Hawks Thoughts, Round 1, Game 4

/Turns on flashlight

/Tentatively steps inside

/Blows the digital cobwebs away

Umm... Is anyone home?

/A bat flies over head and out the door

Well, uh, I guess it's been a while since we've talked.

/Checks the date.

Two months? Yikes. Sorry about that. I don't have much to say about "why" other than...this happens to me.  I get depressed for a while and it takes some time to cycle out of it.  As the days grow longer, I seem to be emerging from this most recent down time and that's a good thing.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I'm still around. Still engaged with the Hawks and the season. Still ranting and dropping "motherfuckers" like I'm getting paid for it.

When I'm depressed, sometimes I feel like all I have are my teams. Each game is like a lantern in the darkness. If I can just make it to the next lantern, I'll be fine. So I shuffle along from game to game, downloading pleasure or pain from each result into a brain that is otherwise numb to external stimuli.

So that's where I've been.

How have the Hawks been? Well, like most things in life, I think this question can be answered by a quote from the big Lebowski. "Oh, you know, strikes and gutters. Ups and downs."

The Dude Abides from Ryan Hopman on Vimeo.

The last time I blogged (mid-February) The Hawks were in the middle of the Streak-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named.  Tazer got concussed and missed the last quarter of the season but the boys pulled their shit together and made it into the playoffs.

So here we sit a few hours before Game 4 against Phoenix, down 2-1 in the series and Marian Hossa is sitting at home nursing....something.

Unless you think the Hawks can win three in a row to close out the Yotes, tonight is a must-win game. No two ways about that. And I do not think the Hawks can beat Phoenix thrice in a row. So, yeah, must win.

Brandon Saad is back up with big boys tonight, filling in for Hoss in the top 6. I'd like to see lines like so:

Saad-Toews-Kane
Sharp-Kruger-Stalberg

The kid might as well be wearing a question mark on the back of his jersey instead of 43. (43, really? That's the best they can come up with for him? Such a putrid number. How about 23? That's a great Chicago number [Sandberg, Hester, Jordan]. At least give him something to work with. 43 looks awful. Like a donut laying on a staircase or something.)

But I digress.

I think we are all hoping he shows up tonight and goes sick with a hatty or something. But that shit never happens. Usually in these kinds of situations, you barely notice the rook. The moment is too big. I wouldn't be surprised if he pissed himself a little bit during the anthem.  I would.

Every game has been close. Every game has gone to overtime. I doubt tonight will be any different. It would be such a relief to drop six or seven on them but their goalie, Smith, is too good for any of the nonsense we've seen in the PIT-PHI series. Although I will say that Smith displays an astonishing amount of testicular fortitude playing the puck out of his net as much as he does.  I predict that this high wire act with the puck will come back to bite him in the ass before these playoffs are over.  Maybe not in this series but if they move on, something bad is going to happen with him jerking off in the trapezoid at some point.

(Good band name: Jerking Off in the Trapezoid. Probably some kind of futuristic drug-addled jam band. "Dude, did you go to the Trapezoid show last week? So sick, bro! I was so psyched when they opened with 'Carnival Barker's Daughter' I was rolling so hard.")

I digress again.

The Hawks top 6, even minus Hossa, is so much more talented than than Phoenix. That difference in class has to start asserting itself soon, as in, like, right motherfucking now, tonight. I don't feel like Q gave the 10-16-25 line enough time together at the beginning of the series. They were rocking something special together at the end of the season. But one game without a point was enough for the moustache and he pulled the slot machine handle.

Let's try putting the band back together for at least one night, eh? And if you're going to play Saad, then give him the best chance at succeeding by putting him with the two best play makers on the team in Tazer and Kaner. I read a couple tweets from the beat writers that they might put Saad with Kane and Brunette. Please, God, no. Brunette cannot move. He is useless in 5-on-5 situations. I only like him on the power play behind the goal line. Kane and Saad are dynamic play-making scorers. Putting them with Brunette would be like chaining an anchor to the rear axle of a Ferrari. JUST DON'T DO IT, Q. Resist the urge. Use the force.

