A State That's Untouchable Like Elliot Ness: Ducks 3 - Hawks 1

Did not see that one coming.

Brutal game. Hope for the best. I believe in these guys.

The lyrics kind of exemplify the production on ice I love this song, the lyrics just stuck though.

i mean yea, I would have liked razor to stop that one but damn it wasn’t a gimmie by any means. He was already moving with the puck and it decided to go five hole after bouncing off keith who was pretty close to him.

And we turn in another all green third period. In all seriousness, though, I thought after our first real DLR we’d have turned the corner. Maybe after our first shut out?

Comments on Yahoo are making me cry.

Ladd, Versteeg, and Brouwer are all top 6 forwards on their new teams. Buff and Campbell are all top 4 D-men on their new teams.

I’ll give you Campbell. The rest? Ha! Brouwer mostly treated to the Top 6 here…except when he was in the dog house. Ladd? Winnipeg, really? Versteeg? Ok.

Ugh…fucking torture.

Just finished a road trip 2-6-1. And now their plane is having technical issues and the team is currently grounded in St. Paul. Ouch.

Hawks next game is Wednesday.
Trying to come up with something witty regarding this.
I need help because I’m terribly exposed out here on the ledge and confused too.

Dammit! What am I thinking? That there might be an alignment of the spheres or something to propel the Hawks on a winning streak? That’s vanity desperation.

Hawks were outmuscled, outshot, outplayed in nearly all aspects of the game. And frankly, it just confuses me how this team can go from absolute brillance, to complete rubbish just like that. At the rate we’re going, and with the Avs and Stars fighting their way into contention, we almost don’t even deserve to make the playoffs, and if we do make it and get caught playing Vancouver or Detroit, there’s a good chance its going to be a complete embarrassment.

There’s a couple days left, hopefully we get the help we need right now, or at least start clicking back on all cylinders again. We’ve got the Leafs at home in a couple of days, so I can take some solace in that, hopefully…

but when you explain the power play point men being on their weak sides, thus making D to D passes and keep ins easier, this to me is a bit silly. The hawks power play, as it is built (at least to me) seems to thrive on a few things:

1. The pass down low to whomever is beside the goal looking to pass to the backdoor play if it is open or take the puck strong to the net.

2. Kane on the half wall doing that little curl to face the net and A. pass to an open man or B. shoot as he did tonight.

3. Finally and Most important, getting point shots.

Analysing these things at the moment i get this:

1. The backdoor is closed unless you get lucky against an East team who hasnt seen you. Stop using it, or do one thing(which we saw used to great success against vancouver in 2010 and 2011 playoffs) Have Toews or Hossa or whoever is down their take the puck hard to the net and slam it against the goalies pads or score. This will do one of two things:

A. Force the Defense to collapse and make a play, opening passing lanes. Also there is the option of a well places low shot that finds the back of the net as Goalies usually hug the post with one leg down and one leg still up making it hard to cover the far side of the net.

B. Force the goalie to make a save, creating a scoring chance or a nice rebound, once again forcing the defense to collapse and forgetting about wandering forwards trying to poke a rebound home.

2. At the expense of the idiots who yell shoot, Kane really needs to shoot more. As i’ve seen numerous times this year, Kane has been in pass first mode and is part of the reason why his goal scoring is down and why the power play sucks. Kane has a wicked wrist shot and grade A accuracy, making it hard to stop his shots and give no rebounds. If i’m Sharp, i tell Kane to shoot and set myself up for a possible pass for a One timer, something that is very very lacking in my opinion on the PP.

3. Like i said above, it seems to me that most of the time this year has been watching our point men shoot pucks into legs of defenders. This is where the statement above gets me. A lot of our power play goals come from good point shots and rebounds created by them. Why would they make it harder for our D men to get shots off if it seems to be so important? Its just seems a bit mind boggling to me that they would allow this.

I’m getting kinda pissed at the amount of stupidity and failure of the power play this year. What was the one thing we heard over and over when they played the Flames and Nucks in 2009, and the Nucks again in 2010?

Laugh at them as they parade to the penalty box and watch them cry when we make them pay on the power play.
This is the philosophy of this team and it started when they put Skill ahead of braun. Its what the Redwings have done for the last 15 or so years(this years red wings PP is a bit of an anomaly IMO) and they constantly tell us that they want to model themselves after that organ- i -zation.

