saw that the canucks got smoked by the jets last night -another loss for vancouver, only 1 goal scored. nothing from miller/pettersson. canucks in a dogfight for the last wild card spot in the west, hopefully will compel them to pull the trigger and make a trade.

sharks go into detroit and beat the hot red wings, 6-3.

celebrini 2 assists/will smith 1 assist.

if nazar gets 1 point every 5 games, BN guy tells us that nazar is 'making plays'. too early to shake your head, but nazar needs to start producing more. don't worry about the hair and the bobby-sox girl cheering section, make some plays and the points will come.

canadiens win again in utah, hutson with 3 assists. korchinski has his role model.

No doubt about other teams being able to scout the new system. Just a coincidence than when Jones came back, the team started playing worse.

Jones has also been awful since returning. He puts absolutely no effort into anything in the defensive zone. He plays the body like a 5'10 165 lb Swedish forward. I like that the media is starting to turn on him and call him out for being completely useless. I hope Folilgno's comments about players not wanting to be there and not willing to block shots was aimed at his dead ass. They need to make a decision on him sooner than later. If he is deemed a completely sunk cost then start healthy scratching him. If you think there is any value at all in trading him then figure out what you would have to do to make him look more attractive and get him on his fucking way.......along with the prospects , picks and cash it will take to get anyone to take him.

You can not build a roster and develop talent with your highest paid player just standing around and fucking off every shift.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Hawks move Phillips (who seemed to be the odd man out) to Winnipeg for a Belarusian to hang out with Lev.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

don't like the trade at all. i believe the goal is to get rid of D deadweight; jones/murphy/brodie/martinez. rinzel and levshunov won't be ready for awhile, the assumption is that KK and del mastro 'should'/'could' be ready for the nhl roster next year. if we let guys like phillips go, yes, the blackhawks can't get into the ugly reality of buying out/waiving/trading and retaining $$ of the deadweight defense.

everyone loves frenchie crevier, well, because he's quebecois. i don't think he's been as good as forced-fed to us by the media and phillips has a heavier shot than crevier. crevier has a more accurate shot. also, saw del mastro last year. scrutinized his play - he's a terrible skater. he's big and can hit like phillips, is a better fighter than phillips, can't skate - not sure how much improvement he's made, i guess we'll find out soon enough. hopefully, the progress of kaiser, crevier and allen is linear and vlasic levels off to 4-5 good games, 1 blah game ratio.

i would have resigned phillips - willing to have given him $1.5 million (nhl)/$1.1 million (rockford) per on a 2-way contract. i believe phillips is a #5/#6 d-man in the nhl right now and a greater benefit of having him around will be in 2 years.

if we got a 5'10 d-man that was taken in the 2nd round and winnipeg traded him and was hot for a blackhawks 5th round pick phillips, because we want to reunite peaches & herb, then bedard should be screaming bloody murder because the blackhawks let raddysh go. raddysh and bedard were butt-brothers last year.

fi Hawks get #1 pick they'll be adding a sure fire #1 stud dman to the mix in Shaeffer. I know we need forwards, but Shaeffer is BPA by a noticeable margin based on the little I saw of him at WJC.

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Not to mention, you can trade the excess D for forwards.

mark lazerus, former sun-times blackhawks beat guy and current athletic guy, came up with this brainstorm, a week after the previous hypotheticals:



i feel as though that's a bit too much and it will shift all of GM kyle's job security axis on how well pettersson plays and produces with bedard.

i've been hard on nazar and korchinski, i do believe in them - nazar had a very good game last night - great skating, alert...just couldn't finish. if he gets 3 high-chance scoring opportunities a game, he'll end up with 100+ points. if he disappears the next 2 weeks, then we won't care and the canucks won't want him either. he's got to play like this more often.

korchinski? he'll be back and i'll be anxious to watch him. the canadiens give hutson PP minutes, blackhawks prefer seth jones there. even over vlasic, 4th highest velocity shot from the point this year? hopefully, paired with a stay-at-home type, and i don't mean murphy.

so, didn't blackhawks scouting have an idea about the prospects of the 2025 draft? i believe the nhl itself, provides lots of info on those eligible. maybe GM kyle was confident he could work a trade with columbus and get the second top 5 pick, last year? just didn't happen. what if a LW was the best player available in the draft for 4 consecutive years when you're in a tank-a-thon patch of time?

