No Reining in the Hawks Out of the Gate
Tonight the Hawks had a slight case of the shakes in game one of the quarterfinal match-up against the Flames. It’s to be expected with such a young team, but luckily the more senior players (some with playoff experience) were able to act as a calming influence.
Martin Havlat was one veteran who clearly had his nerves in check. Not only did he score an assistless goal in the third period, but look at how much poise he showed in being able to score a mere 12 seconds into overtime! And though it was only briefly mentioned, Andrew Ladd made Havlat’s game winner possible (as did Dave Bolland with an assist of perfection) by scrambling to get to the net for the screen shot. It was a thing of beauty.
And while Khabi-”the Wall”-bulin was his usual stellar self, he was particularly good tonight about freezing the puck. If Khabby has had one weakness this season (beyond being injury-prone), it would probably be that he has allowed too many rebounds. So, it’s good to see that that problem has been corrected just in time for the playoffs.
In all fairness, though, we should give a nod to Flames’ goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff. Had the Hawks not figured out fairly early that they had to take it to the net and shoot upstairs, which is hard to do with the kind of ‘D’ the Flames were working with tonight, the Hawks might not have been able to squeak this one out. Kiprusoff was just too good.
Perhaps the Hawks would have been equally as good as the Flames on offense (and let’s face it, the Flames were better for most of the game) if Q hadn’t been so line-change crazy. In the first minute of the game he changed the offensive line twice and it just went on like that all night. Is this a Q thing? Because I have to say, I don’t like it. The offensive line hardly has a chance to get out there and gel together, and *boom* Q’s changing it up again.
Still, congrats Hawks! With game one nerves out of the way, it can only get better!