That's all I've got right now.

I promise to try and blog more frequently.

You can follow me on Twitter @nCornick

Hawks Thoughts, Week 9

Straight to the Thoughts this week.

-Did the Hawks win the Cup too soon? Sometimes I wonder if the fire still burns within all of them to win the Cup as badly as it did before 2010. That pre-2010 feeling was like a voracious beast within the bellies of the players and fans. Does that same insatiable appetite for winning still exist? All I know is that it doesn't feel the same as it did pre-Cup.

-The Hawks are not an elite team this year. Not that there are many teams that could be considered "elite" right now. There is a mass of teams all within a few points of each other in the standings. That might be good enough to qualify for the post-season but a team needs something special to endure four rounds of playoffs and claim the ultimate prize.

-Does this team feel special to you? Because to me they don't. The chemistry seems to be better this year compared to last year which is good but right now they are missing "it".

-You know a guy who is still consumed by that crazy hunger I wrote about above? A guy who has "it"? Jarome Iginla. He is a warrior and if he were to get on a Cup-contending team, maybe that fire in his belly would spread to the rest of the team.

-Ray Bourque pushed the Avalanche to the Cup in 2001 after coming over from Boston in a trade that he requested. Bourque spent his entire career with the Bruins prior to that trade. Colorado had won the Cup in '95 but had not been back to finals until Bourque arrived. I'm not saying he is the reason they won it, but there are a lot of parallels with Iginla and the Hawks this year.

-I'd love to see Iginla in the Indian Head for a playoff run. Chills just thinking about it.

-We should all take a moment to be thankful that Scotty Bowman is associated with the Blackhawks. Here is a recent interview with him.

-Here is a passage from that interview that I particularly liked:

One of the great pleasures of a hockey conversation with Scotty Bowman is his ability to take the long view. He frequently refers to historic episodes and figures from the NHL’s past. It could be his mentor, Toe Blake, his days coaching the Blues, his Canadiens teams of the ’70s or anything that followed. He can trace the history of the rules and trends in the game’s sophistication and pinpoint how the current game evolved from the past.

-We as fans can rarely see past the immediate wins and losses. We are riding the roller coaster every day with the team and hang on every bit of new information. I find it reassuring that there is a voice within the organzation that takes a wider view, and has perhaps the best perspective on the game of anyone who ever was involved with it.

-I trust Stan Bowman's decisions. I trust that he has the long view of the team in mind with all of his personnel moves. And I trust that he sees and feels what I see and feel, that something is just not quite clicking with this team and maybe one or two changes in the ingredients might set the team on a whole new course to success.

-Dan Carcillo is hosting his own radio show on WGN. That's cool.

-Looks like one way or another the Hawks and Wings are going to be separated in whatever the relaigned NHL looks like next season.

-The Hawks new division could consist of Columbus, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minnesota and Dallas and Nashville.

-That looks like a cupcake division.

-If you go back and read that Scotty Bowman interview he talks about the Capitals and why they might have struggled in the post-season recently. He attributes it partly to the shitty division they play in. Once they get into the meat grinder of the playoffs, their regular season had not prepared them to face quality competition. I don't want that to happen to the Hawks with a division featuring a group of average to below average teams.

-I hereby dub the entire left wing position on the Blackhawks "The Appendixes". They're on the team but they serve no discernable function.

-Dave Bolland has been missing practice this week and apparently it is not related to the foot injury via shot block he sustained a while ago. This is some new (old?) mystery ailment. Dude is put together like an abstract Tinker Toy sculpture.

-Have we accumulated enough evidence now where it is safe to say that Bryan Bickell is just a guy? He doesn't bring anything to the table and he doesn't really take anything off the table either. He just kind of sits there, converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. I read people saying that this isn't that big of a deal because his cap hit is so friendly. I call bullshit on that line of thinking. What's the point of being five-plus million under the cap if we can't bring up the more expensive Morin?

-Looks like Ben Smith is going to get the start on Friday night against the Islanders. Hopefully in place of Bickell. I hope the kid does something with the opportunity.

