The day has finally come, where we are finally able to watch NHL hockey again. GRANTED, most of the team on the ice will be collecting paychecks from someplace like Rockford, but it's Blackhawks hockey nonetheless. My apologies for the late recap, but I had some technical difficulties with my game notes (i.e. deleted them). ANYWHO lets begin...
First of all, I want to point out what idiots the Blackhawks web team are for the way they presented the game to the fans. The put a link up that pointed to a list of directions to get to the feed. The problem is that they obviously don't understand that a heavy majority of the people on the interweb can barely figure out how to wipe their own asses. There should have been a direct link to the feed on the splash page. THAT'S ALL!. With each step you add another point of failure, which will cause confusion. Maybe failure was the goal, and if it was, you achieved that. Get your act straight, guys!
Secondly, in the day and age of HD and 3D televisions, we have to watch a game from a PC with a low def feed? Really? We can produce 3D porn, and we can't get a professional NHL team's preseason game on television? That's absolutely ridiculous. This is not 1940 where people needed to sit around one radio to listen to their favorite programs. We're not asking for Rockford Icehogs or Chicago Express games. These are the CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS. We can see every meaningless MLB and NFL preaseaon game, but Hawks fans are huddled around their PCs trying to follow a tiny little fuzzy puck? Yeah, right, thanks guys! There aren't as many people as you might guess that can hook their PCs up to a TV, and it's not like that even helps, because the feed is so fuzzy and grainy that we can't even read the numbers on the players backs. Don't even get me STARTED on the idiotic "50/50 raffle" box that took up damn near a quarter of the screen. So, the twatterverse can tongue the bungs of the Blackhawks about the stream all they want, but the fact of the matter is that there wasn't much effort put in at all, and we're not talking about some team that never wins, in the middle of rural USA. It's one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, one of the biggest markets in the NHL, and recent Stanley Cup champs.
Now, onto the actual hockey:
The first period was generally pretty boring, even though the Oilers had a majority of the scoring chances, and neither team could manage to put anything up on the board. The second period was another story. The Oilers jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead after the Hawks gave up a powerplay goal, and then gave up a generally soft one, but they were not to be outdone. The Hawks came storming back, jumping on some Oilers mistakes and turnovers, to tied the game up at 2-2 going into the intermission. The third period didn't go as well, for our heroes. They gave up a late third period goal, and then an empty netter to finish off their first preseason game a 4-2 loser.
- Ray Emery played a very solid first period, but followed it up with a couple of "tweeners" in the second. Overall, he had a passing grade, though, in my eyes.
- Those of you that picked Rusty Olesz to be the best Blackhawks player last night are going to Las Vegas with me, to help daddy get his little girl's college fund rolling. He had a solid game skating with Captain Serious and Viktor Stalberg and scored the first Hawks goal. When it came time for him to take advantage of his chance, he buried it. This is a good way to shut the whiners up, and earn that salary. It helps a little that the puck was put on his stick, wide open, by an Oilers defender. He needs to buy that guy dinner.
- Jamal "Megamind" Mayers was the second most surprising player, as he took a feed from Rookie Mark NcNeill and roofed it over the Oilers goalie to score the second preseason goal for the Hawks. That's a good way to get the fans of your new team to warm up to you.
- Brandon Saad didn't show up on the score sheet, but the kid can play. Along with Joe Lavin and Jimmy Hayes, the Hawks clearly have some promising rookies. All of them could play at the NHL level and probably deserve to, but it's not going to happen right away with the roster the Hawks have. Jimmy Hayes is fast and huge, when you watch him out there. The kid is going to be a very good player someday, and we can thank Toronto for basically giving him to us.
- Salak looked pretty good before the Eberle goal, but that one cost him and the Hawks.
- The Oilers opened up the scoring with a powerplay goal that Ryan Smyth poked in after Razor Emery couldn't handle the long shot by rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins that went through him like a slot machine, and laid in the crease. It is, what it is. First game of the preseason, sloppy goal, first point for the first overall pick.
- The second Oilers goal could be put squarely on Razor's shoulders. He over pursued Josh Green coming into the zone and left his blocker side wide open. Most NHL players will hit that spot, and Green did.
- Edmonton's third goal was a result of the Hawks getting lazy after yet another failed powerplay, and letting two Oilers behind them in on a 2-on-1. Jordan Eberle just picked Alex Salak apart, and the Hawks weren't able to recover.
- 0-5 on the powerplay guys? I understand the manpower isn't there, but lets generate SOMETHING. There IS talent out there, and the Oiler were playing with a split squad too.
- Kyle Beach anyone? Didn't think so.
- I hate to go back to the feed of the game, but they are cutting back to the penalty box for 5 seconds at a clip, while a powerplay is going on, so we can watch David Toews pick his nose, something isn't right. We're not idiots, and we know where the players go when they get a penalty.
- John Scott got beat so bad, in a foot race for an icing call that John Wiedeman couldn't gather the words to describe it. It was really embarassing, and just showed that he is NOT an NHL player. Can someone please bite the bullet and set this walking calamity loose? Enough, PLEASE