No Expectations: Jets 6, Hawks 3

I can't even get angry anymore.  I expect little and The Hawks deliver exactly that.  At this point I think I'm just hoping to be surprised.

The Same Old Same-Same.  Another slow start, possibly the worst first period The Hawks have played this season.  The Jets had three goals on fourteen shots before The Hawks recorded their first shot on net.  This is after a lot of chat after Monday's practice about coming out of the gates hard, matching The Jets' intensity.  Just shut up, guys.  Do something, then talk about it.
The Middle 30 Minutes looked pretty good on The Hawks, although it was about 50% CHI bearing down and 50% WPG not giving a damn until The Hawks scored a few.  Once Perreault put WPG up 5-3 The Hawks kept skating but began missing passes, making poor decisions....all the stuff they do in the third period when they're still within a goal or two.
And that's it.  Nothing we haven't already seen over a dozen times this season.

The Rockford Shuffle has begun, with Alex Fortin going north while Dylan Sikura and Carl Dahlstrom will be the next young ones to have spirits crushed in the 312.  Not sorry to see Fortin's tail lights as he remains far from ready for The NHL.  Dahlstrom replaces Forsling, who was placed on IR a day or two ago, while Sikura The Younger fills Arthur The Large's roster spot as he is sidelined with "concussion protocol" (which is seriously how they articulate this now).
Can We Call Time on Chris Kunitz Now?  He's accomplishing nothing except embarrassing himself.  Just end it, now.

Next: Penguins, I think.  Does it matter?  Right now, what I look forward to the most where The Hawks are concerned is Trade Deadline Day, our last best hope to unload Seabrook and/or Keith, providing a contending team or two need a second-pairing guy and have some money to spend AND either of those guys are willing to leave.  That's a lot of Ifs but, hey, I'm an optimist...

Johnny Cash - No Expectations

No Good: Predators Plenty, Hawks Who Cares?

Plenty of times in the last month+ one could easily say "take away that first period and we'd have been okay."  How about even the first five minutes, like tonight?  Without that stupefying five minutes maybe The Hawks do win this one 2-1.  Okay, maybe not but, holy shit, how long is this going to last, this giving the game away in the first period? 

And give it away they did with, guess what - a complete lack of defensive awareness, letting Predators forwards come and go as they pleased in the danger zone™ in front of The Hawks' net.  Other teams must look forward to playing The Hawks these days, like some naughty kids who are left in the care of their deaf granny.  We get to do ANYTHING we want!

And if the lack of defensive give-a-shit doesn't do them in it's the unforced errors and straight-up giveaways, like Seabrook flinging the puck right onto Johansen's stick, or any number of weak and/or dumbass pass attempts by Forsling and Gustafsson.  Hell, Toews didn't make a pass stick until late in the third period.

They're not paying attention to anything.

Not to what the other team is doing.

Not to what their teammates are doing.

Not to what they themselves are doing.  Or trying to do.

And because of this The Hawks suck.  They're a bad hockey team.

I wonder how much of this has to do with the culture within the team.  They sure talk a good talk about correcting what was wrong after a loss (so, obviously, there's been quite a lot of this kind of chatter) but nothing changes. They trot out for the next game and do exactly the same shit that lost them the last game and the one before that, and the one before that.....

No one's feet have been put to the fire for this, not seriously, anyway.  Scratch Chris Kunitz or Jan Rutta all you like but what's that?  Nothing.  Let's try sitting Toews or Keith or Seabrook - they've been as bad as anyone but apparently immune to any consequences.  Even Kane, who has single-handedly won a few games for The Hawks this year, has just seemed listless the last few games. I don't know that I'd have the stones to scratch Kaner but something has to happen to shake these guys out of their vegetable torpor.  

Before I wrap this up I want to mention Keith.  Sure, he got a rough ride and a response was not unreasonable.  However, the extent to which he responded was a bit ridiculous, though I expect there was a lot of pent up frustration that came out there.  Whatever, the game was over for The Hawks by then anyway and, wouldn't you know it, they actually played better without Keith, for awhile, anyway.  Chew on that bit of truth.  Keith has been dogshit since mid-October.

