More photos » Jim Prisching - AP

Perhaps the greatest Toewsface yet.

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Apologies for the late wrap, but there was obviously the after party last night, and on top of it, I was out with my brother for his birthday. This game ended pretty much the way it was supposed to, save a brief scare in the second period. Not quite DLR caliber, but if they had added a sixth, he would have been contractually obligated to make an appearance. So let's just skip right to the observations, shall we, since it's a game against Edmonton for fuck's sake.

Observations

• Marian Hossa was everywhere last night, and his first star was well earned. It was the first time it actually looked like he and Dave Bolland had some on-ice chemistry, but it was against the Oilers, so take it for what it's worth. Troy Brouwer seems like a nice fit on that line as well.
  
• Both goals against Cristobal Huet were soft. Fix this. This type of shit will not fly against the upcoming opponents.
  
• The shots were once again out of control, with the Hawks peppering Devin Dubnyk to the tune of 47 shots on goal. Soupy and Hammer once again led the way in CORSI, with +23 and +25 respectively.
• Speaking of Niklas Hjalmarsson, it was nice to see him get himself another goal on the year, once again walking the puck across the blueline to get a low, hard shot from the middle of the ice.
• Thank you to everyone who refrained from being a shithead during the Canadian national anthem. I was fearful that there would be a meatball contingent booing after the result of the gold medal game, but thankfully the only boos happened on the replay of the Crosby goal, which is fine by me. There were nice ovations for all the Olympians as they were introduced as well. However, there were two fuckheads a couple seats over from me who didn't stand for the Canadian anthem. That's just flat out ignorant.
• While the first goal was soft, it's not entirely on Cris. Brent Seabrook HAS to force Sam Gagner (SAM FUCKING GAGNER) further to the outside on that play. Something with Seabrook is broken, and it needs to be fixed immediately.
• Nice to see Ben Eager back to taking dumb dick penalties.
• If Jason Strudwick is wearing an "A" for you, then your team sucks.
• Also, a big THANK YOU to the Bottom Lounge and to everyone who showed up after the game. We hope you had fun, and we're looking forward to doing more of that type of stuff in the future.

Dat Horsa Guy scored the first goal of the game on an effortless wrister from inside the blue line, and assisted on Bolland's tap in for two points, and was a force all over the ice with several "I'm Marian Hossa and you're not" moments. 

More photos » Paul J. Bereswill - AP

At least it wasn't human excrement being regurgitated by the plumbing at Nassau tonight.

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Of course, we say something on the podcast regarding the Hawks being able to ease back into the schedule against a couple of cupcake opponents such as the Islanders and Oilers, and this shit happens.

It all started well enough, with the Hawks coming out in the first looking like they were OD'ing on 5-Hour Energy, absolutely bombarding Dwayne Roloson from every angle. He gave nearly no rebounds, and the first meaty one he allowed, Brian Campbell was able to poke home after jumping up on the play and working a give and go with Patrick Kane. The Brent Seabrook Adventures continued in his own zone when he coughed up a puck in the near corner to Rob Schremp, who slid it to Blake Comeau, who then fired a wrister that Niemi could have had. This would be the recurring theme of the evening.  Kane would tuck one past Rolo on a wrap around on the man advantage, and the Hawks would lead on the scoreboard 2-1 after 20 minutes, and lead the shot board by a whopping 22-9 margin.

And then it all fell apart.

The second period lacked the same immediate intensity the first had from the Men of Four Feathers, but were by no means being dominated. Comeau once again found himself with the puck on his stick in the circle to the left of Niemi, and again, it's was a wrister that could have been stopped. Seconds later, Jon Sim (who I didn't know was even still in the NHL)  got one past Niemi, and Q promptly gave him the hook. Cristobal Huet would fare no better, getting beat cleanly glove side by Richard Park who slapped the puck off of a carom from the boards. Comeau would turn the trick with about 18 seconds left in the frame, this time changing things up and going stick side on Huet, who again had a clean look at things on that shot as well.

Deciding it was time to play once again, the Hawks came out with a jump in the third, once again dominating play territorially. Roloson had to make only a couple difficult saves, notably the one on Kris Versteeg that was set up by Dave Bolland and Marian Hossa. It appeared as though the Hawks had scored about halfway through the period on a Duncan Keith point wrister through a Ben Eager screen, but it was immediately waved off as no goal. Both the on-ice officials and Toronto ruled that Eager had made incidental contact with Roloson and that was the cause of the nullification. Frankly, I found the call to be bullshit, as Eager was obviously pushed into Roloson by defenseman Freddy Meyer, Rolo clearly exaggerated the contact, and if there was contact to that degree, a penalty should have been called. Dustin Byfuglien scored a late power play goal to make it 5-3, but it was too late. Hawks lose.

