While I had certainly hoped for better I had expected worse. Worse than a loss? Sure - a loss in which The Hawks were utterly incompetent and made no effort whatsoever. That was not the case, last night.
On paper, this game wasn't even close, as The Hawks trounced Edmonton in every category...except the one that matters most - the score. For the most part, The Hawks didn't look nearly as rusty as I had expected they would. They had great legs which, against the speedy Oilers, is saying something, they won a stupid amount of face offs and demolished EDM in possession. Yet they lost.
Well, there were a few problems. Just little things that added up to the result we got.
- Crawford shoulda coulda stopped Lucic's five-hole-goal. The WGN guys tried to implicate Kempny in that but you could tell from Crawford's expression, afterward, he knew he should have had that one, too.
- Timing: not everyone was out of sync, but several key guys were just slightly...off. Anisimov was always a step ahead....or behind where he needed to be. Panarin didn't make a clean pass all night. A few of the others had moments in which they hesitated or were too quick entering the zone, getting rid of the puck...whatever. They just didn't always click like they're expected to.
- Cam Talbot had a much more representative outing than he had a week ago.
So, no joy in the standings, but last night wasn't a disaster, either. Apart from those couple of small yet critical issues I was pretty impressed with the effort The Hawks put forth. On to Buffalo.
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