There have to be consequences for this shit show that The Hawks have been putting on.  Sit the fuckers that keep coughing up the puck, that fail to backcheck and that take zero care in passing.  Get a shuttle bus running to and from Rockford if that's what it takes, 'cos they're clearly not understanding why they keep losing.  I have no idea what Jeremy Colliton's coaching style entails, really, but he'd best get into a skull cracking frame of mind or the whole thing is just going to spiral downward even further.  Otherwise, what are we going to do....just wait until some of these long term no-movement contracts expire and hope for better things after that?  I sure hope not, 'cos Seabrook, for example, is practically worthless right now and we're stuck with him for another FIVE years.

Linda Ronstadt - You're No Good

All Change, All The Same: Golden Knights 206, Hawks 3

Toews: "Blah blah blah...embarrassed...blah blah...stay positive....blah blah...small mistakes....blah blah...."  Essentially the same post-game interview he gave after the WASH and TB games.
The Hawks should be embarrassed, yet they don't give any indication of that when they're on the ice, 'cos they keep making the same damn, preventable errors, making things ridiculously easy for their opponents.
Pick Up A Guy, Any Guy: Once again, the forwards were situationally oblivious, unaware of what's happening around them.  Watch Eakin's goal - Toews makes a failed attempt to check Pacioretty, which is fair enough, but Saad and Kane are just coasting into the zone, never bothering to cover anyone.  Again.  By the time Eakin made his move and scored Kane was, for some reason, already heading back towards the Vegas end.  WTF?
Take a Second, Make The Pass Stick: The Hawks have been way too impatient with their passes, just getting the damn thing off their sticks as quickly as they can.  At the start of the second period The Hawks "controlled" the puck for the first four minutes yet only entered the VGK zone briefly, because their passes were flat-out bad and those four minutes were largely spent recovering the puck, regrouping and starting again.

The players claim to be dissatisfied with their performance and the results of same, yet I see zero effort to improve matters.  Just a lot of talk, so far.

New Guys: Hardly noticed Perlini, seems quick if haphazard.  Strome picked up 1G 1A in his debut and had a couple of good looks that didn't go.  First impression is that he's got the speed, some moves and a very good shot, but that he's imprecise.  Tough to say after a single game, but Strome scored as many goals tonight as the guy he's ostensibly replacing did in the last five weeks.
And What Of Nick Schmaltz?  I was just saying that, if Stan Bowman was going to make a trade to shake things up it was going to be Schmaltz that goes, being as he was the most expendable asset that a) would fetch anything in return and b) didn't have a no-move clause in his contract.  The occasional excellent game did not offset the frequency of games that left me saying "what does he do, exactly?"

Next: Winnipeg on Thursday and Nashville on Saturday, the two best teams in The Western Conference, so the guys had better conjure up some give-a-damn.  I'm losing interest almost as fast as The Hawks are....

Dwight Yoakum - Things Change

Hopeless? Lightning ?, Hawks ?

Full disclosure - I only watched the first 9½ minutes before finding something else to do.  I don't even know what the final score was.  Maybe tomorrow when I'm less angry.

In that less-than-ten-minutes The Hawks were already down 3-0, had a single shot on net and looked as bad or worse than they've ever been.
Zero defensive coverage.  Forwards failed to pick up a man, any man.  The D had shitty gaps and either committed too soon or not at all.
Breakouts were terrible, with too many Hawks happy enough to try to pass through skates and bodies rather than hang on to the single second longer to see if a lane would open up.
No Hawk won a puck battle in those 9½ minutes.  Not one.
And good god, The Hawks made Ryan McDonough look like a star. This is a guy who skates like he's got one foot in a bucket, yet he calmly halted every Hawks player who came his way, gathered the puck and moved it up ice with a crisp, on-target pass.  If HE can do it why can NO Hawks defenceman pull it off?

And if tomorrow, when I get around to finding out what happened in the last 50 minutes, I hear any Hawks player or coach utter the phrase "full sixty minutes" I'll plotz.  Stop talking about it and just do it.  Play ONE game from start to finish like you give a shit.  I'm tired of the bait & switch The Hawks keep pulling....playing so well for only part of a game, and I'm tired of typing the same stuff night after night.