Blackhawks v. Maple Leafs: Insert Clever Sports Metaphor about Raking Leaves Here
Last night’s Hawks/Maple Leafs game was a bit laborious. The Hawks gave out in the 3rd and I think so did we. Fans seemed contented with the win seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Hawks squeaked out a win against one of the worst teams in the NHL. Should the game have been as close as it was at 3-2?
Coach Quenneville more eloquently calls the Hawks crapping out in the 3rd period, “not playing the whole 60 minutes.” I call it playing on Ambien. Again, I understand that you shouldn’t exert optimum effort to beat a lousy team, but you shouldn’t phone it in either, and the Hawks definitely phoned it in during the 3rd period.
That said, it was great to see the old Patrick Kane (You know, the one from two years ago?) with his slick unassisted goal and his fancy stick-handling moves. He pokes his head out of his hole every once in a while, usually when there’s no backchecking or heavy hits by the opposing team. And yes, I’m with ‘Team Toews’ so that’s about as much of a lauding as you’ll ever get from me on Kane. Like Jonathan Toews must almost certainly do, I resent all the media attention heaped on Kane because it is for the most part greatly undeserved.
Cristobal Huet also had a good game with a .935 save percentage. But, of course, his save percentage doesn’t accurately illustrate just how many stand-on-your-head spectacular saves Huet had. In one save in particular, he could have literally dislocated his shoulder trying to block the puck. That save also happened to be one reviewed by the War Room in Toronto which was luckily ruled ‘no goal’ thanks to the herculean effort of Huet. Now if he could just show up for all the games the way he showed up for that one.
Overall a difficult game to watch, but an ugo win is better than no win at all.