Notes from the morning practice

#DuncanKeith was off for a maintenance day. #Versteeg skated with the team wearing the white flag jersey. (Don't hit me I'm hurt.) He will travel with the team to practice but the earliest he will play is when they return home. van Riemsdyk (and I always hate starting a sentence with lower case) was not on the ice today. No surprise. He may have skated earlier or plans to later. Dennis Rasmussen  was sent back to the Hogs late yesterday. #Crawford scheduled to start tomorrow in Winnipeg.

As I expected this was the most intense practice I have witnessed today. It was 48 minutes of drills. I have never seen the ice so torn up after a practice. Let's start with passing seeing as that was not the Hawks strong suit the last two games. (Although I am not sure what their strong suit was.) Q started the team practicing passing with what looked like a shuffleboard puck. (See picture below.) A little harder to get moving and a little harder to receive. I have never seen this one before. It was interesting. When they switched to a regular puck the passes were much faster and pretty crisp.

The practice lines were the same as what they have played the last two games. So it looks like #Carcillo will be the odd man out tomorrow.

As for defensive pairings, a little hard to tell without Keith in place but I never saw #Hjalmarsson play with #Oduya. Not once. I must assume nothing will change. Seems like the Hawks have gone insane. You know the definition.

There was some powerplay practice. The powerplay looked pathetic. But they are playing against some of the best PK in the league. I think they really need to get away from the perimeter passing and drop a guy in the middle to start passing in and out.

They finished up with some 5 on 5 hockey and then after the official practice ended most players stayed to practice shooting (Hossa spending a lot of time nailing the upper right corner) or playing give and go with Dineen on the other side giving #Raanta some shots to handle.

Toews looked a little weak today. Left right at the end of the official practice. I am not sure if he is under the weather a bit.

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