From what Ive seen, it seems to me after seeing the Bruins win last year they wanted to change the team to more resemble them, how we heard about more grit, more sandpaper, how to be harder to play against. hey Hawks, make up your mind, you cant have both. Its either Skill or Tomfoolery. If you choose Tomfoolery, you better damn well have Tim Thomas stopping pucks and Chara on the blueline.

were too young to know when to quit. Now it seems that 1 and 2 goal deficits mountains to overcome. Even 1 goal leads there is no confidence, you can feel it at home. What happened mentally to these guys?

I also want to know why they don’t finish more checks. You don’t have to knock them into next week and you don’t have to be a big player to finish your check. I see a lot of playing the puck and not the body when it should be the other way around. There’s been instances when a neutral zone cross ice pass is made and the person making the pass is allowed to continue skating at the same speed meanwhile the defense is crossing over and boom its a 3-2 because the original passer was untouched.

And the final thought that burns my grits is seeing an opposing player in between our D and our goalie, Leddy and Keith are terrible at allowing this, and against the Kings I noticed Seabs on it. You must fight for that real estate. You also do not have to be a big guy to do this. Be pesky, throw as many bumps, pushes, whatever you need to do to make that guys life uncomfortable there and at all costs keep inside position. Too many times i’ll see two opposing players have inside position on our D, it’s unacceptable and somewhat disrespectful to whoever is in net.

Back to my original sentence. Why did in losing Ladd, Eager, Versteeg, Burish and Buff did we lose the ability to WANT IT, to have that hunger. I don’t want to believe that it has anything to do with losing those guys, but I’m starting to see a lot this year that we saw last season. I really hope it doesn’t come down to barely making the playoffs and not waking up until down 3-0 in the first round. There’s my two cents

…but I think the best thing for the club would be to miss the playoffs.

The kind of colossal collapse from the top of the league just a few months ago to the outside looking in come April is possibly the only signal strong enough to make the kind drastic changes this team needs.

Our core is going nowhere. Our prospects are likely staying put as well. Aside from a revolving door of role-players that will have marginal impact, there is only one major overhaul that can provide the kind of sweeping change this team needs.

The coaching staff needs to be changed.

The PP is unacceptable.

The PK is unacceptable.

The defensive systems in place are either non-existant, or the coaching staff has lost the team to the point that the players simply aren’t performing it. Both possibilities are damning endictments of a coaching staff.

It was fun Q. It’s time to go. I hear Washington might be looking for another new coach come next season, and shiny Stanley Cup rings help ensure a coach is never out of work in the NHL for long.

Shit.

By by season, 19 shots a game, no goalie, no defense, adds up to no hope! Trade’s wouldn’t help now, I hope the young kids can mature fast, for next year I mean.

We just don’t have it this year……… period!

With today being deadline day, and the Hawks recent funk, that a trade is made more on the funk and a big player is moved out of Chicago for a short term fix.

After Kane scored the pp goal I saw kitchen yapping away in his ear and after that the game flow just wasn’t quite the same. I remember someone mentioning in the dallas wrap up a similar thing happening between kitchen and seabrook right before the first Dallas goal and then things went flying off the rails. I could just be making silly assumptions based on conversations that I’m not a part of hearing.

Now the late 1st period goal by cogliano didn’t help but come on. These guys are professionals and should be able to rebound from that kind of goal. For once this season I’d like to see some fire and brimstone for multiple periods and cover several games. The schedule doesn’t get any easier here on out

Caps just put Backstrom on LTIR.. at a stroke they’ve freed up $7.6m of Cap space..

or reduce his caffeine intake. He’s going to take someone’s eye out.

As per @DarrenDreger, NYI are now taking offers on P.A. Parenteau. But not goalie Evgeny Nabokov. #TradeCentre #tsn

Fribourg made the playoffs as the 3rd seed, 2 pts out of first in the leauge, with the league’s most regulation wins. Read an article last night, apparently Huet is the most popular player on the team. He finished the season with a .931 Sv%. The series starts on 3/1 and the 7th game is scheduled for 3/15 if it goes that long.

I doubt Huet is an option now, if he ever was, especially if Fribourg goes on to the next round.

Hawks will likely need to make do with what they have. Even with other holes being filled, I doubt this team goes far without improved goaltending. In fact, I’m sure of it.

Not confirmed, but hearing very strong rumors of Andrei Kostitsyn to NSH.

…for Johnny Oduya

got themselves their very own pair of brothers…

I think Gauthier will be seking employment (as will Cunneyworth) after this season. So, do they strip it all down and start again (aside from the Price/Subbans) of this world? Abd does this mean we can expect Campoli back in Chicago?

really?

CBJs taking down rick nash banners from outside the stadium,if that means anything.

That’s still stuck in my craw.

The “give a crap meter” looks like at an all time low with our players.