The Blackhawks faced the Canadiens, last night, in a pretty boring game that ended up a 3-1 loss. This is the preseason so I'm just going to point out a few observations.
-Michal Rozsival had a terrible turnover after attempting an asinine pointless spin-o-rama deep in the Hawks zone and was luckily bailed out by Antti Raanta.
-Later, Rozsival and his partner Kyle Cumiskey, were walked through for the first goal of the game. Cumiskey has to be thinking, "how am I going to make team dragging this putrid bag of bones around". Brutal!
-AND not to be outdone, just a mere minute and a half later, Rozsíval was out on the ice and right in the thick of the Habs second goal. That guy is DONE.
-El Capitan set up Bryan Bickell for what turned out to be a really nice rush. Bickell's legs look fresh, which is really good news for the Blackhawks.
-Manchild set up an Andrew Shaw break-a-way with a nice strip of Greg Pateryn,at the Hawks blue line in a 4-on-4 situation. He chipped the puck up and Shaw took it in alone on Price. One of the lone Hawks bright spots.
-Carey Price made a pretty damn nice glove save on a wide open Duncan Keith, high in the Habs slot.. Price was spot on.
-Speaking of Keith, his pass to none other than the open bench door led to the Habs open net goal that iced the game.
-Raanta was alright on the night. He made 16 of 18 saves, and could have had better numbers if Rozsival was taken out back and shot between the second and third periods.
-When you out shoot a team 32-18, you NEED to win that game. Whatever, preseason.
-Shaw and Bickell were two of the best Blackhawks. Shaw had six shots, three hits and a goal. Bickell had three shots and three hits. It didn't show on the scoresheet but he had to really nice chances and could have easily had two goals.
-Jeremy Morin is Brandon Pirri. The only one to play less, last night, was Anus P Manshitter. Morin will be playing somewhere else, probably Florida, in the near future. It is another one of these, "get better through osmosis, not reps" Dr. Lineblender projects. If you don't have glaring natural talent, the Blackhawks won't help develop you at the NHL level. Just sit on the bench and play meaningless minutes until Bowman can finally unload you to Dale Tallon.
Pirri
Hayes
Olsen
next up, Jeremy Morin.
-Toews and Kruger were dominant at the dots, but Richards and Shaw got worked over heavily. In the end the Blackhawks still came out ahead, but there can't be that much variation.
Highlights, if you want to call them such: