Needs More Ditka

Huet was solid in net for the streaking Blackhawkshree games, three shootouts: needless to say, when the Avalanche and Blackhawks match up this season you can expect a evenly matched game.

Wednesday night maintained the trend of great hockey games between  two teams that are finally matching success at the same time. In a game that neither team deserved to lose, the Avalanche an the early lead halfway though the first period. That’s when Kyle Cumiskey banked a shot from behind of the net off the number 39 on Cristobal Huet’s jersey and across the goal line. It was a rare lapse of judgement between the posts for Huet, who made 25 saves in the game.

Patrick Kane answered for the Blackhawks to knot the score roughly five minutes later. Working the right-wing halfboards, Kane fired a snap shot under the crossbar and over Colorado goalie and Chicagoland native Craig Anderson, who was crouched to protect against a goal-crease pass.

The second period was dominated by Colorado, and they peppered Huet with 12 shots and constant offensive zone pressure. Wojtek Wolski gave the Avalanche a 2-1 advantage 13:10 into the middle frame. After his initial shot was blocked in front of the net, Wolski picked up the loose puck and beat a confused Huet, who never found the location of the puck after Wolski’s first attempt.

Despite the second period play being decidedly one sided in Colorado’s favor, Huet stood strong and kept the score 2-1 heading into the third. For the second consecutive game, the Blackhawks dominated the final period. On Monday, the Blackhawks outshot the Los Angeles Kings 10-2 in the third period, scoring three goals to win the game 4-1. Wednesday, the Blackhawks outshot the Avalanche 15-3, but were only able to score one goal.

That one goal was scored on a one-man breakout by defenseman Cam Barker. Barker made a pass off the boards to himself in the neutral zone, allowing him to get around his mark, Kyle Quincey. Barker, channeling Bobby Orr, took the puck to the net, brought the puck to his backhand and roofed the shot over Anderson. Like with the goal scored by Kane, Anderson was crouched to prevent a cross-crease pass. The score would remain 2-2 despite several late chances for each team. The most dangerous of those chances came from Colorado rookie Matt Duchene, who panged a shot off the post in the period’s final minute.

Duchene’s bad luck would continue: early in the overtime period, he missed another chance to end the game, despite beating Huet, as he could not beat cold steel with red paint.

In the final minute of the overtime period Colorado winger Wojtek Wolski was called for cross checking on Brent Seabrook. The Blackhawks went to a four on three advantage with half a minute left, but the unit of Kane, Dustin Byfuglien, Jonathan Toews and Barker couldn’t capitalize on their good fortune, as they came up empty on their rushed advantage.

Wolski, the Avalanche’s shootout ace and the NHL’s all-time leader in shootout conversion percentage, started the tie breaking skills competition. Starting out wide left, Wolski cut right, bringing Huet with him. Huet did leave his jock behind, and perhaps that was what caused Wolski’s drag move shot to hit the post. It was the last bit of good fortune the Blackhawks would get, and the last bit they would need.

Toews led off for the Blackhawks and crossed up Anderson, who was beaten by Toews’ five-hole wristshot. Marek Svatos was stoned by Huet and Kane attempted, and failed, to recreate Toews’ goal. Darcy Tucker was unable to keep possession of the puck on his turn for Colorado, leaving the snakebitten Patrick Sharp with a chance to win the game.

If Sharp, who has hit everything but the net in his recent games, needed a confidence booster, beating one of the strongest goalkeepers in the NHL one-on-one, for a win might be that confidence booster. Sharp, skating directly at Anderson, quickly brought the puck to his backhand, but made a head deke when bringing the puck back to his forehand. Anderson fell for the fake, and Sharp calmly deposited the puck over the sprawling goaltender.

The win was the Blackhawks’ fifth straight at the United Center. The Blackhawks also regained first place in the Central division, as Columbus lost 9-1 to Detroit effectively losing two points in the standings in the process. The Blackhawks will take on Original Six foes Toronto Friday night in Chicago.

