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Preseason Schedule:
Games start tonight fellas, boys, and lady (I can hope).
I know its a bit of hassle, but I think kicking off the season in Prague next week is pretty neat. The guys who don't know Shaw(which is most of the team) should love him or hate him before they even disembark from the first 10 hour flight.
Before we begin, new or old thoughts are welcome about the state of things with Stan and re-tooling this club.
Alot has been made about the Jokiru for Nylander trade, but feeling out the lines the last two years...as woeful as the defense got with Manning and then the switch to Colloton, adjustment period, etc...the real hard part with the cap is finding that top 6 scorer. They waited a bit for Cat after Panarin, and he has arrived. They got lucky with Strome, although Smaltz was a heck of a player in some respects he lacked in areas and his puck carrying felt redundant paired to Kane. Kane was able to spark Taser, and now a solid 4 were so strong Saad, Caggs, Gus, Kahun, Kampf...it seemed as if everyone started to produce points which were matched in equal fervor by the deluge past inexperienced goalies until Crow returned.
Scoring 6 a game (and sometimes losing anyway) was pretty damn fun for a stretch though.
Lehnar fortifies Crow, and clearly Lehnar who had a 50/50 split share last year views that as ideal for himself. A repeat performance will indeed lead to his 8 mil per for 6 years, so he is playing for a ton of money this year.
Interestingly, Crow actually said he doesn't like it. He likes to play alot. haha...so somebody may not be happy with an equal sharing his lite, IDK we'll see.
As a chronic sufferer of mental illness and addiction I have a new favorite Blackhawk in Lehnar. I miss and am sad still about Emery, but this combo reminds me of the incredible season he and Crow shared where Crow carried the load but you could hardly get a goal past Emery when he played. Lehnar is a stud goalie, our own hockey Thor.
So...anyway, the cap issues that got jammed up, the bad trades for constant cup runs that caught up to us, etc...
several issues made it impossible to even imagine where the next scorer to put us over the top would come from. That is why I think we see Jokiru for Nylander so easily. They had Bovqist, Beudin, and Mitchell all near, they traded for betterans to slot above Jokiru anyway, they had KK rising, Dahlstrom flashing and its not just Nylander they went and got...
Q, Saarella, Kubalik, Nylander, Hogan, Barrett all fit a profile of the next potential hope. Where is our next 30 goal scorer?
From what I have seen of the Swiss hockey league, Kubalik will step in at 24 years old and drop 30 goals with this Blackhawks squad. What would be insane is if one of the other 5 could do it too, but I am getting ahead of myself.
The Blackhawks clearly went hunting for and stacked themselves with those potentials. They fixed the defense in the draft 2 and 3 years ago.
Dach and Kucherov coming up the center pipeline, as well as some big body grunts like Entwhistle and Gilbert...make the current farm much more exciting than it has been recently. Sikura is a flavor all to himself as well, as a defensive forward...and likely has to battle Jewels for a 4th line role next to Carp and Smith.
All of us fear deeply what Stan will do with all this ammo. haha. The guy has serious patience issues at times. I remember when he traded Garbutt during the franchises greatest win streak in history. I mean that is a tinkering problem when you are trading guys in the middle of record breaking win streaks. You have a problem.
Lots of us believe he has a problem, but I for one and damn impressed by the acquisitions and timing of things coming together. There will be a steady flow of talent arriving over the next 3 years without even counting trades, but its talent of all different skills, shapes, and sizes. I sense great balance to the team plan.
They wanted to be deeper and they got deeper. They wanted to be bigger and grittier for playoffs and they did that. they needed face-offs and they found several.
But can those wings step up and is the defense strong enough? My two questions for this team...can one of those 5 guys be a 30 goal scorer? Is the defense fast enough carrying both Seabrook and Maata and led by aging Keith?
One day Kane will get old and this ride will probably be over...but that day ain't here yet!!!
