Yeah, more pop culture references. We tried to get away, but you can’t run from who you are.
Anyway, I felt like complaining and swearing, so I have a grab bag of assorted thoughts and things that are kind of burning my ass right now.
Look people, a crazy man is yelling!
-I’m beginning to think Pat Foley actually is the guy in the section next to mine who owns a Scott and Carcillo jersey and yells the biggest meatball shit in the world. Has a game gone by where Foley hasn’t mentioned the hit stats on the team or player in the past month? He wasn’t alone last night, as Adam Jahns and others got in the act on Twitter.
Let’s ignore that the tallying of these things vary wildly from arena to arena. I get it, the Hawks get outhit in almost every game. Meanwhile, while these wildabeests are getting into a fine lather and froth about what a bunch of pansies the Hawks are, last night they were providing a perfect example of how they can have the best of a hockey game without trying to pulverize everything that’s in the other color. And that’s on defense too.
The Hawks used the amount of speed they have to basically squeeze the Canucks on the backcheck into their defense waiting on the blue line. As McClure mentioned last night, the Canucks do kind of play into the Hawks’ hands because they like to carry the puck into the zone with speed. But against a lot of teams, when the Hawks are as determined to work that hard in their own end, they gobble up space for other teams to make plays. They don’t have to run around making boards rattle when they can do it with their feet and then make a play with their hands.
Would I like the Hawks to be a little bigger and a little nastier? Of course. Do I need them to be the Blues? No, I don’t. There are different ways to win a hockey game. The Hawks showed you how they can do it best last night. Yes, smart guy, I know they didn’t win last night. And if every goalie the Hawks play from here on out is as good as Schneider was last night, they’ll probably lose a lot. You’d get pretty nice odds on that.
-Not every play that happens during a game warrants yet another trade suggestion. This is getting ridiculous. It seems like with any turnover, that guy’s gotta go for this guy. Good god. It is most likely that the guy the Hawks bring in to shore up the defense will not be a name that will set your balls on fire. It’ll be just the right sized piece to fill the hole(s) the Hawks have (by crackee!). That name doesn’t change with the score.
-Ah, the John Scott rant. I won’t go in depth on this one, because I don’t need to. By now, everyone has seen through the protection argument. What last night was Q being pissed off at Sean O’Donnell’s performance against Nashville and benching him for it. And it was Q deciding that dressing no one was better than dressing Sami Lepisto. And make no mistake, when he plays Scott, he’s playing no one, because 5 minutes of time does not constitute an actual human. Was Lepisto so bad that he’s worse than an empty slot? If Quenneville thinks so, then he might as well have stuck with O.D. If he’s trying to make a point to his GM, that point has already been well made.
-I decided to have some fun with numbers because I’m a huge loser. The Hawks are spending $36k or so for every goal from Viktor Stalberg. They’re getting goals from Captain Marvel at a rate of $138K per. Kane’s come in at 338K. League leader Steven Stamkos is about the same as Toews. Obviously, this is a stupid way to measure things, the only point I’m trying to make is just how much the Hawks are getting from Stalberg for his contract and expectations. This was the goal and point total I expected from him for 82 games, not 51. While the bile for him probably isn’t as high as I think it is in my twisted little mind, I just wish more people would pay attention to what Rattlehead is instead of isn’t. And last night, he was the best player on the ice. For either team, and I’ve got emails from some Canucks bloggers who wholeheartedly agree with that.
-In the time Patrick Sharp missed, the Hawks scored six power play goals in eight games. They came from both units. That’s not a revolutionary rate, but it’s hardly bad either. They did it with two d-men on each unit, both playing the point, if you can believe that. It had Dave Bolland floating from combining on the goal line with Andrew Brunette to the high slot. So did Toews. So why when Sharp comes back from injury does Bolland go back to the point and Sharp return to the point as well?
Ok, think I’m done now.