Well I will keep this short and to the point. The Hawks lost in Philadelphia tonight 3-0. It is the 5th loss in a row, and the 3rd shut out in a row suffered by the Hawks. The 3 consecutive shut outs hasn’t happened since the 1974-75 Hawk team. The only real bright spot was the play of Brian Boucher; he has played better in each of the last 3 games. Unfortunately it was not enough.

The best player on the ice was the real difference in the game. Peter Forsberg scored the first 2 Flyer goals, on beautiful moves in front of the net. The saying goes your best player has to be the best player and Forsberg was that tonight.

The Hawks on the other hand had one of their best players back tonight. Ruutu played ok but can’t be expected to step right in at top speed. Our best players this game were a rookie Bolland, and a new call up Macdonald, and newly acquired Stewart. Holmqvist also played well, and that was it. A better than average performance from 4 players, is not enough to stop the bleeding.

Bourque also has caught the same disease that Cullimore had at the start of the year. He seems to get at least one penalty every game, tonight he had 2. I almost thought I was watching a different sport tonight. There were only a total of 5 penalties called in the first 2 periods. The Flyers, somehow only got called for 3 penalties the whole game. I was quickly brought back into reality as the Hawks got called for 3 straight penalties in the first 4:22 of the 3rd period. That really hurt, as we had built some momentum in the 2nd period. I can’t say anything turned the game against us, as we can’t score a goal anyway.

We have no player that can stand out and carry us. We miss a tremendous amount of shots, many from inside of 20 feet. We have no one to play against the #1 center on the other team. Boucher gave us a chance to win, but it didn’t matter. Our best players on the ice for the most part are guys that would be considered 4th line players. We are still playing too long in our own zone, which also leads to not scoring.

We obviously miss Havlat, that’s a no brainer. My bigger concern is the guy who is not coming back, Handzus. We can’t compete with the elite centers, or the better teams in the league without another player similar to Zeus. I don’t think Tallon can find someone like that on Ebay, I am sure he is looking everywhere. Time is precious, by the time Havlat returns we could be in deep……….You know the rest. We all know so well.

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