• Of course, this has to happen on the eve of the Trade Deadline with Dwayne Roloson as one of the names being floated out there as a potential target for the Hawks. From these seats, after tonight, I can't really put up a fight regarding trading for a netmider anymore, I just hope Stan Bowman doesn't do so rashly and overpay if he's going to. I still think it can be done with the tandem in place- between the two of them I don't think they can lose 4 out of 7 behind this team, but they've got to get their shit straight. Maybe it was just rust tonight, but we've seen this show before. It's telling when the crew determines the save of the night to be Trent Hunter hitting the post on an empty Hawks net. Furthermore, in spite of his performance tonight, I have no interest in Rolo coming here. He's 40 there will be questions as to whether he can be ridden for a prolonged playoff push, and I also find him to be an assbag. I can do without his histrionics in net- getting in opposing players faces (as he did tonight when Toews crashed into him), and flopping wildly to try to draw calls. I prefer my goalies to have ice in their veins, and Roloson has too much fire and too much passion for my taste.
  
• Speaking of which, the Hawks traded a bag of Buff's stems and seeds (future considerations) to Anaheim for Nick Boynton. Boynton is a physical presence and nothing else, and it's no-lose considering what they gave up, but this could be a harbinger of things to come, as Stan may be stockpiling bodies to send elsewhere.
• Hey kids! The Hawks were 2 of 3 on the power play!
• Not to take anything away from Blake Comeau's first career hat trick, but has there been a softer hat trick scored in recent memory? I think the aggregate velocity of those three shots was somewhere in the neighborhood of 67 miles per hour.
• I was trying to intently watch John Tavares this evening to see what the Islanders' future would hold, but I just couldn't find him anywhere on the ice. 
• CORSI numbers are once again fucking ridiculous. Campbell and Hammer were +27 and +26 respectively. 

Congrats on the trick, kid. Plus, I'm just looking for a way to show the Islanders' classic sweaters here.

 

 

• PROGRAMMING NOTE: I'll be live blogging all the deadline happenings tomorrow from about 10AMish central (that might be an aggressive wake-up call, but I'm going to try for you people) til right around the deadline at 2PM central in both the comments and in the post itself. Should be pretty interesting both here and league-wide. Should anything major happen, we'll try to get reaction up as quick as possible before the gameday thread. And don't forget about the Bottom Lounge party tomorrow!
  

Well we'll try something new here.  This will be a recap written by a guy who only actually watched the first period of this game before spending time being a boyfriend and taking my girl out before spending time with all you schmucks drinking, eating and hockey watching in St. Louis (and just in case she reads this, I had a great time) . Sam and McClure both told me via text messages that I'd be able to write the best recap seeing as how they decided to go out and get shitty... which is probably quite astute.

To make things even worse for this recap though - I actually missed the Hawks lone goal.  I listened to the game on the radio driving downtown, got out to walk to the bar and by the time I got there I saw the face-off after Colin Fraser's second goal of the year.  Of course I saw it on replays, and it was great to see Fraser grab a goal after being a healthy scratch the last game.  The goal was equal parts skating hard to the net, being in the right spot and lets face it, a lot of luck.  Mario knocked the puck off LaBamba's shoulder and it found it's way into the net.  Kane aims for that space, Fraser just closes his eyes and hopes for the best in this situation.

As of yet, I have no idea how the Coyotes scored their goal.  I see on the box score that it came on the tail end of a Coyotes power play and of course it comes after the always annoying too many men penalty.  Throwing salt into the wound, it had to be Radim Vrbata...

Even worse, ESPN tells me Adrian Aucoin was the first star of the game?  The fuck?  This game existed to do nothing but kick us in the junk.  Lets hope for something better tomorrow or it's going to be quite ugly. 

Oh lord.  I hope all you drunks had a good time at the Whirlaway or in the gamethread because this was certainly a game where there wasn't a ton of fun to be had.  Unlike the Ottawa game, where the Hawks seemingly just couldn't give a shit, this was an example of the Hawks being out-played and uh.. out-lucked, if that's a thing.

I haven't checked the gamethread but I'm guessing we'll have more than a few confused people in there wondering what happened to the Antti Niemi that was supposed to become our starter and savior between the pipes.  They should take some solace in the fact that the big first period for the Canucks was hardly all on his shoulders.  While he didn't look his sharpest, he wasn't getting the greatest support from the rest of the team and the Canucks were able to capitalize on just about all their chances. 

