100% agreed and maybe Q is banking on slowing the game down in STL and taking his chances that 19/81/16 can win a game. I don't know...dangerous game, but this is what I was trying to relay to the other guy.

Kane line gets checked by top blues pairing and f line
Kruger line tries to matchup with Blues top line
Toews line faces other top Blues defensive matchup
So that leaves line 3 facing what should be a favorable matchup but no so when you skate a pile of crap and have Teuvo at center. You basically neutralize it yourself before the game starts....so you are essentially down to 19 carrying the offensive load unless you get a special teams goal OR get Kane free from Blues mathup.
- SteveRain

Completely agree. We can go back and forth on whether TT should be playing center, but it's clear that management has doubled down with him as their 3C (specifically getting wingers for him at the TDL) so then it's a matter of giving him the best opportunity to succeed. TT is effective in spurts and his consistency is an issue. Saddling him with Mashinter is guaranteed to ensure he won't be effective. Thats not to say he's gonna be the new Kruger if you put Panik or Weise in over Mash, but we've seen him play with decent wingers and its almost always better than what that line accomplished last night.

Other observations: Gotta give TT credit on his defensive play though. Panarin was the most aggressive on the backcheck I've seen him, now he needs to stop being cute and just shoot. Bummer that AA looked shaken up after getting pounded into the ice because he looked good before that. TVR and Hammer NEED to be a pair going forward. They both looked better last night than they have in ages and I can't think of a single game where 4 was with 2 that he played even remotely close to the level he did last night. We all know what 2 and 7 can do. Mistake by Crow at the end but I thought he looked sharp overall.

Hossa and Shaw both looked banged up still. Kane kinds invisible. Toews just needs to finish and that line was generating more than before. Definitely encouraged by everyone's effort

There were 2 TMM potentials. one that should have been called - Blues d-man jumped over and played the puck before the other defender got to the bench. The other was correctly not called. The Hawks shot the puck into the Blues bench area on a player change and it hit one of the players. They didn't actively play it.

See the rulebook which states - "If in the course of a substitution either the player(s) entering the play or the player(s) retiring is struck by the puck accidentally, the play will not be stopped and no penalty will be called."

Did the broadcast mention the non-call on the Hawks that led to a good scoring chance?

From NHL Rule 56.2, which covers interference:
A minor penalty shall be imposed on any identifiable player on the players’ bench or penalty bench who, by means of his stick or his body, interferes with the movements of the puck or any opponent on the ice during the progress of the play.

In addition, should a player about to come onto the ice, play the puck while one or both skates are still on the players’ or penalty bench, a minor penalty for interference shall be assessed.

I think it was on Seabrook coming out of the box. If my memory is right, most people assumed Hitch was giving it to the ref for Fabbri's penalty but I think he was giving it to the ref for not knowing the rule/calling it.
- Jason Millen

Everyone around me thought I was crazy when I jumped up yelling that's a penalty. A rule most don't know.

He sure looked to still be in the box live at the game. Didn't go back and look at it again, was he for sure still in the box?

Shaw didn't get a ton of PP time....It looks like he is really banged up.
- Al

He does. He's a GAMER THOUGH...and welcome in the line up...even at 65-75 %.

And how many o-zone pp draws did our dot men lose ?

Teuvo was brutal.

Not making excuses but TT can't be effective if he plays with the Mashinters of the world.

Also, TT needs to play the point on the 2nd PP unit....Q didn't want him out there last night with a young dman in a tie game..

I have said this before...But unless the master plan is to turn AA into the 3rd line center or have TT develop chemistry with Fleischman or someone with skill...
He doesn't really fit in and if the front office thinks the same-He will be part of the big off season trade.
- Al

Actually I didn't think he was that bad, he had more fight in him than I've seen in awhile. To me it's more about his supporting cast, or lack there of.

Why not just do this:

Ladd-Toews-Hossa
Panarin-Anisimov-Kane
Panik/Fleischmann-Teravainen-Weise
Desjardins-Kruger-Shaw

I'm sorry but Mashinter is killing that third line.

Not as many excuses as Toews.

Anyway. That line wasn't all that bad. And in their limited time (10 ish minutes like i said they would get the other day) they drove play in the right direction.

NOT part of the problem last night. The problem was not finishing on a 5v3 and Toews not finishing either of his jail breaks. Otherwise the Hawks dominated that game with out their most important player and should be able to tilt the ice even more moving forward.