Feathers in the Headdress:
Third Star: Patrick Kane
Working with Andrew Ebbett on center, the Avalanche were always able to match up against Kane with size. That didn’t matter much. Kane’s skill with the puck was on full display on Wednesday, no more so than with his first period goal and the four on three advantage the Blackhawks held late in overtime. Give Kane space to work, and he will burn you. Kudos to the Avalanche for not allowing Kane to go gangbusters, as 88 certainly had on his fancy pants tonight. But even a contained Kane is a dangerous Kane. He was the third star tonight, but against a lesser opponent, there is little doubt he would have won the game singlehandedly.

Second Star: Cristobal Huet
Huet wasn’t outstanding tonight, but he was tested with very dangerous shots and proved his recent play is not a standing-on-his-head bender Huet is prone to have each year. This is the real deal, and his big saves are made with a quiet confidence that Blackhawks fans should be very happy about.

First Star: Duncan Keith
Keith had no points, but he was always the best player on the ice. Keith led the Blackhawks in icetime, with 26+ minutes, blocked a shot, had a hit and was a force the Avalanche could not account for. It’s remarkable he was not rewarded with a point in this game, because he was as good offensively Wednesday as he was defensively - and he was defensively flawless. The hockey gods will reward him with a fluke point or two down the road, and everyone will know those points came because of Keith’s performance on Wednesday night.

The Chicago Blackhawks wasted no time in filling the holes on their depth chart. With Samuel Pahlsson and Martin Havlat not resigning with the Blackhawks, GM Dale Tallon went out and signed Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky to twelve and two year deals respectively.

Hossa was widely considered to be the best free agent available in this year’s class, which was allowed to sign contracts at 12pm eastern time today. The 12 year deal means that, barring trade, Hossa will be a Blackhawk for the rest of his career. The contract is valued at 62.8 million dollars, bringing the salary cap hit to 5.2 million dollars a year. Reports are surfacing that the contract is extremely front loaded, with Hossa receiving $59.8 million in over the first eight years. When that period passes, Hossa, who will be 31 in January and is set to be 42 years old when his contract expires, will earn an average of $0.8 million each of the last 4 years of his contract.

It is to be fully expected that Hossa would contemplate retirement after year seven of his contract, and at the point Hossa retires, the Blackhawks will not be penalized against their salary cap. If the Blackhawks decide to buy out his contract after seven years, they would feel little repercussion as well, though it seems unlikely that scenario would ever occur.

In the end, this Hossa contract changes the balance of power in the Western Conference, but makes it difficult for Dale Tallon to sign the big three in 2010, but not insanely difficult. A 40 goal scorer for a cap hit of $5 million is almost unheard of, and while Blackhawks fans will mourn the loss of Martin Havlat, the Chicago Blachawks will be a better team next year because they will have a better player in Havlat’s place, and for less money, and less of an injury risk. Down the road, questions might be asked, but there are few players in the NHL better than Marian Hossa.

Kopecky, a fellow Detroit Red Wing with Hossa last season, was signed to be a checking line center. Kopecky is a solid two way center, but was delegated to lower lines on the talent laden Red Wings. Kopecky has eerily similar numbers to Sami Pahlsson’s stats in Anaheim, numbers that became stronger when Pahlsson went to Chicago. Kopecky is set to make $1.2 million a year for two seasons. Pahlsson, after a fantastic Stanley Cup Playoff run, has been asking for more than $2 million a year.

To counteract the salary cap hit of Hossa, the Blackhawks have been reportedly in negotiations to trade Cristobal Huet to Edmonton, and are in contract negotiations with Nikolai Khabibulin for a short term deal that would bring him back to Chicago to start over Antti Niemi. Check back for more details, as the Blackhawks looked poised to make more moves on this Canada Day.

The Stanley Cup and NBA Playoffs will collapse on the west side of Chicago, cuing a floor changing dance that will likely move the stagehand union to the brink of exhaustion. Let’s look at how far both teams can take this trip, and how much joy they can bring to the fans of the black and red, no matter what sport is being played.

Black Ice

The Hawks took game one in Chicago versus the Flames (for more analysis see herecomethehawks.net) and look to be in the driver’s seat after showing a considerable amount of jitters for the first two periods. They’re dominance of the Flames in the regular season, and tearing their heart out in game one can bode nothing but good things for the young Hawks. If they can take care of business in game two, putting together a dominating 60 minutes, the second round will be halfway achieved.