Worse than the goalie issue is perhaps the Hawks inability to even phase the creepy wonder-twins.  They Hawks talked before the game of the need to shut them down, or at least try to slow them up... but they ended the game with 6 points total off and 9 shots.. oops.  Looking at the shifts charts, you get to see who Q tried to match up against the twins.  John Madden shadowed them for most of the beginning of the game before things got out of hand and we saw the fourth line get a chance at them.  This is perhaps a moment where we all need to stop, step back and realize we've been absolutely spoiled by this team this year.  We've seen them shut down top lines game after game to the point where we simply expect it always happen.  That's not going to be the case though, sometimes players like the Sedins will make the game tough for you. 

The Hawks have one final chance to even up the series before the playoffs.  Circle March 5th on your calender if you haven't already, it should be a good one.

Random Observations:

• Sorry for the delay in the recap again.  The plan was for me to write it after I got home since I'd be sober and could get to it quicker.  I didn't plan on working til 2:00 AM though and only barely being able to watch the game.
• Lets hope other teams lose the tape of these games, the Canucks are one of the few squads that are able to completely shut down the Hawks.  The fact that they can do it even with a scrub defensive squad (Nolan Baumgartner is still alive?!) means other teams are sure to try it.
• Thanks to everyone who came out to the Whirlaway, even though I couldn't make it I hope you all had a good time.  
• So this is what I feels like to lose by more than 3 goals, interesting...
  

Player of the Game:

Andrew Ladd's left fist.

If you can't beat them, it's at least nice to bloody them up a little bit.  Ryan Kessler is just one of many utter douchebags on this Canucks squad and it's good to see him get rocked with a solid jab, forcing him to bail on the fight before it even gets started.  According to Nucks Misconduct, Kessler after the game, "He's a coward, he'll always be a coward," Ryan Kesler said of Andrew Ladd. "At least he was man enough to hit me when I was looking this time."  Christ, what a bitch.

Back to the criminal set- I leave clue after clue, but they can't catch me yet. 'Cause I'm slick and slippery, they can't get wit me, cops ain't shit to me.

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I think it's pretty damn safe to officially say that the Blackhawks are completely and thoroughly mindfucking the Calgary Flames.

After getting their dicks kicked in by San Jose earlier in the week, everyone and their uncle (including the Hawks coaching staff as we'd later learn in the telecast from Mike Haviland) expected the Flames to come out with bottle rockets up their asses looking to not only avenge their latest embarrassment, but the last two embarrassments they had suffered at the hands of the Men of Four Feathers. However, Calgary hit the ice shockingly listless in the first, likely out of fear that running around would lead to giving the Hawks numerous power plays; power plays the Hawks cashed in on repeatedly in the last encounter. The Hawks matched their tentativeness in full expectation of a high octane first period, but once they realized that there was no impending surge from the Flames, the Hawks began to dictate the play and settled into the puck possession game that we've all come to expect after 51 games of this campaign. Patrick Kane was sprung on a breakway, and was granted a penalty shot when Mark "It's the fresh ingredients" Giordano hooked Kane after he was going to be in alone on Miikka Kiprusoff. Kane surprisingly went to his forehand on his penalty shot bid, and Kiprusoff denied the shot with the left pad. The frame ended in bagels, but the Hawks held a shot advantage of 11-5, and allowed no shots on the lone Calgary power play of the period.


That theme carried over into the second, as Kiprusoff repeatedly had to keep his team in the game, notably denying John Madden twice on golden chances, one on a feed from VERSTEEG!, and the other on a redirection on a shot from the point. When the Flames finally committed the penalty they were clearly so piss scared of taking, the Hawks made them pay for it after a magnificent steal and cross ice pass from Jonathan Toews, who somehow spotted Patrick Kane alone on the weak side, and stole the puck and fired a 50 foot backhand pass on the money in one motion. Kane snapped a one-time shot that squeezed through Kiprusoff to give the Hawks the lead. Calgary would answer on a power play toward the tail end of the period when a puck that had slid past Antti Niemi's initial pad save came to Jamie Lundmark who poked it home to tie it. A late icing gave the Hawks a faceoff to Kipper's right, and a smart setup and excellent faceoff win by Patrick Sharp gave Kris Versteeg a golden opportunity to Kiprusoff's left, but it would be one he would shank wide, and the period ended knotted at 1.