Super super super encouraging first game. Aside from the result there isn't anything to be disappointed about with that effort.
Hawks in 5, maybe 6 if Elliot pulls another gem out of his ass.
- fattybeef

One of the things I noticed about Elliott last night, when the Hawks were shooting he already had his arms out to the side anticipating top shelf, I hope the Hawks see this and start concentrating on shooting around the hips.

Everyone around me thought I was crazy when I jumped up yelling that's a penalty. A rule most don't know.

He sure looked to still be in the box live at the game. Didn't go back and look at it again, was he for sure still in the box?
- carcus

Yes. He was.

He does. He's a GAMER THOUGH...and welcome in the line up...even at 65-75 %.

And how many o-zone pp draws did our dot men lose ?

- philco28

Q needs to stop sending 15 out there for the offensive zone PP faceoffs. Put Toews with Kane+Panarin to start the PP bc the lost faceoffs from 15 kill 40 seconds every single PP. Anisimov is franking horrible in the dot and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon....

One of the things I noticed about Elliott last night, when the Hawks were shooting he already had his arms out to the side anticipating top shelf, I hope the Hawks see this and start concentrating on shooting around the hips.
- BetweenTheDots

His arms did seem fanned out more. I thought that live and then it seemed more noticeable in the highlights (see very good arm save on Panarin as an example).

Am I the only one who thought Chicago outplayed STL pretty handily last night and it would have been way worse if not for a number of dumb penalties taken by the Hawks?

The hit and shot differential pretty much highlight Chicago controlled the game.

I think that the hawks went 70 minutes of pretty solid defensive hockey without giving STL much especially without Keith was a good opener. They looked pretty decent the entire game over 200ft

Granted a lot of shots (well none of them) dented the net, Elliot wont stand on his head every game and they will get more traffic to the net because there were rebounds galore. Tarasenko was SHUT DOWN last night

As much as people complain about TT, he was a split second away from the game winner if Monster Mash didnt give him a grenade pass on that give and go. Gotta bury your chances though.

Also, I dont think Elliot is banking on going 4 for 4 on breakaways on Toews every game and thats some Hitch doesnt want to gamble with either.

First 30 minutes the Kane line was INVISIBLE. They sure came alive and were creating chances the last 40 min though. Still gotta bury one. Panarin looked like it took him 2 periods to get used to North American playoff hockey but he settled in by the end of the game

Q needs to stop sending 15 out there for the offensive zone PP faceoffs. Put Toews with Kane+Panarin to start the PP bc the lost faceoffs from 15 kill 40 seconds every single PP. Anisimov is franking horrible in the dot and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon....
- EnzoD

I would have thought that too, but AA was 8-12 in the o-zone last night.

Think TT lost a few key o-zone pp draws too.

And we DEFF can't be giving away chunks of pp zone time since our entries
were hard enough to execute.

I usually only read the very insightful posts here and rarely post, but after watching the inevitable happen last night with the line-up the great "Coach Q" put out there, here is my pent up rant. Stan Bowman has made some lousy trades, but he has also given Q plenty of forward depth and talent to win with. Yet what do we continue to see despite a regular season of mediocrity? An AHL'er playing 3LW, Bambi playing center, a good but offensively challenged 37 year old at 1LW, and 2-3 fast, young, gritty, talented players watching from the press box or from Rockford. This is the play-offs where 1 game will mean the difference between advancing or golfing. The Hawks put up a valiant effort last night, but were playing unnecessarily under-talented. Until Quenneville gets his head out of his arse, the Bears draft will be our next cause for hope. Here is the obvious combination of players ( in my opinion) that should be utilized based on talent, grit, speed, and, potential. There , I feel a little better.....Until I see Mashinter's and Teravainen's name in the line-up tomorrow.

LADD-TOEWS-KANE

PANARIN-ANISIMOV-PANIK

FLEISCHMANN-SHAW-HOSSA

DES-JARDINS-KRUGER-WEISE

(Grit, talent and speed throughout the line-up. Roll 4 )

THE END

Q needs to stop sending 15 out there for the offensive zone PP faceoffs. Put Toews with Kane+Panarin to start the PP bc the lost faceoffs from 15 kill 40 seconds every single PP. Anisimov is franking horrible in the dot and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon....
- EnzoD

He had his best faceoff game I can ever remember at 56% though.

ETA, funny thing about FO%; all Blues were >50% but Steen who was less than 15%. Ouch.

