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Blackhawks, you're blowing this playoff thing

February 12, 2020, 8:31 AM ET [486 Comments]
Tyler Cameron
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


No McDavid, no problem.

The Oilers came out hungry for 2 points and they ended up succeeding.

The Oilers were handed the news that uber-star Connor McDavid would be out from 2-3 weeks with a quad injury. However, you wouldn't be able to tell that they were missing him.

Leon Draisaitl's performance was magical. He ended up with 4 points and was dominant on almost every single shift.

With Draisaitl stepping up that way he did in #97's absence, it reminded me of the Crosby/Malkin dynamic in Pittsburgh. It almost seems like Malkin thrives more by putting the team on his back.

The Hawks had no answer for that Draisaitl-RNH-Yamamoto line which. It was frustrating to see the Hawks time-after-time turn it over or make poor decisions while that trio was on the ice which also didn't help their cause.

Chicago did have a pushback in the 3rd though, however, they were not able to tie it up.

So where does this leave the Hawks?

Well, as of Wednesday, here are the standings:

Screen-Shot-2020-02-12-at-8-14-06-AM
CHI is 6 points out and they are completely blowing this playoff thing!

They need to show up in Vancouver tonight who are 6-3-1 in their last 10. They also have some Sedin power in their corner as the franchise is retiring Henrik and Daniel's jerseys tonight.

This will surely be an emotional night and the Canucks will be ready to go.

The Hawks have now lost 4 games in a row and if this skid continues, they are making Stan Bowman's life easier heading into the draft. He will be able to think about shipping off the likes of Gustafsson as well as any other depth players contending teams might want for their postseason run.

If I'm Bowman, I'm going in to talk to his players before tonight's game with the message of "if you don't win, I can't add to this team."

There were a lot of frustrating elements and players to last night's game, so I won't focus on rattling all of those off.

Instead, I'd rather rhyme off a couple of positive things I saw in hopes of sending good vibes to this team for Wednesday's game.

First up, Adam Boqvist had a real strong game in his return to the lineup. He scored a nice 2-on-1 goal off a beautiful Kane feed. He appeared surprised that it ended up on his stick, however, he made no mistake about putting it in the next. His shot is a very strong part of his game.

Outside of the goal, he also played 19+ minutes paired back with Duncan Keith.

Jonathan Toews is trying to emotionally drag this team into the playoffs. He scored a nice shorthanded goal and was competing at 110% all over the ice Tuesday night.

Unfortunately, the hockey Gods were not kind to him again as he was dinged with ANOTHER terrible penalty (which the Oilers scored on) when an EDM player tripped over the linesmen.
Overall, we need to have more in the "positive" category after Wednesday's game if we want to be talking about a win.

I expect Corey Crawford to start tonight with Dylan Strome entering back into the lineup.

Let's see what happens on Sedin-night; Hopefully no hair-pulling and/or brawls breakout.

Lastly, I just wanted to give thoughts and prayers to Jay Bouwmeester and his family. If you didn't catch it, Bouwmeester collapsed on the bench last night and was stretchered off. I hope everything is ok there.

See ya out there!

TC
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