The Hawks would play a very workman-like third period, so it seems fitting that the fourth line would account for the deciding goal just short of six minutes into the frame. A very spastic rush by Fraser, Kopecky, and Eager would lead to Kopecky firing a shot from just inside the far ring that would bank off a streaking Ben Eager's knee and skate and into the net.  The obligatory booth review confirmed it was a good goal that was not kicked in, and the Hawks took the lead for good. A late flurry where Calgary finally became interested brought the shot total far closer than it could have been, but the Hawks efficiently snuffed out numerous Calgary opportunities around Niemi, and it eventually led to the Hawks' first empty net goal of the year (the last team to pot one), courtesy of Duncan Keith. Hawks 3, Flames 1, and six of eight points halfway through the road trip.

Observations

• Antii Niemi wasn't overly busy tonight, but he did make the saves he needed to make, particularly early. Calgary didn't have a lot of opportunities, but the ones they did have contained a few difficult saves, almost all of which Niemi snagged.
• John Madden and Marian Hossa had textbook games backchecking this evening. Both put on clinics for back-pressuring as a forward and separating the man from the puck. It's a shame that Iron Madden couldn't have been rewarded for his efforts after getting robbed thrice by Kiprusoff.
• Did Jarome Iginla even play tonight?
• Patrick Sharp, in spite of his apparent utter distaste for the position, is looking like an honest-to-fuck centerman these days. He's covering low in the defensive zone, distributing the puck, and winning draws. Go back and watch him direct traffic before the drop on that faceoff just before the end of the period, then win the draw to the exact spot he wanted it to give VERSTEEG! a golden opportunity. The numbers might not be what we expected out of him this year, but Sharp is proving his value and versatility right now even without them.
• They're Jonathan Toews' boards, and you're just skating near them until he decides you don't get to have the puck any more.
• Had Patrick Kane gone to his backhand off a deke the way he normally does in a shootout situation, he would have scored. Not sure why he tried the forehand move on Kipper, but all's well that ends well I suppose.
• Late in the third period, the Hawks play was a little too passive for my tastes given their firepower and two-way ability, but in a one-goal game on the road after an ugly loss, they can't be blamed for battening down the hatches, and to their credit, they did so quite well

Ain't that some shit?  I was all ready to write a quick re-cap of how awesome the Blackhawks were again and then go out and continue celebrating the evening.  Instead, I'm almost at a loss as for what to write.  Sometimes a team just completely blows a game, and this was one of them.  Now I guess we know how it feels to be a Flames fan... almost

When this team is up by 5 and seemingly dominating a team, it's way too easy to get cocky - that may be exactly what we experienced tonight.  The Blackhawks have still kept up an amazing streak of 8 games in a row where they've scored 4 or more goals, Kane extended his point streak to 11 games, the power play might officially no longer be clown shoes with goals in 9 in a row... yet they end up with only 1 point and Owen Nolan wins the game in yet another shootout that goes way past the initial 3 rounds.

I'm not going to bother recapping every goal and highlight for the game because that would simply take way too long.  And I'm guessing you've got better things to do this weekend (unless you're mjthor... we all know all you do is comment on these stories).  Lets just hope the Hawks learn their lessons and remember it's important to play all 3 periods.  I know they've experience some success when they come out slow in the first, but forgetting to play in the 3rd doesn't give you much time to recover.  On to the...

Quick Thoughts:

• First it was Madden, then it was Buff pulling out a spin-o-rama to take a good shot or pass.. this should have been our first sign that this team was getting way too full of themselves.
  
• Is it possible that John Madden actually passed the puck to VERSTEEG! off of Backstrom's pads?  Because it sure as hell looked like it on that goal
• In the second, Huet way over-committed to a play and was caught absolutely no where near his crease in what should have been an easy goal for the Wild.  It looked like he just gave up on the play expecting another goal... Hammer had other ideas.  Probably the best save of the game.
• Horsa might be worthy of an exclamation point of his own...
  
• Minnesota was credited with 46 hits... I need to check the records but this might be the most against the Hawks all year.  And yet another reason this stat is full of shit (but fun to talk about).
• Every time we think we're done with them, the Huet haters get another reason to run their mouths (or in this case, fingers).  This one can't be blamed on him but I'm sure that won't stop them from trying. 
• So the shootout goes into tomorrow, but for some reason the Wild didn't give Havlat a chance against his former team?  There is probably a lot to read into this but I'll leave that for the comments.  I have no idea why they wouldn't give someone with his skill a chance over players like Clutterbuck, Nolan or Brodziak.  JHC must have been dinged up at some point in this game because he's shown himself to be notoriously thin-skinned and I can't imagine this would go over well with him.  Keep an eye on his unsurprisingly silent Twitter account.