Lets go!!!!
Games start tonight fellas, boys, and lady (I can hope).
I know its a bit of hassle, but I think kicking off the season in Prague next week is pretty neat. The guys who don't know Shaw(which is most of the team) should love him or hate him before they even disembark from the first 10 hour flight.
Before we begin, new or old thoughts are welcome about the state of things with Stan and re-tooling this club.
Alot has been made about the Jokiru for Nylander trade, but feeling out the lines the last two years...as woeful as the defense got with Manning and then the switch to Colloton, adjustment period, etc...the real hard part with the cap is finding that top 6 scorer. They waited a bit for Cat after Panarin, and he has arrived. They got lucky with Strome, although Smaltz was a heck of a player in some respects he lacked in areas and his puck carrying felt redundant paired to Kane. Kane was able to spark Taser, and now a solid 4 were so strong Saad, Caggs, Gus, Kahun, Kampf...it seemed as if everyone started to produce points which were matched in equal fervor by the deluge past inexperienced goalies until Crow returned.
Scoring 6 a game (and sometimes losing anyway) was pretty damn fun for a stretch though.
Lehnar fortifies Crow, and clearly Lehnar who had a 50/50 split share last year views that as ideal for himself. A repeat performance will indeed lead to his 8 mil per for 6 years, so he is playing for a ton of money this year.
Interestingly, Crow actually said he doesn't like it. He likes to play alot. haha...so somebody may not be happy with an equal sharing his lite, IDK we'll see.
As a chronic sufferer of mental illness and addiction I have a new favorite Blackhawk in Lehnar. I miss and am sad still about Emery, but this combo reminds me of the incredible season he and Crow shared where Crow carried the load but you could hardly get a goal past Emery when he played. Lehnar is a stud goalie, our own hockey Thor.
So...anyway, the cap issues that got jammed up, the bad trades for constant cup runs that caught up to us, etc...
several issues made it impossible to even imagine where the next scorer to put us over the top would come from. That is why I think we see Jokiru for Nylander so easily. They had Bovqist, Beudin, and Mitchell all near, they traded for betterans to slot above Jokiru anyway, they had KK rising, Dahlstrom flashing and its not just Nylander they went and got...
Q, Saarella, Kubalik, Nylander, Hogan, Barrett all fit a profile of the next potential hope. Where is our next 30 goal scorer?
From what I have seen of the Swiss hockey league, Kubalik will step in at 24 years old and drop 30 goals with this Blackhawks squad. What would be insane is if one of the other 5 could do it too, but I am getting ahead of myself.
The Blackhawks clearly went hunting for and stacked themselves with those potentials. They fixed the defense in the draft 2 and 3 years ago.
Dach and Kucherov coming up the center pipeline, as well as some big body grunts like Entwhistle and Gilbert...make the current farm much more exciting than it has been recently. Sikura is a flavor all to himself as well, as a defensive forward...and likely has to battle Jewels for a 4th line role next to Carp and Smith.
All of us fear deeply what Stan will do with all this ammo. haha. The guy has serious patience issues at times. I remember when he traded Garbutt during the franchises greatest win streak in history. I mean that is a tinkering problem when you are trading guys in the middle of record breaking win streaks. You have a problem.
Lots of us believe he has a problem, but I for one and damn impressed by the acquisitions and timing of things coming together. There will be a steady flow of talent arriving over the next 3 years without even counting trades, but its talent of all different skills, shapes, and sizes. I sense great balance to the team plan.
They wanted to be deeper and they got deeper. They wanted to be bigger and grittier for playoffs and they did that. they needed face-offs and they found several.
But can those wings step up and is the defense strong enough? My two questions for this team...can one of those 5 guys be a 30 goal scorer? Is the defense fast enough carrying both Seabrook and Maata and led by aging Keith?
One day Kane will get old and this ride will probably be over...but that day ain't here yet!!!
Lets go!!!!
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