of a group that will get out of the first round, though.

It’s hard to expect much from this group the way the latter half of the season has progressed. There are lots of new faces and probably more coming before the regular season ends. There are also a lot of questions for this team to answer in the final week of action.

First and foremost, who starts in net for Ted Dent in the playoffs?

Everything Else

Turn The TV On It Looks Just Like A Window

By 1439

As the Hawks and specifically Stan Bowman barrel into trade deadline week, we here at the lab are not only discussing names and proposals but how it fits in with the overall window of the Hawks. It becomes a more and more philosophical discussion, as well as trying to figure out what the actual length is. I’m sure it’s a discussion Bowman and assistants and scouts are having every day, just how much do you shorten the window on the back end for this chance this year?

Last year’s championship basically puts the Hawks on house money. As first-hockey-world problem as it might sound. two Cups wouldn’t have sounded like enough when we look back in 10 or 20 years (though ask Bears fans what a second championship would have felt like in the 80s). A third though puts the Hawks in rarified air, even if they don’t compare to what came before. In my lifetime, only three teams have bunched three Cups or more together, the Oilers, the Devils, and the Wings. Even the Avs in the late 90s, as stacked as they were, only managed two. So even if the Hawks didn’t win again in the Daydream Nation era, three in six basically lives forever.