Tonight the Blackhawks beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5 to 2 and Viktor Stalberg scored his first NHL hat trick, but perhaps more memorable is that the Hawks were called for ‘instigating’ twice.  So it looks like the Blackhawks will be the team that the NHL proves their instigating penalty on. 

And what is instigating exactly?  According to the NHL’s ever-changing rule book,

“A player who is deemed to be both the instigator and aggressor of an altercation shall be assessed an instigating minor penalty, a major penalty for fighting, a ten-minute misconduct (instigator) and a game misconduct penalty (aggressor).”

Does nobody think this is too severe? After all, Canucks’ Alex Burrows cheap shotted Bruins’ Shawn Thornton in the Canucks/Bruins game the other night, but nobody called constant bur-on-the-butt Burrows for instigating.

It also looks like the NHL is confusing an “aggressor” with an “instigator” as if they were one and the same.  According to the NHL an “aggressor” is,

“…the player who continues to throw punches in an attempt to inflict punishment on his opponent who is in a defenseless position or who is an unwilling combatant.”

Um, yeah, but what do you call an Alex Burrows-type who repeatedly takes cheap shots on guys (hair pulling, biting, scratching, spearing, high-sticking) in order to entice them into fighting?  See, because the dictionary defines instigating as “urging, provoking, or inciting some action or course” and in the case of Alex Burrows in that game the other night, it was he who instigated first.  To put that in playground rules, Alex Burrows started it first!

But the NHL give themselves an out for bad refereeing:

“Referees are provided very wide latitude in the penalties with which they may impose under this rule. This is done intentionally to enable them to differentiate between the obvious degrees of responsibility of the participants either for starting the fighting or persisting in continuing the fighting. The discretion provided should be exercised realistically.”

Another way to define “wide latitude” is “subjectivity” ensuring that no two games are called exactly alike, or properly.  Why subjectivity?  Because refs have preferences for certain teams and dislikes for others, and because the NHL rules are so vague as to be interpreted in many different ways.  For instance, if the instigating rule were a law it wouldn’t hold water; it would be voided for vagueness.  So why should the NHL purposely leave the instigating rule vague so as to ensure confusion and bad calls, i.e. improperly refereed games?

And I guess I can understand why they created the penalty for being the 3rd man to engage in a fight (the old “3rd man in rule”) to guarantee that NHL fights didn’t turn into bench-clearers, but coming to the aid of a teammate after he got checked dirty — like Steve Montador and Jamal Mayers in tonight’s game who were defending Andrew Brunette and Niklas Hjalmarsson respectively — shouldn’t be instigating or a game misconduct.  These kinds of rules are ruining the integrity of hockey and need to stop!

My gosh, did you see Niklas Hjalmarsson get pounded on the ice tonight?  He was on the business end of a dirty check to the head from Blue Jackets’ Jared Boll and a nasty high-stick to the eye from Tomas Kubalik.  Granted the high-stick was an accident, but the dirty hit certainly wasn’t and deserved an answer from Jamal Mayers.  So I disagree with the whole “instigating” penalty as it’s defined by the NHL and as it’s being enforced by the refs.  I understand the fine line the NHL walks between trying to keep the players safe and over-enforcement, but all these rules are ruining hockey.  Seriously, I’m with Don Cherry on this one: If you overly penalize fighting, you will ruin the character of the game and therefore the game itself.

That said, congratulations to Viktor Stalberg on his hat trick and to Dave Bolland on his shorty goal;  Tazer (who took a puck to the head off a deflected shot from Duncan Keith in the 1st period) and Jelly go ice your heads; and hey NHL, can we cool it on the instigation penalties for one hot minute???

Speaking of getting it right, the Hawks couldn’t in tonight’s shutout by the Avs. I don’t think we have ever seen Captain Serious, Jonathan Toews, so frustrated. In the dwindling moments of the game, Toews was slow to get up after having been knocked once again to the ice, and he just never seemed to recover his will. When the game was over, Toews uncharacteristically was one of the first off the ice to the dressing room, foregoing his usual fist bump to each of his teammates. I can only imagine what he had to say to his teammates once off the ice. Hopefully he angrily yelled at them and said something like, “I can’t carry an entire team by myself. So if you don’t have the heart to get out there and do your best and stop bumbling around with the puck, then what are you doing here???” Toews had every right to take a breeze on his team after the game was over; they took a breeze on him while the game was still on.

