true the defense has seemed shaky. we've given up a lot of leads. then again on average we're giving up only 0.02 goals more per game this year over last. we've been to the finals two years in a row, that's a lot of games. i get the feeling a lot of the players are saving themselves for the playoffs in terms of physicality which is a huge part of our game. guess we'll find out. hawks-pens would be a great finals, would probably like to see that more than any other matchup for all the youth and speed involved.

Because they've scored 72 more goals than they've allowed. The closest differential is Chicago with 54.

that will change when the playoffs come round

was at the game last night and in addition to gettin a toews bobblehead (whcih are sweet btw)...i also won a signed toews puck in the bhawks text giveaway they do throughout the game...pretty great night

yeah a team like washington with their flashy offense is built for regular season dominance. things will get a lot tighter in the playoffs and if they can't play physical, commit more to defense or get reliable goalie play they won't make it to the finals. don't forget they almost got eliminated by a rather crappy new york rangers team last year.

Meh. Sounds like a lot of worn-out hockey orthodoxy to me. This Washington offense is so good, I can't see anyone in the East taking them out in a seven-game series. Maybe a Miller or Brodeur can shut the door once or twice, but certainly not four times. Washington/Chicago would be such an amazing Final. Watch us get stuck with the boring-ass Coyotes and Devils neutral-zone-trapping each other into oblivion.

out east the pens offer the best combo of goal tending and scoring to be able to take out the caps...the sabres have no D to speak of except for big bad tyler myers (dudes gonna be a stud)

my hope is we dont get the wings in the first round (hawks currently 1st and wings 8th)...i think the wings will eventually end up 6th and the hawks 2nd

tomorrows game vs VAN is gonna be awesome...cant wait - this team has replaced the wings as far as the bad blood games.....heres to hoping eager fucks up burrows or willie mithcell

I've had the Wings winding up sixth for a while (the Predators are a bunch of no-talents) but I don't see why the Blackhawks can't stay in first place. Speaking of teams that are built to dominate the regular season, I wonder which team will be the one that dispatches the one-line-sketchy-goaltending Sharks before they make it to the Final.

that race for the 8th spot in the west is gonna be great...4pts seperating the 8th from the 13th team in the conf

Huet between the pipes tonight.

i hope ladder cracks kesler right on the kisser

100% OTM...

Thanks for the Olympic effort and all, Kesler, but tonight, you belong to Andrew Ladd....

Get some, Luongo...

Rumor has it he threw a tantrum in the tunnel after the 1st period, then got pulled.

Yeah, slammed his stick against the boards as the fans continued to chant, " Louuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu."

Good game, for the most part.

he slammed his stick on his benches board and he didnt even break it!!!!
pussy!!

andrew ladd went right after kessler as soon as the period began and kessler backed off...ladd made him his bitch all game long

last nights game was awesome and easily the loudest the UC has been all year...buff had his best game of the year and was a complete menace on the ice and great to see steeger break his cold streak of 19 games?

huet made some fantastic saves but let in one easy one

huge game tomorrow against a healthy det team

dont know if anyone has read or heard about this yet...

http://blog.mlive.com/ottoman-empire/2010/..._has_to_go.html

this guy can go straight to hell...

second city had a good retort for it...

http://www.secondcityhockey.com/2010/3/9/1...ell-allow-me-to

and this guy obviously has no idea about how this tradition started...

the 1985 edmonton series when they booed our anthem in chicago but it really took off in 1991 the week the gulf war started:

I don't know if I'd say that's when it really took off. That's when it got some national attention, but it was clearly a local tradition by then. I was there for that game. Pretty. Damn. Loud. The only time I heard it louder was the final Hawk game at the old Stadium. Unbelievable. Start to finish, you couldn't even hear the organ.

Good times.



Maybe I've told this story here before, but this quote reminded me of it. I took my dad to a game at the old place, and he always likes to sing along with the anthem at games. Well, the songs starts and he's singing along ... then it started to get louder, and he tries to sing over the crowd. Louder. Louder. Louder. Finally, the anthem ends and we sit down. He leans over and says, "I think I pulled something."

Good times, indeed.

