yes, I would love to fall asleep to the cool easy tone of her voice. Watch a hockey game, not so much.

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i got a feeling blackhawk brass made sure that those who have professional contact with the fans, read the memo about foligno. he's the C. affable off the ice, tough on the ice. going to mentor bedard.

do not criticize

agree that he's not optimal on the #1 line, wasn't at age 28, let alone age 36. simple play, early in the game. he's got to get that puck out. was prob in too close on his glorious chance, off a bedard feed. knows where to go on the ice, maybe not quick enough to get there/skilled enough to capitalize on bedard's vision.

Lots of females broadcasting. Caley C doing the CC on the Blackhawks game the other day. Put on the Bucks broadcast vs Bulls and a woman doing the game. Hawks game tonight ESPN+. Its ok if they're good.

AJ Mleczko is very knowledgeable but is kinda boring. At least she's not Leah Hextall who made me want blow my brains out when she was doing play-by-play.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

bout time Richardson put Kurashev back with Bedard. They didn't score, but they had multiple shifts spent cycling the offensive zone. Best the top line has looked all year.


Reichel has looked really good on that 4th line.

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Finally got my HD antennae up and watching the encore performance on CHSN.
Is Vlasic really this good?

yea, he's been a massive surprise. Legit top pairing d-man. If Levshunov and Korchinski pan out Hawks will be loaded on defense.


Issue remains we still have no one on the team or in the system who looks to be able to play with #98. Maybe Nazar, but that would require a change of position for either him or Connor.

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This year's draft is loaded with forwards in the top 10. Marner's going to be a UFA this summer. Any interest? Lazerus mentioned a month ago that a lot of insider talk mentioned Kaprivoz coming to the Hawks after next season. Winger is the easiest position to find so I wouldn't be too concerned.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

that's why I'm hoping for an even worse season and more lottery balls. Want that Hagans kid.

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They are tied for the worst record in the league with Nashville and Nashville has a game in hand although the Hawks have a game in hand on SJ who they just lost to yesterday. SJ is one point ahead of the Hawks.

it's interesting that they are playing just well enough to feel like they're better but just bad enough to be where they are in the standings. I guess that's the goal.

after mrazek's stinker in san jose, mrazek came back was excellent against the kings and soderblom looked fantastic yesterday.

against san jose, heard the in-between 2nd & 3rd periods with troy murray and charlie and never heard murray call out mrazek before. criticism was deserved....mrazek, more than made up for it on sat against the kings. compared to last year, soderblom looks like a different goalie in his few starts. too bad the goalie coach isn't the skills coach, because the #1 factor that negatively effects the bedard line is losing face-offs. can't score and be a generational talent when you're chasing the puck in your zone after losing face-off, after face-off. what makes it worse is that bedard doesn't really defend in his zone, more interested in doing figure 8s at the blue line, hoping someone wins or steals the puck and makes a break-out pass to the 'dangler'.

great to see phillips play relatively well, more and more looking to be a fairly good 3rd pair D-man. size, skating ability for a 3rd pair d-man is above league average. most clubs bury their shittiest players there..due to the salary cap. that said, we need time to fly on jones' contract. he played like a 3rd pair d-man against the kings. was terrible.

collectively, the 12 FWDs need to pick it up a bit more and we can't solely rely on the goaltenders to win games.

poor play last night...lethargic. i give them a pass because of it being a home game after some 10 days on the road.

watched most of the game, saw panger on tnt with some tape of skills coach yanic perreault working with bedard on face-offs. yeah....

....regardless, won 2 and lost 5 faceoffs last night. mentioned perreault before, needs to keep working with him. needs to get better. the broadcaster mentioned that yesterday was bedard's 82nd career game, 1 full season. i'm going to wait until after the break before i come back to this. losing too many face-offs.

team is becoming unwatchable. Bedard is like a Sedin who is missing his other Sedin. Team has no one who can play with him. Reichel is the closest they have and it took Richardson till halfway through the last game to figure that out and put him with Bedard.

This team needs to win that lottery again and get Hagans. Losing Celebrini to San Jose was bad enough, can't allow Hagans to get away too.

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Do my eyes deceive me or has Reichel looked like a more confident and assertive player the last 3 games?
Small sample size for sure but it seems I've been noticing him in a positive way more often.

he's looked very good for several games now, mostly playing with Maroon and Smith. Looks like the fastest guy on the ice and is playing with a purpose. Hopefully Richardson doesn't send him to the press box the next time he has a bad game.

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this team is quickly becoming unwatchable. Last two games after a while I just started fast forwarding to all of Bedard/Reichel's shifts.

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I caught the Wings game. Hard to watch.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

bedard not taking a sophomore slump well (celebrini 2 goals last night)....took an angry penalty, didn't take his breakaway chance. overall, another encouraging game from soderblom. may have been unsighted on the 1st dallas goal, not sure how that 2nd dallas goal was to be...but, oh well. blackhawks played them tough in both losses this year, dallas crushed us last year. another big test is coming up against minnesota - bad match-up last year. the wild plays with speed and our d-zone 'coverage' would crumble within seconds of most wild entries.

never read the papers anymore - by chance, happened to see a big article in the sun-times at work yesterday: bedard and face-offs. no shit. to be fair, didn't get a chance of 1 1/2 years in the minors playing C to work on face-offs and adapt different techniques against various face-off opponents and their stick sides - but it is an overall problem that has to improve. waste of time when his line is chasing in it's own zone after losing, yet again, another face-off. 40 seconds of anxiety and when the club does regain possession, time for a line change.

after some 15 games, jones has been a bit better than the past 2 years. unfortunately, still not good enough - in regards to pay. doesn't seem motivated and appears to day-dream on the ice at times. he just seems to make the wrong play, wrong pass, wrong shot, wrong turn, defend wrong side....quite often.

