CHICAGO, IL - I mean, good God, boys. Good-freaking-God.
Five straight OT games is a little excessive, don't you think? It certainly hasn't helped my heart rate.
The Blackhawks did make sports history by being the first team in any league to start each of their first five games of the season with overtime... which would be a really cool piece of trivia if it wasn't five straight games of overtime.
Either way, we have a couple of big stories this week, outside of the games.
First, Duncan Keith played in his 1,000th game on Saturday, and it was certainly a special celebration for him. He's been one of my favorite players for a long time, and to see him awarded with the silver stick (from Patrick Sharp and Brent Seabrook, no less!) and the beautiful portrait (revealed by none other than Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews) was just incredibly heartwarming. The Blackhawks also showed a wonderful montage of most of Keith's greatest moments, and let's just say Dream On is still stuck in my head, a full week later.
Either way, what a great celebration for a great player, and for a player that certainly belongs in the NHL Top 100 and the Hall of Fame, no matter what others may say.
Second, the Hawks had an... interesting practice on Monday. This practice is the one that saw Brandon Saad in a white jersey (typically reserved for injured players and healthy scratches--big yikes); two mannequins that I've named Sunny and Manny Quinn; and finally, a huge scrimmage with every player on the ice and dozens of pucks. There's a lot to unpack here, and probably too much for this post.
To be quite honest, I don't think this is the last time we'll see a crazy Hawks practice this season. I think the craziness has just begun.
Speaking of crazy, last but certainly not least, Tuesday marked Coach Joel Quenneville's tenth year as the head coach of the Blackhawks. I can't believe it's been that long, honestly--but, those years have been filled with Stanley Cups and lots of playoff runs (aside from last year--in my mind, last year never even happened), and it's certainly been fun. Q is one of my favorite people on the team to read quotes from because he's just so blunt and has a very dry sense of humor that just amuses the hell out of me. Certainly another great milestone for the team.
Alright, now that we've talked about all of the goings-on outside of the games this week, let's get into it, shall we?
BLACKHAWKS V. ST. LOUIS BLUES - W/OT, 4-3
What. On. Earth.
If there is one thing the Hawks need to work on this year, it's not giving up a multiple-goal lead.
Keep in mind, this is only the second of four meetings between the Hawks and St. Louis Blues before the middle of November--the next meeting is two weeks from now, on October 27th. I'm already sick of it, to be honest.
The Blues--namely, Jake Allen--let in two muffins of goals early in the first period, and surprisingly, both goals were on the power play! Artem Anisimov notched his first of the season (and his first in 16 games--his last goal was on March 11th, against the Boston Bruins), and shortly after, the Hawks had another man-advantage and Patrick Kane was able to score his fifth goal of the season in the waning seconds of the power play.
Going into the second period, I was feeling good. Not great, not fantastic, just good. I knew this lead wouldn't last, and my pessimism, no matter how hard I tried to suppress it, shone through. Midway through the second, Cam Ward--who was on fire that entire night and 100% deserved that win--let in a puck on the Blues' power play. Brayden Schenn cut the Hawks lead in half, and things went downhill from there. They made it out of the second period ahead, but that wouldn't last too long--the Blues had forty-five seconds left on the power play to start the third, and that, my friends, was when I knew things weren't going to go the Hawks' way.
Sure enough, the Blues scored on the power play, thanks to David Perron. Tie game.
This is probably about the point in which my heart rate doubled.
Look, I don't like when the Hawks lose. It sucks. But, I can't stand to lose to the Blues, the Nashville Predators, or the Minnesota Wild. Those three teams just rub me in all of the wrong ways, and losing to them is just such a hard pill to swallow. I'm sure I'm not totally alone in this.
Back to the game.
Another penalty kill for the Blackhawks? Cute. Another power play goal for the Blues? Even cuter.
(Side note: the Hawks special teams need to work out a different game plan--whatever they have is not working in the slightest. The power play looks terrible--they're trying too hard to be the Washington Capitals--I love you, boys, but you are not the Capitals--and the penalty kill could certainly use some work as well.)
To make matters worse, pretty much every Hawks player hit the goal post at some point in this game. Kane, Toews, Nick Schmaltz, Alexandre Fortin, John Hayden, and probably a few others I'm missing. It was incredibly frustrating, to say the least.
But, just after Schmaltz hit the post, Alex DeBrincat was able to make some magic happen and lo and behold, we have a tie game--again.
The game went to overtime, naturally, and as it neared midnight (at least, on the East coast), my anxiety skyrocketed. You'd think it would have skyrocketed sooner, but at this point, these games are an emotional rollercoaster that I didn't ask to be a part of (yet, I watch them anyways--sigh).
Nearly five minutes of overtime passed and I thought for sure the Blues would score--they certainly had the chances to. The Hawks had a number of chances as well, but I figured the way the game was going that the Blues would steal this one.
"No!" said the Cat. DeBrincat, that is.
With just ten seconds left in the period (!!!), DeBrincat corralled a beautiful pass from Erik Gustafsson and put it right in the empty net behind Allen. A great goal and a great way to end a game that was headed south very, very quickly.
BLACKHAWKS V. ARIZONA COYOTES, L 1-4
Well, yikes.
There’s not much to say here, is there? I mean, I knew the Hawks would eventually face a regulation loss—that’s just the way things go. I just kind of hoped they’d see a regulation win, first.
Especially on Corey Crawford’s first night back in the net since December 23rd—his first start in exactly 300 days.
I don’t really even want to talk about the scoring because there wasn’t much—I’ll just highlight a few. Vinnie Hinostroza scored twice on his first homecoming since being traded in the offseason (because of course he did). Gustafsson did notch his first goal of the season off a beautiful series of passes from DeBrincat and Toews, shooting it right over Antii Raanta’s shoulder.
The Hawks kept the pressure on the Coyotes early in the first and had a few great chances, but they just couldn’t finish. It was pretty frustrating to watch, to be honest, and I kind of wish they wouldn’t pass so much. Just shoot the darn thing.
In addition to that, the goalpost came back to haunt them again in this game—I think nearly everyone hit it at some point in the night. Add that to the lack of scoring, the obnoxious amounts of passing and the, well, loss, and it’s not a pretty picture.
Despite the ugly loss, I think there are a couple of good takeaways: 1) Crawford is back and 2) despite the lack of scoring, they didn’t play that badly.
Crawford back in the net is the best story of the night by far—I thought he looked great out there, his team just didn’t show up for him to get the win. I’m not sure I’m ready to say he looked like his old self out there, but he looked great regardless and that, my friends, is one big step closer.
As much as I rag on the Hawks some days, despite the bad loss to a bad team, I don’t think the Hawks played that bad. The defense could use a little work (read: a lot of work), but I thought they did a nice job of keeping the pressure in the Coyotes’ zone and they did at least try to score. They just need to work on those finishes.
So, this week was quieter with games, but looking forward to this coming week is a totally different story. The Hawks face-off against four teams they haven’t seen in the regular season yet—the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday, the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday, and the New York Rangers on Thursday.
I think this week will be a real test for them—save for the back-to-back games last week (Toronto Maple Lwafs then the Blues), the Hawks have had quite a few days between games to sort things out and rest. I’m curious to see how they’ll do with a more packed schedule.
I still have high hopes for this season—do you?
Comments
Post a Comment