Kings are good again. Blackhawks don’t stand a chance .

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

After playing last night, I set the line of Seabrook-caused too many men penalties at 2.5.

One for each team only 4 minutes in

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Not a mult.

Take Duncan Keith off the fucking power play!

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

ONE SOG in nearly 10 minutes?

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Not a mult.

Hayden replaced Panik on line 1

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Can they get anything for Toews at this point?

Why does no one on this team want to fucking just shoot the damn puck?

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Not a mult.

Maybe the Hawks should have their own perpetually looping 10-second countdown-to-zero clock to generate some offensive urgency.

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Not a mult.

They're gonna get shut out tonight.

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4 points in the last 10 when they needed 6, heading into auto-loss Washington, and this season is over! These guys got so bad so fast.

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I have sort of accepted the fact the window closed. They got 3 Cups out of it. I know I should be greedy and want more, but I'm surprisingly content with what they did from 2009-2015. The only thing that sucks about it is the realization that I could live another 60 years and never see the Hawks be that good again, because really, how lucky do you have to be to get Keith, Kane, and Toews all together? On one hand, that is depressing, but on the other I'm just glad I will be able to say I witnessed greatness.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

The window closed as soon as the 1988 contracts kicked in. The Seabrook deal will just take away a couple seasons where they could have been a competitive, 2nd round exit team.

I am not depressed either. This will be considered the golden era for the Hawks. The way we look back at the Colorado, Detroit, and Pittsburgh run over the last 20 years. Sure would have been nice to have repeated in 2014.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Blowing that 2 goal lead and losomgn the game 7 to the Kings was the end. Still pisses me off.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I can still see that puck flipping over and over into the net.

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Elections have consequences.

That wasn't the end, they won the Cup the following season.

I'd say the end was probably the deadline moves made in 2016. That and the cap hell the Hawks were in.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

What's frustrating is that the Hawks were the better team. Played 10 times, the Hawks win the series 7 times. Sutter made a PP adjustment in game 2 and the Hawks had no answer which resulted in that win. Q finally relented late in the series and moved Handzus off the 2nd line when everyone had been screaming for it for weeks. Then Shaw, Kane, and Saad were nearly unstoppable. Game 5's OT was played in what- 26 minutes? I was rocking our newborn back to sleep during that OT in our dark living room and I couldn't make a sound while my heart was pounding. I remember after the 1st OT intermission saying to my wife "I think that was the best hockey I have ever seen." I was wondering if that was just recency effect but then Q said it in the presser. I have seen the game 7 winner one time. When it happened I just turned off the TV and went for a walk. That Boston series in '13 was GREAT but the LA series was better.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I'm not upset either. I stayed with them during the 1997-2007 decade of hell, the Hawks owe me nothing. Yeah, they probably should have won in 2014, but you could also argue either Anaheim or Tampa should have gotten them the next year too.

I only wish we could have had Rocky as owner in the pre-salary cap era. The NHL has really screwed the pooch with a hard cap. They could have had Hawks-Penguins as a Lakers-Celtics type of rivalry this decade, but having Winnipeg have a team that misses the playoffs every year was apparently more important.

I think Boston probably should have won that series. Boston gave away game 1, should have won game 6, and game 3 could have gone either way. The LA series doesn't bother me too much since they got some luck in beating Boston.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

It's bittersweet to talk about it in the past tense. Its been fun as hell to watch though.

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I can feel with you guys that his is dire. I must point you back again to the Penguins though. There were 6-7 years between cups 1 and 2,3 in their current "star player" window. They had to go through coaching and much player turnover with some luck.

We may still get another core cup here.

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Elections have consequences.

True, but Toews and Keith are no longer what they once were. Crosby and Malkin are still relatively close to the top of their game.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Ooh, time to play "Know Your NHL History"!

The league first attempted a hard cap in 1994 but didn't get it, losing half a season to a lockout (and not just any season but the one after the New York Rangers won the Cup) while new-on-the-job Gary Bettman failed to negotiate for a hard cap, largely on behalf of Jeremy Jacobs, Bill Wirtz, and surprisingly, Mike Ilitch. Ed Snider and MLSE went around Bettman to negotiate a CBA that favored large-market teams with modern and multiple revenue streams, such as, for the sake of argument, the Flyers and Maple Leafs. This CBA, along with a 65-cent CAD and a desire to get out of the WHA markets that they never wanted to enter in the first place, whacked Quebec and Winnipeg almost immediately and set the stage for all the structural ills and inequities that led to Lockout II, which killed an entire season and got us our current hard cap/guaranteed contract system.

Nothing about the current system was designed to protect Winnipeg because at the time there was no Winnipeg to protect. The real beneficiaries of the hard cap are not overachieving small markets like Winnipeg and Edmonton and not even bottom-feeders like Phoenix and Raleigh (if anything, they're hampered by having to reach a salary floor that's too high for them to reach in good faith as organizations wildly outearning them drive the salary midpoint up) but the largest markets like Boston, Toronto, and who get to see escalating revenues without being compelled to spend in kind.

There are definitely problems with the cap system, which I alluded to, but the nature of a league with such a range between its largest and smallest markets and with domestic revenue measured in two currencies (on a much greater basis than the token Blue Jays/Raptors) is that there have to be parameters for teams to work within. It can't be the Wild West. It needn't be as restrictive as it is, nor should there be such straggling franchises to accommodate, but there has to be a cap.

P.S.: the Jets are first in the conference right now.

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