By Michael Calvert
Well, that was embarrassing. Chicago went into Nashville Saturday night to face a flailing Predator team sporting a backup goalie. One would think that a team with little to no offense and a backup with ‘Khabibulin bad’ numbers would be an easy win.
1st period:
The Wall, who shall be known from here forth as The Gate, lets in a pretty easy tap in from Matt Cullen off a pedestrian wrist shot rebound. I’ll call him the gate because we all know they can’t really keep much out, figure out their weak spots and in you shall go. Gates are really more for keeping the mentally underdeveloped in ie. dogs and toddlers. I’m actually disappointed he got hurt because I have so much more. Oh well, the game wasn’t his fault anyway, Crawford got smoked worse.
The second goal came quite quickly thereafter when the gate was beaten easily by a pretty laser like wrister by some Spaling guy. Really nice shot, but at least look like you saw it, Khaby.
The Hawks 1st pp was negated after 85 seconds when Brandon Pirri was called for a high stick. The Hawks had the sticks high all night. Keep them on the ice boys, only good things happen then. During this pp the wall goes down to an injury I can only assume is age related. He pulled something; I know the feeling, just not what you used to be. I think this is the last time we’ll see our hard drinking Ruskie friend in net for the Hawks, if it isn’t it should be.
2nd period:
Brandon Bollig flips one over the net from ¾ of the ice away, quite an achievement for the typical pond player, a real bonehead move from an NHL player. Predators of course capitalize on this mistake, as they pretty much capitalized on everything all night.
Not too much later in the game the Hawks with another forward’s lapse in the d zone and it’s 4-0. This time it was defensively sound Marcus Krueger making a lousy turnover to average NHL’er suddenly made to looks superstar-ish Matt Cullen. Cullen finds Smith for an easy forehand to backhand to deftly juke Crawford out of his I didn’t expect to play today pants. 4-0 Preds, seriously.
Patrick Kane finishes a partial breakaway to keep it to a still embarrassing 4-1 going into the third.
3rd period: You would have thought things had gotten out of hand by this point, apparently they hadn’t quite yet. Hawks came out giving a crap in the 3rd, I figured that wasn’t going to happen all game. On a pretty sweet play Saad to Steeger to Seabs for the slapshot which Mazarek couldn’t handle and Pirri deposits rebound to get the Hawks within 2.
Literally like 15 seconds later Stalberg, yeah that one, finishes a 2-1 that just had to be finished, someone could have put it in with a tree branch. Game over.
Preds score again, and then Bickell who I didn’t realize was playing contributed to the game for the first time by taking a penalty for something. I don’t honestly know what, I had it on ff at this point, I used the Direct tv ff 1 button, you can mostly tell what was going on. Anywho, the Preds score on the pp and now it’s a lot to 2.
Notes
Where to begin, it’s games like this where I could write chapters on the notes, but it’ll mostly be Hawks fan bs whining/finger-pointing.
Hawks got killed, it happens. I’ll take the Preds in a 7 game series any day and assume Hawks 4-0 at worst Hawks 4-1.
Bickell is essentially stealing money from the Hawks. I knew it when he signed; he’s such a marginal flash player. Stals is doing the same in Nashville. The difference is – those poor bastards are counting on Stalberg.
Just a weird game, the Hawks never really felt all that into it, and the Predators scored the least impressive 7 goals I’ve seen. It wasn’t like one team beating up on the other, it was just one dragging their feet and the other saying “hell, we’ll take it, thanks.”
Oh yeah, Versteeg is back on the Hawks and he played first line minutes for Marian, it’s about time he was injured again, Hossa. He looked good and I’m personally really glad to have him back, always liked dude. Now maybe look for a taker on Bickell, maybe offer the same eat half this bs contract the Panthers did.
Mazarek the Nashville goalie with the inflated goal against average and deflated save percentage got better and better as the game went on. I’m not going to bother with the shot totals but I assume it was at least +10 for the Hawks: Go figure.
The only difference to the lines was the aforementioned Steeger playing in Hossa’s spot on the top line. Not sure if it was a surprise to see him up there. Guys been around the block with the Hawks and I know Q likes him. I think everyone including Q figured this one to be in the bag before it even started, they were right, kind of.
Michael Calvert
