by Gatekeeper
The Blackhawks played their, now annual, outdoor Stadium series game in Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium, Sunday afternoon. With snow falling and all the hoopla going on, once again the festivities overshadowed a somewhat controversial game. There were quite a few questionable moments in this one.
The first period went about as bad as you could imagine for the team in white. The Blackhawks went down 0-2 early and took 3 penalties in the first 20 minutes. None of this was a good sign for the Hawks. They were out shot 11-9, and carried that third penalty kill into the middle period.
The second period was no better than the first. The Blackhawks came out flat again, and gave up two goals on twelve shots. They weren't able to manage any goals on their own eleven shots. The fire just wasn't there.
The Blackhawks came out with a different goalie in the third period but the results weren't any better. The Blackhawks gave up two more goals and eventually broke the shutout. Big fucking deal. They got their candy asses kicked 6-1 and embarrassed on national TV.
But we're all told not to worry because this doesn't matter, so we'll just act like this didn't happen.
- It took 3/4 of the game and 5 goals against for Patrick Kane to finally break the shutout. No one cared.
- It's well known that I love black equipment, but Corey Crawford's gear was perfectly coordinated. I ripped the jerseys but with the black helmets the Hawks looked really fucking slick.
- It didnt take the Wild long to take a 1-0 lead. Ryan Carter got in behind Seabrook and van Riemsdyk, after Andres Shaw decided it was a brilliant play to shoot the puck into the gut of a Wild defender. Seabrook was severely out of position when he tried to sneak in on the back door and van Riemsdyk was left to fend for himself. Carter didn't score on the breakaway or even the rebound, but Matt Dumba was there to scoop up the loose puck and shovel it past Crawford, just three and a half minutes in.
- About 4 minutes after the Dumba goal, Thomas Vanek deflected a long Jason Pominville point shot past Corey Crawford, on the powerplay for a 2-0 Wild lead.
- Nino Niederreiter put the Wild up 3-0 bout 2:30 into the second period. The Blackhawks just got completely out worked and the lineblender duo of van Riemsdyk and Keith looked as confused as ever.
- Jason Pominville gave the Wild a 4-0 lead midway through the second period through a Trevor van Riemsdyk screen. Once again the Blackhawks were standing around and not doing much to help their goaltender.
- Ryan Carter made Scott Darling's welcome a sour one. Darling made the original save and Svedgroot wasn't able to tie Carter up soon enough to stop him from finishing.
- The Jonathan Toews penalty for whatever they claimed the contact was on Dubnyk, while going around the net, was a fucking awful call. It was normal hockey play, and Dubnyk did his best Mike Smith impression.
- Even the empty net goal that the Wild scored was a complete shit show. Kane was the last guy back and put the puck right on the stick of Eric Haula, who had a free ride from center ice. Just to add insult to injury, Kane dragged Haula down before he could score which was an automatic goal, even though the puck never when in the net.
While I'm on it, could we fucking knock off this "pulling the goalie with a ridiculous amount of time remaining" crap, Joel? It's fucking DUMB. Quit taking ideas from the homeless bum in Colorado, because he's clearly not good.
- The team should be embarrassed that Crawford was chased from the game, because he deserved a much better fate.
- The call on Michal Rozsival for simply going for the puck was completely ridiculous. The puck was there, and Zucker went down, so Rozsival gets a call. Again, a hockey play that they fucked up. It shouldn't have been a penalty at all, much less a game misconduct. It's unfortunate that Zucker hit his head on the ice, but that's not Rozsival's fault.
- Just too many Blackhawks defensemen standing around watching the Wild skate around with the puck.
- The Hawks powerplay was pretty glaringly unimpressive. It has to be pretty bad if Viktor Svedberg is out there.
- Niklas Hjalmarsson was the best Hawks possession player, because someone had to be.
- Seemed like every Blackhawks shot was blocked and apparently it was. Blocked shots were 15-1 even strength, and 20-6 overall in favor of the Wild. How does that even fucking happen?
Shaw - Toews - Panik
Panarin - Anisimov - Kane
Desjardins - Danault - Teravainen
Mashinter - Rasmussen - Hinostroza
Keith - Hjalmarsson
van Riemsdyk - Seabrook
Rozsival - Svedberg