Sports with Megs

CHICAGO, IL -- Sometimes, Stan Bowman really does work wonders. This is certainly one of those instances. For those of you that may not know, Brandon Manning was the one that broke Connor McDavid's collarbone his rookie year. It seems like he may have done it on purpose, and Connor McDavid didn't like the 'classless' move . Well, now they're teammates. That'll be good. Anyways, back to the actual trade. Manning's been a healthy scratch for a couple weeks now, and I think the only reason it's a surprise is because another team actually wanted him. I know that sounds harsh, but it's not exactly wrong. Bowman's been trying to fix this one for a while, and he finally found a taker. With Manning went D Robin Norell, who has been playing in Sweden this season after playing in Rockford last year. To Chicago with Caggiula came D Jason Garrison, who I'm thinking will likely be put on waivers shortly, since the Blackhawks are a little h...

CHICAGO, IL -- The Blackhawks have won four of their last five games. You're reading that right. I feel like it's safe to say that we're getting a lot of surprises out of the Blackhawks this season--both good and bad ones--and you know what? I don't hate it. This week was a bit of a crazy one for me, so I really only caught bits and pieces of these games. But, it was pretty nice going 2-1 on the week. I think they probably should have won against the Florida Panthers on Sunday, but they stole a win in Florida earlier this season so I'll let it slide. I think there's something to be talked about here, though--what on earth made them switch their game from off to on? I mean, ever since that really, really bad lose to San Jose on the 18th, the Hawks have finally been playing like they actually have a fire lit under their asses. What happened? There are a couple factors at play here, and I'll touch on all of them: 1: Corey Crawford was injured b...

CHICAGO, IL -- The best part about this week's blog is that my little tag to the left over there that reads Chicago is actually accurate as to where I was for the game I'm about to talk about. Yes, folks, I was up in Chi-town for the weekend and boy, did I have a blast. I want to first thank my best buddy, Shay, for the fun-filled Sunday--we made the most of our one day together, and she gave me the best Christmas surprise EVER. More on that in a second. You see, when we bought these tickets, she told me she'd buy them and I could just pay her back for the ticket. She sent me a picture from the seats we had, and though they were in the 300-level, they weren't bad seats. I was just stoked to be going to a Hawks game at the United Center. She kept telling me that there was this huge surprise for my Christmas present, but she insisted that it wasn't hockey or Blackhawks related, which naturally left me very confused. But, I relented and decided to just be pa...

CHICAGO, IL -- Alright, twerps--we're not doing this. We are not going to even think about talking about trading Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, or Duncan Keith. (You'll notice I left two core guys out--we'll get there a couple paragraphs down.) Instead of rehashing the nightmare the Hawks have become (2+ goal deficit by the end of the first period--sound familiar? Actually, they did do something good on Wednesday, but we'll get to that at the end), I'm going to talk about something a little different this week. Because it has me absolutely fired up. Should it? Probably not, but I get pretty worked up fairly easily, so I'm riding this weird train for now. If you follow any Blackhawks media, be it their own in-house Twitter/NHL site/Instagram the beat reporters for the Hawks, or even fan bloggers like myself, you'll know that no one has gone completely nuclear yet. For as bad as this season has become, no one's called for anyone's head, sa...

CHICAGO, IL -- This blog post might look a little different to you. Because it is. There's something we need to talk about, and I don't want to rehash this past week's games, honestly. Let me preface by saying that I do think there is still enough time left in this season to somewhat salvage it. I haven't lost hope. I do think, though, that it's time we talk about what's going on, because I feel like I've been beating around the bush and the Hawks have been kind of beating around the bush about this. The broadcasters don't seem to be holding back much (thank you Jamal Mayers and Eddie Olczyk), which I can appreciate. The Blackhawks do not have a systems problem. They do (and did) not have a coaching problem. This is a roster problem. It's no secret that the signings and trades in recent years have been sub-par - the only signing I've liked in the past two or three years was getting Patrick Sharp back, and that was more for nosta...

CHICAGO, IL — The title of this blog might be a little weird to you. But, carousel rides have to go down to go back up—and, as the carousel moves forward, it goes up and down a lot. That’s kind of how I’m trying to look at the Blackhawks’ season at this point. There are some definite highs (ie: the OT win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday) and definite lows (ie: the horrific loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday), but they do keep moving forward. And honestly, I do think they're making small improvements in each game, even if the outcome doesn't necessarily reflect it each night. I’ll get more into the games below, but I just wanted to try and put a positive spin on this sort of lackluster season. I think us Hawks fans could all use some positivity these days. Anyways, let’s do this thing. BLACKHAWKS @ TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING - L, 2-4 I think this loss was a bit expected, to be honest, since it was against one of the top teams in the leagu...

CHICAGO, IL -- I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised. The whole Nick Schmaltz trade-talks thing has been poked around on both Twitter and in the hockey media circle, so I'm not overly surprised that he was dealt around 11pm EST last night. And, honestly, I don't really mind this trade, but we'll get to that in a second because I really need to get something off my chest first. Stan Bowman is really starting to piss me off. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, and he even kind of addressed it in an interview with Scott Powers on The Athletic. But, I'm sorry--this 'win-now mentality' and 'we're 100% a playoff team as it stands' stuff the front office is spewing out is crap. See the below tweet from Mark Lazerus (The Athletic) this morning: All we've heard from Bowman (and the front office, honestly) the past year or so has just felt like lies. I hate being this person, I hate putting blame on people, but...