Well said
- VopatsRash

Sure. Well said. I can go along with that.

But right now i also do not know:

1). How many played with injuries which cripped their style;
2) How thin a difference was there between winning or if we had lost last two Cups, because (see next point); and
3) No puck control = much tougher to compete when physical game is such a big factor AND we are not designed or naturally inclined to play this way. Moreover, Keith was not right, not reliable sound decisions even if he laid that big hit last game + we all know Toews was a shadow of himself in physical battles.

Your top two leaders, one on offense, one on defense were bad.

It was a gamble if Campbell had one more good year. It was a gamble if Oduya would round into shape. He never came back into form from injury suffered while on the Stars. We thetefore played with top three dmen not worth much/entire blueline crew bad.

Seabrook is slower, Hjalmarsson playing off side has to use his backhand too much when puck comes out if our end. What else was wrong with Seabs and Hammer i do not know.

What team couldn't feast on this defense. Then you have Lavy's brilliant game plan. Which included preventing second follow up shots by us.
Handwriting on the wall after game one. We didn"t have the horses and Q could not motivate a broken down, less than willing physical team to bring it.

What bout adding Adam Oates to run the pp and switch Dieneen job to defense and pk

What bout adding Adam Oates to run the pp and switch Dieneen job to defense and pk
- Scott1977

what about getting trent yawney in here?

Forgive me if this has been posted but thought I'd add some light reading about the Hawks' salary cap next year from Second City: http://www.secondcityhock...witter&utm_source=quiboat


So you’ll immediately notice something at the bottom: this team has a total cap over the current upper limit of $73 million. If the salary cap doesn’t go up significantly next season, the Blackhawks will be over the cap even if they don’t re-sign Richard Panik, Scott Darling, Tomas Jurco, Johnny Oduya, Campbell, or Kempny.

I was hoping they would have hired Hitchcock to run the special teams, but the Stars hired him.

Forgive me if this has been posted but thought I'd add some light reading about the Hawks' salary cap next year from Second City: http://www.secondcityhock...witter&utm_source=quiboat


So you’ll immediately notice something at the bottom: this team has a total cap over the current upper limit of $73 million. If the salary cap doesn’t go up significantly next season, the Blackhawks will be over the cap even if they don’t re-sign Richard Panik, Scott Darling, Tomas Jurco, Johnny Oduya, Campbell, or Kempny.
- Mr Ricochet

So a veteran top $ player must be subtracted. Like everyone has surmised. CRAWFORD. Anisinov maybe. Kero good enough fill in for Kruger. Later next year if we look like a playoff team, perhaps a prospect brings Kruger back.

Now here is a hard decision: move Panarin for a physical large wing OR somehow bring a top line guy like that into the fold. I know we do not want to move bread man

On the NHL Radio Network with Boomer Gordon. Blackhawks summer of changes...
https://soundcloud.com/si...boomer-talking-blackhawks

On the NHL Radio Network with Boomer Gordon. Blackhawks summer of changes...
https://soundcloud.com/si...boomer-talking-blackhawks
- Al

One of your better ones Al.

what about getting trent yawney in here?
- riozzo

Yawney's an asst. Coach with the Ducks...

Oates would be a great choice to run the power play and move Dineen to the defense. I think Dineen gets the Sabres job - Norm MacIver is up for the GM gig as well...but shouldn't MacIver be fired as long as we're getting rid of assistants.
I mean someone had to help Stan make all those boneheaded moves the last three offseasons and TDLs.

No doubt this was a Stan power move to show McD he's boss...whatever. The PK had become stale...I'm sure Q is not happy about it. Who knows maybe they'll have Barry Smith down there again which should really piss Q off.

Leddy, Daley, Kempny . . . high risk, high reward kind of guys.
They don't fit Q's MO (which evidenced by TOI, is TVR, who saw more ice time regardless of the fact he is not a very good athlete and a relatively poor skater).

Q ran the 1st 2 out of time (Daley, heck, he couldn't wait to run him out and get another over-the-hill veteran D man back).

