As Kane and DeBrincat Go, So Go The Hawks. Mostly, anyway, and even with the hot streak these two little fellas are enjoying it's often not quite enough. When, not if, those guys hit a cold spell it'll be very, very tough for The Hawks to earn points. The team has improved but they're not yet ready for prime time.
Apart from some occasional defensive ambivalence Kane is playing as well as he's ever done. As good has he's been, DeBrincat is still rounding into shape, suggesting a brighter future for both he and the team, yet I worry about how he's getting all these goals lately. I mean, if he's gonna score on half the shots he takes from the left circle I'm all-in for that, but we've seen this episode before with Panarin and, before him, Sharp. Once other teams devise means of blocking DBC out of that position or reliably preventing Kane/Gustafsson ('cos it's always them, isn't it?) from getting him the puck DeBrincat's scoring rate will tumble.
Bad Day At The Office. Dahlstrom endured his worst game since rejoining The Hawks, his first stinkeroo, really. Minus three and inadvertently shovelling the winning goal into your own net makes for an evening he'd prefer to forget, I'm sure. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong circumstance....whatever. It was bad.
Even Worse but without the stats to back it up were Seabrook and Jokiharju, with Seabs huffing and puffing his way to three giveaways and Hank failing to contain any Vegas forward, ever.
The Stat Line was not kind to Kampf, Saad & Caggiula either, but I feel the need to qualify their apparent failure as tonight's shut-down line. Their primary assignment was to box out VGK's ostensive top line, Marchessault, Karlsson and Pirri and, while they had their hands full with those guys, they gave up nothing. Oddly, it was always the next Vegas line that burned them. Unlucky, unaware, definitely unfortunate.
Colliton's OT Deployment has been strange, too. Coaches play hunches as much as they go with the horses that got them in the race, but I question him trotting out Kampf - Kahun - Dahlstrom, particularly after the rough night Baby Huey and Big Carl suffered. I dunno much about anything, really but, in that position in a game that you've been a bit lucky to get to OT in the first place, I'd probably go back to Toews, Kane & Gus. Just sayin'.
Next: Monday vs. the improving Devils, more of a "better win" than a "must win", I'd say.
Posts may be sporadic going forward, lumping two or more games together or just me popping in with vital observations. Vital!
Bad Day At The Office
No comments:
Post a Comment