Better, Worse or Just Kind of The Same?: Hawks 4, Coyotes 2

A road win and another two points are always great, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, here, because The Hawks took the scenic route to victory and had to lean on some of their lesser lights to pull it off.  Let's get right to the Bits.
* The Opponent was not good.  They have a handful of promising forwards, one pretty good defenseman but a black hole where they thought they put their goaltenders.  With everything ticking along as it should The Hawks ought to destroy these no-hopers.  Yet...
* Shots against remain too high.  There's no way PHX should ever be even on shots with The Hawks, especially given that The Coyotes managed only a single shot on their 4+ minute powerplay.  This "come at me bro'" defensive posture has to change.  
* Coach Q teased us by starting Murphy with Keith but, after the first TV timeout it became clear that he was merely tossing Murph a bone by slotting him into the starting lineup in the barn he used to play in.  Status quo, sadly, was soon restored with Seabrook waddling back to Keith's side for the remainder of the match.
Keith, Rutta and Forsling were all okay with only a rough shift here and there, and even Seabrook wasn't awful if you discount the shot he took on his own goalie.  Murphy wasn't great though, falling all over himself as often as not and, while I previously complimented his willingness to take chances, Oesterle spent the evening writing cheques that his talent couldn't cover.  Against a better team (i.e. any other team) their effort would have been found wanting.

* The Forward lines were all over the place, with Toews' trio enjoying many dominant but unproductive shifts, Schmaltz' and Wingels' lines blowing hot & cold and the Anisimov group having a largely indifferent outing.  Toews' line looks ready to have an explosive game very soon, as their puck movement and awareness are tip-top at the moment, hampered only by some indiscriminate and often inaccurate shooting.  The second line had several great shifts and Hartman, in particular, pursued the puck with great determination all night, but Schmaltz and Kane weren't "there" for all of their shifts.  DeBrincat tried some interesting things but, alas, Sharp and Anisimov were nowhere to be found a lot of the time.  DBC's best play was his cross-crease pass to Rutta, his best option when 10 and 15 were swanning off, somewhere.
* The Penalty Kill got a good workout though, and apart from one lazy clearing attempt, Anisimov was very good in that role.

                                                    May I be excused?

* The Fourth Line had themselves a bit of a night.  Bouma and Wingels' over-exuberance handed PHX that 5-on-3 power play, which wasn't great, but they had enough effective shifts to offset that.  Bouma, of course, managed to keep it together sufficiently to sweep in a rebound for the game winner, while Wingels led the team in hits, put up a couple of points himself and, together, they formed the rush that led to Wingels' penalty shot.  A good effort from those guys.
And of course the penalty shot was a no-goal - Wingels had already lost control of the puck and Dominque had actually pushed it back to him, so shut up, intrawebz.

Next up: Vegas, baby Vegas and, with two days off in Sin City between now and then, it's gonna be a mess.