Where Toews and Kane cannot compare, however, is on the face-off.  Patrick Kane is still struggling on the face-off with only 1 face-off win and 6 face-off losses and a mere 14% face-off win percentage in tonight’s game; whereas Toews had 20 face-off wins and 5 face-off losses for a face-off win percentage of 80%.  So maybe these two can trade up on some things.  Maybe Toews can step up his game and Kane can step up his face-off wins.

And what to say about the Hawks’ lagging power play?  Last year, their power play topped the league and their penalty kill was lagging.  Now it’s the opposite with their penalty kill topping the league and their power play bottoming out amongst the lowest in the league.  It’s embarrassing for the Hawks to repeatedly not be able to score on a 5-on-3, but of course the Hawks are aware of this and are certainly working on the problem.

Overall, the Hawks need to buck up against defensive-minded teams.  The Hawks looked tired and sloppy tonight.  Dave Bolland’s line wasn’t as aggressive as before; Viktor Stalberg, while shooter on the game-winning goal, didn’t pick up his game ’til the overtime period; and even Jonathan Toews was slow to get off the ice at one point.  Let’s hope the Hawks are just suffering from something unavoidable like the flu and will clear out the cobwebs and pick up their game soon.  Still, a win is a win.  Happy Hawks-o-ween everybody!

Yet, O’Halloran, undeterred by his comeuppance, switched the focus of his ire to Patrick Sharp in the 3rd period.  Goony Stars’ forward Steve Ott had delivered a cheap shot high-stick to Sharpy late in the 2nd period, and Sharpy, having had enough of Ott’s gooniness, retaliated in the third with a cross-check to Ott, for which Sharpy was penalized.  That, of course, was the correct call, but past the midway point of the 3rd period, O’Halloran slapped Sharp with a bogus tripping call, and when Sharp protested, O’Halloran threw him out of the game!  Now, if you were to ask anyone — whether the Hawks organization, Hawks fans, or even hockey pundits outside of Chicago — who the most subdued and easygoing players on the Hawks were, you would probably hear Patrick Sharp first followed by Jonathan Toews.  So it is even that much more suspect that O’Halloran targeted them both for bogus calls, even throwing the most easy-going of the two, Patrick Sharp, out of the game!  Of all of the players least likely to mouth off to a ref, Sharp is not only the least likely suspect on the Hawks, but one of the least likely in the league to mouth off to a ref.  Isn’t it well past time for the NHL to censure Dan O’Halloran for his repeated biased calls against the Hawks over several seasons???  The NFL’s referees’ calls are reviewed every week, so I have to believe the NHL’s refs’s calls are reviewed also.  How could any audit of Dan O’Halloran’s refereeing miss his bias against the Hawks?  And what do the Hawks organization, the players, and the fans have to do to get the NHL’s attention about what a problem O’Halloran’s subjective calling is?  If you can’t fire the guy, then at the very least don’t let him call Hawks games anymore!

On a happier note, it’s so great to have Dave Bolland back!  Bolly and his line were awe-inspiring tonight.  Bolly has, for many seasons, kind of flown under the radar, but comparing last night’s game with tonight’s game, you can so clearly see the value-add of Bolly’s line against a team with good D.  The combination of Bolland, with Michael Frolik, and Bryan Bickell was fundamental to the win, no doubt.  It has also been great to see Bryan Bickell get back on the body again, and out of his quasi slump.  And Frolik has always been a steady and physical player, so the combination of these three on a line…well…you can take it to the bank.

Also key to tonight’s win, as he was in last night’s effort, was Nick Leddy.  So far, Leddy has been the Hawks’ shutdown player, which is an amazing thing to be able to say about a 20-year old kid.  Just imagine what Leddy will be capable of once he matures.

