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Walk with me, dear Reader, down the precipitous path of pre-playoff prescience.
See what I did there?
Never mind. I’m not sure either. Anyway, we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
But let’s look at what might be in store for the bruised and battered, yet beloved Blackhawks with 6 games left in the regular season.
The Hawks are IN the playoffs. And if the season ended today, they’d open up on the road against the Colorado Avalanche. Now, the sorta hot L.A. Kings are starting to breathe down the Hawks’ necks, three points back. And it is therefore conceivable that the Hawks could end up 6th in the conference, and face the San Jose Sharks (or less likely the Anaheim Ducks) in Round 1.
It almost doesn’t matter. Those are three series that the Hawks, if healthy and ready, can win. I’m not saying they would win. But they can. Whether they have home ice advantage or not.
But ‘healthy’ and ‘ready’ are the key terms.
Healthy comes down (for now) to three players: Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and to a lesser extent Bryan Bickell who returned to the ice tonight.
I’m going to say Kane is going to return healthy and rested. Toews? You would hope so. If not, and I’m guessing playoff opponents will target the arm/ashoulder Toews grabbed when he skated off the ice in Pittsburgh regardless.
Bickell? Well if the Hawks are going to have any hopes of repeating, Bickell needs to be at least 90% of the Bickell who many (myself included) felt deserved the Conn Smythe Trophy last Spring.
The Hawks lineup is just not terribly long on the big hitters at forward that are necessary to wear opponents down over the course of seven game series.
Ready?
That’s where the other 20 men on the roster come in.
Instead of despairing in the absence of the team’s two figureheads, you want to se the team rally around Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp—with an intact blueline that ranks among the league’s best.
Starting tonight when Minnesota visits the UC, you want to see the compete level reach what is necessary for the playoffs.
You want to see the wunderkinder of the last two seasons, Andrew Shaw and Brandon Saad, step it up.
You want to see Corey Crawford lock it down and maybe steal a game out of the next six.
You might like to see Teuvo Teravainen get some more ice time and the free offensive rein Joel Quenneville gave him in the latter part of the Pittsburgh game.
In other words, you want Kane and Toews to jump back onto a train that’s moving in the right direction, instead of stuck in the quicksand, or, worse still, rolling backward.
And playing the last six games—depending on how the rest of the team responds—without those two could be the best thing for the team going in to the playoffs.
Because then you’re both healthy—and ready.
And you have a deep roster full of guys who’ve been to the top of the mountain twice in the last 4 years—Kane, Toews, Hossa, Sharp, Seabrook, Keith, Hjalmarsson—and more than any other club since the institution of the salary cap.
The penalty kill has climbed to 17th in the league in the latter part of the season, after languishing between 28th and 30th up to the Olympic break. The power play is 9th.
Healthy and ready, the Chicago Blackhawks have as good a chance as any team to win the Cup, and better than most.
But only the team doctor and someone else’s crystal ball know for sure.
All for now,
JJ