Saturday night featured a battle of now proclaimed "arch rivals" according to the Nashville broadcast team in the music city. The Hawks came into the game just one point behind the Predators for top's in the Central Division, looking to continue their recent hot streak.
The Hawks came out flying on the start, riding the momentum of last night's late game heroics. Brandon Saad picked up where he left off against Montreal, and opened the scoring for the Hawks giving them a 1-0 lead after the first.
The second period saw the Hawks continue their scoring ways. This time Big Hoss tallied a goal, off a sweet backhand pass from Saad and buried it into an open net. Later in the period, we were treated to a Bryan Bickell scrap, perhaps someone woke up in a bad mood this morning. After two, the Hawks found themselves up 2-0.
Credit to the Predators, they didn't go quietly. Colin Wilson scored just 34 seconds into the 3rd period to cut the Hawks lead in half. The Hawks were able to fend off a furious charge by the Preds in the third, and Hossa added an empty netter to seal a 3-1 win for the Hawks.
The Good
- It would appear that Brandon Saad has woken up. I mentioned last week that the Brendan Gallagher deal could be the benchmark for a Saad extension. It appears someone has passed that memo onto Saad.
- It was awesome to see Andrew Shaw put noted dickbag James Neal over the boards and into the Hawks bench.
- Lemont native, Scott Darling was solid in net for the Hawks, stopping 32 shots. Its nice to see the Hawks finally starting to show some goalie depth behind Crawford.
- As mentioned before, Hossa netted 2 goals, perhaps this is a nice confidence booster for the future.
- The Hawks were good at the faceoff dot tonight, 38-30.
- And we'll give Klas Dahlbeck in the good category for a nice NHL debut. It looks like it was a nice start for the Swede as Quenneville only had positives to say following the game.
The Bad
- Brandon Saad is heating up. This isn't a knock on his play, its a bad thing because of the cap situation the Hawks are in. The hotter he gets, the more $$$$ you can imagine he'll ask for.
- Yes, the Hawks were outhit tonight, but in the end, they didn't get baited into a bad penalty or do anything stupid. I'll only put this in the bad because it was 23-7 in hits.
The Ugly
- Anytime you see an alert on your phone that says "Bryan Bickell leaves game after taking a stick to the face" you fear the worst. But when its followed by, "Bryan Bickell returns to game (face)" you can rest a little easier.
- We'll end it at that, mainly because I don't really have anything else to bitch about.