And while we’re on the topic of maturity, it’s amazing how little Adam Burish has matured since being traded from the Blackhawks to the Stars two seasons ago.  Everyone knows Bur is an instigator, but in tonight’s game he was like the little red-headed stepchild desperate to get the attention of his former teammates.  I couldn’t tell if Burish was trying to get any attention, even negative attention, or if he was just trying to show the Hawks that it was a mistake to get rid of him two seasons ago.  I cannot ever recall Burish working so hard to get on an opposing team’s radar.  He picked a fight with Jamal Mayers in the 3rd after Mayers accidentally knocked off Bur’s helmet (which was simply not strapped on tightly enough, which I made a point of mentioning to my friend before the game even started), and he picked a fight with his former teammate Dave Bolland of all people.  You wouldn’t have thought Bolly and Bur had ever been teammates to look at them.  And watching former Hawk Jake Dowell go at it with current Hawk Jamal Mayers was a little bittersweet too, but it was especially hard to watch Burish get sent to the locker room for a game misconduct after instigating in the last few seconds of the game.  You know I started wondering about Burish’s character after he publicly dissed his former teammate Martin Havlat several seasons ago after Havlat got traded to the Wild, but seeing Bur’s antics tonight was just sort of…well…pathetic.  If Bur proved anything tonight, it’s that the Hawks were right to get rid of him.

And speaking of exits, the Hawks sent Brandon Pirri back down to Rockford and brought Marcus Kruger up.  I see Brandon Pirri as the next Jack Skille or Bryan Bickell, so I think Pirri is certainly worth the investment in time and is deserving of a chance.  Hopefully the Hawks will bring Pirri up to the bigs more often so he can work on his game.  If his pre-season contribution is any indication, Pirri will make for a fine sniper one day.

The Hawks could use a good sniper on their power play unit, though the Hawks were obviously improved over last night on the power play.  Andrew Brunette was able to score on the power play, but for the only power play goal of the night, which was better than the goose egg the Hawks had on the power play the night before.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the power play unit didn’t score on a 5-on-3 late in the second, and we all know Joel Quenneville’s theory about that.  I mean, how many times has Q said that if you don’t score on a 5-on-3 you’re probably not going to win the game?  Well, the Hawks won but clearly the power play unit still needs some work, though the penalty kill unit killed off all but one penalty.

Also needing improvement was Patrick Kane as center.  Kane won two face-offs, but lost four, leaving him with a face-off win percentage of only 33%.  Kane also had one giveaway, three shots on goal, and three misses which points to his difficulty in taking it to the net and following through once there.  Hopefully, over time, he can improve these numbers.

Still, tonight’s game was really exciting.  It gives me hope, and it shows that the Hawks are able to pinpoint their mistakes, learn from them, and improve.  If the team is able to stay healthy, the Hawks could have a good shot this season.

Related:

Oh Snap! Dan O’Halloran Gets Plugged on the Boards by Big Buff!

How Ya Like the Hawks Now Danny Boy???

While I’m not the “beta chapter” of the Matt Walker fan club, as described by the self-appointed “alpha chapter” of the Matt Walker fan club in St. Louis (and for those who don’t know, Walker played for the Blues first), I can recognize good, solid play when I see it.  But I think critics of Matt Walker misconstrue him.  I watched Walker all season in Chicago in 08-09 and he was solid — laying on heavy hits, blocking shots, and playing the role of an all-around good enforcer.  Yet just like in Chicago, fans in Philly just didn’t seem to get what Matt Walker was all about.  Most fans merely judged Walker on his goal points, assists, and his +/- score which is a ridiculous thing to do to a defenseman whose primary role involves hits and enforcement.  Would you have judged a similarly aggressive defenseman like Chris Chelios in the same way?  And if Chris Chelios had had to have surgery due to an injury, would he immediately have been put on waivers?  I know the Flyers had to free up cap space with Matt Walker, but hopefully it doesn’t tarnish Matt Walker’s reputation as a solid and aggressive defenseman, which he has been and still is.

