you're not missing much. prior, you'd stop counting all the mistakes/lost 1x1 battles. now, the mistakes are fewer, but more glaring.

goal #2 for the isle exemplifies some of the weaknesses on this club. brodie with the icing - lose face-off - craig smith struggle to clear the zone at the blue line - goal islanders.

nice goal by bedard, has to do more. looked like sorenson embarrassed him, by pulling bedard off the ice for dickinson on a d-zone face-off. if that's what it will take for him to get motivated to be a better face-off C, so be it. sorenson sensed danger with the hawks losing most of the faceoffs and what he considered a key face-off in the hawk zone.

the damage did not happen that time, but, soon after. his spidey-sense wasn't too far off.

Actually it is on ESPN+, the NHL app didn't show it.

1st period was good. 2nd period their defensemen let them down.

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

And then two soft goals. Is Soderblom regressing to his mean? Hopefully they give Commesso a start against New Jersey.

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

great snipe from Bedard as well as 2 assists for a 3 point game. And we preserved our lottery balls so all in all a perfect game for the Hawks.

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Nazar is back!!! Love this kid. Old ass Craig Smith must have gotten hurt.

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

he was due a bad game. he got beat cleanly on a few that appeared savable. if he starts losing his net, swimming in the crease, fails to corral loose pucks, giving up juicy rebounds - that's regression to me. that's how he played last year and he's made so much progress since, in eliminating all those poor goalie traits.

tuevo put in a position to fail. better when he's free to roam, is not a forechecker expected to win board battles. softer than baby poo. bertuzzi/foligno/maroon...sure, they'll win their fair share of board battles, not teuvo and kurashev struggling with the same. teuvo looked bad last night.

new jersey is tough, good test for soderblom...can he rebound?

rockford struggling since sorenson's, crevier's & korchinski's promotions. thinking that nazar had to be brought up.

i don't watch them play, but it struck me that rockford and the parent club played different systems - sorenson's and richardson's forecheck systems were different. carolina is known as a well run organization with their arms around everything and they insist their farm clubs play the exact same systems the parent club utilizes.

lines at practice today, with nazar:



teuvo gets dumped to the 4th line. nazar on the #1 PP unit, hopefully, donato bounced off. definitely don't like donato on the #1 line, shoots too much. do we want donato or bedard shooting pucks?

I'd like to see Donato on the 3rd line, Mikheyev on the fourth and Reichel on the 1st or 2nd line. He shouldn't be on the 4th line.

looks like commesso is starting in G against the devils. wow. low-scoring islanders tomorrow at home, may have been a better choice for commesso's first ever nhl start.

we'll see.

You stop it with that logic!

so far, so good. glad for his family - seem excited and proud. heard caley tell us that we'll get expert hockey analysis from chsn, that's disputable. they are turning into bruce levines.

the great nazar is here, the PP was putrid and they generated 4 shots on goal in the period.

it's there for all to see. hawks get 8 seconds of possession time in the o-zone, most opponents get 30 seconds in the hawk d-zone. donato shooting more than bedard is a crime.

just winning a face-off made the PP.

again, so far, so good with the G. guys like kaiser need to play better, up to their capabilities. kaiser's form has dipped the past few games. i don't expect nothing from murphy and little from brodie...on commesso to see this out.

brodie's pass made the play for the goal, panger trying to make korchinski look like paul coffey..all he did was make the outlet to brodie.

haunted house stuff in the 3rd period. panger was right about the devils D, making you pay physically. hawk D must be getting paid not to hit any opponent. had a few chances today to murder the puck carrier, they backed off. this is what i believe sent crevier (can't send him and brodie) to the press box. that 2nd goal against columbus at home.

D-men kaiser (gassed, couldn't move his body, let alone the puck) getting heat for the devils 2nd goal, korchinski (risky pass o-zone pass just inside the blue line) for the 3rd and what the fuck was murphy doing on the 4th goal?

good news is read an interesting article about rinzel from a minneapolis paper. article is behind a paywall now. anyways, the strength coach at the u of minn said rinzel hit it out of the park physically, during the off-season. strength and speed (made up 3 feet in same time). believe rinzel has more points this year than last year's #12 overall pick of the wild, zeev buium at the u of denver. looking good, going forward.

issue is at what point does GM kyle cut his losses? he compounded the issue with the brodie 2 year deal. murphy is brutal, i'd waive him tomorrow, not my money though. GM kyle didn't give murphy the ridiculous extension. i believe it was a mistake to make foligno a C, murphy wears an A on his sweater. the club has a lot of red-tape to entangle from in this so-called rebuild.

soderblom in goal today, we'll see if anderson and crevier get to play today after back to back games/3 games in 4 days. if brodie ever needed a rest, here's the chance.

bedard keeps looking like he'll break out, never really does. hit the iron twice yesterday. we'll see.

in all honesty, club looks the same to me after the coaching change. outshot, out-possessed, low possession time in o-zone, chasing for 30 seconds in their d-zone. the PP was terrible the first 2 opportunities yesterday, the dumb skate 75 feet and then backhand a no-look pass to bedard is getting tiresome, other clubs are aware of this mastermind PP entry. bedard took advantage of the devils awaiting him to pass off, stick-handled through the whole PK unit, only to hit the pipe.

some of the players, it's apparent they can't play dump and chase and sorenson needs to adjust to that, not the other way around. they don't have the size and toughness, just a fact.