With the Ducks and Sharks poised to go the distance, those two rivals will decide who the Blackhawks play in the second round. If the Sharks can recover from a game one loss and win the series, The Blackhawks will likely be heading to San Jose, though the NHL playoff seeing system leaves everything up in the air. Come the conference semifinals and finals, everything is up in the air, though the Blackhawks will need some help to defeat the top two seeds in the conference, San Jose and Detroit. Alas, the Hawks are only one game in, and need 15 more victories to reach the promised land. Even after an amazing win, such as Thursday’s, the Hawks cannot get too ahead of themselves.

Seeing Red

The Bulls chances of winning in round one of the NBA playoffs went up exponentially before even playing a game. Kevin Garnett, Chicagoan, will be out for the entire season, and possibly the entire NBA playoffs. The Bulls are hoping to make the end of the playoffs come early for the Celtics. They aren’t one for having teams wonder. Rondo and Rose should be a hell of a matchup, but Rose has shown the propensity for being a big game player, if college is any sort of indicator. But new kid on the block Johnny Salmons will need to match Pierce or Allen’s points with Gordon showing up every night as well. If the inconsitent can stay level, the Bulls will have a chance. If Tyrus Thomas can have a big series on both sides of the court, the Bulls will have a great chance to win. Can the deep, but highly overrated Celtics bench make the Bulls youth negatable? Can Ty Thomas be a gamechanging player? Can Joakim Noah be any uglier, or rebound effecively? All these questions will be answered in this series, and if they can be answered in the Bulls’ favor, the stagehands will be cursing their names for a long time.

The Blackhawks’ lead is dwindling. What was once a solid ten point cushion is now a paltry five. And while the Blackhawks are nearly certain to go to the playoffs (only a Mets’ esque .200 winning percentage from here on out could leave the Hawks at home during the playoffs) the Hawks are showing kinks in the amour. This is a team separated from the nine game domination streak they ran in December. The question truly is, how separated are they?

The question of definition for the Blackhawks this season was a question of being a solid hockey team or an elite squad. Right now, it is flat out wrong to say that the Hawks are of the upper echelon. And while back to back losses are nothing of importance in the grad scheme, the nitpickers in this world (me) will be looking for specific flaws when the Hawks take the ice against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday.

First, will Martin Havlat play? The almighty HavBolLadd line has played their worst two games of the season this weekend. Havlat only played seven minutes in the Sunday tilt, out with the vague lower body injury. When Gary Bettman made the injury poilicy, he must have had an upper body injury, very upper body. But, the engine that makes the Blackhawks go, HavBolLadd, and specifically the team’s best player, Havlat, are not leading the way for the Hawks right now. Perhaps that’s the entire problem. But perhaps being a combined minus ten in two games is a stronger cause for concern. Whatever it is, if Havlat is out, the Hawks will need Kris Versteeg to step up, along with Patrick Kane. Together, they can pick up the slack.

But perhaps the blue line is the problem. Matt Walker and Brian Campbell have been playing extremely craptastic, even by their lowly defensive standards. Neither are taking the body, and Walker appears to have added an extra dumbell to his ankles. What’s worse, Walker is coming up on the rush, no longer content to shoot worthless slapshots from along the boards at the blueline. Campbell is working his powerplay magic, but is in the funk that plagued the Hawks before the All Star break and at the beginning of the season. The Hawks don’t win if Campbell is not maintaining a similitude of defensive prowess. Meanwhile, Cam Barker has become the Blackhawks number one defenseman overnight, with Seabrook and Keith being an interchangeable 1a and a1. If Campbell can get back to the point where he isn’t an out of place forward, and Walker can again play like the sixth, stay at home defenseman that he is, the Hawks should be a-okay.

Carolina should be the perfect test, a playoff team that the Blackhawks, if they play their game, can defeat. It’s a strong enough opponent to be a confidence boost, weak enough to be pushed around. It’s one of the definining games each season brings, for the Blackhawks, Wednesday is another of those opportunities.