BTW, any of you guys see the replay of the 1985 Hawks/NorthStars playoff game they played on CSN last night. Fun to watch the old guys. What a group of future NHL Coaches in that game. Savard. Eddie O. Daryl Sutter. Craig Hartsburgh. Ron Wilson. I had almost forgotten how much those two teams hated each other. F'ing Dino Ciccarelli. What a hack. No player has ever taken more dives than that guy. Hated him nearly as much as Claude Lemieux.

the guy who wrote the article will be on wgn tomm morning at 6:30...i hope he gets torn apart on the air

and btw his comments section is blowing up right now...i felt compelled to post as well

worst officiated game i have ever seen last night...congrats nhl - youve lost control of the game you oversee

if wiz doesnt get a suspension this leagues hiearacrchy is shit

one of the worst cheap shots ive ever seen...he skates in from the blue line and goes right after seabs (who laid a legal hit on corey perry)

and then the cross check on sopel for that 3rd goal?? wtf?

if you go to hockeyfights.com and watch the video of it the anahiem announcers think seabs is faking it...those guys should be fired too

The hit last night was disgusting. Seabrook was clearly out when he was going to the ice. The Anaheim player left his fucking feet and went right for the head.

the bloggers in anaheim are trying to defend it...awful

With the NHL's wheel of justice, we have no idea what's going to happen with Wizniewski. The league is a mess right now, the dirty hits are out of control, and the disciplinary measures aren't severe enough.

By the way, Brian Hayward apologized on-air later in the game for the faking comments.

This league just has no clue and it starts with Bettman. You let Matt Cooke still play after nearly decapitating Marc Savard (after suspending Cooke 2 games for committing the same exact head shot on almost the same exact spot on the ice in November), yet you suspend Ovechkin for a borderline dirty hit on Campbell (I didn't think it was THAT bad and I'm a Hawks fan) and give Wizzer a two minute charging call for leaving his feet and knocking Seabrook into next week.

The way it should have been done...Ovechkin no suspension, Cooke suspended at least 10 and Wizzer suspended at least 5.

Dead-on.

Pens-Bruins tonight, too. Could be fun.

the ovie suspension was more for the culmination of his bonehead plays than that 1 hit

while i dont think the specific hit on soupy warranted suspension i dont have a problem with the league telling ovechkin you gotta cool your jets and telling him to sit for 2 games

guess whos gonna be there? colin campbell

i agree cooke should've been suspended but ovie's hit was much worse. completely unnecessary to throw someone into the boards at that point. at least cookes was part of the play and he's grinder so its his job to lay hits. also dont forget downie's ridiculous take down of crosby, completely away from the play, that was definitely done with the intent to injure.

Did any of you catch Don Cherry's take on Cooke's hit? Grapes was on fire, it was the best Coach's Corner in ages:



"Last year in the playoffs against Carolina, I met him in the hall. Or he met me in the hall ... and he said to me, 'Are you gonna have the guts to say to my face what you say [on] TV?' And I said 'yeah' about six inches from his face: 'You're a gutless, backstabbing little ...,' and I can't say what I called him."

wiz gets 8...harsher than i thought but i have no problem with it

That's a start.

Cherry is 100% OTM. Any head shot should be 10 games for a first offense, 20 games for the second and maybe 40 games+ for the third.

HUGE game tonite...

wish i had my seats to tonites game but we sold em...who knew the coyotes woulda been good!

if we dont win tonite - then we have got serious problems...minn is so banged up the icehogs should be able to beat them

i really want huet to have a good game tonite

and for the love of god get steeger away from playing C...

if the hawks win tonite we would have identical records to our last march which we went 6-0-1 in april

lets hope for the exact same

Right now Chicago and San Jose don't look like first-place clubs, but that will change. Vancouver and Detroit are on a rampage, though.

The playoffs in the west are going to be fun to watch!

today i managed to get 2 standing room only tickets for conference quarterfinals game C.

later i did the math and calculated that'll probably coincide with my time in boston. awesome! looks like craigslist...

Good game tonight. Hawks dominated the play for most of the game and Niemi came up huge when he had to. I thought Hossa also played a great game -- one of those where he was always in the right spot for the puck to come to him.

Let's hope they can build on this.

with the way our group divided season tix...i got game b for series one and games a,b,c for the conf semis

game b for the 3rd round and game d for the cup (kinda got screwed there so ill have to buy some)

hawks looked good and its about time the 4th line did something...as much as i hate to say it burrish is probably gonna have to sit if they play like this

id start playing eager-fraser-kopecky on the 4th line from here on out to see how it goes...its good having a true C on that line in fraser

next game is NJ in NJ and well see how much we can build on playing a really depleted MN team

hawks finally look like the team we saw this fall...

glad to see us get the second spot as that more than likely will give us DET in the third round as opposed to the second and hopefully well get some horses back in johnsson and soupy

buff has filled in nicely at D and to me that may be where he needs to stay next year if he wants to stay on this team but 3mm for a 6th d-man (which is what he will be) is really pricey - tons worse than sopels 2mm

good to see fraser cement himself at C as hell prolly be our third line C next year - i dont see us bringing back madden as much as i love him - his production has taken a nosedive since the new year

Playoff stache starts today.

