Usually, this would be that 2 p.m. game in Anaheim where the Hawks all look hung over and confused, and Selanne and Perry score annoying goals (does Perry score non-annoying goals?), but the new alignment only has us going to Anaheim once this year, so they're not gonna blow that road draw on a day game. The freshly vanquished Flames get that game instead. So RIP, day game on Leftovers Day. Instead, the circus trip takes us to Dallas, home of the St. Patrick's Day Counterfeit Douchebag Blackhawks, also known as the Dallas Stars.
The Stars are one of those teams that always seems to benefit from the NHL's point inflation. Probably because they've been a bubble team for six years now, and so the difference between "pretty good" and "kinda bad" is more evident than the one between "holy crap awesome" and "really good." To wit, they're 12-9-2, which gives them 26 in 23, but take away shootouts and loser points and they're just 9-10-4, 21 in 23. They've scored 64 against 66 allowed, which actually correlates with their adjusted record almost exactly, but pythagorean expectation can't account for Bettman points.
We've seen them go to Dallas once already, so we know that the Stars can be dangerous if you let them maintain possession. There's a lot of talent there, some of it still fairly inchoate (particularly Nichushkin, but also Eakin, who even looks vaguely fetal), but you still can't take them for granted, especially guys like Whitney and Gonchar who might wake up from their naps if you let them. Seguin, Benn, and Chiasson are real threats, though Chiasson has slowed down from the impossible pace he started his career with. Can't score on a power play for crap, though! At the blue line, they're just okay. Stephane Robidas has been hanging around for a while and no one has the heart to ask him to leave. Alex Goligoski isn't really bad, per se, but his presence is a constant reminder of what a fucking idiot Joe Nieuwendyk was to have traded James Neal
and Matt Niskanen. The only weakness that really
leaps out at me, relative to the rest of their roster, is the continued insistence on calling up and dressing Jamie Benn's useless brother Jordie Benn on the third pairing. It'd be like if we gave a roster spot to David Toews. They have some cannon fodder like almost anyone else, like Antoine Roussel or Ryan Garbutt, but Stars fans seem to find Jordie Benn actively bad. I'd look for Whitney, Fiddler, and possibly Gonchar to depart before too long, as those guys can be rented out for helpful picks and prospects. Promising as they may seem right now, there's just no room in the playoffs for this team.
4-1 on the circus trip so far, and this could be a hard one. Lehtonen has been troublesome for the Hawks (even when they put four on him a few weeks ago, he came up big a few times), and the internet has been having a lot of fun with how he showed up an opposing team by hopping up on the top of his net at the end of a blowout, like so:
And look, I'm as far as you can get from the Hockey Police -- I get angry when people act as if all forms of personal expression must be eradicated from the game for some bullshit Greater Good -- but dude, your team kinda sucks. Stay in your crease, you asshole. You don't get to hot-dog when you just gave up three goals to the Flames. Light this schmuck up.
Special treat: the Rockford IceHogs are playing the Wolves over on The U Too at the same time as this game. I was hoping the starts would be staggered, but they're both at 7:30. So if you'd like to check in on Clendening, the Broadhursts, the up-and-down Jeremy Morin, and the rest of the future Hawks, that's an option. I wish CSN could show a limited slate of IceHogs games. Rockford gets them all on a local-origination cable channel there, so they're all being produced. Even just a tape delay would be fine. They're more relevant to our interests than the St. Louis-affiliated Wolves.
Katy Lied is a really good album, by the way.
Hawks: 18-4-4 (40), 15-6-5 adjusted (35), 33.116 points expected (two points over expectation would seem to say they stole one win. What else do you call Wednesday night?)
Stars: 12-9-2 (26), 9-10-4 adjusted (22), 21.851 points expected (ding!)
Hawks: 3.538 scored (1st), 2.731 allowed (19th), 0.808 differential (4th)
Stars: 2.783 scored (11th), 2.880 allowed (22nd), -0.130 differential (17th)
Hawks: 17/84 20.2% on the power play (10th), 54/73 74.0% on the kill (29th)
Stars: 9/81 11.1% on the power play (29th), 58/73 79.4% on the kill (19th)
_________________
Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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