So, needless to say, a whole bunch of shit went down yesterday in the NHL. Here's a quick recap and reaction to it

• Scott Niedermayer retired. While he probably still had gas left in the tank, he really had nothing more to accomplish, and with the Ducks now trying to rebuild/reload, the thought of another long and strenuous season was probably enough to have Nieds call it a career. Either that, or he just REALLY doesn't like covering for James Wisniewski. On a personal note, Niedermayer was one of my favorite players, and it's somewhat sad to see him hang 'em up. When rumors started circulating that he was trade bait and the Hawks might have looked into him, Sam can attest that I would not shut the fuck up about it until after the deadline passed and he remained a Duck. I would have bought a Niedermayer indian head sweater in a heartbeat, even if he only played out the remainder of 2010 as a Hawk. But alas, that didn't happen, and we still wish Nieds the best in his retirement, and despite the Hall of Fame being fucking clown shoes (more on that below), he'll be enshrined the moment he's eligible, and for once with good reason. Now would you mind taking Teemu Selanne with you?
• The Sharks are parting ways with Evgeni Nabakov. Not a total surprise, as they have money they need to spend elsewhere, like reloading their blue line and retaining Patrick Marleau, and this year's finals matchup showed a team didn't need a big-money goalie to win a conference or a cup. Someone will give Nabby a pretty respectable deal, but he won't pull the $5.4 mildo he was earning before given his propensity to wilt in April and May.
  
• Uncle Dale shipped Nathan Horton to the Bruins for Dennis Wideman and the #15 pick. Though he can play both center and right wing, he'll primarily be used on the wing in Boston given the depth they have at center in Marc Savard, David Krejci, and more than likely Tyler Seguin. Look for the B's to move Patrice Bergeron as a result. Horton has a boatload of skill, but never made as much of it as most believe he can while languishing in Florida. He'll have every opportunity to flourish in Boston, and now the Bruins are looking at some scary depth down the middle. In Wideman, the Tallon and the Panthers get a right-shooting, puck-moving defenseman who regressed more than a bit last year after a breakout year in 08-09. He'll have to regain that form for this to be a solid deal for the Panthers- but when's the last time Dale got porked in a trade?
• Brent Sopel will march with the Stanley Cup in the Pride Parade on Saturday with his family, in part as a tribute to Brendan Burke. We give Sopel a lot of shit here, but no one can dispute the fact that he's a prince off the ice.
• Lastly, the Hall of Fame inductions are a joke. I don't know what's more ridiculous - that Dino fucking Ciccarelli got in, or that we have to be outraged that Joe Niewendyk didn't? The induction process needs to be seriously overhauled, or at this rate Fels will get inducted as a builder in 20 years, and if that's not a sign of the apocalypse, then I must've misread Revelations.

This is the third goddamn time I've tried to start this game recap, so hopefully my computer plays along and I can actually get through this one.  Much like McClure after the second loss to Columbus this weekend, I'm a little confused as to how to write this review.  On the one hand - yes, the Blackhawks won and did so in a fairly dominating fashion.  The Wild were never really in this game from the start.  It has been what we've been waiting to see for what feels like ages now - a return to a solid team. 

On the other hand - it's deja vu all over again.  We've seen the Hawks pull out a solid victory at times against teams like Los Angeles and Phoenix - but we've seen them go right back to the craptacular play we've seen the last three games.  We can't get too excited over a rout of Minnesota because this is exactly the type of team the Blackhawks should be beating up all season... especially given how many players are missing from the Wild's lineup. 

We've had enough of the doomsday naysaying though - so lets focus on the good.  For all of Q's line juggling - he seems to have found something that really worked.  The top line of Hossa-Toews-Sharp is a force to be reckoned with.  It'll be hard to find a line that will scare opponents more than those three paired up.  All three can play just about any type of game you ask of them.  And they only contributed one goal on the night.

Kane-Bolland-Brouwer is another line that we'd certainly like to see more of... while they didn't get any points they did generate some solid chances.  It's obviously nice to see Kane not on a line with Versteeg as no good can come from the two of them paired together.

I'm going to skip over talking about the third line and get straight to the big story of the night - the return of a strong fourth.  Tomas Kopecky once again had 2 goals and Ben Eager threw in another and came only a fight short of the Gordie Howe Hat Trick.  Eager has still been a disappointment so far this year but if they can generate chances they way they did today (even if it is pure blind luck)... it'll go a long way in the post season. 

There's a lot more to talk about soon - but it's late now and we've got our third podcast coming up tomorrow where we'll discuss some more.  Also, John Carpenter's "The Thing" is on HBO right now so if I don't force myself to go to bed now I'll end up watching the whole fucking thing and not getting any sleep at all tonight. 

Good game... but lets not start sucking each other's dicks yet.  I'm still waiting to see two in a row...

About sums it up

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I used that quote from Almost Famous (a movie I like less and less every time I see it, but that's another discussion) almost exactly a year ago in The Indian.  It also came after a bad road loss in Columbus late in the year, and it also signaled the end of Cristobal Huet's chances of leading the Hawks into the playoffs.  Most people wanted Khabibulin to get the nod, and he pretty much did after that night.  Well Ray Davies, "Here we go round again..".  I said I was rooting for Cris tonight, and I was.  But I obviously can't sit here and defend him.  Here's how it goes from here, most likely:  Niemi will get the start Sunday, if for no other reason than to save Cris from the wrath of the UC faithful.  They will split the back-to-back against St. Louis and Minnehaha, and unless something completely stupid, Niemi will get the rest of the games.  And so my hopes of a first Cup in my lifetime will be pinned on a rookie goalie, which makes me anything but comfortable.