Hawks deserved the regulation win tonight, but Jones slipped and fucked it up. Now they have OT... maybe Bedard can do something useful.

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

Saw last 5 minutes regulation chsn, O/T Wild broadcast. Not much emotion both broadcasts on both big goal calls. Cushions Bears disaster a touch.

yeah, after a few games in california...minnesota was blah and when they decided to turn it on late, they were comprehensively better. blackhawks have played better games and gotten no points/lost in ot - it evens out eventually. good news is that minnesota killed us last year and the club won, bad news is bedard is still slumping, badly. no points again, but was .500 on his 4 face-offs. PP is sputtering again, even canadian media (kouleas) is making comments about the dysfunction with bedard and jones on the PP. mrazek was very good, have to give him credit when it's due.

to be fair to bedard, the whole club is hurting offensively. more than a handful are under-preforming. not even modest offensive stats to meet modest expectations.

Do you guys think anybody will claim Athanasiou? He never really worked out.

at $4.25 million this year, prob not. i believe he'll play in rockford, may do well and get called up again later in the season. still not sold on some of the roster, joey anderson looked like he gave himself whiplash when he tried to stop outside the crease against minnesota. enough of his defensive 'wizardry'. his line mates are saddled with an offensive albatross.

aa, his hands just never caught up to his feet. too fast for his own good. him, hall and martinez are likely on their last year here, those 3 players could potentially free up over $14 million in cap space. plus they are currently $4+ million under the cap, plus the cap may go up another $2.5 millon in 25-26. hawks will have lots of room, may free up an additional $4.3 million if donato/maroon/smith leave after this season. donato may ask for too much if he finishes near 20 goals. right now, bedard will not get $12+ million per when his elc expires. not with his numbers.

speaking of #1 picks, i haven't seen any rockford games, just watch an occasional high-lite. what i've read about levshunov, isn't the greatest. may have lost half a season of rapid development with that fractured foot. hopefully, not an issue down the road, with speed or pain....d-men block lots of shots with their skates.

I've moved to skipping the games and just watching the youtube highlight package the next morning. Not gonna waste 2.5 hours of my time on this team unless/until Bedard starts playing better.

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bedard's slump is coming full circle...losing the puck for seattle's empty net goal only threw more wood into the fire. generational talent crosby led the league in scoring in his sophomore season and bedard is just a tad off that. the past few years, playing in seattle, any dallas/minnesota game were very painful. this year's club is hanging tough, only petering out due to the shit offense.

the goaltenders have been better than last year. the defense has been better. the offense is hideous and when donato is your top scorer, you have a scoring problem. eventually, some local media will start questioning quantity and quality of f/a signings and the competence of the coaching. maybe. the same local media that is trying to convince us that dickinson is jacques lemaire and joey anderson is bob gainey. bleacher nation guy.

last night, troy murray was rambling on about the poor dump-ins, dump-ins that daccord handled with ease. troy has been ornery lately. maybe he doesn't want to watch this club either?

i gave hall a bit of time to get his legs and timing back after missing a whole season. not working. he'll be gone and part of the huge chunk of payroll that will evaporate and give kyle from chicago a 2nd bite at the f/a market. still believe the club will hang tough and we may get a 4-5 regulation game unbeaten streak and talk about that before talking about next year's draft, salary cap and f/a signings.

well, after a few weeks, took a peek at the farm to see how the crops are coming along...



you would think: levshunov/korchinski/del mastro/crevier/phillips on D. 37 goals against in 10 games. ok. commesso at G. slow start.

if ludwinski and gavin hayes are scoring points at this clip by feb., i'd be concerned about them. 2.8 goals a game is better than the parent club.

scored 2 goals in his first game for rockford, a 5-2 loss to the red wing's ahl team, the grand rapids griffins.

some developments before the canucks game tonight:

- seth jones put on IR

- hall gets warm buttered popcorn in the press box tonight. mikheyev back in the lineup.

- soderblom gets the start in G. scary here, he's due a so-so game or gets the most improved player award.

tocchet not really rating the blackhawks attack and with the canucks playing nashville tomorrow, will start maligned G shilovs, lankinen gets the night off. if i'm richardson, i'd talk about that until i'm blue in the face. the canucks think we're shit. what do you think about that, bedsy???

Unfortunately Tocchet was right.

really humbling times for someone who has probably never been humbled on ice. in front of family and friends. hopefully, he's bottomed out.

club worked hard...some players worked even harder fucking up a cup of coffee. bertuzzi steps on the puck, falls down and then takes a canuck down while on the ice. murphy's law picked up jones' missing minutes and that's a mistake. after the puck went off his skates for the first canuck goal, murphy's mistake kept the puck in the hawk zone - eventually the canucks score to go up 2-1.

heard panger say that coach luke sat mikheyev - despite good defense (was a +4, now a +5) because mikheyev only had 1 goal. 2 goals now. what's the excuse for anderson?

soderblom looks great this year. kudos to him and waite.

sad part is the canucks thought the hawks were crap and i suppose they were correct. nothing better for a struggling, unconfident goalie like shilovs facing the blackhawks to get back on track.