And I’m really loving Ben Eager and Colin Fraser as co-enforcers in the absence of Adam Burish.  Bur could do no better in terms of quality of scraps.  Once Eager and Fraser learned the fine art of discernment — you know, figuring out when to drop the gloves and when not to — these two became indispensable.  Bang on boys! (Literally.)

With the Hawks getting their rough-housing out of the way a few times in the first period of tonight’s game against the Blues, it was no surprise that they waited past the first half of the first period to score.  The long-suffering Troy Brouwer scored one past Blues’ net-minder Ty Conklin with relative ease off an assist by Jonathan Toews.  And, with a little over two minutes left in the first, Brian Campbell also scored on a slap shot thanks to a screen from Kris Versteeg.

And with a little over three minutes left in the 2nd, Jonathan Toews came around back of the goal in what looked like it would be a wrap-around and then deftly passed to Marian Hossa who shot quickly for the third goal.

The rest of the 2nd and a little over two minutes left in the 3rd period it was hum-drum hockey until Dustin Byfuglien followed through with a clean check of Blues’ Barret Jackman.  Then Blues’ Brad Winchester and Big Buff had a bit of a go, but nothing major.  In the last 20 seconds of the game, Blues’ Cam Janssen encroached on Cristobal Huet and Huet pushed back until Brent Sopel swooped in to protect Huet.  Ben Eager then scrapped with B.J. Crombeen, even though Crombeen refused to drop his glove.  Regardless, the Hawks would take the Blues 3-0 in a shut-out for Cristobal Huet.

P.S.  And good news on the Patrick Kane front.  Despite that nasty trip into the boards during that last game between the Hawks and the Lightning wherein Kane hit his eye, Kaner is back.  Is he ok?  Of course.  He hit his head, and he doesn’t use that often enough for that to have been cause for concern.  Yet, for some unknown reason he was the star of the game tonight even though Cristobal Huet had the shut-out.  Well, I guess that’s just good P.R. and of course you need those kids to get their parents in the those seats!

Tazer deftly maneuvered the puck through heavy traffic, around opponents, and faked out Preds’ goal-tender Dan Ellis who went low, as Tazer went to shoot upstairs.  Ellis tripped Toews but could not deter his shot up high as Toews went down. (And Stan and Rocky could sit there with a grin on their faces and say that’s why they now pay Tazer the big bucks.  Although, let’s face it, Toews from the beginning was always worth the big bucks.  He’s just now getting paid what he’s worth.)

Unfortunately in both goals scored by the Preds in the 1st and 2nd periods, the shots on Huet were screened by a Hawk. (Cam Barker for the first, and Niklas Hjalmarsson for the second.) I understand that defensemen need to back up their net-minders, but perhaps they should also learn to get out of the way. Things deteriorated in the 3rd period when the Preds scored two additional goals within seconds of each other.  The Preds took the Hawks, 4-1.

Honorable mentions in this game go to Niklas Hjalmarsson for a skillful block of an attempted wrap-around goal from the Preds (and some “hammer”-worthy hits); an easily shaken off hit on Troy Brouwer that was so hard it shook several panes of the glass (and probably Brouwer’s teeth); and a ghastly shot of the puck blocked by Brent Sopel’s knee, though he continued to play through the pain while limp-skating.

On a happy note, I love the power-play unit combination of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and Marian Hossa.  I think once these guys gel together, it will improve the PP-unit’s percentages.

With Hossa, I’ve been reining in any excessive excitement I might let slip through my steely, hockey exterior. We’ve all been down this road before; we’ve bought into the hype and been disappointed.  Hossa did have some rust to work out of the pipes, but he did not disappoint.  Once Hossa oiled the hinges, he scored a short-handed goal on the penalty kill (as did Patrick Sharp within 28 seconds of each other) in the 2nd period.  Hossa would score again early on in the 3rd period and I was hoping for a hat trick, but alas it was not meant to be.  I am cautiously optimistic about Hossa, but continued performances like tonight’s will win over even this fiercest of skeptics.

