Saturday: The Hawks were goalie'd, pure and simple, and at both ends of the ice, with CMB's Korpisalo turning away 50 shots and The Hawks' JF Berube allowing three softies. That, barring disaster, will likely be the last time we see Berube in a Chicago jersey.
Lines 1-3 each had several excellent shifts, although all three units struggled with consistency. There was some nice puck movement with Kane-Schmaltz-DeBrincat, but also plenty of occasions in which Schmaltz and DeBrincat skated themselves into trouble and couldn't find their way back out. Only Kane seemed to have any consistent awareness of where his linemates were. It's early days yet.
Toews worked hard along the walls but hardly exerted himself otherwise, which is fine. Richard Panik did his thing - dynamite when it works but kinda silly to watch when it doesn't, and it didn't work a whole lot in this game. Saad was a sledgehammer.
As much as I like the idea of John Hayden stepping in and being a versatile big body, I don't think it'll be happening this fall. Hayden either goes all-out, crashing around with no apparent plan, or he stands around, watching, and there's rarely anything in-between. A few months in Rockford would do him good, I think.
The fourth line gonna be the fourth line and, with so many Guys still in camp, could "feature" any number of spare parts guys. I was going to type a few sentences about Alexandre Fortin's obvious skill mitigated by him having no clue how to employ it, but he's been dismissed to Rockford, so maybe another time. Riddle me this, though: what, exactly does Tomas Jurco do? He's not especially quick, hasn't much of a shot and all it takes is a stern look to separate him from the puck. Yeah... I'll pass on that.
As for the defense, it's hard to say much about last night's group of guys, as they really weren't troubled much. I thought all three of the guys who are competing for a spot played well enough. Rutta is maybe a little quicker than I gave him credit for and Pokka played a simple but effective game. Either guy could likely step right into the third pairing, maybe higher for Rutta.
The competition is very much ON, too, as I still believe Rozsie will pack it in sooner than later, and it looks as if Cody Franson has been released from his PTO? (I can find no mention of this but he no longer appears on the team roster) The Hawks have options and they aren't all terrible.
Postscript: well, it's Monday and Cody Franson is in The Hawks' lineup, so I dunno why he's not on the active roster. Of course, tonight's roster insists that Luke Johnson is playing and that Jordan Oestrle is not, so who knows what the hell's going on...
No comments:
Post a Comment