Seriously hate losing to detroit, but I like where our game's at right now. A couple bounces go our way and that game's a different story. Plus, with our depth, I love the Hawks in any playoff series.

Ready to run over the preds in the first round.

Sidenote: I feel like soupy's been out so long that to rush him back might be detrimental to the team. He's a key part, don't get me wrong, and though people sometimes bag on his defensive skills as a d man, his importance to the PP and puck movement/transition in general can't be understated (think march pretty much proved that). That said, I'd hate to see last year's campbell get on the ice come playoff time. If he brings it the way he has most of the year, then great. I'm just not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about trying him out after such a prolonged absence, especially if the team's still clicking together (which I'd assume they'd still be doing if they reach deep into the playoffs and he was back from injury).

the preds wont be any pushovers...barry trotz is a fantastic coach and the preds have given us fits all year by running that lame neutral zone trap

as far as campbell...i think if hes healthy youve got to play him...its a bit unfair to compare what may happen to last year when he was weak...he was paired up with an inexperienced hammer back then...now hammer is our most solid d-man and i think can make up for any trepidation campbell may show in his game

anyways cant wait...friday cant come soon enough

Every single series in the west is going to be a barnburner, just watch. I think they're all going to go six or seven.

Vancouver/LA is the biggie of the four series. The Sharks have enormous pressure to make a statement in the first round, they and Detroit are the hottest teams in the league going in, so they have that going for them.

The east is a mess. I'm doubtful of Washington's playoff legitimacy, Buffalo's banged up, my Habs, Philly, and Boston do not deserve to be in the final 16, Ottawa is far more mediocre than their point total indicates. I just plain dislike the Penguins. I think the Devils are taking the conference.

Habs have given the Caps fits all season, and Halak can easily outduel Theodore...chances are slim, but if I was to pick a first round upset, that'd be it.

i was hoping for a van det series in the 1st round...it woulda been epic

dont know if anyone saw this but this is proof that there is justice in the nhl

Agreed. It's good to see the Hawks ticking again, but it was painfully apparent to see how much they missed Campbell on "O" while he was out. In addition to having a better partner, he was also a better player this year.


One punch: Volume II

^ I can only assume that's the Kane/Cooke "fight" since I'm working on bastardized non-YouTube compatible Internet. It's a good thing though, as everytime I see that clip it causes me to spontaneously ejaculate, and I just don't wanna have to change my shorts again.

Nagode, you're probably right about Campbell, and I want to agree, but I just can't help being ever so slightly worried. I guess seeing/imagining cracks in the building and just waiting for the assumed collapse is part of being a Chicago sports fan.

"Well you hope Matt Cooke is OK"
No

"Good thing his head didn't hit because Kane was holding his jersey"
Damn

"He's lucid now. He's sitting up, that's a good sign"
Not really.

I'm ready for the playoffs to start.

you better believe thats evander kane knocking out the bag of dicks that is matt cooke

evander kane is gonna be a fucking stud

ill just say this about campbell...if he comes back and the hawks end up playing DET in the 3rd round (cause thats when im assuming he comes back)
the hawks will not lose because of his play it will be because our PP is shit.

the reason DET has been so good for so long is that on top of possessing the puck (which the hawks do now) they punish the opposing team on the PP...the hawks have failed to do that all year and if they did itd be them hoisting the presidents cup

to me the key man in this run is going to be sharpie...hes on what is being called on SCH the hammer of God line in hossa-toews-sharp...they have dominated whomever theyve played against and to me sharp is going to need to bury his opportunities that assuredly hes going to get

the other is bolland...he hasnt looked all that great since hes come back but has been on the upswing these last few games...

Pretty much all OTM. And yeah, I buy that about sharpie. A Led Zep song thundering thru the PA everytime those three monsters are on the ice, right? God, I love seeing that line play, and I'm eagerly hoping for him to get that huge game under his belt in the near future. Or Eagerly hoping for Eager to continue his recent trend of playing hockey like a good hockey player, as opposed to a mentally derranged wannabe goon (4th line with Fraser has been ridiculous...).

I've got a pretty good feeling about Brower too. Going with him as my dark horse playoff pick to click.

Anyone know whether Cooke is out for the playoffs?

yeha brouwer is a not a bad pick...i wonder what these family issues that have been keeping him out are...

eager and hammer have been my two favorite players on this team for a while...but ever since eagers concussions he hasnt been the player he was last year and unfortunately i dont see the hawks bringing him back next year...

but that 4th line definitely performs how he does...even tho fraser has been on fire its eager whos causing all the ruckus creating a lot of those 4th line opportunities...didnt eags have a 3 or 4 pt game last week?