-How bad would Crawford and Emery have to play for the Hawks to consider bringing Cristobal Huet back from his Swiss jail cell? Never mind. That's a dumb idea. That could never, ever happen. Or could it? No! That's just stupid talk. Time makes the heart grow fonder..... Shut up! Shut up! The man form France is fine just where he is, holding it down in Europe's fourth best hockey league. But Crawford has been so bad, dude, and Emery not much better. Shut the fuck up! Cristobal Huet has been banished! Never to return! Fine, I'm just sayin' though. Shut up, dipshit.

-Marcus Kruger! Come on down! You're the next contestant on Second Line Center!

Blackhawk Player Quote of the Week (via Chris Kuc's Twitter feed):

#Blackhawks' Patrick Kane on moving from center back to right wing: "I used to be good at it."

Blackhawk Player Tweet of the Week (from Sami Lepisto):

Just tried playing Call Of Duty online. Been killed 25 times in last 5 minutes! Gonna read a book instead!!

If you check out Sami's Twitter feed, you'll find that he is quite fond of the exclamation point.

Blackhawks record since last Friday: 2-1-0

-Standings: 2nd in the Central (down from 1st), 4th in the West (down from 3rd), tied for 3rd in the NHL with 31 points overall (in 25 games, same position as last week).

-Statistics: The power play is holding steady at 16th (16 for 95, 16.8%); The penalty kill remains in the NHL's sub-basement, checking in again with a limp-dicked 74.7% also known as dead-fucking-last also known as 30th place; The Hawks have allowed 19 PPG on the season, and have scored 3 shorties.

-Last week's predictions with results: I said they would win in Anaheim last Friday in regulation (won in regulation, 2 points); I said they would win in L.A. in regulation on Saturday (won in regulation, 2 points); I said they would lose in OT to Phoenix (got pantsed and butt-raped in regulation, 0 points).

-The upcoming schedule (through next Thursday) with my predictions: Friday vs. the Islanders (win in regulation, 2 points); Saturday at St. Louis (loss in regulation, 0 points); Monday vs. Phoenix (loss in regulation, 0 points); Thursday on Long Island (win in regulation, 2 points).

For more nonsense, follow me on Twitter @nCornick.

Hawks Thoughts: Week 8

Previously on "Hawks Thoughts" the team was coming off an exciting win in Vancouver which I foolishly thought was going to set the tone for the five remaining games on the Circus Trip. But no, they bombed out in the province of Alberta, losing to Calgary and Edmonton by a combined score of 14-4. I was not able to watch either of these games because my sister and niece were visiting from Chicago.

My sister, niece and wife are all big Twilight fans and if you didn't know, the books and movies take place in Washington State in a small town called Forks which is way the eff out on the Olympic Peninsula, close to the ocean. It's about a three and a half hour drive out there from Seattle so instead of watching hockey, I was toting those ladies around this podunk village while they creeped various location from the books and movies. 

In retrospect, I would have loved to have watched both of those losses multiple times rather than go through that Twilight road trip. The cherry on top was the speeding ticket I got while driving back home. $113 for going 67 in a 55. Such a ticky-tack speeding ticket. 12 over? I wish you could have heard this cop rattle off the legalese while handing me the ticket. He has it down pat. Small town cops, just filling up the monthly quota while tourists from the big city come to spend money in your shitty county.

So, yeah. I didn't see the games last Friday and Saturday. And I am not done complaining yet.

This past Wednesday night I was all set to sit down and watch the Sharks game except for the small problem that when I tried to access NHL Gamecenter via my PS3 I was unable to log into the system. Apparently their network was down or some bullshit most of Wednesday night. I went on the Twitters and there were some pissed off hockey fans in the same boat as me. And it wasn't just the PS3 people who couldn't watch games, the NHL Gamecenter app on the NHL site was fucked, as were the iPad and iPhone Gamecenter apps.

Thus, I ended up watching some sketchy pirated feed online and it sucked ass.

