Follow @jaeckel


OTTAWA

Balanced scoring. Balanced TOI. Better defense.

All of these things are happening right now for the Blackhawks, winners of three straight, two of those three games won in regulation (another important metric for this team).

Arizona, Colorado and Ottawa are not the class of the league—these are games the defending Stanley Cup champs should be winning. But they are NHL teams all hovering around .500, and certainly the trends the Hawks are showing in these games are encouraging for a team that’s been looking for consistency overall and in line-to-line production.

The third line got another goal from Andrew Desjardins last night, the other two Hawk goals were scored by Artem Anisimov and Duncan Keith while Jonathan Toews’ line was on the ice. Erik Gustafsson logged nearly 17 minutes TOI.

I’d be remiss also if I didn’t mention Corey Crawford registering his sixth, league-leading shutout of the year, with some high quality saves.

RUMOR

Building on my earlier report of Tampa having regular scouting presence in Rockford of late, I heard from a reliable source this AM that Tampa Bay has been specifically scouting Marko Dano and Ville Pokka. Also that Tampa coach Jon Cooper has a “high” level of interest in Hawk prospect Nick Schmaltz. Oh, and this is the same team that might be looking to trade Jonathan Drouin.

PANIK

The Hawks made a trade yesterday as well: sending Jeremy Morin off to the Maple Leafs for Slovakian winger Richard Panik. Morin (Atlanta) and Panik (Tampa) were drafted a few spots apart from eachother in 2009.

So what are we to make of (let’s get it out of the way now) Panik At The Disco? He was taken in the middle of the second round in ’09 because he had shown some scoring ability in junior and in international competition. He is a lefty shooting primarily RW—but maybe the Hawks see him as a guy who can play the left side, if not in Chicago then at least helping fill that gap organizationally. Probably a language buddy for Dano at Rockford, and nothing more, but this is a guy who has produced some in the AHL and has about 150 NHL games under his belt.

So we will see.

We will also see if the Hawks can keep their positive trends going against somewhat tougher competition—including recent former teammate Trevor Daley—in Pittsburgh Tuesday night. I will have a preview tomorrow.



JJ

Join the Discussion: » 305 Comments » Post New Comment

» Thanks and Farewell

» Where do we go from here?

» Preds at Hawks Breakdown

» "All Teams Have Flaws"

» The Games You Should Win