While it’s usually good to have new blood, it’s still nice to see the old reliables, like Troy Brouwer who scored a goal during a penalty kill late in the 1st period, Dustin Byfuglien who scored midway through the 2nd (and who had a puck go up his shorts late in the 2nd period…tee hee), and Brent Seabrook who scored early in the 3rd.  Duncan Keith also had 3 assists.  And Niklas Hjalmarsson too is fast becoming old faithful.  He had a diving block in the first period (which is a really good way to break your neck if you slam into the boards head first), but that’s nothing as he seems to perpetually be putting himself in peril for this team.

There was a little bit of bumbling involving some bad passes, and at one point John Madden tripped over his own skates on a breakaway.  Madden would make up for it though, scoring a goal late in the 3rd.  The Hawks were also a little lazy on their back checking tonight, at first at least, but chalk that up to jet lag.  The important thing is that this team keeps improving.  So, what am I thankful for this season?  That the Blackhawks just keep getting better and better.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Also how many interference calls were missed?  I think I counted two times when I looked up and one of the Oil was holding a Hawk against the boards. Those are pretty obvious penalties to miss, if in fact you’re just missing them and not, say, overlooking them altogether.

And in terms of overlooking things, it’s really too bad that Bryan Bickell overlooked his own safety while open-ice checking Oiler Dustin Penner which resulted in Bickell slamming his head on the ice after tripping over Penner.  It’s never a good sign when two of your own teammates (in this case Niklas Hjalmarsson and Troy Brouwer) have to help you off the ice.  Bickell got his bell rung but good and is certain to have a substantial concussion.  I hope that the Hawks management will remember how Bickell took one for the team and ask him back up when he stops seeing double (or triple or quadruple).

Ok that was the bad, now for the good stuff. How much of a nail-biter was it when Cristobal Huet made that awesome save in the 2nd period by coming out of the crease so far he was halfway to the blue line!  At the same time you have to cringe because of course you never want to see your goalie that far out.  Yikes!  (It was good that Huet was performing so well last night and that Khabibulin was not in net for the Oil because seeing those two go head-to-head just feels really wrong somehow.)

Huet would again star in another nail-biting moment later in the 2nd period.  With the clock showing 0.1 seconds left, Oiler Shawn Horcoff supposedly scored a goal.  It wasn’t a pretty goal and had it stood it would’ve been called a garbage goal, but the War Room ruled a ‘no goal’ determining time had run out before the puck went in.  Once again, Huet had another great night.

Jonathan Toews too had an excellent night. He had two goals — one in the first period and one in the third on a power play — and an assist. (Also to score were Kris Versteeg, Patrick Kane, and John Madden.)  Tazer’s forechecking is now back to his pre-injury caliber so it’s nice to have him back all the way.  It’s nice to have this team back…finally.  Now, if the Hawks can keep up their winning streak on the road, they will make Hawks fans some very happy humans (as Pat Foley would say).

It was also nice to finally see the refs, in last night’s game at least, differentiating between roughing and fighting instead of carte blanche just calling a 5-minute major penalty for “fighting” whether the gloves were thrown down or not.  I want to see more of that proper kind of officiating, you know, where it’s a 5-minute major penalty for a real throw down (i.e. actual fighting); the kind that potentially draws blood.  That’s what a 5-minute major fighting penalty should look like.

As for last night’s game, it wasn’t Jarome Iginla instigating for once.  Last night, it was Dion Phaneuf who kept picking fights, some he was called for and some he wasn’t.  Even Brent Seabrook got into a scrap last night as did the Hawks’ little coming-along enforcer, Colin Fraser.  Hey why not.  The Hawks were up by several points, why not throw down the gloves a time or two, because, as ever, the Flames kept trash-talkin’ and instigating.  Perhaps the Flames should have spent less time jawin’ and scrappin’ and more time on their defense.  And perhaps they should have pulled Miikka Kiprusoff earlier. (A .750 save percentage over 40 minutes of play? Ouch!)

While we’re talking goal tenders, Cristobal Huet had another stellar night with a .964 save average.  I really do hope I get to eat crow over Huet.  It would be nice if he became the consistent, reliable goal tender we’ve always been told he can be.