Incidentally, when Chelios played for the Blackhawks in the late 90s, he recorded two consecutive seasons with minus ratings, and in his career he went entire seasons without scoring at all or only scoring once with a few assists.  But that only means Chelios was what they call a defensive defenseman.  It of course doesn’t mean Chris Chelios wasn’t a good defenseman.  And just as you wouldn’t hate on Chris Chelios for recording a -7 season, Chicago Blackhawks fans don’t necessarily use only those criteria — goals, assists, +/- scores — to judge the play of similarly defensive defensemen like Niklas Hjalmarsson either.  In other words, it’s particularly unfair to judge a defensive defenseman only by his offensive stats.  It’s odd too because even though Hjalmarsson and Walker were paired on the same line in the 2009 playoffs and were a big reason why the Blackhawks got as far as they did in the playoffs that year, people only seem to recognize Hjalmarsson’s contribution, not Walker’s.  So what makes Matt Walker so different from Hjalmarsson other than that it’s easy to make “Big Country” the fall guy because he’s so humble he’ll actually take scorn and derision from fair-weather fans? Is that why all the hatin’ on Walker?  Because he actually takes it, and no one, including even Walker himself, defends him?

They call Walker “Big Country” I guess to mock his folksy manner, or because he’s not very verbose with the press, but what’s wrong with that? Dave Bolland is the same way but I’ve never heard of Bolly being called a country bumpkin.  What gives? Should Walker act like Chris Pronger or God forbid Sean Avery?  Those guys talk so much trash they give their true, obnoxious selves away.  I’m guessing given a do-over Elisha Cuthbert (who was very publicly dissed by ex-boyfriend Sean Avery in 2008) wishes she had dated a Matt Walker-type instead of Sean Avery, just to put that in perspective.  And the Sean Averys of the hockey world?  Well, thankfully they’re few and far between since that’s not how most hockey players are; most are gentlemanly and humble.  So, why make sport of Walker’s aw-shucks demeanor?  If you ask me (and I’m guessing Elisha Cuthbert), the world needs fewer arrogant sports stars, not more.

I also don’t understand why Matt Walker was and has been written off by Philly fans.  I think, once fully recovered, he could be as good as the “fans” would let him be no matter where he plays.  For instance, Walker virtually flew under the radar here in Chicago and he had his best season ever.  Now just imagine how well he could play with wellness and a little encouragement.  I mean really, how well would you do your job with jerks in your face constantly making fun of you, implying you’re a boor, and deriding your performance?  Still, there were many more lackluster defensemen here in Chicago who were more deserving of criticism like Brent Sopel, Cam Barker, or even takes-up-too-much-cap-space Brian Campbell.  Yet for some reason it was Matt Walker who was judged most harshly by outside hockey “pundits”; the same hockey “pundits” who went on to dog him in Tampa Bay and Philly.  Gee, did it ever occur to you that if you cut the guy a little slack and didn’t put such immense pressure on him, he might actually relax and be able to perform as expected?  And what?  Can’t hockey players even suffer injuries anymore without the constant threat of being traded?  You know it degrades humans to view them as mere chattel.

So here’s your education so-called hockey “pundits.” You want to know where the value-add for Matt Walker can be seen?  Look at his penalties in minutes. Count how many blocked shots he has in a game or how many times he cuts off passing lanes.  He’s a goaltender’s best friend.  Count how many times he harasses the puck away from his opponent.  And look at what he can do when he’s on the PK.  That’s where Matt Walker makes his contribution.  Still, his offensive stats in Chicago weren’t so shabby either for the kind of aggressive, defensive defenseman that he is.  For those who are offense-minded, he scored 1 goal, had 13 assists, and was +7 for the season in Chicago, and that’s with all his hits and enforcement duties and an average of 13-16 minutes of ice time.  I can’t find his hits tally for his time in Chicago, but his PIM was 79.  In Tampa Bay the following season he had 2 goals and 3 assists, his hits tally was 82, and his PIM was 90, and that was him playing with injuries.  Granted he was -11 for the season in Tampa Bay, but how is that all Matt Walker’s fault?  The entire team had problems in the 09-10 season.

As for Philly, well, Walker got injured and so he never got a chance to be the value-add that it was hoped he would be. Can’t you chalk that up to happenstance?  It is the rarest of hockey players who don’t have an injury at some point.  Still, when Philly “fans” talk about Walker’s time in Tampa Bay or Chicago, it appears that they just don’t understand the role he played which is why they didn’t even bother to give him a chance in Philly, especially once he was injured.  It’s as if they turned Walker into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I guess the fans are fickle and so their behavior can be dismissed somewhat, but what about the Flyers putting Walker on waivers when he got injured?  Seems like they may have jumped the gun a little, though, as always, you can blame the cap for that.