In conclusion, I have not seen the Hawks play a full game in over a week and so I would like to hereby raise a middle finger and offer a hearty "Fuck You" to: the NHL, the fucknut programmers who run the Gamecenter software, Stepahine Meyer for writing those abortions known as the Twilight books, and Clallam County Deputy Sherrif K. Nestor for giving me a speeding ticket. Please go die in a house fire, all of you. Thanks.

PS: Fuck you to Kristen Stewart for not being hot enough to make it bearable for men like me to sit through your broke-ass movies. Try mixing in a smile once a year.

Anyway, hockey. 

-I wanted Ben Smith. I ached for Ben Smith. MyMiniMainMan got the call-up for the Alberta games and posted a -3 with 1 hit, 2 blocked shots, and four shots on goal. These efforts resulted in a one-way ticket to the press box for the San Jose game. Here's to hoping he gets in the lineup in southern California and gets his game straightened out.

-Duncan Keith is lost when his life partner is not on the ice. Keith and Seabs go together like peanut butter and jelly. Except when jelly gets a lower body injury you're left with a peanut butter sandwich that just sticks to the roof of your mouth and skates to a -8 in the Calgary and Edmonton losses. Get well soon, Seabs.

-What do you think the guys actually do when they go to Vegas for two days? Can they do the stuff that normal people do when they go there? Can they go to strip clubs and play blackjack? I imagine they can just because no one in Vegas or America gives a shit about hockey and no one knows who those guys are. Half the team could walk down State Street and not get recognized.

-Chris Kuc and Adam Jahns both wrote the same article on the same day for competing newspapers. Overlooking the absurdity of that, let's take the opportunity to revel in BABY HOSS. 

-I bought two tickets to the Hawks/Kings game in LA on February 25th. I'm not sure why I did this but I have the tickets and now I don't know if I am going to go. I really should. I have never been to LA and I might be able to sneak in a day at Disneyland which would be an item I could cross off the bucket list.

-Watching the San Jose game all I could focus was the fact that the Hawks were only shooting from horrible angles from the side of the net. I don't remember anyone taking any shots from the slot or in front of Niemi. Maybe that's a function of the defense the Sharks were playing but still, someone *cough*Toews*cough* needs to at least take the puck to the net.

-If no one is going to fight John Scott, why exactly is he in the lineup every day?

-Earlier in the season I kept saying I wanted to see a "signature win" from the Hawks and I kept waiting and waiting. Then they stomped Vancouver last Wednesday and I would have said that was the win I was looking for except that Luongo was out of the game with an injury and all the goals came against the backup.

-The Hawks right now are still trying to figure out who the hell they are and how all the pieces fit together. A lot of this trial and error process has been masked by a relatively easy early schedule and a high point total. But when you put the team under the microscope, the flaws are glaringly obvious: No scoring depth, a shaky defense and some questionable coaching.

-Blackhawk Player Quote of the Week: 

“We had time to think and re-charge and get our working boots back on.” -- Marian Hossa, on the team’s two day break in Las Vegas.

"Working boots". It's those stupid little slips in his English that make me want to hug him. Love.

-Blackhawk Player Tweet(s) of the Week: From @carbombboom13 (Dan Carcillo):

"Ok. Since my followers seem to b intrigued by my musical interests, I will post a different band everyday and 5 of their best jams #dtunes"

and then...

"Kick it off with my #1 fav band #LedZeppelin 1 Your Time Is Gonna Come 2 Thank You 3 Rock n Roll 4 Immigrant Song 5 When The Levee Breaks"

Since Zeppelin is also my all-time favorite band so this pleases me. Carcillo also listed several other bands that he is into which mirrors pretty much everything I grew up listening to. So a stick tap to Mr. Car Bomb for having good taste in music. As for his list of five of Zeppelin's "best jams" I will have to politely disagree. The only song on his list that I really like is "Your Time is Gonna Come" but that would not crack my list of even their ten best songs.

Since you didn't ask, here, in no particular order are five of my favorites:

-Blackhawks record since last Friday: 0-3-0

-Standings: 1st in the Central, 3rd in the West, tied for 3rd in the NHL with 27 points overall (in 22 games).