And the goals were spectacular last night with Troy Brouwer, Kris Versteeg, Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Patrick Kane, and Ben Eager all scoring.  Versteeg scored twice, and Ben Eager netted his first goal of the season.  It truly was a sight to behold.

It was good to see Bryan Bickell again last night, too.  He only had a little over 11 minutes on ice, so it will be interesting to see how he does with a little more ice time.

And once again, the contributions of Niklas Hjalmarsson cannot be ignored.  It was Hjalmy’s stone-cold hit on Rene Bourque that amped the Hawks’ offense, inspiring them to score 5 times in the 2nd period. The only one that could’ve deserved that bull-dozing hit more than Bourque was Jarome Iginla.  Still, watching Hjalmy take out Bourque was like watching a Great White Shark breach the water and connect with massive, brute force with its intended target.  That would explain Hjalmarsson’s toothy grin while watching the replay from the bench.  This kid only gets better.  And so do the Hawks.  For the first time this season I have hope.  Actual hope.

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.

Once again hockeyfights.com comes through.  Here’s last night’s fight between Troy Brouwer and Jarome Iginla during the Hawks/Flames game.

Well, that’s ok Pat. We still love you. In the future, just please don’t say the “s” word again until after the game is over, kay?

Also, for all those who badmouthed Matt Walker, I think his return last night showed just how important he is to the Hawks. Like when Duncan Keith was injured, Matty’s absence was greatly felt. So hopefully some people can admit when they’re wrong and will join me in welcoming Matty back.

And horror of horrors, is Dave Bolland seriously injured??? According to the Hawks’ injury report on 4/1:

“Head coach Joel Quenneville said that Bolland is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and will not play Wednesday vs. St. Louis.”

When did that happen??? What a cruel, cruel April Fool’s Day joke! (Troy Brouwer is also day-to-day.)

But to get back to yesterday’s game, the game against the Blues is what you want to see heading into the playoffs (assuming the Hawks make it). While the offense can have a few off nights like the games versus the Canucks last Sunday and against the Canadiens Tuesday, I think the biggest hole is the lack of defense on the net. That’s what was so great about Matt Walker last night. He was there, on net, to block shots. And that, including seeing big Dustin Byfuglien and even Patrick Kane checking (or in Kaner’s case, attempting to check) was a sight for sore eyes.

Also, Jonathan Toews and Matt Walker put an opponent into the glass and held him there after Brian Campbell got a nasty check on the boards in the first period.  FACE!  Later on in the same period, Dave Bolland had an awesome assist (thanks to Troy Brouwer snatching the puck away from Dion Phaneuf) that set Andrew Ladd up for a goal mere seconds after the Flames scored.

Adam Burish scored in the second right before Patrick Kane nailed someone in the nose again, ending up in the penalty box for yet another double minor for high-sticking.  That’s twice in three games that Kane has tagged someone up high, intentionally.  Again, there is a difference between defending yourself and being a goon.  Kane lately is being a goon and he’s making the team suffer for it.  Kane’s penalty alone made up half of the eight minutes of penalties in the second period.

Like the first two periods, the third period was immediately electric when Colin Fraser scored a tricky goal only minutes into the period (still not sure how Fraser was able to scoop that in).  A scrap ensued between Matt Walker (who has just been phenomenal these past few games!) and Andre Roy as a result of Fraser’s goal and the Flames’ mounting frustration at repeatedly meeting “the Wall,” Nikolai Khabibulin.

And, as the cherry on the sundae, Troy Brouwer scored an empty netter, on the penalty kill no less, in the last two minutes of the game.  Wow, if the Hawks can continue turning in performances like this 5-2 victory over the Flames, there’s no reason the Hawks can’t lead the division.

I’d heard that there was footage out there of Kris Versteeg (a.k.a. “Verbeauty”) singing Fergie’s “Glamorous,” but now I’ve found it! Priceless! Adam Burish and Troy Brouwer seemed to get a kick out of it too…Tee hee…