One Down, a Bunch More to Go: Hawks 4, Predators 3 and Wednesday's Big Boy

Many hours later and this has been done to death by now, but it's my sacred duty to type some words. 
The Game
- Special Teams were expected to be critical in this series and they sure were last night, but not as expected, with 3 PP goals surrendered by a couple of teams that boast pretty good PK Teams.
- Speaking of unexpected, Antoine Vermette being a scratch was an odd choice unless, of course, he's shaking off an injury of some sort.  Even if Vermette did play old Q would have plunked him on the wing, anyway, doing nothing to alleviate...
- ...being thumped at the dot.  Anyone can grok Shaw being underwater but when both Toews and Kruger have their asses handed to them y'all have a problem. 
- Yanking Crawford was for the best even if only to kickstart The Hawks back into giving a damn.  Darling, obviously, was excellent, but only the Stalberg goal was Crawford's fault and, even with his error, better positioning by Keith might* have prevented the goal. (* we know Vik is supah-fast but Keith ain't a slowpoke, either...).  Darling is good and I like him in the backup role, but let's not expect another 20+ performances like this just yet.

Next
 - More about Kane a little further down, but the reunion with Richards and Versteeg was less than magical. All in favour of punting Versteeg for Sharp say "aye". 
- One would hope, given the sorry faceoff effort in Game One that Vermette would be inserted, but where?  As much as this makes sense, Quenneville won't let Vermette play center, anyway.  Who would sit?  It would seem that Versteeg is untouchable and Teravainen earned his spot, for now, by virtue of his sweeeet pass to Hjalmarsson.  Apart from faceoffs and the usual out-of-position issues Shaw was okay and I assume that Bickell stays in because it's the playoffs.  That really only leaves Nordstrom and, while I don't mind the kid, Vermette can easily do everything Nordy does and more.
- Crawford starts Game Two.  You don't bench a Jennings winner because of one bad period in Game One. 

He's back, baby.  I thought Kane looked as if he was hanging back a bit, but I could be overthinking.  If that's right, maybe Kane was no better than Versteeg or Richards at even strength but, on those power plays, he was as magical as ever. 

                                                                 More, please.