They're already through the first quarter of the season in the NHL, which means ... well, I don't really know what it means. It means right now is the time of year for some teams where fans might be enormously disappointed or totally flabbergasted by how their team has performed so far.Being that I get off to a slow start getting into almost all sports (with the exception of football this year, obviously), I've been doing my best to try and keep up with the Blackhawks. And from what I've seen so far, it seems like this year I will actually get to see Chicago in the post-season. True, there's still a long way to go and the team is currently a mere seven-seed, but there's a lot more reason for optimism about these Hawks than there's been in recent years.
That said, here's five quick thoughts about how I'm feeling and what I'm looking for in the rest of the season:
- There's no real No. 1 goaltender. Or at least nobody has, in my mind, dominated the job so thoroughly that I favor one over the other. Neither guy excites me, but I don't dislike either. Khabibulin's injury will give Huet a good opportunity to prove himself if he's up to the job, but I wouldn't get too excited about Crawford seeing his time while Khabi's out. It sounds like he'll be back fairly quickly and the only question will be if Huet has not given reason to be benched.
- The Savard firing was awkward only in its timing. In hindsight, it's fairly easy to believe that the move was discussed some time ago and barring the Hawks coming out undefeated, he was going to be axed as soon as the public relations tour had maxed out its potential. (And judging by ratings so far this year, it did pretty well.) Still, Coach Q has come in and made my impression of the team become less about a seemingly justified concern with the defense and more about a rewarded hope in the offense.
- The Hawks have potential in their scoring (3.45 GFA is 3rd in the league), so I'd have no complaints if the offense can continue to prove itself to be a constant threat to the point that opposing teams would know they're fucked on a power play. So far, they're one of the better teams in the league on that. If they can maintain a solid reputation of being dangerous on that end of the ice, it would make them an extremely dangerous team in the playoffs.
- OK, Patrick Kane is pretty good. But what do you want me to say? Wasn't it fair to worry about grabbing a bust? Or still bemoan the fact that Sidney Crosby ended up in fucking Pittsburgh, where their fucking hero was threatening to take the team out of town a couple years ago. But I'm over all of that. Kane's been fun to watch and he's putting up the numbers too (9th in the league with 26 points, which is well ahead of pace of the 72 he had last season).
- I've said it before, but I mean, really. I was sitting in the car today on the way home listening to the Blackhawks on the radio ... on WGN. That's the same station as the Cubs, but the amount of listeners it has when the North Siders aren't playing is still pretty remarkable. And when I got home, they were on WGN's TV station too. That's only an up-button press or two away from the national networks. And my folks don't have cable.
That's still pretty remarkable to me, being able to catch all these hockey games. I haven't been as avid a hockey fan until the past five or so seasons when the playoffs seemed to capture my fascination every summer, but for the long-time suffering fans of the team, this is what they bitched about for years under Dollar Bill. When I met Rocky at the Binny's downtown for a bottle signing, that was the thing people kept saying to him: "Thanks for finally getting the home games on TV."[Post Title derived from this classic Mr. Show sketch.]
I can't imagine how happy they are, but I'm getting an idea.
And it feels great.