-Statistics: The power play is up one spot from 17th to 16th (14 for 85, 16.5%); The penalty kill has dropped from 26th to 30th in the NHL, also known as dead freaking last at 73.5%; The Hawks have allowed 18 PPG on the season, and have scored 3 shorties.

-Last week's predictions with results: I said they would win at Calagary last Friday in regulation (lost in regulation, 0 points); I said they would lose in Edmonton in regulation (lost in regulation, 0 points); I said they would beat San Jose in a shootout (lost in regulation, 0 points). Pretty effing grisly.

-The upcoming schedule (through next Thursday) with my predictions: Friday at Anaheim (win in regulation, 2 points); Saturday at Los Angeles (win in regulation, 2 points); Tuesday vs. Phoenix (OT loss, 1 point).

If the Hawks can scrape the four points that I am predicting Friday and Saturday in SoCal, that would give them a 3-3-0 record on the Circus Trip which, all in all, isn't too bad. I've seen that trip chew up and spit out many, many teams over the years, effectively ending their seasons. If they somehow manage to come out of LA and Anaheim with only one or two points and a total of only 3 or 4 points on the trip, well, I think a long look in the mirror is going to be necessary, especially by Stan Bowman who will need to make the appropriate moves to fix this thing. First things first though, take the four points available on Friday and Saturday.

For more nonsense, follow me on Twitter @nCornick.

Hawks Thoughts: Week 5, 2011-12 Season

GAHH!!!! It's the Emperor! Run away!!! Just kidding, folks, that's our old friend Al Davis.

Last week my battle cry was "Signature Win!". This week (in honor of the recently deceased Al Davis) it's "Just win, baby." I had been operating under the assumption that this Hawks team was capable of domination. After this past week I think we can say that domination isn't in their DNA (yet). Maybe down the road they'll develop the jungle cat instinct of opening the jugular but for now we have to be happy with back alley knife fights where they're scraping at least one point each game.

The Hawks standard operating procedure has been to engage in seesaw-type games in which either A) The Hawks give up multiple leads or B) The Hawks are chasing the other team's leads. From game to game I have no idea what to expect other than the following: the power play will blow, the penalty kill will be awesome and the score will be close.

The Hawks are winning and that not only makes everyone happy but it masks all the warts this team has. Namely the power play.

The prevailing sentiment from the players and media this week regarding the power play seemed to be something along the lines of "Nothing to see here, move along please." The theory being that even though they weren't scoring on the power play, they were getting a lot of good looks and good chances. The bounces would eventually go their way. Unfortunately, as we used to say in the neighborhood when I was a kid, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades" and close doesn't cut it in the NHL. If the Hawks record was something like 4-5-3 or 4-4-4 (instead of 8-2-2) there would be a significant amount of teeth-gnashing and talk of hot seats and coaching incompetence.

Actually, on second thought, since we're talking about Chicago, no one would care. This isn't Montreal where they had to push an assistant coach into the volcano in order to appease the angry villagers. In fact, I doubt that if the Hawks were sporting one of those hypothetical records above that it would rank higher than the tenth most important sports story in Chicago behind Theo, Zambrano, Matt Forte's contract situation, the Bears offinsive line, anything comes out of Ozzie Guillen's mouth, anything that comes out of Jay Cutler's mouth, Jay Cutler's love life, the NBA lockout and the most recent '85 Bears reunion.

Essentially, the Hawks are getting by on a combination of luck, gritty resiliency, Corey Crawford, and Kaner backing up his pre-season assertion that he was aiming to become an elite player in the league. Kaner is an elite player in the league now. It's kind of hard to wrap my mind around that idea but it's true. I always think of him as a kid who needs to be put to bed at night.

If they could just get the effing power play working, I could stop writing the same thing every week and move on with my life. But no, this is why you can't have nice things, Blackhawks. Your power play is so bad that the only thing that comes to mind when i think about it, is a prolapsed anus.

