You Know Who You Are? Hawks 4, Wild 2

Five minutes in and up 2-0 on their first two shots, The Hawks had chased Devan Dubnyk and had a pretty good saunter going.  By the time Eric Staal scored to get Minnesota within a goal, The Wild were already beginning the full-court press that they would maintain for almost the entire game.  You don't have to squint to envision a different result.  Yet, The Hawks never trailed and, what's more, without a couple of errors in judgment, The Hawks could well have blanked The Wild.  It's a funny old game, ain't it?  To The Bits:
I don't when I've seen The Hawks lose the possession contest this badly before, only commanding a 37% share, overall.  You know things are goofy, too, when TVR leads all Hawks in Corsi (55%, BTW).  It certainly showed, too, as Minnesota piled on shot after shot and seemed to out-chance The Hawks about 10-0 during the middle part of the contest, while The Hawks only managed occasional forays into The Wild's end of the rink.
Seabrook wasn't entirely awful today but there were those two shifts in which he should and could have been better.  On the first goal against he was furious and completely distracted after an apparent high stick that wasn't called.  He was essentially spinning around in front of The Hawks' net and allowed Charlie Coyle to get between himself and Corey Crawford, and ultimately preventing Seabrook from sweeping away the puck before Staal slid it past Crawford.  The second goal against was set into motion by Schmaltz's failed attempt to chip the puck, while stationary, past Mikael Granlund, but Seabrook made only a token effort to intercept the Minnesota speedster, allowing him to launch a perfectly-aimed shot past Crawford.  Not at all acceptable.
As for Schmaltz, it wasn't entirely surprising that he was benched briefly after his botched play that enabled Granlund's goal.  I appreciate, though, that he didn't have to pay too high a price for his indiscretion, as I'd much rather he at least be trying stuff in a situation that, in the autumn, he would have just tossed the puck downrange as quickly as he could, and I expect he'll take greater care in the future.

Tootoo had another decent outing.  After his big night against Nashville he's played with infinitely more confidence, looking for plays when he would previously just mash the puck somewhere, anywhere.  He's still extremely limited in what he can accomplish but I'm glad his head is in the game a lot more than anytime all season, and his willingness to fight through Ryan White's check created the loose puck that Kruger fed to TVR for the eventual game winner.
While Panarin appears to be getting back on track, with five points in his last five games, Anisimov remains in the wilderness, with only a single assist in his last five.  What do you do, though? Schmaltz was okay filling in at 2C, briefly, but I like him a lot more with Panik & Toews, and neither Kero nor Kruger are up to the task.  I think we just have to wait out whatever's going on with Arthur The Larger.

No question here.  After a series of just-okay outings Corey Crawford was solid today, only narrowly missing Staal's tally and I cannot fault him on Granlund's impeccable shot.  It was a nice bounce-back game for Crow, and with no further back-to-backs this season, it's possible that Crow can hold the fort on his own until Scott Darling returns.

So, yeah, we got the right end of the stick that I mentioned a couple of games ago.  You know what that makes The Hawks....?

                                                      EVEN STEVEN.