I noted it early in the Nashville series and highlighted it earlier in the season. No "attacking" of the D men prior to opponents getting into the Hawks zone. Everything is about collapsing in on our G -- and we saw the same thing in our craptastic PK. No chase, no attacking, no forcing the play. Collapse into your box and give all the time in the world to the point men to drift one to the net.

Stan's firing of Kitchen is merely a rearrangement of chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
- savvyone-1

Savvy, collapsing is not a good thing especially when they don't clear the crease. They got away with it for a long time.

So it was all Kitchen's fault!
- MBFlyerfan

If not for him the Hawks would still be playing.

The Keith Hit on Arvidson tells the whole story of that series, Arvidson took 3 strides with his head down because he had no fear of being hit, and in playoff hockey that is a problem. Preds defenders were barely touched in that series. Hawks need to get bigger and faster, and a little nastier

- magarats

For sure

Seriously... only 1 person took any team other than the Hawks or Caps in the NHL.com pool? wow... i guess we should have dared to be different!

https://bracketchallenge....gues/jjs-hockeybuzz-group


- jt19

ya, but that guy has the least points

Q can always to resort to quitting if he's that upset.

He won't, too much money at stake. Instead, he"ll just call his buddy Dave Tippett and get Kitch a new gig in Arizona.

Lots of speculation that Dineen has a great chance to be hired in Buffalo as their head coach.
- RickJ

If so he'd be nuts to turn it down.

Kitchen's firing is laying the groundwork for Q's dismissal early next year if and when they struggle. If Stan is in fact on the hot seat, he will go down with his own guy behind the bench, not the guy he inherited. Considering Q was originally Dale's guy, he and Stan have had a remarkably long and successful run together despite their ups and downs.

Coaches' messages get stale and there is a shelf life- the guy ahead of Q on the all time wins list, Bowman Sr coached for 5 teams and the guy in third behind him, Hitchcock is now on his 5th (Dallas x2). The fact Q has all those wins with just 3 HC jobs is pretty remarkable.

Really?
Whole (frank)ing team appears to have quit on him (and on each other) during the most important time of the year.

It's not just another 1st round out.
It's a 1st round out in DRAMATIC (read: without a whimper) fashion.

Did you see ANY pushback?
Any heart?
Any desire?

We're talking about a club with Toews, Kane, Hossa, Panarin, Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, Crawford. Those 8 guys alone I would expect to put up a fight and at least make it a series.

Now if you want to talk about putting up a fight in a 4 game sweep, go back to the WCF with the Sharks when we beat them 4 straight. When that was over, as a fan it felt as if we were in a dogfight. And even down to the close-out game, it seemed the Sharks could come back and win at least a few games.

Huge chasm between losing in 4 and being in it. And losing in 4 like whipped dogs from the beginning. And have our coach do the same things over-and-over-and-over without success. Lavy took Q to the woodshed. The rest of the team followed suit.
- savvyone-1

I have not had to be here because of you. You say it all...

Is that fresh Mediterranean oregano I smell....?

On the NHL Radio Network with Boomer Gordon. Blackhawks summer of changes...
https://soundcloud.com/si...boomer-talking-blackhawks
- Al

Nicely done, Al. Have to wonder though on signing Toews and Kane at the time and watching Stevie Y operate now with his stars. He gave Stamkos a number and that was it. No Stamkos and TB haven't won a cup but just the same Stevie Y seems to take the position I'll let a big gun walk before I get hamstrung by both dollar and term.

Also, I understand correctly Keith and Seabs are still in their prime?

Sure. Well said. I can go along with that.

But right now i also do not know:

1). How many played with injuries which cripped their style;
2) How thin a difference was there between winning or if we had lost last two Cups, because (see next point); and
3) No puck control = much tougher to compete when physical game is such a big factor AND we are not designed or naturally inclined to play this way. Moreover, Keith was not right, not reliable sound decisions even if he laid that big hit last game + we all know Toews was a shadow of himself in physical battles.

Your top two leaders, one on offense, one on defense were bad.