We don't have 10 years to rebuild this thing. If he doesn't make a trade for someone to play with Bedard, I would start worrying that he will re-sign with us.

heard a short sound bite with kouleas and button...button blaming GM kyle for signing FAs that have collectively underperformed. offense ticked up a notch or two. goals weren't scored by outmuscling opponents on the forecheck...goals scored by movement and quick passing.

kurashev in a real slump, played terrible. a weak play on the boards with islanders first goal. not sure what do with him anymore. he will be a RFA, earning $2 million per, right now. anderson for kurashev doesn't do anything for me. kurashev is the epitome of the moody euro player - plays when he feels like it.

glad murphy scored his first goal of the year. if he missed the empty net attempt, face-off in hawk zone with plenty of time for the tying goal - with a likely islander face-off win. please score more so we can dump you and your salary.

take out mrazek's recent patch of mediocre play and the numbers may have been close to the 1/4 of the league. regardless, the goalies (and coach waite) deserve praise for their play this year.

BN guy. God bless you, hockey fan, devoted to the club..all great. why he's going down the levine path...



yeah, lots of chirping about PP unit #2. the numbers say...

maroon - 0 PP points
smith - 1 PP point
reichel - 1 PP point

do he try and make a some kind of point? the same guy that put murphy on his 'all-blackhawk 21st century team'.

It's a shame this team cannot play 60 minutes well. Tonight they played like shit in the first period then came back and got the win.

Teuvo and Mikheyev play well together, they need to leave those two alone on the third line and PK2.

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

aggravating game, then they came back and showed me why i enjoy following hockey.

crevier playing D like frankie carbone from goodfellas against pierre lake in the woods on the caps 1st goal. then brodie got brodied on goal #2, by the caps' breadeater.

blackhawks had 4 consecutive PPs, 3 in the 2nd period. yes, some chances, but overall, a big disappointment. nazar and bedard fumbling the puck at vital moments, the point guys wouldn't shoot and some good caps sticks defending. the 3rd period was just rewards for the hard work. great to see.

really noticeable how vlasic has decided to barge into the o-zone on rushes. i like how he's using the his speed and size, they look dangerous and this type of o-zone play is a much better match for the club then dump and chase. of course, could lead to odd-man rushes the other way and that happened on the caps' 1st goal. i think crevier has a future, though, right now - crevier looks bad defending in open ice. korchinski also looking good for the most part - can also add more to the attack. if the hawks win the neutral zone, they can enter with speed and that's all the money for this club.

Loved Crevier laying out Tom Wilson. They did pass too much last night and needed to shoot more.

yeah, good hit. he does need to take the body more. i go back a few weeks and to columbus 2nd goal and subsequent press box appearances - until it was decided that kaiser needed a 're-set'. brodie and crevier were at fault. infuriating that none of the 2 took the body on the puck carrier. 6 seconds later, puck was in the net.

i like him, i'd resign him - will be a RFA after this season. GM kyle didn't give murphy his extension, but he did give brodie a 2 year deal. blackhawks may separate with either phillips and or crevier. they'll have plenty of money, i'd resign both for depth. i don't watch rockford hockey, not sure how del mastro is coming along. last year in limited appearances, he stood out to me that he's not the greatest skater and some agility/balance issues. maybe i'm wrong. if he's ironed that all out, then keeping both phillips and crevier may not be in the cards. the club is loaded with young D.

The dominated the possession in the second, just too many stupid passes close to the net. Nazar for sure was one who passed up at least one shot trying to make a perfect pass that the guy couldn't handle anyway. If you want to pass it to the guy, take a shot that the goalie will have to redirect over to that side (not that the guy would be able to take the rebound and score anyway).

They played well in the third, too. Glad they got the W.

zawaski and tirabassi made their selections and they picked 6 d-men on 3 different teams, no murphy.

1st team: keith/seabrook

2nd team: hjalmarsson/oduya

3ed team: byfuglein/campbell

So the 2010 blue line with Oduya instead of Nick Boynton/Jordan Hendry? I don't disagree.

Edit: how could I forget about Brent Sopel? And wasn't Buff playing at forward until ge got to Winnipeg?

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Buff was mostly D, played some forward but he wasn’t interested in playing forward full time. He would have been great as a full time forward.

Seem to remember him starting on defense in 07-08, not really working there, moving up front and then moving back to defense for the Jets. Defensive pairings through most of 2010 were Keith-Seabrook, Campbell-Hjalmarsson, Sopel-Hendry. Byfuglien was on power plays and the third line with Versteeg and Bolland.

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Soup! everyone forgets soup!

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Elections have consequences.