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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It was a Wild game

If you watched last night's game I really don't need to say anything. If you were having a colonoscopy, you were doing better than those of us watching the game.

It seems the Hawks may have lost the sticky tape for their sticks or they were still hungover from their trip to Vegas. I still think the defensive pairing is a large part of the problem. HEY #QUENNEVILLE, ARE YOU LISTENING? Keith/Seabrook and Hammer/Oduya play so well together and spark a lot of offense coming out of their own end while still covering up for one another. Consider that both pairs can play 22+ minutes each, that would leave only 8 minutes for the 3rd defensive pair. Personally I pick Rundblad, did you see his moves in the first period!, and Erixon.

So the Hawks lose two in a row, have been shut out twice, and have not scored a goal in 126:35.

I plan to attend practice on Thursday. I'll be interested to see what Q decides to work on seeing as so many things are currently broke.

While I am pretty confident in this team going into the playoffs, I would like to see them move up in the standings. As it stands now they are 4th in the conference and therefore would likely only get home ice advantage for the first round. Need more home ice starts.

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Some notes for tonight's game.

On the Wild front:
Cooke out tonight. Maybe for the rest of the season. Missed 22 games earlier this year with a hip flexor but has a LB injury which is different. Played 27 games so far this season with 4 goals and 4 assts.
Assume Backstrom to start.

On the Hawks front:
Carcillo is now eligible as his suspension expires. Probably not playing today. Did not practice on top 4 lines this morning.

Crawford to start in goal.

Starting lines based on practice:
20-19-81
10-91-88
29-65-86
42-16-28

Versteeg still skating in Chicago. van Riemsdyk joined him for a light skate today.

Looking ahead to the Sunday matinee:
Shatenkirk scheduled for abdominal surgery within 9 days. Will likely be out a few weeks if not the season. He has 40 points in 49 games with the Blues this year.

That was ducky

What a fun game to watch yesterday. Even better is the fact that the Hawks won with "relative" ease. I don't want to downplay the skill and play of the Ducks last night but the Hawks really took it to them for most of the game. Great game from Sharp and Kane. Kruger and Saad also had REALLY strong games, but unfortunately got nothing to show for their effort. It will come.

The Hawks will need to solve the Ducks penalty kill at some point. What the Ducks did differently to defend the Hawks was to come out of the box to block passing lanes around the perimeter. The Hawks kept trying to push the puck around the edge, had it picked off and cleared. The solution lies in moving an extra man to the middle when on of the Ducks move out of the box. A deek and a pass to the middle would have caught them off guard. Unfortunately the Hawks made no adjustments on the perimeter play last night.

I am still not happy with the defensive pairings, I was hoping that would change. Don't look for Forsling (you should have heard about the trade for Clendening) to bring any relief to the defense. He is an 18 year old and not likely to see the US until next year and maybe 2017 to see the NHL ice surface. My defensive pairing would be Seabrook/Keith, Hammer/Oduya and Rundblad/Erixon. As I noted, I'm not a big fan of Rozsival.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

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D-day for the Hawks and a quick Jeremy update

What I forgot to write last night, since I was tired and frustrated.

It is about time we figure out the defense situation. While TVR will eventually fix this problem, we need a better solution than splitting up the pairs that work well together. In other words, we need a third pairing that we can trust to put on the ice and give the top two pairs a bit of rest during the games. I am not a big fan of Rozsival and I really don't think we will see him back next season with his contract expiring. Rundblad seems to be doing well and there are a lot of defensemen in the Hawks systems that we could pull up while waiting for Vans Riemsdyk. I really think Q needs to get his top two D squads together again to help this team. Maybe he is planning that as Keith and Seabrook have taken the day off from practice.

On the Jeremy Morin front, He was taken to the hospital my ambulance during the second period of their game on Tuesday due to an elevated heart rate that would not go down. He is not the first, and probably not the last, to have this happen and is being released today. He should be right back into the line up. Note that Jeremy has 17 games in Columbus with 1 goal and 2 assists. He has been playing about 10 minute per game on average.

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They're back

Well, we were about 1 hour short of having 7 days between Blackhawks games. The allstar game was more like Disney on ice than a hockey game. I couldn't watch the entire spectacle with all the stars floating around the ice while the goalies did little more than stand in position.

So, on to the Kings game.

Rundblad gets the assist on that first goal. So he now has 3 points in the three games since he returned to his natural right defense position.

Teravainen  demonstrated some of that skill I mentioned in my last blog on the third period goal by Shaw. A neat little pass while being harassed by two Kings.

Unfortunately a mediocre second period and a couple bad plays in the third cost the Hawks the game.

Also reported what that Versteeg is skating again. Still not expected to join the team on the road.

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#Blackhawks #Teravainen

The Dog Days Are Over (or "I'm just here so I won't get fined)

It's been a while since my last blog. Christmas, the new year, Cancun and the All Star break all created the dog days of the season. There were hot and cold streaks for teams and players, but overall not too much motion up and down in the league. Now that the hockey ice capades  (aka the All Star game) are over we can get back to the business of "One Goal." Speaking of the all stars, Nikita Gusev did what no NLHer could really pull off during the shootout competition. Check out the video of this 2012 Tampa Bay pick during the KHL All Star Shootout. Sick. (Wait for the commercial to finish, its worth it.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJtOzWMjP9o

So let me catch up a bit with a few observations. First, I have been asked to give my thoughts on Carcillo. When I first saw the play I did not think too much about it. It did not appear that he put a lot of effort into the cross-check. I was quite surprised to that Mathieu Perreaulthad left the ice and missed a couple of games. But the replays reveled the force that Danny exerted in that hit. Being an ex-offender it is no surprise that he gets the  suspension and, yes, I believe he deserved that suspension. But I still love Danny's tenacity and enthusiasm for the game. I think he will do a lot for us in the playoffs if he keeps himself on the ice.

Tuevo-mania has arrive! See my report from November 23rd when I was scouting the hogs. http://blackhawksinsights.blogspot.com/2014/11/scouting-icehog.html
In that game TT had a log way to go. I planned to see how he was developing when I attended a game on Jan 3 but by that time the Versteeg injury led to Tuevo being called up to the big league. I was amazed on how different he looked from 6 weeks earlier. He really came a long way. He still has a ways to go to be a star in the NHL but he most definitely has the skill. I was able to see him practice one day over at Johnny's west. He has some incredible puck control and blind passing ability. He needs to get over his fear of getting smeared against the boards to show these skills more predominantly with the Hawks. It was that practice that showed me what he can do and why Bowman picked him in the first round.

Speaking on that Jan 3 game, the Wolves used that game to celebrate Brent Sopel's 1000th professional hockey game. And Brent still looks like a refugee from the 70s! I must admit that I once had my hair parted in the middle and sported a fu manchu. For anyone keeping track the Wolves have signed Adam Burish, Colin Fraser, Terry Broadhurst (former Hog), and Ben Eager in addition to Sopel. They also have Jake Chelios, son of Chris, in their line-up. Jake was once playing in the Hawks system down in Toledo when they were affiliated with the Blackhawks.

So, I'm BAAAAAAAAaaaaaack.

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#Blackhawks #DanCarcillo #Teravainen #Sopel