The Quick and the Dead: Kings 2 - Hawks 0

in particular I didn’t care for the reaction of two people who I seldom have criticism for, at least in their approach to the game. Coach Q’s blaming the refs strategy seemed out of place. The first goal appears to have nothing wrong with it, and a lot worse gets let go in goal mouth scrums in the playoffs. The second goal could have been waived off for an interference call, and it would have been a legit call, but despite the play appearing in the tv frame I didn’t even see it until the 3rd review of the play. It was the type of thing that gets called if the ref is looking right at it, and the type that could easily not get called and just get lost int the play. Arguably a penalty but not the type of egregious missed call that you get on your soapbox about after the game. Q has turned the other cheek after games with much worse, he wasn’t holding particularly strong cards to choose this moment to make a stand. Odd.

And I didn’t care for Toews calling Quick lucky, saying he must have had a horseshoe up his ass for a few of those saves. The guy stood on his head, something that’s not exactly an aberration for him. Quick leads the league with 5 shutouts, is 7th in SV% at .930 (min 3 GP) and 8th in GAA at 2.08 (min 3 GP). Toews is a leader, a very good leader, and he went up against a top caliber opponent who rose to the occasion. Tip your cap and get him next time.

Taken together these don’t paint the Blackhawks in a very good light. I expect this from Mike Gillis, much less so from Toews and Q. Hopefully it’s an isolated incident.

Not Crow’s fault the Hawks put up a goose egg, give Quick Quick Like a Chat his well-earned props. One loss is one loss, Hawks have been playing well on the whole, just need to be ready for Friday.

…we came out strong until Scott was called for roughing up 4 Kings and that goon Sharp got caught swing his axe. Those two checks by Scott in the first period looked like Godzilla throwing a bus around in Japan.

Yet the puck wasn’t behind him in the net. Kid played a real solid game. Hawks didn’t capitalize on some good chances but that march to the penalty box in the first 10 minutes of the game was not the tone you want to set against the worst offensive team in the conference.

Agree with Hack that Corey played great tonight. If it were up to me, I’d start him on Friday. Of course that means that Q will start Razor. I’m guessing Odie will get a game off Friday but it’s just a matter of will they put Scott out there against a skilled team like Detroit or do the smart thing and actually start Lepisto.

The only genuine disappointment I had in our play was the man advantage. Way too much playing on the perimeter, not enough rubber to the cage.

Which wasn’t really THAT bad. Quick made at least two astounding saves with his left pad going post to post, or it’s a tie game at the end of reg.

I will credit the Kings D men with doing an excellent job of covering the back door post. Seems every time one of our forwards got near the paint, both their D men were there. Crow could have used a little more of that sort of aid.

Not a bad effort last night, certainly nothing in comparison to the let downs in November, and if the puck and the whistle worked for us a little better, we would have won and wouldn’t be knit picking. Now it’s all about how the boys respond.

I agree with JMH, our march to the penalty box in the first killed our mo before we could establish dominance in the O zone, which we seemed to be doing the first few shifts.

2 Points on Friday, no matter how ugly, will have us all giddy.

was as good as you could want. He should play Friday. If he doesn’t, it sends the message that you get yanked if you lose, even if it wasn’t on you, and that’s a bad signal to a goalie after 1 loss.

Hawks Dmen had some lapses, and Crow bailed out most of them. We had very little net presence in their end, but it might not have mattered: sometimes the bounces all go the wrong way and sometimes the other goalie stands on his head. Some of both last night.

Color me disappointed but not worried.

airline food shutouts?

The Hawks are the #5 scoring team in the league this year (3.19 GF/G), but they have been shut out four times- only the Islanders have suffered more shutouts.

I’m generally a fan of the line generator, but it seems like when the game is half over and the Hawks haven’t scored, Q just goes batshit. I wonder if this has something to do with the team’s curious penchant for getting shutout.

On the flipside, although the Hawks are #15 in the league in GA/G, they are one of only four teams that has yet to register a shutout. The others are defensive stalwarts NYI, CBJ, and OTT, #s 25, 29, and 30 in the league in GA/G.

Finally today on “shutout corner”. Did you know:

Neither OTT or CBJ has been involved in a shut-out game either way this year. Sounds like not much defense happens in Ottawa, but CBJ is #27 in the league in GF/G (2.33) but hasn’t been shut out yet. Remarkable.