Whenever the day comes that they unlock the mystery of the man-advantage, this team will become a fully armed and operational battle station capable of destroying planets. Until then they'll be scrapping in the back alley every night fighting for points however they can get 'em. It doesn't matter if you have to pull a knife from your boot or knee a guys in the balls, a win is a win. Al Davis knew that, so "Just win, baby."

* * *

-I hate to watch the Hawks play him but Pekka Rinne is truly great. Nashville did well to lock him up for seven more years. Have you ever felt like the Hawks have scored an easy goal on that guy? I feel like he has never given up a softie. So solid.

-The Hawks put forth an embarrassing effort in Carolina last Friday. Can I bill Rocky Wirtz for those two and a half hours that I will never get back?

-Columbus is not good at Hockey.

-Patrick Kane is good at Hockey.

-Patrick Kane is bad (in an entertaining way) at acting.

-Here's a fun fact I picked up on Twitter Thursday night (via @WaddleandSilvy): The Red Wings are winless in their last 6 games, longest winless streak since February, 2008. People, that's what you call good times.

-Non-Hawk Thought: (Actually a rhetorical question) Why does it take so long for pears to ripen? Even when I put them in a paper bag and leave them on the kitchen counter it seems to take four months for those little bastards to become edible. I guess it's all worth it in the end though because they are so delightful. The pear is an underrated piece of fruit. Long live the pear!

-The quote of the week comes to us courtesy of Dan Carcillo referencing his Dad's Trip golfing foursome (comprised of Carbomb, Carbomb Sr., Sami Lepisto and Sami's dad). “I carried our team," Carcillo joked. “The Lepistos were busy eating hotdogs and staring at birds they don’t see in Europe."

-Runner up for quote of the week comes from former NHL'er and two-time Cup-winner Bobby Holik who texted Hossa after the Florida game Friday night and said Patrick Kane is "The best street hockey player on skates."

-I've demoted the Hawks power play from finger painting class to being the smelly kid who eats paste in the corner.

-Paste. It's what's for dinner.

-Nick Leddy continues to impress. It makes you wonder what kind of juicy information StanBo had when he traded Cam Barker for Leddy. He must have known that the Minnesota GM was into kiddy porn or something similarly egregious for that trade to have gone down. Minnesota got raped and pillaged on that one.

-Did you know that Leddy is tied for fourth on the team with 7 points? That's a true story. Kinda shocking.

-Did you know that Leddy leads the team in plus-minus rating at +7? True story.

-Leddy needs a nickname and I can't think of anything good. New Soup? Soup.0? You can Leddy a horse to water but you can't make him drink? Leddy Zeppelin? Zeppelin? Hindenburg? Oh, the Humanity! ?, Whatever. Those are horrible.

Oops, that was rather depressing. How about this instead?

-Watching Brunette and Stalberg skate on the same line is fun for the whole family. Stalberg is the douchebag who speed-walks on the people mover at the airport; Brunette is the fat, sunburned tourist in a Hawaiian shirt pulling his carry-on bag behind him through the center of the concourse.

-Did Tomas Kopecky forget that Halloween is over? He's still wearing a "A" on his sweater.

-Blackhawks record since last Friday: 3-1-0

-Standings: 1st in the Central, 1st in the West, tied for second in the NHL with 18 points overall.

-Paste Eating The power play is T-29th (!) (4 for 45, 8.9%, 0-15 since last Friday), the penalty kill is 3rd at 91.7% (have allowed 3 PPG on the season, scored 3 shorties).

-Last week's predictions: I said they would lose in the S/O at CAR (lost in regulation), win at home against CLS (they won), win at home agsinst NSH (they won in OT), and lose at FLA (won in the S/O). I predicted five points, they came up with six.

-The upcoming schedule (through next Thursday) with my predictions: At TB Friday (OT loss); Home against VAN on Sunday (win); At STL on Tuesday (loss); At CLS Thursday (win). That's four games in six days and five in seven if you count next Friday's game against CGY. November's schedule is a true meat grinder with only four games at home.

-I'll be looking for that elusive signature win that I wrote about last week at home against VAN on Sunday night. The Bears don't play until Monday so the crowd should be properly pumped.

