The Hawks kicked off their 3 game Canadian road trip Tuesday night in Vancouver to take on the Canucks. First and foremost, I wanted to talk about how amazing the Canucks throwback skate jersey is. I really wish more teams that have amazing jerseys in their history would start to bring them back even if it is only a couple of games.
As far as the game goes, what else is there to say expect what an absolute embarrassing effort this team put together. Coming in to this one, it should have been all Hawks as the Canucks were playing their first game under Rick Tocchet and with all the off ice distractions being caused by Vancouver ownership. However, the coaching change seemed to have worked as this team came out buzzing. They held the Hawks to just 14 shots on goal, which is a season low for Chicago. Vancouver was able to get 48 shots on net with 46 of them being a scoring opportunity and 22 of them coming in high danger areas. The Hawks were only able to get 6 shots on net in the first, and that now makes 3 straight games; they failed to get double digit shots on net to start the game.
Despite the lack of opportunities, the Hawks still found themselves with a 1-0 lead after Patrick Kane picked up his 9th of the season. After going up 2-1 in the second thanks to Sam Lafferty’s 7th goal of the season, it was all Vancouver as they put up 4 unanswered goals to take this one 5-2.
Stop me if I’ve said this already this season, without the play from Petr Mrazek, this game is way worse than 5-2. Finishing the game, stopping 43 of the 47 shots and a .915 SV% he continues to do all he can to help this team get wins, or at least not get completely embraced out there every night. So far this month he has started in 7 games and has a respectable .900 SV% but his GAA is 3.41. He isn’t going to win the Vezina any time soon, but give him props for giving his all when he knows he’s not going to get a lot of help defensively.
With this being the first match up this season between these two teams it was a nice chance to check back in on the trade that came early this season that saw the Hawks picking up Jason Dickinson and a 2024 2nd round pick for defenseman Riley Stillman. Just by getting a 2nd rounder this automatically should be tossed up as a KD win. However, taking a look at the players involved, who would have thought this would be such a huge win for the Hawks. Stillman has only suited up for 23 games this season and from what I understand he’s been healthy, scratched a lot. This year he has 3 points all from assists, and is a -7 and averaging just around 15:20 in total ice time. Dickinson, however, has been a huge factor for this Hawks team has he is a big part of the penalty kill team. He is averaging just about the same amount of total ice time and has 14 points (5-9) in 42 games. He brings a lot of energy to this lineup and I am very happy to have him as apart of this franchise.
My last takeaway from this one was Max Domi standing up for Kaner after he took a hit from Dakota Joshua. Domi would get 17 total penalty minutes for protecting Kane; however I felt this was more of an example of Domi’s short fuse than it was standing up for a teammate. This wasn’t a big or dangerous hit that Joshua landed on Kane, but for some reason Domi felt it warranted a fight. I guess you have to appreciate having someone to finally stick up for your skill guys, but I just don’t agree with dropping the gloves after any time of clean or big hit.
After Saturday night's game agains the Oilers, the Hawks do not play again until February 7th against the Ducks. With that being said, I would love some input on what kind of articles you would like to see over between the 29th and 6th. I do want to do some player spotlights, but this also feels like a good time to change gears and not focus so much time and energy on this struggling team. Maybe a mailbag blog filled with questions from you guys? If you guys are interested in that, please feel free to leave some questions in the comments or personal message me here. Questions don’t have to be Hawks or even hockey related. So if there was anything you might even want to learn about me, ask away. I look forward to reading your suggestions.
Next: Calgary Flames 18-25-3
Players to Watch
Elias Lindholm 14 goals 28 assists 42 points
Tyler Toffoli 17 goals 23 assists 40 points
Name Kadri 19 goals 18 assists 37 points
Projected Starter
Jacob Markstrom 13-12-5 2.82 GAA .895 SV%
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