I guess that's why they call them the Blues.

The Hawks inch closer to the Blues today with the victory. Good to get that win in the last game on the road, especially against a strong division team. It was good to see Kruger finally score. He as been playing well as you can tell by all the shots he has been taking from the opposing teams. I was also glad to see Carcillo making the feed to set him up on the play.

Toews made Oshie look foolish as he stepped around him on one play. Tarasenko returned the favor by making Crawford look like he dropped his drawers. Unfortunately Tarasenko scored and Toews did not.

It was good to see the power play work. Hossa indicated that he scored on a set play pass from Saad. Said Hoss, "That was a pretty set play and I'm glad it worked." It was a dandy.

I little scrimmage with Carcillo and Ott was hardly worth the penalty time.

So the Blackhawks now return home for an important 8 game stretch. We start with Coyotes who we embarrassed earlier on this road trip.

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Winning-peg

Back in Johnny's home town where the Hawks have not lost since 1996.

It only took 1:07 for Carcillo to get the challenge from Thorburn. I give the decision to Thorburn although he did land a lot of his shots on the pads and helmet. Carcillo gets the points for the take down.

Rundblad looses a 2 on 1 on the boards then can't get in position when Scheifele receives a pass right on the tape from referee Steve Kozari. For his effort, Rundblad gets to join Raanta on the bench for the rest of the period. Give him 1:38 of play time in the first and then he only gets another 2:12 in the second to finigh the game with 3:50. The real problem was that Keith was expecting the puck to come out to the middle before Kozari kicked it away which is what left the front of the net open. We'll probably see Erixon on Sunday but I do not agree with this call from Q.

Power play. What power play? Still not fixed.

While getting out hit 16-6 in the first they were also losing face offs 11-5 at the end of the first. They finally came back to even by the end of the third and fell short by one.

SOG were few and fair between but Kane with a great feed to Saad who scores on the 3rd shot of the OT.

This was a fun, yet a little stressful, game to watch. These teams would put on a great playoff series.

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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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