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As the President of the US often says, "it's silly season."

Beards are sprouting, fans are getting riled up, coaches are playing head games, secrecy and misinformation are at an all time high.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are starting tonight. More specifically, Game 1 of the Western Conference first round between the Blues and the Blackhawks.

Gametime 8:30 Central.

The Hawks will likely go with the following lineup:

Ladd Toews Hossa
Panarin Anisimov Kane
Mashinter Teravainen Fleischmann
Desjardins Kruger Shaw

Hjalmarsson van Riemsdyk
Svedberg Seabrook
Gustafsson Rozsival

Crawford


While the Hawk Blogosphere has come unhinged over Brandon Mashinter playing tonight instead of Dale Weise or Richard Panik, I still say, if that's the team's biggest problem, then they are in fine shape going in to the playoffs.

Sure, Mashinter could mess the bed and be responsible for a key goal allowed tonight. Or not. But as I look at a blue line without Duncan Keith (and with Viktor Svedberg), I see a possibly bigger roadblock to securing a game 1 road win.

I look at Marian Hossa, Andrew Shaw, and Corey Crawford. How healthy is each?

All the statements are positive, just as the Blues are saying about David Backes, Robby Fabbri and Jake Allen. But who really knows? Well, we find out soon enough.

WHY MASHINTER?

Here's what I believe, based on my observations and what I have heard from a couple of informed sources. Do I necessarily agree with the logic all the way through? No. So don't shoot the messenger. Some is my opinion, but a lot is what i have heard from a couple of people closer to the "decision."

Brandon Mashinter is not going to make anyone forget Patrick Kane.

So there has been "lamentation" about him from Hawk fans all season. "Why is he playing over (insert name here)?" The answer always remains the same (as far as what I am told). Joel Quenneville and some of the star players like having Mashinter on the ice (just the way they liked having John Scott, Brandon Bollig, and Dan Carcillo) on the ice, because they feel the star, finesse players are going to get run a lot less.

You can argue that all you want. But Joel Quenneville has forgotten more about hockey than all of us combined will likely ever know—and he keeps playing these guys, game after game, year after year.

Why? There has to be a reason.

I have told you what it is.

Recall the last time the Hawks played the Blues, and Teuvo Teravainen was face-planted in front of the Hawk net by a Troy Brouwer cross-check. That cross-check had a purpose. And a message.

So Mashinter playing—next to Teravainen—has a purpose as well. It likely isn't to engage Brouwer or Ryan Reaves in a fight—both players are likely smarter than that, fighting is really not part of the game in the playoffs. But Mashinter can, through his play, target Blues like Robby Fabbri or Vladimir Tarasenko, or at least distract guys like Brouwer, Backes and Reaves.

Like it or not, agree or not, that's why he's there, and why Dale Weise, who has tried to do his best Tinker Bell imitation since arriving in Chicago, is in the pressbox tonight—assuming Q is not going to pull a major fast one and change the lineup from practice yesterday.

The Hawks need Teravainen to have a good series, or they will likely lose.

St. Louis is too good a team, too hungry. Conversely, the Hawks have some deficiency on the blue line this year versus last. They're a year older and have played more hockey than any team on the planet the last 7 years or so.

If Marcus Kruger's line can do what it did last year, if Ladd, Toews and Hossa can click as they were toward the end of the season, and you know what you have with Kane and Panarin, then Teravainen and Fleischmann contributing some offense and being above par defensively makes the Hawks a very hard team to beat in a 7-game series, by anyone, home ice or no.

So Q is betting, for now, that the physicality of Mashinter outweighs a skill advantage that Weise or Richard Panik have. Fleischmann himself said it yesterday: Mashinter "helps create space." Is he right? We'll see, but there's the theory, folks.

Alright, let's get this thing started, shall we?


Recap tomorrow,


JJ



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