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OK, wherever you are—at home, at work, in a cafe’ reading this blog on a mobile device— go find a nice outdoor space and yell at the top of your lungs:
HOMER!!
Let it out. Feel the rage and indignation.
Now read on, and I’ll explain why I think this series plays out this way.
Again, you will probably call me a homer for picking the most one-sided contest between these two teams in the regular season to base my analysis on. But I also look at that game as being sort of similar to a playoff game: opening night, the 2012 Champions versus the 2010 Champions, certainly a lot of reputational points on the line . . . and the Hawks dominated.
But what’s much more important than the time of year, the final score or even who might have been injured in that game was why the Hawks dominated: speed.
And that factor hasn’t changed.
The Kings are going to get more hits, and probably more big hits in this series, but that will be in large part because the Hawks are going to possess the puck more. A lot more.
And it gets worse: if there’s a team that’s worse on faceoffs than the Hawks, it’s the Kings.
The Kings have the better goaltender, that much is certain. I am one Blackhawk backer who is not buying the Corey Crawford for Hall of Fame campaign. But, as anyone who reads my blog with any regularity knows, I have always felt that it’s not just about goaltending, but about defense and goaltending combined. Goalies don’t play without defenses and vice versa.
And so when you evaluate how well the Hawks keep the puck out of the net versus how well the Kings do, you have a slightly different picture than a straight-on Crawford-Quick comparison suggests.
The Kings are first in the playoffs with a 1.54 GAA, the Hawks second at 1.83. But the Hawks were first in the regular season, and the Kings 7th. And within that first statistic is the remarkable fact that the Hawks have given up 1 power play goal in 42 chances in these playoffs , after finishing third in the league in the regular season.
The Hawks have also outscored the Kings in the playoffs—and by a wider margin than the teams’ difference in GAA.
The Kings are deep, especially upfront. And their forecheck is going to give problems at some point in the series to Johnny Oduya and possibly Nick Leddy. But the Wild and the Red Wings tried the same strategy. It can work at times, but the Hawks beat the forecheck with speed and transition. So you also really need speed to forecheck them, not just size.
But the Kings don’t have a lot of speed on the back end, once you get past Drew Doughty and the young but improving Slava Voynov (tip of the cap to Wiz for the nice scouting report). And that’s where the Hawks are going to give the Kings a lot of problems, just as they did back in January at the Staples Center.
The Hawks speed comes at you in waves: Kane, Toews, Hossa, Sharp, Stalberg, Frolik, Keith, Leddy, Oduya. Pick your poison on any of four lines. Both teams will have matchup problems. But with Robyn Regehr, Matt Greene and Rob Scuderi on the back end, Darryl Sutter is going to have more of them.
The Wings and the Wild both, to varying degrees, were able to slow the Hawks down with their better, more mobile defensemen: Suter, Brodin, Kronwall. But neither team had enough of these kind of mobile, two-way defensemen. And nor, likely, do the Kings.
The Kings are big and certainly bad (in a good way)— but you can’t hit what you can’t catch. Or if you do, look out, you’re out of position and beaten. And if the Kings are chasing the puck, they're going to get tired, get frustrated, stop moving their feet at times—and take more penalties.
And then, even with Jamie Kompon designing the power play, Jonathan Quick becomes a lot more beatable.
And after two grueling seven game series against tough, but not quite this fast or creative teams, the Kings are going to find themselves chasing the puck a lot.
In fact, the prodigious Quick aside, this series reminds a lot of the 2010 WCF between the Hawks and Sharks— a sweep, although each game was close.
Add back in the facts that the Kings have been to the top of the Mountain recently, and Quick could steal a game or two, and I think a 7-game Hawk victory appears in order.
And if you’re wondering, I’m 9 for 12 thus far in predicting series victors. The other series? Pens, for much the same reasons as above.
All for now,
JJ
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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