So, How bout them Blackhawks, eh?
Last night, after seeing so people I highly respect as hockey players jump up Corey Crawford's puckered ass for a SHUT OUT LOSS, I decided to put some illustrations together. In said illustrations it is shown that while Crawford is not completely absolved of blame, the two goals he gave up in the first 1:17 of the game were landed more on the shoulders of the circus spectacle of players in front of him. Have a look for yourself, if you're that one person that hasn't seen them:
NOW... this is not to say that Crawford hasn't had shaky first periods. HE HAS. I have been critical of him on the last two Shoutcasts. He has not been the "pre-drunken concert" Corey Crawford. If you're going to feed me that "rebound control" horseshit, you're wrong. A wide open player has time to size you up, 12 feet out in the slot. He takes a shot low to your left. What is the ONLY thing you can do? Kick your pad out. Just so happens that there was a WIDE OPEN PLAYER standing there. Stand in net, in full gear, and take a 70mph shot, and TRY not to kick it out in that direction. IMPOSSIBLE! It's physics. He has a fraction of a second to drop down, kick the shot out (not to the wide fucking open guy). When he DOES kick it to MacKinnon, Crawford has to get back up and shuffle over to MacKinnon, AND STAY STANDING, because just simply sliding over would have still left the top shelf (peanut butter) exposed. Now, try this move...in real time...just on a floor. Again, IMPOSSIBLE! But because he makes $6 million Crawford is different. "No I'm sorry, Stan Bowman, I'm not worth $6 Million, please offer me less". Corey Crawford is NOT the entire reason this Blackhawks team is slumping slightly.
That being said, Teuvo Teravainen isn't the reason, either, but that is another meatball story for another meatball day.
My point last night was that, people are taking the easy out. Blame the goalie. Hey, every goal is really the goalie's fault, right? If he stopped 100% of the shots he faced?
This is not reality. It is as real as a player scoring on every shot he ever takes. None blocked. EVERY FUCKING SHOT. Kiss my hairy ass!
Anyone looking at these screenshots can see that the Blackhawks second defensive pair, specifically Johnny "Best Johnny on the Ice" Oduya, was having adventures in babysitting. AGAIN, this s not putting the loss solely on THEIR shoulders either. They had two bad shifts, back to back. Quenneville should have pulled them off after the first goal, but that didn't happen either.
Let's talk about another player that might have helped, Bryan Bickell. He had a chance to scoop a loose puck into a gaping net and pulled a Viktor Stalberg.