After having let last night’s shootout win sink in a little bit more, I’ve got a few more thoughts during the off day as the Hawks turn right around and play the Blues again tomorrow. So, if you’ll indulge me a bit, we’ll get right to them.
- While the Corsi numbers show Bolland’s line getting torched, primarily facing the Twins for the majority of the game, to me, they weren’t all that noticable. They were more noticeable than the ghosts that were Mikael Samuelsson and Ryan Kesler, however.
- Additionally, while the Hawks got outshot, as a team, they in my opinion played their tightest defensive game yet, doing far less running around in their own zone. There were minimal second chance opportunities for the Canucks, and Turco did a great job of not allowing those even as the shot totals accumulated.
- Leave it to John Scott to make Jassen Cullimore look like Chris Pronger. All joking aside, though, Cullimore has been far from terrible in his newfound third pairing role, something that I doubted would have been possible. His game has always had flaws and he’s 37, but you have to appreciate the guy willing to slog it out in the minors to get his shot in the show again. A bottom pairing of Cullimore and Boynton once Campbell returns wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world with the way those two are playing. Boynton could stand to play a little bit more disciplined positionally, however.
- The Skille and Stalberg thing is getting beaten to death, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop. Whatever perceived defensive zone deficiencies they may have couldn’t possibly be that much worse than those of Bryan Bickell. Perhaps Q’s finally getting the picture though, if his remarks in Rogers’ blog are to be believed
“You look at energy lines around the league, they could be as quick as there is,” Quenneville said.
How nice of him to finally see what many of us had been screaming at the tops of our lungs since before October 7th in Colorado.
- We give him a ton of well-deserved shit here, but Roberto Luongo kept his team in the game last night. The Hawks could have very easily had a 4-0 lead after the first period, but the man frequently known as Reboundo was nowhere to be found.
- It will be interesting to see which game Quenneville gives Turco off over the weekend during the back to backs. While he’s been playing well and you hate to break any rhythm that he has, it’d be best not to overwork him early. The smart money says Corey Crawford gets a look at purported wiener tucker Rick Nash and his teammates on Saturday night.
- Lastly, a bit of self-congratulatory bullshit. Last night was Sam’s 100th gameday edition of the Committed Indian, so congratulations to him.