Hawks Thoughts: Week 4, 2011-12 Season

I'm still waiting on the Hawks to come up with a signature win.

While it's great that they have been taking as many points as they have through the first eight games (12 of a possible 16, with at least one point in their last 7) I don't feel like they have put it all together yet into something we as fans can look at and say "They dominated that game playing their style, the other guys never had a chance."

Honestly, I shouldn't even be bitching about this. Points are a precious commodity in the NHL and they are not exactly easy to come by. Turning my own complaint around on myself, I can say that it's only been eight games so it's not like we should have expected them to have it all figured out by this point. There are a lot of new pieces that have been added to the team and Quenneville is still playing with the chemistry set as is his wont.

Let's take a closer look though to see why I am feeling this way. In reverse order:

• 10/25 vs. Anaheim W 3-2 (SO): A see-saw affair that saw the Hawks come from behind twice to tie the game. Down 1-0 and 2-1, it took two super high-end plays from Kaner to Keep the Hawks in the game. The second point came in the shootout.
• 10/22 vs. Colorado L 4-5 (SO): Down 3-1 with six minutes left in the second period, the Hawks scored three straight goals to take a 4-3 lead only to surrender the game tying goal with less than two minutes to play. (That equalizer was scored by the 18 year-old rookie Gabriel Landeskog, his second of the game - unfortunately, he looks like he will be a very, very good player for a long time). The Hawks lost in the shootout.
• 10/20 @ Colorado, W 3-1: A very close, hard-fought game that was tied until Sharp scored with thirteen minutes left in the third period. Hossa added an empty netter at the end. The money quote from the game was from Hossa about Corey Crawford, "Tonight he stole the game for us,” Hossa said. “He made some really key saves.”
• 10/18 @ Phoenix, W 5-2: The Hawks beat a bad team at a rink with approximately 200 in attendance. It was a one goal game until Bolland broke the Yotes backs with a short-handed goal early in the third period to open up a two goal lead. Was it dominant? Maybe, but it was against a shit team.
• 10/15 vs. Boston, L 2-3 (SO): I didn't see this game (I was watching Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen!) so I can only go by the box score and game stories. They Hawks gave up two leads (1-0 and 2-1) and lost in the shootout.
• 10/13 vs. Winnipeg, W 4-3: The Hawks overcame a 2-0 deficit and scored the next four goals to eventually win 4-3. Winnipeg is another shit team that the Hawks should not have been trailing at any point to begin with.
• 10/8 vs. Dallas, W 5-2: This was probably their most dominant game of the season, a 5-2 beatdown at home in the second game of the season.

Don't get me wrong, they are playing well but I am looking for that win that tells me they are elite and Cup-worthy. It certainly feels different from last year though, doesn't it? Last year, in my opinion, they would not have been able to mount come-backs in the home games against ANA and COL. They probably would have just rolled over and died but both times they fought back and came out of it with 3 points. Personally, I do believe all the shit the Hawks media writers have been shoveling about team chemistry being improved. I think having a loose room is a huge deal in hockey and there is definitetly a lighter feeling about this year's team compared to last year. There is a whiff of the 2010 team's carefree attitude and I am all for that.

I just remember last year constantly tweeting that the team felt like it did not have a drop of magic left in from the Cup run. This team? Feels like there could be a little magic in there. We'll see.

Man, do I have some first world problems when all I am able to do is bitch in my blog about how my hockey team isn't winning with enough flair. The next thing you know, I'll be griping about how it's just impossible to find ripe mangoes at this time of year.

I deserve to be ridiculed. Let's take a break for a minute to cleanse our minds and palates.

And, we're back. Onto my thoughts.

-So, the Hawks are a good team. If they could ever figure out how to properly execute a power play they could be great.

-Until then, the power play will still be known as the Special Needs Gang or Finger painting Class, whichever you prefer.

-Your unsung hero is still Corery Crawford, holding down the back end in utter silence. Never quoted, never spoken to. Hilarious.

