Last night, at least, all seemed well with the Blackhawks, who not only won convincingly on the road against a pretty good team, but played a playoff style, high-paced game all night.
The Hawks limited the Panthers to just 20 shots, and while the Panthers had many more “hits… in terms of hit count, the Hawks lit the Panthers up on the forecheck, leading to at least one goal.
There have been a few scapegoats this season, especially on defense, for the Hawks. Last night, what was evident was addition by the subtraction of Michal Rozsival from the lineup.
The other scapegoat, David Rundblad, played 14:22 and was +1, but as usual, the puck was like a hand grenade on his stick and “Rundbladian… disaster was fortunately averted a few times.
The fact remains, a 5-8 of Rozsival, Rundblad, Tim Erixon and Kyle Cumiskey isn’t going to cut it in the playoffs. And while Trevor van Riemsdyk might yet be able to fill some of the void, it would be downright foolish to assume he can salvage this group.
Which leads me to the next topic: trades.
Stan Bowman went on CSN last night between periods and proclaimed “we’re getting close… on a trade. A “trade,… meaning something more significant than the swap of minor leaguers that occurred earlier in the day.
Part of me wants to take that on face value. A very cynical part of me feels like there might be a little bit of pre-emptive spinning going on here. As in, “well, it will be easier to say later ‘we really tried, but couldn’t get anything to work’.…
The bottom line is this, Bowman better have a fairly meaningful deal forthcoming. Based on the reactions I got on Twitter to yesterday’s blog and the blog’s comments thread which were literally about 400-2 in favor of the sentiment that he needs to move now—either as a buyer or a seller. The 2 negative comments appeared to have been written by 3 year-olds, containing no facts, just the usual personal rock thrown at the messenger.
Oh well.
I am hearing some early whispers the deal that is potentially in place could involve the Coyotes— Antoine Vermette and defenseman Michael Stone. If Bowman pulls that off, the Hawks have done what they can to fill the gaps until, hopefully, Patrick Kane returns in the playoffs.
And the lunchroom should give Bowman a nice round of applause.
Stone has size, some ability at both ends of the ice and upside. His numbers right now are probably skewed playing big minutes as a top 4 guy on a bad, bad Arizona team.
Vermette brings a reasonably creative, physical center into the mix who can play on the second or third lines, and win faceoffs. Just the klnd of asset the Hawks could have used in the Western Conference Finals last year.
Some will yell and scream that whatever Bowman sends the other way is a crazy price to pay for a rental (Vermette or someone else). But there is reason to believe the Hawks might want to retain Vermette in the offseason, or take on contract term elsewhere—as part of a larger re-tooling of the roster this summer.
More on that down the road. And more today and this weekend as I hear it,
JJ
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