And like Tampa Bay and Philly, it’s too bad Chicago didn’t know what they had in Matt Walker when they let him go.  I think things would have been a whole lot different for Matt Walker had he stayed in Chicago, but I was actually happy for him when he went to Tampa Bay in 2009 because I thought with his signing of a 4-year deal worth $1.7 million a year, he might actually finally have gotten the respect he deserved.  Unfortunately, Walker was back on the bus the very next season, this time to Philadelphia in exchange for Simon Gagné, much to the chagrin of Flyers fans.  But you never really gave him a chance did you Philly?

Regardless of what the fickle fans say, I’ll always remember Matty as the guy who broke his finger in two places during the 2009 playoffs, went back to the locker room, had it put back in place and taped, and went back out on the ice.  Look at this YouTube video of an interview Walker gave about his broken finger:

That’s the kind of hockey player Matt Walker is, and it’s the kind of player he will be if a team and its fans would give him a chance to prove himself. And precisely because Matt Walker played with that broken finger in Chicago, he had trouble the next season in Tampa Bay with, you guessed it, his finger (as well as some other hindrances that would follow him to Philly, apparently).  So, instead of being a hero for playing through the pain so as not to let the Blackhawks and the fans down, he gets traded to Tampa Bay and then to Philly! Seems no good deed goes unpunished for Matt Walker.

So, for whatever it’s worth, to Matty I say thank you for a great 08-09 season in Chicago.  It was and still is my favorite Blackhawks season, and it should have been the season the Hawks won the cup.  I’m just sorry so few recognized your contribution, or saw what you were truly capable of.

P.S. And hey Philly, tell Chris Pronger the Blackhawks want their Stanley Cup finals game-2 winning puck back.  I mean really, who does that?  Who steals the winning team’s souvenirs???  Such poor sportsmanship! (even for a goon.)

Also, on a goal scored by Cam Barker in the opening minutes of the third period (on which Colin Fraser assisted) Barker made a sweet deke, as did Patrick Sharp in the 3rd round of the OT shootout for the game winner.

And poor Kris Versteeg.  What a bad night he had.  He just couldn’t get a break.  Steegy got handed two weird penalties — one for slashing, though we all thought it was goal-tender interference, which also would’ve been a bogus call, and one for actual goal-tender interference.  Meanwhile, the refs were missing hooking calls like hooking didn’t even exist.  Geesh, why can’t the NHL hold a conference on bad refereeing?  Seems just as important a topic as fighting or so-called “dirty” hits.

And blast!  I keep forgetting to write a post about Dave Bolland’s back surgery.  Bolly will be out 3-4 months.  Get well Dave, take lots of pain killers, and get back soon!

It was like both teams had taken Ambien and were sleep walking through the game.  They were slow.  I mean, slooooooow.  You can’t really blame the Hawks.  Why expend more energy than you have to to beat such a lousy team? And the Wild are lousy, at least on the road.  Even Patrick Kane was able to score a goal in the 3rd period, unassisted at that. (Other goals were scored for the Hawks by Dave Bolland and Troy Brouwer, both in the 1st period.)

Watching for the bad calls was the only thing keeping the crowd lively.  At times you could hear a pin drop in the UC.  It was eerily quiet.  Even the fight between the Wild’s Shane Hnidy and the Hawks’ Jake Dowell in the 1st period was blah.  No sooner had they gotten going at each other and the refs were breaking it up (which elicited a resounding, collective boo from Hawks fans), even though neither Hnidy or Dowell had put the other on the ice. And for that little go-around, Hnidy and Dowell got a 5-minute major penalty!  Similarly, in the 2nd period, the ref would independently call boarding on both the Wild’s Cal Clutterbuck and the Hawks’ Tomas Kopecky; both were minor penalties which indicated the hits were no big deal and certainly not severe enough to necessitate a boarding call.  If you blinked, you would have missed it.  I love it when refs try to phase out fighting or what they deem questionable hits by excessively penalizing them.  Yeah, because we don’t know what they’re doing.  Tonight’s game illustrates, at least in one way, why fighting in hockey is necessary.  It picks up an otherwise dreary game.  (And mad props go to the Hawks’ penalty-kill unit tonight.  They were mighty busy.)

