Well, it was always going to be a challenge, wasn’t it? In the barn of the East’s leading a team, a desperate team who wanted to turn things around after some dodgy play recently. Unfortunately, the Hawks weren’t up to it for the most part.
The game started all right. D-Ladd Soul started the game with a good shift, and the Hawks created some good chances, though so did the B’s. Eventually, Boston started to tilt the ice, and things really got messy after the first goal. Enter Brian Campbell, who played the game today as if on quaaludes. More worried about protecting himself than clearing the puck, this led to a mish-mash of turnovers that Bergeron and Kobasew were only too happy to take advantage of, and Recchi banged in Kobasew’s rebound. The rest of period was the building falling around the Hawks’ ears, and they were lucky to get out of it only one down.
The 2nd was much better, and Captain Marvel turned the tide but drawing a penalty, the ensuing power play creating momentum, and then scoring on the next man-advantage that resulted out of said momentum. Unfortunately, it didn’t take more than 35 seconds for two of the Hawks’ warts to rule them out of being asked to the dance. Those would be Huet’s tendency to give up a sofite, and Campbell and Walker’s tendency to be DEFCON 5 in their own zone. Cue Huet for the B’s 2nd, and the latter for the 3rd. After that, it was too big of a hill to climb.
But just in case it wasn’t, Campbell decided to up the challenge by falling down doing one of his fucking spin-o-doofus, leaving Kessel, Lucic, and Savard in. They’re only one of the best lines in hockey. You can figure out the rest.
To be fair, the Hawks showed a fair amount of heart to battle back, on goals from Versteeg and Kane (where has that shot been?). They certainly had the B’s on the run in the last few minutes, and we sure would have liked to see what would have happened if Kane had dumped the puck in instead of trying to beat Axelsson, leading to the clincher.
I was worried tomorrow would be a trap-game, but after a what was mostly a subpar effort today, I fear that less. Hopefully, I’m right
Corsi and shifts. Player of the game
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Captain Marvel