Q needs to stop sending 15 out there for the offensive zone PP faceoffs. Put Toews with Kane+Panarin to start the PP bc the lost faceoffs from 15 kill 40 seconds every single PP. Anisimov is franking horrible in the dot and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon....
- EnzoD

Last night

Anisimov - 56%
Shaw - 50%
Kruger - 44%
Toews - 44%...including losing the one 5 on 3

Anyways...

I would have thought that too, but AA was 8-12 in the o-zone last night.

Think TT lost a few key o-zone pp draws too.

And we DEFF can't be giving away chunks of pp zone time since our entries
were hard enough to execute.
- philco28

They forced everyone high on the PP. The goal line pass was there all night and they were daring Toews, AA, and company to bull rush the net because they know they are going to get creamed. Shattenkirk went full stream at AA, but you know what, you gotta do it, because you gotta pay the price and if you keep doing it, it will open up space for the guys on the half wall and on the point to sneak down into the soft spots in the slot

I usually only read the very insightful posts here and rarely post, but after watching the inevitable happen last night with the line-up the great "Coach Q" put out there, here is my pent up rant. Stan Bowman has made some lousy trades, but he has also given Q plenty of forward depth and talent to win with. Yet what do we continue to see despite a regular season of mediocrity? An AHL'er playing 3LW, Bambi playing center, a good but offensively challenged 37 year old at 1LW, and 2-3 fast, young, gritty, talented players watching from the press box or from Rockford. This is the play-offs where 1 game will mean the difference between advancing or golfing. The Hawks put up a valiant effort last night, but were playing unnecessarily under-talented. Until Quenneville gets his head out of his arse, the Bears draft will be our next cause for hope. Here is the obvious combination of players ( in my opinion) that should be utilized based on talent, grit, speed, and, potential. There , I feel a little better.....Until I see Mashinter's and Teravainen's name in the line-up tomorrow.

LADD-TOEWS-KANE

PANARIN-ANISIMOV-PANIK

FLEISCHMANN-SHAW-HOSSA

DES-JARDINS-KRUGER-WEISE

(Grit, talent and speed throughout the line-up. Roll 4 )

THE END
- Gary0301

Given how banged up Shaw appears, I think it would be really tough for him to play center right now.

Given how banged up Shaw appears, I think it would be really tough for him to play center right now.
- Jason Millen

Reason # 1 of many that Mashinter should have been sent to Rockford instead of Moose

I should also be clear that while I kind of picked on him for biffing the break aways, Toews had a thoroughly dominant game aside from not getting on the sheet. More of that please.

Reason # 1 of many that Mashinter should have been sent to Rockford instead of Moose
- maria_wyeth[/quote

EXACTLY

They forced everyone high on the PP. The goal line pass was there all night and they were daring Toews, AA, and company to bull rush the net because they know they are going to get creamed. Shattenkirk went full stream at AA, but you know what, you gotta do it, because you gotta pay the price and if you keep doing it, it will open up space for the guys on the half wall and on the point to sneak down into the soft spots in the slot
- hawkeytalkman

Too many double pumps by our point shooters. The jam the crease 'bull rushes' are
good. Elliot got super lucky a few times with a bounce here, bounce there.
Lot more low slot TRAFFIC required in G2.

I usually only read the very insightful posts here and rarely post, but after watching the inevitable happen last night with the line-up the great "Coach Q" put out there, here is my pent up rant. Stan Bowman has made some lousy trades, but he has also given Q plenty of forward depth and talent to win with. Yet what do we continue to see despite a regular season of mediocrity? An AHL'er playing 3LW, Bambi playing center, a good but offensively challenged 37 year old at 1LW, and 2-3 fast, young, gritty, talented players watching from the press box or from Rockford. This is the play-offs where 1 game will mean the difference between advancing or golfing. The Hawks put up a valiant effort last night, but were playing unnecessarily under-talented. Until Quenneville gets his head out of his arse, the Bears draft will be our next cause for hope. Here is the obvious combination of players ( in my opinion) that should be utilized based on talent, grit, speed, and, potential. There , I feel a little better.....Until I see Mashinter's and Teravainen's name in the line-up tomorrow.

LADD-TOEWS-KANE

PANARIN-ANISIMOV-PANIK

FLEISCHMANN-SHAW-HOSSA

DES-JARDINS-KRUGER-WEISE

(Grit, talent and speed throughout the line-up. Roll 4 )

THE END
- Gary0301

Ya

Am I the only one who thought Chicago outplayed STL pretty handily last night and it would have been way worse if not for a number of dumb penalties taken by the Hawks?