Player of the Game:

This is a first but... we're giving it to Eddie-O.

I believe an assist goes to the equipment crew, because they informed Eddie that after the goals had gone in order, Sharp, Toews, VERSTEEG!, Brouwer, Hossa... that was also each players 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th and 11th goal on the season so far.  These odd little numbers don't mean anything but they're really fun for anyone into numbers and coincidences.. That's without a doubt the coolest thing to happen in this game... is it possible this has ever happened before in NHL history?

Oh well... Wait for tomorrow

More photos » Nam Y. Huh - AP

2 months ago: Chicago Blackhawks' Dustin Byfuglien, right, controls the puck against Anaheim Ducks' Bobby Ryan during the third period of an NHL hockey game in Chicago, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010. The Blackhawks won 5-2. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

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What an odd game this was.  Things got started early with a good drive down the ice by Bobby Ryan but an even better save by Antti Niemi.  This would be a common theme throughout the game as Niemi stopped chance after chance by the Duck tonight - at least until the last few minutes.

Regardless, right after the faceoff to start the play again Dustin Byfuglien and Troy Brodie (with a name like that he belongs on some sort of MTV faux reality show, not the NHL) throw down.  This was probably one of the staged fights that the NHL is looking to get rid of, made even weirder by the fact that Byfuglien seemed excited and more than willing to pound Brodie with a few good punches before scoring the takedown. The rest of the first was fairly back and forth with the Hawks getting plenty of help from both the outstanding play of Niemi and the always helpful posts. 

The second period began much the same as the first - about 6 minutes in the Ducks got a great chance after catching Campbell flat-footed but Niemi came up with an amazing diving pokecheck to keep the puck behind the net allowing the Hawks to start a break away down to the other end.  Buff hit Madden along the blue line, Iron Madden saw VERSTEEG! flying down the ice and got him a pass all alone heading to the net.  Steeger faked a shot going one way to get Giguere down and sprawling before roofing it over his left shoulder. Only 10 minutes later Kane skated behind the net, absorbed a check and fed the puck Troy Brouwer.  Brouwer seemed surprised to find himself a) with the puck and b) so alone that he had time to flub the initial pass, put it on his backhand and fake Giguere again to get the second goal of the game.

The Hawks didn't waste much time to put the game away in the third.  Just over a minute in Sharp won a battle along the boards, got a pass to Ladd who fed a wide open Hossa to score the eventual game winner.  All this was done with only 4 Hawks on the ice as Barker received a hard hit behind the Hawks net and had trouble getting off.  He'd get his revenge later though as he laid a few hard hits on various ducks, including a particularly vicious hit/facewash along the boards to some Duck whose name I can't remember and can't be bothered to look up.  Hossa scored again on another power play to extend their streak with the advantage.  Daydream Nation teamed up to score the final point before the Hawks took their foot off the gas and allowed something called Petteri Nokelainen to score two goals to end the game.

Random Thoughts:

• The Hawks looked tired tonight and never seemed to get it out of 2nd or 3rd gear.  Lucky for them, the Ducks looked just as sloppy and couldn't keep up, even with a clearly worn out Hawks team. 
  
• The game began with James Wisniewski and Ray Whitney slamming into each other about 50 feet away from the puck - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was Wiz who was out of position and knocking over his defensive partner.
• Hjalmarsson sat again tonight but Jordan Hendry didn't seem to miss a step.  He always seemed to be in position and made a few great passes to set up rushes into the Ducks zone. 
  
• The Hawks were losing the SOG battle through two periods 21 to 18 but again showed their ability to dominate a team in the final period - The Ducks were held to only 3 shots in the third - even with two of them finding a way in, they would have needed 5 shots to at least tie the game.  
• Scott Niedermayer added another -2 to his dismal season - it's only a matter of time until he just starts killing his teammates for ruining his legacy.  
• If Buff keeps it up - it's definitely looks like we're seeing a player set out to prove something to Brian Burke.  We welcome it.

Player of the Game:

When the game was close, there was one player that kept the Hawks in the game - so I'm going to have to give the honor to the backup goalie who came incredibly close to drawing even with Ryan Miller and Ilya Bryzgalov for a league leading 5 shutouts, despite only having played in 13 games so far.. wow.

We can't go without giving credit to the Blackhawks though for letting Harvey Wittenberg take over the PA calls for Gene Honda - a nice subtle move that I'm sure plenty of hardcore fans will appreciate.

Oh and by the way, we're going to keep doing this until it stops working - it's your soundtrack to a paddlin'