Hawks Hockey Hoiden

Line changing seems to be the name of the game of late for the Hawks. On the Jonathan Toews line now is Patrick Kane again and Troy Brouwer.  Hmm, not bad in terms of forechecking and all out aggressiveness.  And how about that Madden line with Kris Versteeg and Dustin Byfuglien on wing; Madden who has steadily increased his face-off wins and overall performance?  And Jordan Hendry replaced Tomas Kopecky (Bout time somebody did!) on the Colin Fraser line.  Has Coach Q finally solidified the offensive lines?  Well, let’s hope so.  Let’s hope Q has finally found a winning combination. (more…)

If you’re a reader of this blog with any regularity you know that I have had a lot to say about how much of a mistake it was that the Blackhawks lost defenseman Matt Walker at the end of last season. So I was surprised that there wasn’t even a mention of Walker and his move to the Lightning before the start of the game tonight. (more…)

Coming into tonight’s Hawks/Sabres game there was a lot of talk about the Hawks going up against their old goal-tender Patrick Lalime, which was weird because Lalime has been out of Chicago and in Buffalo for two seasons now. On the flip-side, Brian Campbell has been out of Buffalo and in Chicago for three seasons.  You’d think that would be long enough for the Buffalo crowd to forget about him and not boo him, but apparently not. (Chuckle) (more…)

In tonight’s Hawks/Rangers match-up, I was most looking forward to the Hawks meeting up with Sean Avery, the infamous kiss-and-teller of the NHL.  Yes, Avery is renowned as having quite the mouth on him, so I was much looking forward to a Hawk decommissioning of that mouth.  But alas, this original six meet-up was entirely too tame.  (more…)

There were many goon moments in tonight’s 2-1 Hawks win over the Penguins. The Penguins trash-talked and were guilty of cheap shots and picking fights.  In fact, and I never thought I’d say this, there were too many scuffles.  The Penguins were obviously using their gooniness as part of their strategy, and too many times the Hawks did not keep their composure, not that you could blame them.  Still, for all the Penguins’ jawin’ and scrappin’ the Hawks still took them. (more…)

There have been a lot of rumors floating around about which players the Blackhawks’ front office is looking to unload.  Possible names floated about have been Cam Barker, Brian Campbell, Dustin Byfuglien, and even Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg.  It’s hard to know if these are players the Hawks are considering trading, it these are players other teams want, or if these are players that sports writers and fans are lobbying to get rid of (or all three). (more…)

The most consistent thing about last night’s 5-2 win over the Oilers was the inconsistency of the officiating.  Beyond all the missed hooking calls that were so numerous I lost count, there were a couple of missed boarding calls (i.e. dirty hits from behind).  The weird thing is the refs didn’t allow any fights.  So, in theory, the refs would allow dirty hits which had the potential to do damage, but they wouldn’t allow fighting ostensibly because fighting leads to injuries?  Yeah, that makes sense.  (more…)

Last night’s 7-1 win over the Flames was breathtaking.  For the first time this season, it felt like the magic of last season had returned.  I can’t decide if that was because the Hawks have finally gelled with each other, or if the Flames just fell down, psyched out by the remembrance of the playoffs last season.  I want to believe it is the former, not the latter.  (more…)

Wow, I take back everything I said about Colin Fraser not being a good choice for enforcer.  Fraser made it quite obvious in two scraps that he is more than equipped to be team agitator in tonight’s Hawks/Avalanche match-up (which resulted in a 3-2 Blackhawks win in OT, of course).  I renew my irritation, however, at the overpenalizing of fighting.  A 5-minute major penalty for a little roughing that doesn’t even draw blood is excessive. (more…)

What a home-opener last night at the UC between the Hawks and the Colorado Avalanche!  Almost makes you wish you were there. (Almost.)  But if I hadn’t been at home I wouldn’t have gotten to see the replay (about 6 times) of Niklas Hjalmarsson’s swing-batta-batta swing into the face of the Avs Darcy Tucker.  In a word: awesome.  And Hjalmy didn’t even get called for high-sticking! (more…)