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Drowning the Flames, the Hawks are Soaring into Oil Country
I was at the Flames game Thursday night as the Lames took on the Blackhawks. I try to see the Blackhawks once a year as they are typically a lot of fun to watch. The race up and down the ice, they take chances at both ends of the rink and are not a team to shy away from a 6-5 game. After last year’s playoff run I was curious to see how the team was shaping up this year. I hadn’t watched them yet, but was aware of the monster comeback against the Flames the last time they played. The verdict is in and the Hawks are even more ‘for real’ then they were last year. With adequate goaltending I see them playing hockey in June. The Saddledome was full of red, as it always is, though it must be said there were a fair number of Hawks jerseys there as well. Want to know if a fan has jumped on the bandwagon? Just check the name on the back of the jersey. Chelios, Roenick or Belfour represents a fan that has been through a lot the last 20 years. Kane, Versteeg or Toews on the jersey and you’ve got a fresh bandwagon jumper who may or may not tip their taxi driver. If the jersey says Campbell, well you’ve just got a very confused fan. ‘What do you mean he’s their 4th or 5th defenseman? He skates like the wind!’. I have to agree with that; I’ve never seen someone skate off the ice so fast to let Seabrook or Keith come back on the ice to take on Iginla and the other Flames offensive threats. I exaggerate greatly I suppose, as Campbell is in fact a huge part of their power play success. Anyways, the first 25 minutes or so was pretty closely contested before Dustin Byfuglien got a bit of a cheap one on an odd man rush. From there the floodgates opened and Chicago cruised to a 7-1 victory. Keith, Sharp, Kane and Campbell all registered multi-point nights during a game where Chicago went 4-5 on the power play and kept the Flames to 1-5 while shorthanded.
In addition to the awesome power play, Chicago often looked dangerous while shorthanded and while the top three lines played even strength. The Hawks are patient with the puck and very adept at quick passes and chips to create open ice and odd man rushes. Their 3rd and 4th goals last night were both odd man rushes while playing 5 on 5 hockey. For Oiler fans, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that I have a theory that when a team scores a tonne of goals one game, they tend to struggle to score the next game. I don’t have any statistics to back that up, but it certainly seems true of the Oilers. The Oilers scored 6 last time out you say? Ok, scratch that theory. The Oilers are going to have to win a barnburner on Saturday night. The bad news is that the Oilers are going to have to play as complete a game as they have played all season if they hope to win. If this were a 7 game series I would be scared to watch, but in a 1 game showdown I think the Oil have a chance. The keys to victory will be relentless puck pursuit, pressure on the defense and a lot of rubber at Huet. Oh, and the Oilers absolutely need to stay out of the penalty box. If they get frustrated and start taking penalties like the Flames did last night, a close game will very quickly get away from the boys. The wildcard to the game will be Huet, who confused me a bit last night. He strikes me on paper as the team’s weak link but he performed like a Cirque de Soliel gymnast last night, making acrobatic save after acrobatic save. My take is that he often gets out of position and has to rely on his reflexes and some luck to get out of trouble. He also looks a bit uneasy playing the puck. If Oiler fans recall the third period against Colorado the other night, that is what we need to see. Lots of rubber at the net, bear down on those rebounds and we might just score the 4-5 goals needed to win. I’ll end with a couple of things to watch out for from the Hawks. The Toews/Kane/ Brouwer line is scary good. They are tremendous at creating turnovers in the offensive zone and cycling the puck. It seems the name of their game is to get Kane a chance to circle from the boards towards the slot with the puck to unleash his wrist shot. The Sharp/Versteeg /Ladd second line are also dangerous but seem to look more to springing guys loose, as does the third line which includes Byfuglien. Finally, on defense, Seabrook and Keith are as good a pairing as there is in the league. If last night was any indication, Seabrook is the guy who stirs the pot and frustrates the other team’s stars. Enjoy the game everyone, let’s pull for the Oilers to jump on their fast and jump on them hard. Oilers vs. Black Hawks
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