the prospect analyst on zawaki's show told me what you're saying. schaeffer, by far, best player available. then a tier consisting of martone, misa and hagens.

my post was about transitioning between older, expensive d-men and homegrown, younger d-men. i mean, phillips isn't an all-star, but his size and skating make him a very serviceable 5/6 d-man at a very friendly cost. del mastro has the same written all over him, 5/6 d-man. this leaves KK, vlasic, allen, kaiser and crevier. if rinzel and levshunov were around the corner, i'd understand. we got jones/murphy/brodie/martinez who won't be anywhere near this club when they make the playoffs.

had time and watched zawaski/tirabassi podcast and then read boysen and not sure what they were watching. i thought the theme of the game was neutral zone play. generated a few breakaways and clean, quick entries.

forecheck?? bedards goal came due to a nashville turnover because bertuzzi sealed the wall. this what other clubs do to us, all the time in our d-zone, because we have plenty turnover machines.

i like this because this is exactly how minnesota plays and i believe the blackhawks roster and skill-sets, favor this type of play.

I think as recently as a few months ago Hagans was locked at #1 with Matones/Misa next and Shaeffer wasn't considered a contender for that spot. But then he blew up this season.

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offense has been clicking recently - good entries, speed, winning more o-zone face-offs, guys quickly moving into open ice. lots of high quality chances. heard of bit of chgo podcast, stopped listening after 6 minutes. zawaski took a shot at charlie r of wgn - ok, fair enough, then muttered nonsense about reichel and a good forecheck.

i'm starting to think that he doesn't know what he's watching. as a club, the blackhawks are collectively too small and too soft to be a 'forechecking' club. he has described some goals as coming off a forecheck, when it clearly wasn't.

- bedard was flying. could have easily had 2 goals/2 more assists. again, nazar has to produce when gifted with high quality chances.

I think the bearded guy was the one that knew about hockey on that "podcast". I think Jay likes the Hawks but has contacts from being a producer. The other guy just liked telling stories that didn't go anywhere about himself.

likely you've been watching them longer than me - they did announce after the nashville shootout loss podcast, that boysen was coming back. i think he got caught up in the recent team identity brou-ha-ha and latched on to forechecking and now he's stuck on it. the same with the BN guy. if craig smith was back, the club has maybe 2 lines that could have a forechecking game, but with definite weak links in reichel/teuvo. play smart, seal the wall, hold pucks in at the line and the opponent will make a mistake here and there, just like the blackhawks do in their own d-zone. don't tell me that the bedard is a 'tenacious' forechecker because an avalanche player made a poor pass out of the corner that happened to hit bedard's stick and rolled to mikheyev, who scored.

you start wondering how in the world they got their jobs.

blackhawks impressed me yesterday - so many quality chances. samsonov's save % was poor - would have been even worse if he didn't make outstanding saves on bedard, nazar...quality over quantity. tons of great chances against a top club. nazar really could have tallied 4 goals the last 2 games, bedard has been setting him up on a silver platter.

jones has turned it around a bit, wouldn't hold my breath. it does say something about jones' much better play when vlasic can slump and the hawks are playing pretty well.

blackhawks nearly shit-shuffled themselves to 2 points last night - currently, not the worst team in the nhl. carolina will do this to most clubs, blackhawks hung in there.

despite carolina domination, was pleasantly surprised at the amount of high quality chances they generated. 3-4 consecutive games now the blackhawks had enough quality chances to win the game.

today's talk in the hockey world is, 'is bedard a whiner?' marty biron reminded us about sid the kid, while gord reminded us about refs in the early 80s telling gretzky to stop crying all the time. biron says body language can be misinterpreted by teammates. i guess these are a slap on his knuckles. bedard needs that 1st hat-trick/6 point game to alleviate the pressure. his game did drop off a bit last night after some very good attacking play.

he's a teenager, of course he's whiny.

My guy Trae Young is in his 7th year in the NBA and he FINALLY figured out this season that constantly whining and pouting to the refs is not a good look.

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he's made a lot of comments to the refs, including the brief, demonstrative one the other night. i think he's more frustrated with other negatives and maybe that's where his age takes him down the wrong path.

really should be analyzing the mcdavid situation and suspension and how hockey refuses to 'protect' their stars like the nfl protects it's QBs. garland did the limit (grappled/wrestled on the ice for x-amount of ref subjective seconds) as to what most can do when defending a super star. can't believe the amount of support mcdavid is getting for cross-checking garland in the mouth.

san jose blows a 5-1 lead in nashville and loses last night, 7-5. loss could propel a nasty spiral. we know the blackhawks aren't that bad.