It was a gamble if Campbell had one more good year. It was a gamble if Oduya would round into shape. He never came back into form from injury suffered while on the Stars. We thetefore played with top three dmen not worth much/entire blueline crew bad.

Seabrook is slower, Hjalmarsson playing off side has to use his backhand too much when puck comes out if our end. What else was wrong with Seabs and Hammer i do not know.

What team couldn't feast on this defense. Then you have Lavy's brilliant game plan. Which included preventing second follow up shots by us.
Handwriting on the wall after game one. We didn"t have the horses and Q could not motivate a broken down, less than willing physical team to bring it.
- jhawk59

Just thought of something that maybe all of you had already figured out. One of our biggest "don't do this" items for Stan now seems to be his habit of bringing back former Hawks to fill roles. I've heard and seen "2010 is over" more times than I can count since the sweep.

I think Stan goes out and gets popular returning vets for two reasons: 1) it's a marketing/PR positive, but more importantly, 2) Q has shown him time and again that people who do not quickly fit into or pick up Q's system will not be played.

Maybe Stan can be reasonably confident that returning players won't have that problem and it saves wasting money (sometimes) and internal strife and hassle.

One of your better ones Al.
- RickJ

Thanks...Like the old days got to stretch out a bit.

Nicely done, Al. Have to wonder though on signing Toews and Kane at the time and watching Stevie Y operate now with his stars. He gave Stamkos a number and that was it. No Stamkos and TB haven't won a cup but just the same Stevie Y seems to take the position I'll let a big gun walk before I get hamstrung by both dollar and term.

Also, I understand correctly Keith and Seabs are still in their prime?
- Mr Ricochet

That's not what I got out of it- he said they'd both lost at least a step but many d-men overcome that with smarts and experience and can play well into their mid 30s- with the caveat, unless they have too many hard miles on the clock.

Nicely done, Al. Have to wonder though on signing Toews and Kane at the time and watching Stevie Y operate now with his stars. He gave Stamkos a number and that was it. No Stamkos and TB haven't won a cup but just the same Stevie Y seems to take the position I'll let a big gun walk before I get hamstrung by both dollar and term.

Also, I understand correctly Keith and Seabs are still in their prime?
- Mr Ricochet

I think there are a couple of differences.... TB is an entirely different market than Chicago...Stamkos has had some injury issues but it helped Kane and Toews to be the heart of the team together....They naturally became a package.

Keith and Seabrook from an age standpoint as dmen are still in their prime. Many dmen, more so than forwards can be top players into their 30's.

As I said the difference here may very well be with the amount of games the core players have played as well the heavy minutes.

Nicely done, Al. Have to wonder though on signing Toews and Kane at the time and watching Stevie Y operate now with his stars. He gave Stamkos a number and that was it. No Stamkos and TB haven't won a cup but just the same Stevie Y seems to take the position I'll let a big gun walk before I get hamstrung by both dollar and term.

Also, I understand correctly Keith and Seabs are still in their prime?
- Mr Ricochet

Yzerman has done a great job but he still has some issues to deal with - Tyler Johnson, Palat and Drouin plus a broken down, washed up Ryan Callahan. And unlike Stanbo, he's missed the playoffs twice.

On the NHL Radio Network with Boomer Gordon. Blackhawks summer of changes...
https://soundcloud.com/si...boomer-talking-blackhawks
- Al

Loved it, thanks again for the insight. They should put you in that FO.

Yawney's an asst. Coach with the Ducks...

Oates would be a great choice to run the power play and move Dineen to the defense. I think Dineen gets the Sabres job - Norm MacIver is up for the GM gig as well...but shouldn't MacIver be fired as long as we're getting rid of assistants.
I mean someone had to help Stan make all those boneheaded moves the last three offseasons and TDLs.

No doubt this was a Stan power move to show McD he's boss...whatever. The PK had become stale...I'm sure Q is not happy about it. Who knows maybe they'll have Barry Smith down there again which should really piss Q off.
- DK002

true he is, i'd give them a 3rd rounder or sign him as asst head coach like the do in NHL