Apologies about the much delayed wrap here – writing about a loss to scum is never easy nor fun. Then I was so in shock that my beloved Redskins beat your much despised Packers and lost track of time before going to see Lightning Bolt terrify and confuse most of Logan Square.
The Hawks actually managed to come out of the game with a good spark. They held the puck solidly in the Wings end… at least for the first minute. Shocking considering the pre-game ceremonies, while amazing, probably aren’t the greatest way to get your head ready to face a team like the Wings. After that solid first minute though, they were inconsistent at best. With Sharp out the lines were once again jumbled around – Captain Marvel with the Slovaks – Bolland centering for Bickell and Kane – Pirri, Pisani and Brouwer thrown together out of sheer desperation while the fourth line stayed the same. Except for the fourth line, none of the combinations seemed to gel.
This isn’t to say that the Hawks looked out of whack all night – there were stretches where things seemed to click. Unfortunately for us though, few of those ever seemed to happen with the man advantage. Seabrook answered Filppula’s first goal with only 3 seconds left in the first on the power play but the Hawks never managed to put any real pressure on the Wings on the three straight power plays in the third period. Campbell’s return in a few weeks could obviously help but in the mean time it should be time for Leddy to get a little more time out there. The 19 year old only got 50 seconds of power play time last night despite it supposedly being one of his strengths.
Speaking of Leddy – it terrified me that he spent most of his time skating with behemoth John Scott but it was far from the horror show I imagined. As a pair, they weren’t on the ice for any goals against, which is rather surprising. We did get to see what happens though when you ask John Scott to turn around too quickly. After having killed off a 5 on 3 Scott gave Filppula a free pass to the net by blowing a tire and losing his stick in what would have been a comical situation, if it hadn’t led directly to the game winner. We’re seeing way too much of Scott so far in the season – if he’s not going to be fighting then he should be sitting. Hopefully we see Hendry return tomorrow.
Observations:
- The “Detroit Sucks” chants were noticeably less frequent than last year. Winning it all lessens the hate a bit doesn’t it? Yet when they continue to piss our parades (first the Winter Classic, now this game) it shouldn’t take too long for our hate levels to return to normal.
- Super Nintendo Hjalmers has been on the ice for every single goal against the Hawks so far this year. It’s more bad luck than poor play though.
- I got to the game later than I wanted so instead of fighting for a spot in the standard SRO spots, I managed to get into one of the new bars in the 300 level. While they aren’t completely full of asshats, they certainly have their fair share. Unfortunately, reports from all over the arena were high on obnoxious fans. So it goes…
I doubt he’ll read this – but a big thanks to the Red Wings fan who gave me his mini Hawks banner after the game. I appreciate it./