Hawks Hockey Hoiden

A few posts ago, I wrote that it appeared that the Blackhawks still had bats in their belfry.  Many a hockey pundit criticized Jonathan Toews in particular because he had been off for a couple games.  I guess Tazer, the work horse, just couldn’t be off even for a game or two, even though Patrick Kane has, in the past, gone month after month turning in lousy performances, while no one but the fans would acknowledge Kane’s slumps. (Although who can blame sports reporters for treating Kane with kitty gloves?  No one wants to lose their press pass.)  For instance, remember the last time they tried Kane out at center?  He got bulldozed.  Even now Kane’s average face-off win percentage is 50% at best, but people seem not to notice things like lost face-offs if Kane scores a few goals.  (more…)

Wow, what happened last night in the Blackhawks’ season opener against the Dallas Stars?  It would’ve been a shutout had Nick Leddy not crashed the net with sheer determination in the last few seconds of the game to score the Hawks’ lone goal.  The final score was 2-1 Dallas, but it could’ve been so much worse given how the Hawks played.  They did not appear to be well-conditioned at all.  They could not match the Stars on their stamina, and even Jonathan Toews was left far behind on one of Patrick Sharp’s mad dashes to the net.  And while Sharpy had a high-throttle game coming strong off of his emergency appendectomy, the rest of the team appeared tired and sluggish as early as the 2nd period.  (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…)

In the last couple of games, we’ve heard the worst sound in the world: the “clink, clink, clink” off the iron as the Hawks have made some bad shots.  It’s to be expected because the Flames are just that good on ‘D,’ harassing the puck away or harassing the Hawks while taking shots.   But you know, that’s what you do in the playoffs.  You up the ante.  Unfortunately, the Hawks didn’t answer tonight in their 2-4 loss to the Flames. (more…)

Nikolai Khabibulin almost had a shut-out in last night’s Blues/Hawks game. With the Hawks up 3-0 and three seconds left in the game, Pat Foley wondered if Khabby might just have a shut-out on his hands. Then, the unthinkable; the Blues scored at the last second. So, was it Pat Foley who jinxed Khabby right out of his shut-out? (more…)

How is it that the goal that Oilers’ Ethan Moreau scored at the beginning of the 2nd period in tonight’s Hawks/Oilers game was able to stand?  All that Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk seemed concerned with was whether it was a good goal or not.  The bigger issue was that the “goal” was as a direct result of goaltender interference by Dustin Penner on Nikolai Khabibulin in the crease.  I even looked it up in the NHL rulebook which states that a goal is disallowed, “When an attacking player has interfered with a goalkeeper in his goal crease.”  So what did I miss?  Better yet, how did the War Room in Toronto miss that?

What was with that interference call on Cam Barker after he checked David Backes on the boards in the first period of the Hawks/Blues game tonight?  Barker got a five-minute major penalty for that interference call. The hockey pundits said that interference is usually a minor penalty, meaning only two minutes, but has anyone ever seen interference called as a major penalty, meaning five minutes?  Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk were even baffled at the interference being a major penalty, though Olczyk acknowledged later that per the rule book a major penalty can be called for interference; that it’s at the discretion of the official.  Still, what about that hit merited a major penalty?  (Oddly enough, history repeated itself in the 3rd period when Dustin Byfuglien got called for interference for the same exact kind of hit.  Yet Byfuglien’s interference call was only a minor penalty.)  (more…)