The hit and shot differential pretty much highlight Chicago controlled the game.

I think that the hawks went 70 minutes of pretty solid defensive hockey without giving STL much especially without Keith was a good opener. They looked pretty decent the entire game over 200ft

Granted a lot of shots (well none of them) dented the net, Elliot wont stand on his head every game and they will get more traffic to the net because there were rebounds galore. Tarasenko was SHUT DOWN last night

As much as people complain about TT, he was a split second away from the game winner if Monster Mash didnt give him a grenade pass on that give and go. Gotta bury your chances though.

Also, I dont think Elliot is banking on going 4 for 4 on breakaways on Toews every game and thats some Hitch doesnt want to gamble with either.

First 30 minutes the Kane line was INVISIBLE. They sure came alive and were creating chances the last 40 min though. Still gotta bury one. Panarin looked like it took him 2 periods to get used to North American playoff hockey but he settled in by the end of the game
- hawkeytalkman

IMHO, the game was a lot more even on quality scoring chances than the shot totals indicated. Part of that is the insanely amount of times the Blues's shots weren't even close to the net. Part of that is that many of the good scoring chances for the Blues didn't even result in shots. Schwartz had the terrible shot into Toews skate when he had most the net. He also had the re-direct directly in front of the net that went over the net. Tarasenko's redirect didn't miss the net by much. There was a top corner shot in the 2nd that didn't miss the upper corner by much at all (we were behind the other net just a bit off to the side and it looked like it was tracking for the corner but just missed). It sounded like Tarasenko glanced a post in the first though it might have been a stick hitting the post. Berglund had a good low shot that CC made a strong save on.

The Blues chances weren't clean breakaways but they still had a handful of highly convertible chances of which they didn't.

Hitch made a comment that it could have been a 6-5 game and suggested that both teams were likely frustrated with their offensive execution. I would have said 4-3 or 5-4 but I think I can appreciate his point.

IMHO, the game was a lot more even on quality scoring chances than the shot totals indicated. Part of that is the insanely amount of times the Blues's shots weren't even close to the net. Part of that is that many of the good scoring chances for the Blues didn't even result in shots. Schwartz had the terrible shot into Toews skate when he had most the net. He also had the re-direct directly in front of the net that went over the net. Tarasenko's redirect didn't miss the net by much. There was a top corner shot in the 2nd that didn't miss the upper corner by much at all (we were behind the other net just a bit off to the side and it looked like it was tracking for the corner but just missed). It sounded like Tarasenko glanced a post in the first though it might have been a stick hitting the post. Berglund had a good low shot that CC made a strong save on.

The Blues chances weren't clean breakaways but they still had a handful of highly convertible chances of which they didn't.

Hitch made a comment that it could have been a 6-5 game and suggested that both teams were likely frustrated with their offensive execution. I would have said 4-3 or 5-4 but I think I can appreciate his point.
- Jason Millen

Hawks missed the net a lot too.

IMHO, the game was a lot more even on quality scoring chances than the shot totals indicated. Part of that is the insanely amount of times the Blues's shots weren't even close to the net. Part of that is that many of the good scoring chances for the Blues didn't even result in shots. Schwartz had the terrible shot into Toews skate when he had most the net. He also had the re-direct directly in front of the net that went over the net. Tarasenko's redirect didn't miss the net by much. There was a top corner shot in the 2nd that didn't miss the upper corner by much at all (we were behind the other net just a bit off to the side and it looked like it was tracking for the corner but just missed). It sounded like Tarasenko glanced a post in the first though it might have been a stick hitting the post. Berglund had a good low shot that CC made a strong save on.

The Blues chances weren't clean breakaways but they still had a handful of highly convertible chances of which they didn't.

Hitch made a comment that it could have been a 6-5 game and suggested that both teams were likely frustrated with their offensive execution. I would have said 4-3 or 5-4 but I think I can appreciate his point.
- Jason Millen

I think that was Fabbri. He's done that a lot against the hawks. Prime scoring position, just him and crawford and he airmails it or crow robs him.

Last night

Anisimov - 56%
Shaw - 50%
Kruger - 44%
Toews - 44%...including losing the one 5 on 3

Anyways...
- PatShart

Well that is surprising bc I dont recall seeing more than 1 clean win from 15. What was his faceoff % on offensive zone PP draws?