Crow's nest

If not for Corey Crawford the Hawks would have come up with nothing against the Rangers. And I hear many people saying that Crawford cannot get us a cup. I don't think we could get one without him. Without him we might not even make the payoffs the way things have been going. While the Hawks played well overall in this high speed game it was the defense that was lacking. Again there were too many shots on Crawford that either never should have happened or should have been blocked. The Hawks had 8 blocked shots while the Rangers had 18! There where many defensive lapses but none that hurt the team more than Roszival missing the pick-up on the OT goal. We have better players in our system than him. While he does make some good plays, he is making way too many mistakes at this point. Combine that with 4 missed power plays and you end up losing. The Hawks are now 21st in the power play rankings.

On the good side, our penalty killing was stellar and the offense was good when we weren't on the power play. We may need to start declining these penalties. Tuevo was having a great game and Talbot was tested by some of the best shooters in the league. Unfortunately Talbot stood up to all of them. At least the Hawks got one point out of the game and gave nothing up to their own division.

Looking back at the game against the Oilers, the Hawks were lethargic in that game. Luckily they tied it up late and then, thanks to the skill of Vermette and the coaching of Toews, they were able to get the OT win.

About the new guys: Vermette is looking pretty good. He is certainly trying to fit in to the Hawks system. I am not too sure about Dejardins but we need to give him some time to fit in. I am really impressed with Timonen given that he had been out for so long. I really think he will come along. I will restate my playoff defensive pairs:

Seabs-Dunc
Oduya-Hammer
Timo-TVR

But be aware that TVR has not returned to playing yet, he is still in practice mode. Raanta has had to starts with the Hogs getting a win and an OT loss. He has made 47 saves on 53 shots with a .887 SV% over those two games. He gave up 3 goals in each of the games including the OT goal at 1:27 of the OT.

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