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Hometown Boys - How the Canes are Stunning the League

RALEIGH, NC -- I’d like for anyone who’s said that Raleigh isn’t a hockey city, or that the fans don’t care, or that this team would suck without Jeff Skinner/Elias Lindholm/Cam Ward/Noah Hanifin, to sit down.  This team has taken hit after hit (literally and figuratively) this season but kept getting back up. ‪They stuck with it even when they were sitting at the bottom of the league, they stuck with it when the critics rained all kinds of crap down on them. This team has battled through adversity and I could not be any prouder. No one thought they’d be here, but they said, ‪“Us? Of course we’d be here.”  It’s been so fun and so rewarding to watch this team come into its own and land a playoff spot. I know they weren’t happy with just getting into the playoffs, but I was. I was going to be proud of them no matter what they did in the first round, and even the second round, and I’ll be proud of them no matter the outcome of the third round. These guys have worked their asse
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If You Like This Team, You Might Like... (Part II)

RALEIGH, NC -- Here's the second part to my 'If You Like This Team..." series! Same rules apply, and sound off in the comments if you agree or have other ideas! If you like the LA Kings, you might like... the Pittsburgh Penguins! This one was actually one of the first ones I thought of--the teams seem to kind of be two sides of the same coin. Both teams have a clear winning culture in the past ten or so years (the Penguins have won the Cup in 2009/2016/2017, and the Kings won in 2012/2014), and because of that, most fans don't like either team, or are just sick of seeing them win. However, both teams are also kind of struggling with older core groups of players, and both are likely going to start rebuilding a little over the summer. Even though the Penguins made it to the playoffs this season, with a sweep by the New York Islanders, it's clear something's not quite right with that team, and it'll be interesting to see what the organization deci
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If You Like This Team, You May Like... (Part I)

RALEIGH, NC -- I've long thought about making a post like this, and even though it's not directly Blackhawks-related, I thought it'd be a fun off-season little blog, and could maybe help people find more teams to enjoy. I'm a firm believer that you don't have to just like one team--you can like half the league, like I do! Since I'll likely have a lot to say here, and we don't need to be redundant, I decided to take Western Conference teams and pick their Eastern Conference counterparts--I also tried to make sure not to pick rival teams, for obvious reasons. We're breaking this up into two posts, just so that it's easier to digest and largely easier for me to write. Today will be the first eight teams of the Western Conference, and this weekend's post will feature the last seven. Additionally, I only selected one team for each team (aside from the Edmonton Oilers, who are special and get two since there are 16 EC teams but only 15 WC t
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End-of-Season Report Cards - How'd the Hawks Do?

CHICAGO, IL -- So, we've reached the end of the season, and I've done mid-season report cards , and I've graded the rookies on their first seasons with the Hawks. How'd the other guys fare by the end of the season, though? It's a shorter list, but I figured I'd just grade out the rest of the Hawks players for the last half of the season. You know the deal: 1) Have played 15+ games with the Blackhawks this season 2) Are currently under the salary cap 3) Have not been traded away Let's hop right in! Forwards: Patrick Kane (81 GP, 44-66--110 PTS): Previous grade: A+; Final grade: A+, MVP) I'm sticking with Kane's A+ and MVP status on the season, because he's the exact reason the Hawks even had a fighting chance to get into the playoffs through the last half of the season. He had a career year, smashing his career high of 106 points and carrying this team as far as he could. His time on ice (TOI) was one of the highest on t
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Break-Up Day - Blackhawks End of Season Locker Room Clean Out

CHICAGO, IL — After a nice finish on the season with wins over the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars (and a loss to the Nashville Predators that we're going to ignore), the Blackhawks are officially in the off-season. The team held their annual locker room clean out, and I thought there were a lot of great takeaways from the clean out day. Obviously, the Hawks didn’t finish where they wanted to, but I think that was made up for when they moved from the 12th overall pick to the 3rd pick in the 2019 NHL Draft Lottery that took place on Tuesday. I’ll probably do a quick piece on who the Hawks should be looking at and what their options are for the draft in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for that. But, in the meantime, lets go over some of the topics that came up in the clean out presser. IIHF World Championship The past couple of years, a handful of Blackhawks players have participated in the IIHF World Championship, which takes place in early May. A coup
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Out for the Count - Blackhawks Miss Playoffs for Second Straight Season

CHICAGO, IL -- Well, we've reached the end of the road, boys. If you haven't heard, the Blackhawks were eliminated from playoff contention with the Colorado Avalanche's win over the Oilers on Tuesday. I'm not going to lie, it's been a fun season. There have been definite highs and lows this season, and at the end of the day, the Hawks are ending on a higher note than they expected to. This season really has been a whirlwind for this team--there was a relatively big group of new guys at the start of the season (Brandon Manning, Chris Kunitz, Cam Ward, Henri Jokiharju, Andreas Martinsen, to name a few), and while some of them didn't stick around, they all left a mark on the team--good or bad, that's for you to decide. Coach Quenneville was fired fairly abruptly in the midst of what would be an eight-game losing streak in early November, and the Hawks brought in rookie coach Jeremy Colliton to replace him. Colliton really has grown on me this season
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Measuring the Blackhawks Rookies and Newbies

CHICAGO, IL -- I know I did a quick measure of the entire Blackhawks roster back in February, but I thought since the season is likely coming to a close (save for a miracle), it might be nice to get an idea of where the newbies and rookies to the Hawks roster are. For this article, I did create some guidelines, like I did with the mid-season report cards (end of season report cards are coming soon, by the way!). This isn't really going to be a report card, but more of just my general thoughts on how the player is doing in his first season with the Hawks--I'll give a more specific/"graded" report in the post-season report cards article. The basic guidelines are as follows: Must be currently on the Hawks roster (not in Rockford) Must have played less than 82 NHL games OR less than 82 games with the Blackhawks (all stats will be just for this season to make things easy) Must be their first full year playing with the Blackhawks With that out of
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