Hope everyone had a good Halloween before the stinker of a game last night as the Hawks earned themselves a trip to the bottom of the NHL. Leading up to this game, actually this whole season, I talked about the importance of this team playing a solid 60 minutes of hockey and the need to put together back-to-back good games. They also need to take advantage and beat the teams they are supposed to be beating and use that to help get their momentum going in the right direction. Last night against San Jose, this team did none of that. Coming off a good victory over the Avalanche, having the Sharks next up seemed to be a great sign. However, this was the case as they started off slow, getting out, and played through 40 minutes. They were outshot 24-18, and the Sharks had more high-danger chances, 10 to the Hawks 8. They finished the game strong, outshooting the Sharks 10-5 and registering 8 high-danger chances compared to the Sharks 1. If this was last year's team, I would say the third period was a moral victory and showed they could battle back. However, this isn’t last year, team. This is a team that has to be better and prove they can make the leap to the next level of the rebuild.
Takeaways
TJ Brodie is Bad
Brodie has been a thorn in my side all season, as I have yet to see anything positive from his game in 11 games. He leads the defenseman with a minus rating of 6, which is 4 points higher than the next defender in Seth Jones. While he was only registered for two giveaways last night, it felt like he was way worse as I lost track of how many times he made a poor decision on a pass or puck movement. The first goal of the game, he just completely ignored Will Smith back door, giving it time and space to rip home his first of his career. I get wanting to let the young guys play in Rockford and develop, but enough is enough. Sit him down and put Isaak Phillips in the lineup for a few games. Anything is better than what we are seeing so right.
Depth Getting it Done
Our depth players seemed to be on fire right now as Ryan Donato put home his 6th of the year off a very good wrist shot. He is doing his best Jason Dickinson impression from a season ago to try and lock up a nice little contract for himself. I never realized how good of a shot Donato had, and I'm not sure if anyone else did either, but I am glad to see him find it and use it often. Connor Murphy continues his good play, picking up two more assists in this one, giving him six in the last 5 games. Tyler Bertuzzi gets his first goal at 5 on 5, and it was exactly the kind of goal you expect from him. Sitting in front, creating a screen, then cleaning up the rebound. When the top line isn’t producing, it's great to see the offense isn’t just going away completely, and hopefully once line one starts to get the puck in net, these depth guys can keep their production up as well.
At the end of the day, we know the Hawks will be in the draft lottery and will probably have pretty good odds too. I can live with that as long as I can watch this team and see they are working hard to do the right things but getting beat by better teams. If this is the type of performance that we are going to get all year, especially against bottom feeder teams, there is a problem in Chicago. That’s going to be it for me; the Hawks are back at it tomorrow and Sunday to wrap up the west coast swing before heading back to Chicago. Until then, Let's Go Hawks.
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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