When I scoffed at the idea of acquiring Roloson or Biron or another journeyman, it was with the idea that Huet would regain form and be better than any of those.  Sure, Vokoun was certainly an upgrade but I doubt the Hawks would have given up what it would have taken.  Whether you think he's been mishandled or unlucky with sickness or not, it doesn't matter,  Huet fluffed his lines tonight, and there is no road to recovery visible.  I wish he hadn't, because there will come a point where Niemi has a bad period in the playoffs, or gets an injury, and Huet will be called upon.  It would have been wonderful if he had anything resembling confidence when that moment comes.

However, if you think the only thing unacceptable tonight was the goaltending, you are sadly mistaken.  The Hawks said all the right things about wanting the #1 seed, about not taking an opponent whose season is over lightly, about tightening up their game during this run-in.  They then proceeded to put forth an effort that contained no urgency, effort, or intelligence.  How many d-men got caught up ice on a rush?  How many times did they run around in their own zone?  Did they ever get anyone in front of the net?  The power play was as bad as it's been, at least while the game still was a game.  I could go on and on.

There's an issue I wanted to address right before the playoffs, and we'll get deeper into it then, but I do want to mention it.  One issue besides the goalies and the power play that has me urpy about the playoffs is our coach, and specifically his impatience.  Sometimes it's a good thing to quickly change something that isn't working.  But sometimes...  After the 1st, the Hawks were only down 2-0, and it was still very much a game.  Keep in mind, the Hawks were just coming off the most solid game they've played in recent memory.  Was one bad period really a call for Line-Jumble-Palooza?  What kind of message does that send?  And it clearly made things worse.  Why was Versteeg moved off what has been your most consistent line for the past month?  What did Troy Brouwer do to deserve to go to the 4th line? 

We all remember Q's meltdown in Game 4 against Scum last year.  While it probably wouldn't have made a difference in that series, that was most decidedly the wrong way to go.  He's already played the hair-dryer card after the loss in Phoenix, you can't pull that card twice.  Now what?  Is it time for Toews to do it?  Can he when he's been pretty unnoticeable since the Olympics?  Does one of the other leaders?  Madden?  Sharp?  Keith? 

I can only hope tonight is a wakeup call.  And now that the biggest question is settled, everyone can look in the mirror and wonder what they have to be better at before the playoffs start. 

You count on me for trying to find a bright side, so here's my attempt.  It was a year ago to the day almost that the Canucks and Canadiens stomped a mudhole in us.  The Hawks when 6-0-1 the rest of the way.  So there you go.

Other Thoughts

-We began to see the cracks of having Buff at D tonight.  He was caught out of position a couple times, and pairing him with Hossa on the power play is suicide.  Think harder, Homer.

-If Bolland wasn't going to play, why wasn't Sharp moved back to Hossa's center, when they clearly had chemistry in that set-up earlier in the year?

-The power play needs Johnsson back, and I get the feeling it's going to be a long while yet.

-Is Captain Marvel going to get the mojo back?

-Apropos of nothing:  That McDonalds ad with the douchenozzle who won't let anyone talk to him until he's had his coffee - am I really supposed to believe that no one would have hit him in the face with a piece of heavy mining equipment?  I sure would have.

in the words of Miranda Priestly, "That's all."

Count me as one of the many people who are utterly confused by these Phoenix Coyotes.  They're a collection of Blackhawk rejects and other guys you've probably never heard of and a goalie playing out of his head.  Yet they're a point behind the Sharks in Pacific and just two points behind the Blackhawks now after winning last night's game in the shootout.  They've got a fairly tough schedule remaining the season but there's still a damn good chance we could see them beat out the Sharks for the top spot in the Pacific (which would be hilarious) and don't be surprised if they challenge the Hawks as well for the overall top seed.

Things certainly started off well enough last night, Daydream Nation helped set up Troy Brouwer for a can't miss shot from the slot. Then the wheels started to come off for Bryzgalov... On a power play in the second, Hossa feed Patrick Kane a beautiful cross ice pass and Kane wristed it in.  Bryzgalov couldn't move across his crease quick enough (few goalies probably could) and wasn't able to make a stop despite the puck hitting him. 

Wojtek Wolski was to shove a puck in about halfway through the second and it didn't take long in the third for the Lee Stempniak to tie it up.  It looked like the Hawks would just get lucky in the game as both Andrew Ladd and Patrick Sharp scored Charmin soft goals against Ilya Bryzgalov but it wasn't meant to be.  On their fifth power play of the night, the Yotes finally got it right and Stempniak was able to score his second of the night.  With just five minutes left former Hawks captain Adrian Aucoin tied the game.  A bunch of stuff then happened in OT, posts were hit, penalty shot, kicked in pucks... this is where the night gets a little hazy for me.  The Hawks weren't able to score in the skill competition but Radim Vrbata got his backhander to work...

While I'm not yet concerned about the Hawks inability to shut down teams when they've got the lead, I'm certainly annoyed by it.  The Hawks had a chance to take advantage of a rare off night from Ilya Bryzgalov but failed to keep the Coyotes off the scorecard.  I guess that's what happens when half of your defense is on the shelf though. 

I have no idea what the hell Ben Eager was doing all night.  In just about 8 minutes of time on ice, he racked up 6 PIM.  The first 4 on a rare spearing call and the second after he slashed and seemingly challenged Shane Doan to a fight immediately after Wolski's goal.  While the fourth line had one or two good games lately, they've had a lot more where they can't seem to do anything right.  This is something to be watched..

Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who made it out to the Bottom Lounge last night.  The turnout was far better than we expected (we're still surprised you want to read this drivel, let alone hang out with us) and from what we can remember, the three of us had a great time.

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. 

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.