It’s that time , folks. We know you’ve been waiting for it. So have we, and so have our friends who are tired of us bothering them constantly because we’ve had nothing to do. Yes, the Hawks don’t start training camp for another 10 days or so, but that’s not going to stop us from kicking off our season preview for the ’14-’15 campaign.
Where do we find ourselves today? Well, the Hawks basically have one new player in Brad Richards. They’re hoping for a couple additions from the system, be they Tivo Targaryn, Stephen Johns, Adam Clendening, David Rundblad, Klas Dahlbeck, whoever else, or some combination thereof. There’s also a jam in terms of salary cap and sheer numbers. The Hawks are still $2.2 million over the cap as of the moment, apparently waiting for Marian Hossa or Brent Seabrook or most likely Kris Versteeg to get hit by a bus and use LTIR or something. There are 14 NHL-quality forwards, not counting Teuvo but counting Nordstrom, listed on the roster at the moment, and that’s before Q forces some dunderhead on there to play “ice cop.”
That’s what training camp will be for of course. And as the Hawks look out over the Central and Western landscape, they’ll see an improved St. Louis team (though ever ready to implode and not all that improved if they don’t fit Jaden Schwartz into the roster), a young improving Minnesota team that still has holes, an wildly entertaining-looking Dallas team that’s going to attempt to play a season without a blue line, a Colorado team ripe for regression and much laughter, and then whatever it is Nashville and Winnipeg do. Out west, it still looks pretty poised to come down to the Hawks and Kings for a third time (The Thrilla’ on Figueroa?), even though the Ducks have gotten prized possession Ryan Kesler. Trouble is, Kesler doesn’t coach, and any Boudreau-coached team is sentenced to lose a Game 7 at home in round one or two. The Sharks seem intent on shooting themselves in the face repeatedly, though have finally figured out you can’t wear your alternate jerseys in the playoffs. And the Canucks, Oilers, Flames, and Yotes will still suck something awful.
It’s almost as you were. Will the addition of Richards and/or the growth of Teuvo be enough to see the Hawks come out on the right side of the coin flip with the Kings this time? The answers are a long way away.
So how are we going to preview this season? With your help of course! A lot of other sites like to go player by player, but of course here we have to be different to keep our punk sensibilities sated. We’ve done this before, but every day we’re going to answer one of your questions about the upcoming season. No matter how general or minute, we’re going to get through them. But for the first time, we’re going to use Twitter to help us out.
So, you can either ask your question in the comments of this post, or you can go through Twitter with the hashtag of #CISeasonPreview?s. So send them on in, as it’s time to kick this pig! Leave ’em squealin’ from the feelin’! Squeakin’ from the freakin’! Oinkin’ from the boinkin’!
