Excuse the Wilco reference, but if you can believe it there was a time when they were loud and fun, as that song represents. Anywho, sort of a slow day around Hawks camp today. Lalonde and Didomenico were booted down I-90 yesterday, and hopefully Lalonde gets the Top-4, if not top pairing, minutes he needs down there. We know the 7 defensemen that are going to be around Oct. 7th in Denver, no matter how impressive Nick Leddy has been. He’s still small, and still kind of helpless in his own zone. He looks like he’ll be very, very good. We’re going to have to claim ignorance here. We though that with both being 19 they couldn’t be sent to Rockford, but apparently they can? When Leddy goes down he’s going to have to fight for minutes from Cullimore, Lalonde, Connelly, and others, so the decision to pull him out of Minnesota still seems strange. Junior?
Morin is a more interesting case. He keeps popping up in the discussion, even more so as Viktor Stalberg has yet to do anything that makes you take notice other than how fast he gets to the areas where he’s done nothing or how fast he gets to the wrong place. Morin has done everything right. But this discussion isn’t really all that important. Everyone makes it sound like the roster you construct for opening night is the one you have to keep. But you don’t, and you know this…maaan. Makarov, Beach, and Morin will all see time with the big club in the first two months, either due to injuries or incompetence in front of them. We probably won’t know until Dec. 1st what the best roster is for the Hawks, so let us all chillax.
-A word on the booing of the announcement of Chris Chelios Heritage Night. Look, I get it. I think Cheli is pretty much a penis. I think he was slightly overrated as a player here, as there were numerous occasions he ran off to take a selfish and stupid penalty instead of doing what a captain should have been doing. I know he went to play for Scum, and paraded around that Cup he had nothing to do with in our faces in 2008. That said, he’s still one of the best blueliners to ever play for the Hawks. He didn’t demand to go to Detroit, he was traded there. He was the unquestioned leader of some pretty damn good Hawks teams in the early and mid 90’s. He came up huge as well at times when they needed him most to go along with the moments of insanity. I know he’s taken a position in their organization, and he’s been in Detroit longer than he was here. But he’s still from here, and this might be a time to let all of it slide and heal the wounds. Or maybe I’m wrong, and you don’t think you’ll ever get over his complete defection to The Empire. And you’re free to feel that way. But time moves on. Should Doug Wilson not get a Heritage night because he’s the Sharks GM and screwed with our summer? No, he’s still an All-Time great Hawk. And so’s Chelios.
UPDATE – And now it’s being reported that Evan Brophey will learn how to take a faceoff in the AHL along with Jeff Taffe. And finally – the Huet saga ends for the year as he’s officially been loaned to HC Fribourg-Gotteron of the Swiss National League A.