Other of tonight’s calls that left us all scratching our heads came in the 3rd period when the Wild’s Benoit Pouliot was called for diving and the Hawks’ Cam Barker was called for interference. Even the scoreboard keeper was confused at those “penalties.”  The scoreboard at first called Cam Barker’s “interference” as “roughing.”  Hey, the statisticians’ guesses were as good as ours because we didn’t see Benoit Pouliot embellishing and we sure as hell didn’t see Cam Barker interfere. We did see Pouliot tripping, which came on the heels of another missed tripping call that should’ve been on the Wild, but how a ref could get diving out of that I don’t know. Perhaps the weirdest call of the night, at least against the Wild, was on goaltender Niklas Backstrom who was called for slashing in the 2nd period. <shrug>  It was about this time that the fans started realizing that the refs were just pulling calls out of their cracks…or they were smoking crack.  Something having to do with a whole lot of crack.

Overall, it was a weird game.  The refs must have been high and the players were in a funk, but the fans were in rare form.  Indeed, many wore their old Martin Havlat sweaters as if to say thank you to Havi for last season.  One fan even pointed to the ‘24′ on his Havlat sweater when he made it on the jumbotron.  That’s what’s great about Hawks fans.  Unlike other fans from other teams, we honor our former players.

Final score: Hawks win 3-1 against the Wild in a very strange game.

Cam Barker’s 2nd period bad pass to…who? Dave Bolland?…hard to say… got picked off by Olli Jokinen for the goal.  Barker would redeem himself with his goal scored on Kipper in the last 4 minutes of the 2nd.

But Verbeauty’s PP goal in the last 7 minutes of the 2nd period was a thing of…well…beauty.  Clearly Steegy is earning his Calder nom.  And Verbeauty had the assist (as did Pahlsson) on the game-tying goal in the last 40 seconds of the 2nd when Dustin Byfuglien scored.  Way to go boys!  What an effort!

Still, the Hawks would fade in the 3rd period.  Patrick Kane was checked hard for the puck in the final minute of the game, which allowed the turnover that would score the empty-netter to end the game, 6-4 in the final.

While the team in general may have forgotten they were in the playoffs, Seabrook seemed to understand the up-the-ante mentality, making the big hits and masterfully blocking a humdinger of a shot for Khabibulin at the crease in the first period.

It’s also good to see the Hawks are using the power play better, with Patrick Sharp scoring a PP goal in the 1st period thanks to a nice pass from Jonathan Toews.  Looks like Sharpie is back to his old self again, even checking a Flame or two with a nice how-do-you-do in passing.  And as it was in the first game, Marty Havlat seemed to be one of the only ones who could take it to the net and score in the 3rd period.  Again, that’s just good ‘D’ on the Flames’ part.

And while this game was overall lackluster, a special nod goes to penalty killer Adam Burish and the penalty kill unit.  Although Bur should have known better than to cross-check Dion Phaneuf in the dwindling minutes of the game.  That cheap shot started a kerfuffle (as Pat Foley likes to say) between Dustin Byfuglien, Matt Walker, Ben Eager and Rene Bourque, Jarome Iginla, and Dion Phaneuf, resulting in Dustin Byfuglien and Rene Bourque being sent to the dressing room*.

Clearly something went wrong tonight.  Maybe the Hawks had jet lag.  Maybe they just didn’t bring their ‘A’ game (to dust off an old trite sports expression).  Well, whatever it was, hopefully the Hawks shake it off by Wednesday.

*Update: Though it wasn’t said at the time (probably because nobody, including the ref, the linesmen, and Toronto, knew what the heck was going on) apparently Dave Bolland, Ben Eager, and Dustin Byfuglien from the Hawks and Curtis Glencross and Rene Bourque from the Flames all received game misconduct calls for that end-of-the game donnybrook.  Hopefully nobody gets suspended.

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!