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Game Time: 7:30 Central
TV/Radio: CSN/WGN
Poor Misguided Fools: St. Louis Game Time
First things first – Cristobal Huet is getting the start tonight. Antti Niemi evidently caught the flu or something meaning he won’t even be on the bench tonight. Joe Fallon was called up from the Hogs. Now, why not Corey Crawford I’m sure you’re asking. I have no idea. The Hogs play Grand Rapids tonight and if I actually followed the AHL teams I may be able to tell you that it’s an important game for Rockford… but I can’t… because I don’t. Grand Rapids isn’t even in Rockford’s division though. So make of that what you will.
The other big news is the Hawks have decided who is going to sit tonight with the return of Fabulous Weapon. Interestingly, it’ll be Colin Fraser in the press box as Dave Bolland will be centering for Tomas Kopecky and Ben Eager. So all of us who are more than a little excited about a second line of Sharp-Bolland-Hossa will just have to wait a little while longer. Once Bolland gets back up to speed expect Sharp to move back to the wing and the Hawks to have to make some harder decisions on who to sit every night. Or not (Sorry Kopecky).
As for our foes from St. Louis, things aren’t going much better than the last time we saw them a month ago. With new coach David Davis Payne, they went on one winning streak but have since fallen into a pretty steady win a game, lose a game pattern. And I guess that’s good since earlier in the season they were just losing.. a lot.
They’re still pretty well out of the playoff picture though and need to get moving if they’re going to work another late run into the second season. The next few games before the Olympics could make or break the season for St. Louis so they’re not a team the Hawks can afford to go easy on.
We know what to expect from this team though – they’re going to finish every check, they’re going to take a dumb penalty or two (or eight – they’ve got the fourth highest PIM/G in the league) and that’s all part of their plan to throw the Blackhawks off their game with general douchbaggery. The Blues still have one of the better penalty killing squads but if the Hawks can make them pay with the extra man then we may (hopefully) see a return of DLR. We know the UC will be foaming at the mouth… lets hope it translates to the Hawks play on the ice.
Lets Go Hawks