The Hawks faced the Leafs in an old Norris Division matchup tonight. I kind of miss seeing the Leafs, and the Hawks just missed seeing former Hawk, Kris Versteeg, since he was traded to Philly a few weeks ago. Nonetheless, the Leafs have been hot, and possibly as hot as the Hawks. Also, plaguing the Hawks was the fact that they didn't get into Toronto until 3AM. It ended up not mattering.
The Blackhawks wasted NO time scoring 65 seconds into the game, and didn't let up with two more goals in the first period. It was the Leafs, not the Hawks that looked tired and flat. Not the team I was expecting to see. As with a majority of the Hawks games the second period started to look very different than the first, with the Leafs scoring a goal, but the Hawks answered with 2 of their own, and took a 5-1 lead into the third period. The Hawks surrendered a couple of third period goals, but pulled out a 5-3 win. Eight in a row looks really nice.
- Two games in a row in which the Hawks scored in the first two minutes of the game. Carl Gunnarsson threw the puck right up the middle of the rink to Boss 81 who took a stride in, and fired it at Reimer, and it snuck between his pads. One shot on net, one goal Hawks.
- Apparently the late flight didn't hurt the Hawks scoring, because four minutes in and T-Brouw led a 2 on 1 in with Michael Frolik. Frolik took the pass, assessed his options, and fired it past Reimer, who was VERY deep in his net.
- El Capitan jumped into the action, with a little help from Kaner, to extend his scoring streak after he blew by Colby Armstrong and buried a back door goal. With five minutes left in the first, the Hawks were up 3-0.
- Tomokop put the Hawks up 4-1 in the second, when he found a soft spot to the left of Reimer and snapped a shot past the young goalie. This is the way you'd hope the team would respond to giving up a goal.
- The Hawks were rolling with around 2 minutes to go in the second. Bolland led a 2 on 1 with One Trick Bick, and Bolland took a high shoot off Reimer and the rebound sat to his right for Bickell to poke into the net. I never get tired of a good rout.
- If nothing else, all these shootouts give Crow plenty of practice on penalty shots. He made a spectacular save on the penalty shot, as everyone thought Grabovski scored.
- Nice to see Bickell using that big ass body of his to initiate some contact with Phaneuf, who usually terrorizes people with his aggressiveness.
- All that smoke that Foley was blowing up Nick Leddy's ass in the first went to shit when he decided to try and crowbar a pass over to Deuce, and it was picked off by Lupul. Lupul then raced past Leddy and in on Crawford. Deuce had to cover the pass and Crow ended up too deep in his net. Leddy's turnover in the third led to the Grabovski breakaway and eventual penalty shot.
- Crow had no chance on the second Leafs goal, in the third. The shot was tipped once and deflected off Seabrook's skate. You can't really prevent that one.
- T-Brouw looked like he was TRYING to put the puck in his own net, midway through the third. If Crawford didn't bail his sorry ass out, the game could have gone in a much different direction.
- The last Toronto goal was a pretty weak screen shot. Whatever.
- Now that he has settled in, I'm left wondering what the hell Dale Tallon was thinking when he traded Michael Frolik for Jack Skille. Frolik reminds me of a more dependable Versteeg, and Skille, well, we know what we got with him.
- No real ugly here, with a 5 goal outburst on the road.