Since the Hawks website is now a broken piece of shit, no game photos
by Gatekeeper
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Welcome back for another Blackhawks season, fans. This will be my sixth season doing the dirty work for this hockey team. Thanks to #Fatrick and Bryan for joining so that I can actually have a life during the season. Maybe my children will recognize me somewhere other than a police lineup. We have a busy first week so bear with me as we get the train a rollin again.
After a delightful 50 mile, 3 hour commute home, that is...
The Hawks opened up their preseason at home vs the Stanley Cup champs, and will be wrapping up a "Home and Home", Friday, in Pittsburgh. Nothing like stepping up to the plate and facing the old Ricky Vaughn heater, eh? The Blackhawks lineup resembled something like a pile of used band aids, in a pool of indiscernible bodily fluids. The reason for this was, of course, because some players still were competing in the World Cup of Money, as well as the ones who earned a break after just returning. Their coach was also absent, because he was tending to his duties behind the bench of Team Canada. This is really all fine and well, to be quite honest. We don't need to see Kane and Toews give it the ol "half ass". We all need to see what these kids can do against nearly NHL competition. I could not care less if they went 0-6. Just play the hell out of the new guys and kids. No more of this "Kyle Baun played well in 2 of 6 games, so welcome to the NHL roster, kid" junk. That said, we're off and running...or speed walking...possibly a brisk stroll.
I fully expected the Blackhawks to come out and crap their pants in this first period (they saved that for the 2nd and 3rd), but it was the Pens that started out slow. The Hawks out shot the Pens prospects 13-3 and could have easily taken a one or two goal lead. We got to see the brand new Tootoo sideshow; or more specifically shitshow. Other that that, we got a bunch of players wearing linebacker and fat linemen numbers, which left us all thinking, "Who the hell is that?".
A couple of sloppy penalties let to the Blackhawks taking the second period off and getting out shot an incredible 23-7 in the middle frame. Not ideal, but what can you expect from a bunch of really young inexperienced kids? The good news is that the Blackhawks went into the intermission scoreless. I'll take it, I guess.
The young Hawks finally broke in the third period, letting Chris Kunitz single handedly beat them. The gave up an early goal and then one about midway through the 3rd period, which was more than enough to beat the baby Blackhawks. In the end, the Blackhawks actually out shot the Pens in the 3rd period, 10-9. It's a preseason game, who cares?
- Vinny Hinostroza showed some really good speed, splitting the Pens defense with ease early in the first period, but he's definitely a puck carrying guy.
- #DickPanik was a man on a mission to begin this game. He was all over the ice and hitting everything that moved and looking like a competent wing. That's exactly what he needs to do, to possibly end up on the ice with 88 and 15 on opening night. He just needs to get his hands up to speed. I can see him getting undue shit, already, which is going to get old. The Hawks traded Jeremy Morin for this guy. They won the trade already. Just accept him.
- I can see why the Blackhawks are in love with Gustav Forsling. He's a pretty dynamic defenseman with a cannon of a shot. Dineen had him out there on the top pairing and on the top powerplay, and Forsling didn't look out of place at all. He unleashed a few real heavy one timers on the powerplay, and he is a very smooth skater. Not a bad return for Canucks/Ducks/Pens/Oilers legend Adam Clendening, eh?
- Scott Darling played more than adequately. He made 33 saves, and kept the game within reach for the entire night. I have zero issue with his night.
- Ville Pokka was alright. He actually looked a little slow to me, but he handles the puck ok and wasn't a total smoldering pile of dung in his own end. There is no double that Forsling is a better player though.
- I'm not going to go out of my way to praise Alex Fortin, but he was not out of place at all. He did nothing to really stand out, but he showed that he can hang with the best young players the Blackhawks have. That's really all I expect out of him, and that's all you should expect, as well.
- Michal Kempny was solid, and unspectacular. This is all we really need out of him, but I still predict more out of him in the future.
- The sloppy preseason hockey showed up in the second period when the Blackhawks went down 2 men on a Svedberg double minor and a Darling tripping call. Veteran Chris Kunitz turned around and showed all the kids how it's done by immediately negating the two man advantage with a stupid penalty of his own. The Hawks, however, showed some promise in killing off all the infractions. Small victories, I suppose.
- Kunitz later made it 2-0 beating Campbell and Panik in front of the net and smacking his own rebound past Darling. Darling had made a really nice save on the initial shot, but the rebound had him dead to rights.
- Brian Campbell had an interesting game. He had a couple turnovers and got lit up by Tom Sestito with his head down. On the offensive end of the ice he was fine, but he certainly showed some rust. Also take into account that Campbell is not going to be taking the top matchups every night.
- I saw a lot of twitter praise for Nick Schmaltz, but I wasn't really all that impressed. He wasn't "bad", but he also wasn't great. Same goes for Tyler Motte. They were guys. That line was statistically great at suppressing shots but, other than that Hinostroza rush right up the middle, they were average.
- Jordin Tootoo's second shift resulted in several hammers to the dome before he could even get his gloves off, courtesy of Tom Sestito. To my surprise, the Hawks ended up with a power play, which was probably out of pity. This whole charade earned Sestito 17 penalty minutes. Somehow the official scorer gave him a game misconduct, but he stayed in the game. Explain that one. I can already see the meatballs poking their heads up to defend Tootoo and this circus. This is going to be a long year.
- Barely three minutes into the third period, the Pens finally scored the first goal of the game, on another 4-on-3 no less. Chris Kunitz made up for his stupid second period penalty by tipping a long Trevor Daley (yes, that Trevor Daley) point shot that Darling had no chance on. Daley sure massively out performed on that play, I'll tell ya.
- First rant of the season. The Blackhawks website. Whoever decided that this new league wide website template was acceptable is fucking terrible at their job. TERR-I-BLE. Fire them. Fire them into the sun. Shame their family. You cannot find anything, and simple features like game photos are gone. The video pages are a huge mess to navigate, and everything is blown up so big that a legally blind 80 year old could see it clearly. The old site was not perfect, but it was functional. You could follow game sheets, find stats, get to highlights, and see game photos. I also get that the NHL probably dictates this uniform format, but that doesn't mean we have to suffer through it. Get your shit together. There isn't one single thing that this new format improved. Someone needs to out the fool at SAP that sold the NHL this piece of fucking garbage. I'm going to apologize right now, because if I have to endure this utter piece of shit all season, you're all going to hear about it.
Here is a text I got post game from a guy whose opinion I greatly respect and has played with/against current NHL level players:
Hinostroza - selfish, shoot first mentality
Fortin - fast, good hands
Forsling - good skater
Campbell - nice to have Campbell back, I think he's going to be a good fit.
Schmaltz - good vision and passer
Schmaltz - Hinostroza - Panik
Motte - Kero - Hartman
Fortin - Johnson - Tootoo
Lundberg - Rasmussen - McNeill
Forsling - Campbell
Kempny - Pokka
Svedberg - van Reimsdyk
Rostered but scratched:
PC Labrie
Sam Carrick
Carl Dahlstrom
Cameron Schilling