-First Carcillo shaves his mustache and comes out the other side looking like a normal human being. Then I find out that he is a serious music lover and went to Gary, IN to visit Michael Jackson's childhood home. THEN I learn that he hangs out at Kingston Mines. Am I in the Matrix? I feel like my reality has been altered.

-This Carcillo information is too much for me to process. I need another palate cleanser if I am going to make through to the end of this post.

-Duncan Keith held the kick-off event for his charity, Keith Relief, on Wednesday night. I would like to strangle the person responsible for putting together this slide show with piano wire. HOW CAN I MAKE FUN OF THESE PEOPLE IF I DON'T KNOW THEIR NAMES!?! No captions = fail.

-Ladies, please familiarize yourself with the picture of Kaner with the ping pong paddle in his hand. That is the same pose he adopts while "tapping that ass".

-There were some real hipster-looking d-bags at that party.

-It's easy to forget things in hockey that only happened a few days ago but I think this deserves to not be forgotten. This is from the Hawks/Avalanche game last Saturday. Jamal Mayers finishes but Nick Leddy did 90% of the work. More of this please. Leddy is a good skater, especially in tight spots against the boards. I'm a fan (so far). Make sure you pay close attention right from the very beginning because the action happens so fast.

-Blackhawks record since last Friday: 1-0-1

-Standings: 1st in the Central, 2nd in the West, tied for third in the NHL with 12 points overall.

-Finger Painting Class The power play is T-18th (4 for 30, 13.3%), the penalty kill is 5th at 91.3% (have allowed 2 PPG on the season, scored 2 shorties).

-Last week's predictions: I said they would win against COL on Saturday (lost in the SO) and that they would lose in the SO against ANA (beat ANA in the SO). It was wash as I predicted 3 points and they got 3 points.

-The upcoming schedule (through next Thursday) with my predictions: At CAR Friday (SO loss); Home against CLS Saturday (win); NSH at home on Monday (win); At FLA Thursday (loss). That's a tough patch there with three games in four days starting Friday night but CAR is mediocre, CLS is shit (although they have Wiz back now that his suspension is over) and NSH is shit so far as well. I would be happy with 5 points out of the available 8 in these four games. Chris Kuc wrote about the three games in four days thing here.

-Looking at the schedule I don't see any real opportunities for that signature win that I was bitching about at the top until we play Vancouver at home on Sunday, 11/6. But I'm patient. I can wait for that. Oh yes, I can wait very patiently for the Canucks to come to town.

Update on Friday, October 28, 2011 at 8:31AM by Noah Cornick

Forgot to rant about this in the original post. No one likes the shootout, I think we all agree that it is a stupid way to decide a game and accrue points but whatever, that's not the point. The point is that the Hawks have not looked particularly good in the shootout thus far (2/9 in shots taken in the shootout with one win and two losses, including getting zero goals in the COL and BOS shootouts).

These poor performances led to Q having the guys practice the shootout. This led to an avalanche of snark from the Hawks blogosphere and Twitterverse about how the shootout is a crapshoot, it is pointless to practice it, why waste your time on something so dumb? It's a coin flip. You can't re-create a real shootout in practice. Hurr hurr hurr. Derp. Snark. Irony.

My question is: Why wouldn't you practice the shootout? We're talking about an exercise that bestows those precious points I wrote about in the original post. If you'll allow me to quote Theo Epstein from his presser, "Opportunities to win are sacred." Hell yes they are. I bet you would have preferred not to have had to sweat out that MIN/DAL game on the last day of the season last year which got the Hawks into the dance, right? One shootout win earlier in the season would have changed that.

So, yes, you should be practicing the shit out of the shootout. Q should be constantly be looking for whatever edge he can find to scrape these extra points. Cliche alert: points in October count just as much as points in March. They should be studying tape on all the opposing goalies tendencies in the shootout, they should be working on developing new moves and tricks to score in the shootout.

The shootout is stupid but that's the system we have right now so every angle and edge needs to be explored. If anything, the team should be spending more time practicing this shit. EVERY POINT IS PRECIOUS. OPPORTUNITIES TO WIN ARE SACRED.

/end rant