On the tail end of a home and home, the Hawks finally corrected a few things and got some bounces that were seemingly long overdue. With the quick turnaround coming back to the west side to face the Senators tomorrow night, it’s bullet time right from Jump St.
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Game Time: 7:00PM Central
TV/Radio: WGN, WGN-AM 720
Frustrated, Incorporated: Hockey Wilderness
With a three point Florida swing now in the books, the Hawks will return home for only their third divisional game so far this season. Tonight it comes in the form of new divisional opponent Minnesota, who some may or may not remember as being the first stop on a nice little tour last summer.
Well, that’s that then. An underwhelming series came to what was pretty much an underwhelming end. Sure, it looks glossy to have an emphatic scoreline, but I find the most encouraging aspect of the whole thing to be Quenneville’s quote that he wasn’t too thrilled with the last two games and feels that that there’s a few levels the Hawks are going to have to reach before we pack up the cats for the summer.
And I have to agree.
The Hawks weren’t great tonight, just as they weren’t great in Game 4. They did enough, some players more so and some less. And though it’s easy to say that you only have to pull out enough to win to beat the Wild when you’re Milton Berle, I don’t think it’s so simple as to just turn it on when you feel the challenge is up to your standards.
@ 
Faceoff: 8:30pm Central
TV/Radio: CSN, CBC, NBCSN/WGN 720
Show Me One Night: Hockey Wilderness
Unlike last year, the Blackhawks now find themselves in an elimination game where they are the ones capable of sending a team off to their summer homes earlier than they’d hope. It’ll also be the first chance they’ve had at advancing past the opening round of the post season since the year they’ve brought home a bunch of hardware and a party that lasted all summer long.
The 3-0 shutout in last Tuesday’s game wasn’t exactly a dynamic effort but it still showed that the Hawks are capable of taking home a victory without really putting it all out on the table just yet. The Wild have started each of the games on a very strong note but the Hawks have been able to sit out the storm and even if they get behind, find a way to get back into it, even if that did take til just about the very end of regulation in Game 3.
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FACEOFF: 8:30pm Central
TV/RADIO: CSN, NBCSN, CBC for you hosers, WIND 560am
HOLLYWOOD DREAM TEENS, YESTERDAY’S TRASH QUEENS: Hockey Wilderness
Tonight for the first time we get to see how the Hawks bounce back from a loss in the playoffs. Whether it was tactics or effort or discipline, the Hawks get a chance to correct it tonight and for all intents and purposes end this series. Because it’s highly likely that if the Hawks take a 3-1 lead back to Fort Kickass on Madison on Thursday, that will be that.
This didn’t quite feel like a “Grind My Gears, ” so much as a more general musing. I guess these are things I think I think.
-I find it hilarious that in a week where most everyone was lampooning Hawk Harrelson for his “TWTW” southern-fried bullshit, some people still think it’s perfectly acceptable to then turn around and say a team lost a hockey game due to effort and want. And without any sense of how paradoxical that may be. But then again, it gives me material.
Granted, hockey unlike baseball is a game that can be changed by a team trying harder and pressing, in either direction. You can’t grunt and grimace and sweat your way through an at-bat (unless you’re Kevin Youklis), but you can through a shift and make a difference. So I’ll admit that.
But that’s not really what yesterday boiled down to.
With the series now shifting setting to the Twin Cities, the Wild were essentially facing a must-win situation, and decided to change things up a bit from their neutral zone bomb shelter strategy that yielded no results on West Madison.
Even with the Hawks drawing the first marker on a beautiful feed from Patrick Kane to Johnny Oduya right after a Hawks kill, the Wild pressed on. Coach Mike Yeo made no secret about wanting to ratchet up the physicality and make life unpleasant for Hawk defenders, and did just that, sending wave of cannonballing forwards into the Hawk zone.
FACEOFF: 2pm Central
TV/RADIO: NBC/WIND-560am
THOUGHT THEY WERE JAMES DEAN FOR A DAY: Hockey Wilderness
WHERE WE’LL BE, AND YOU SHOULD BE: Sheffield’s in Lakeview
A lot of people have asked or wondered aloud whether Game 1 was Minnesota’s best punch and if they’re now out of answers. I’ve always thought that we’ll see Minnehaha’s best punch today. This is the first playoff game at Excel Energy Center since well before this blog existed, and you know that crowd is going to baying for blood from the word go (assuming they can get out from the snow).
With that in mind, the more conservative approach we’ve seen from the Wild in this series, at least to start games, is probably not going to be in evidence in the opening frame this time. Expect the Wild to come out flying, getting the puck behind the Hawks defense and then trying to sacrifice those same d-men to Mayan gods against the end boards. It’s almost certainly going to be frantic and pressured. Cal Clutterbuck might spontaneously combust.
I know we only post a video in a wrap for a very certain occasion, but this felt apt. Whereas the Wild caused a few half-heart flutters in Game 1, this one very much felt like a boat race. Once Michael Frolik — and perhaps from here on out he should be referred to by his full name, “Playoff Dynamo Michael Frolik” — put the Hawks ahead in the first, there was never a moment where it felt like the Wild would catch them. And that’s how it played out.
I know we only post a video in a wrap for a very certain occasion, but this felt apt. Whereas the Wild caused a few half-heart flutters in Game 1, this one very much felt like a boat race. Once Michael Frolik — and perhaps from here on out he should be referred to by his full name, “Playoff Dynamo Michael Frolik” — put the Hawks ahead in the first, there was never a moment where it felt like the Wild would catch them. And that’s how it played out.
