by Gatekeeper
After almost a two week hiatus from recapping the big dog was back in the house for this latest March "embarrassing losses don't count" game. The Blackhawks were coming in after losing a lacklustre game, in a shootout to the Wild, Sunday. Many people among the intarwebz want to brush off this late season struggle, but it should be concerning that they have not yet found their chemistry with 10 games remaining. Sure, panic is not the answer, but being thoroughly concerned is not over reacting, by any means. The Hawks opened up with the forward line the way most of us would prefer, so there wasn't much to complain about there. I, myself, would have rather seen more Christian Ehrhoff, but it has become evident that Quenneville doesn't like Ehrhoff as much as most of us do. He didn't like Vermette last year, either, but look how that ended up. Moving on to the dog days of...
spring???
The first period was a god damn pitiful abortion. There is simply no other way to put it. They played the first half of the period pretty well, but the second half of the period was barely squirt worthy. The Stars scored 4 goals in about 7 minutes, to chase the Blackhawks goaltender to the bench. The Blackhawks were no only out scored by a large margin, but they were out shot 15-9. The worst part of this was going to be the fact that I had 40 more minutes of uninspired hockey to endure.
The second period was certainly better than the first, but it's not like it could have been any worse, though, right? I honestly lost interest in this piss poor effort. The shots were actually tied at 10-10 and both teams scores goals. This effort still wasn't going to earn back any favor from this guy. A dark cornfield in Oklahoma City sounded more exciting at this point.
Everyone was just waiting this one out, in the third period, including the Blackhawks coach. He gave the Stars a free empty net goal, which should have told everyone that he had given up. Or we can all just stick out heads in the sand wearing our #3CUPZ tinfoil hats. The Blackhawks actually out shot the Stars 13-8 and had a goal, themselves. Didn't really matter at this point.
Shoutcast tomorrow...
- With just over 3 minutes remaining in the second period, the Blackhawks finally did something worth commending. Andrew Shaw won a faceoff deep in the stars zone and then was able to bunt a fat, belly high Andrew Desjardins deflection into the net for the one bright spot.
- Richard Panik scored the second Blackhawks goal of the game about midway through the third period. He found himself on the Stars back door and was able to hang on long enough to stuff the puck past Lehtonen's right foot like #Fatrick through a turnstyle.
- Nothing. Nothing more. They should be embarrassed.
- The first really good Blackhawks chance was at the four minute mark of the second period, where Lehtonen made rapid fire saves on Marian Hossa, Andrew Shaw and finally Andrew Desjardins. They followed that up with a very disciplined Too Many Men penalty. Aces.
- Radek Faksa scored the Stars 5th goal of the game late in the second, over Michael Leighton's shoulder. LUKE, I AM YOUR FAKSA!
- When Richard Panik and Andrew Shaw are your best players for two consecutive games, you're fucked.
- To my friend, and big Stars fan, Selina:
- The Stars took a 1-0 on a terrible fucking goal. The Teravainen line lost a deep faceoff on the Hawks zone and the Van Rozsival duo couldn't control the puck behind the net. Colton Sceviour picked up the puck and tried to, badly, wrap the puck around. Luckily for him the puck banked it off the shaft of Darling's stick into the net. Terrible, and it doesn't get better from there.
- The very next shift, Sceviour also got himself an assist from behind the net. The Blackhawks were running around like a bunch of mental patients on speed in their own zone and Erik Gustafsson completely lost Vernon Fiddler in the Hawks left corner. Sceviour found the puck on his stick, saw Fiddler straddling the goal line and hit him with a pass. Fiddler had the whole net to shoot at, with Darling looking over his right shoulder and the puck on the left side. 2-0 Stars.
- Next it was the 24th ranked PK's turn to suck. A Jonathan Toews penalty turned into a Patrick Eaves powerplay goal, as they left Eaves wide open in the slot to one time a laser over Darling's right shoulder. The Blackhawks...
eh you get the idea. - Just to make sure we all vomited up our Hot Pockets, the Blackhawks completed the total fucking meltdown by giving up their 4th first period goal, for good measure. This time it was of the shorthanded variety. It must be pointed out that Patrick Kane's effort after mishandling the pass a the Stars blue line was atrocious. It was literally not possible to give any less fucks than he did on that play. Following the first period, Scott Darling was sent to spend the rest of the game on the bench in favor of Michael Leighton.
- Quenneville pulled the goalie with six and a half minutes left in the third. Would you like to guess what happened? Yeah, empty netter. CUT THAT STUPID SHIT OUT! Patrick Roy should be immediately impeached from the Hall-Of-Fame for starting this asinine trend. The Blackhawks powerplay has been RANCID DOGSHIT the last several games. What makes you think they could suddenly pull it off with another body out there in the way? Roy and Q, I have a couple of these for you:
- I'm sick and fucking tired of all this, "They'll just flip the switch like they always do". There are no less than NINE different players on this team. This is NOT the same team as the 2010, 2013 OR 2015 team. Expecting them to suddenly recapture the glory that half of them never had is naive. They are not playing well at all, and they have shown little chemistry. When they DO show chemistry, Quenneville splits them up. Not only that, but the efforts are getting worse. As the great DITKA once said, "Those who live in the past are cowards and losers". It's time we start living in the present and being concerned.
- When fancy stats go bad. The Blackhawks overall corsi was actually obnoxiously good at 61%. Every player but Duncan Keith and Tomas Fleischmann was + Corsi
- If this entire game wasn't bad enough, the idiots at CSN Chicago broadcast that meatball asshole Montana Brenan all over my TV. The ultimate "fuck you" to all Hawks fans.
Ladd - Toews - Hossa
Panarin - Anisimov - Kane
Weise - Teravainen - Fleischmann
Desjardins - Shaw - Panik
Keith - Hjalmarsson
Gustafsson - Seabrook
Rozsival - van Riemsdyk