Funny thing is, McDavid could have dropped the gloves and started pummeling Garland and regardless of if Garland fights back, McDavid probably only gets 2 for instigating, 5 for fighting and a game misconduct. Wouldn't get suspended.

I fully support the McDavid cross check to the face. I used to play vs a guy in men's league who played the exact same way as Garland on that play and on more than one occasion I gladly cross checked him in the face and took the consequences. ONe time our goalie put him in the hospital with internal bleeding for baseball swing slash to the guy's kidneys. Our goalie was roundly applauded by all the other players in the league.

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a 3 game suspension for a superstar is a lot smarter than taking off the gloves and risking a broken hand or finger.

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wasn't that the whole point of goons, until every club had one and they only fought each other, not those that needed a lesson in hockey etiquette?

point taken on not breaking a finger(s) on the helmet. foligno experienced that with bedard/smith. when bedard came back, manson of the avalanche with a nasty slash on his wrist. got to get a fresh maroon on the ice and take care of business. chris nilan fought all the time and said he'd punch any coach that told him to go out and fight. if maroon only has a chance at the end of his shifts and is tired, fuck it - give mackinnon a slash on the achilles. josh manson has gotten away with a lot.

sharks lose again, celebrini another goal. fantilli gets an empty-net goal to record his first career hat-trick in toronto, then gets 2 assists last night.

bedard. let's go. been playing much better offensively, blah game against carolina on monday. fantilli gets a hat-trick before bedard and celebrini. nazar needs to start finishing these plays.

ethan del mastro called up. i ask everyone to observe his skating, could be a crippling flaw. kaiser sent back down. i'm a fan of kaiser, he was been in another recent rut, just not working out for him this season. no linear progress here.

more talk in vancouver about pettersson. heard craig button's take and his constant sound bite on nhl network ripping into him. would davidson pull the trigger on a deal for him?

why do we want a guy who's game has fallen off a cliff? If the answer is he only fell of a cliff because JT Miller is mean to him then I'll ask the follow up question, why do we want a guy with such a weak mindset?

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yeah, i think since the spotlight has been focused on the 2 canucks, most 'neutral' media seem to take shots at pettersson, not miller. a late tocchet time-out was scrutinized, miller and pettersson at opposite ends of the huddle. miller engaged, petterson, looking away. after the huddle broke, was told that tocchet then spent 6-7 seconds talking to pettersson.

miller is older and the canucks have a history of swedes, maybe a hint that pettersson believes that time is on his side. he can wait this out on his own.

i'd love to have him here.

at this moment, believe that the sharks have the best odds to win the #1 pick and schaeffer. watched a pat boyle/charlie r podcast. 20 minutes of schaeffer is this and that, do you really believe davidson would take him at #1, considering all the recent d picks?? just get to the fucking point. charlie said absolutely. best player available. boyle was running out of fingers, but quickly figured out that korchinski is easily the odd-man out of a top 4 d-man rotation, if schaeffer is taken by the blackhawks. jeez, 2022 #7 pick overall, will likely be used as trade bait.

i don't expect things to change, i do believe the blackhawks will finish above the sharks in the overall standings.

if Korchinski gets us a good forward I'm fine with that. If we do end up with Shaeffer we'll all point to last year as the mistake, but that's some serious Monday morning quarterbacking about last year's defense heavy draft.

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soderblom in goal tonight, brodie sits out. del mastro/allen the 3rd d-pairing. let's see how it works...

blackhawks with the weak offense, get the benefit of the doubt and will see tampa's #2 G. no vasilevskiy and his .915 save percentage.

A couple of nice first period goals.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

yeah, dach the first of his nhl career and finally, nazar. man, nazar could have easily had 5-6 goals in the last 10 periods.

these pre-game tweets from pope: anyways, no seth jones and del mastro is playing, paired with brodie, who is not in the press box. del mastro made one good play when he had to.

pierre le brun saying that hall is part of a deal with carolina and colorado.



says the blackhawks will get a 3rd round pick..no entry draft year given.

Hall a late scratch due to being traded for a third rounder...

NM, NWSider beat me to it.

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An unjust law is no law at all--St. Augustine of Hippo

Cause tried and true
I see the light in you
Oh, can you dig in my soul?
Could you smell my whole...
life?--Gener and Deaner