Which is exactly why it’ll probably happen!
- walleyeb1

If Q feels the solution to them not playing well is putting Bouma in the top 6 and on the powerplay then clearly he has not done a good job this year. He needed to get A few lines going and he has not been able to do it. Isn't that what we pay him for. There is enough talent for us to be better then getting blow out by MINN and AZ and if he is not going to give the almighty core a wake up call Kane, Keith come to mind for poor play then again why do we have a HOF coach that is not going to call out lackluster and poor play. Then he puts Keith the PP killer back out after finally our PP has started to show a little life and we give up a shorty! The Core has given up. So what do you do fire the Core or Fire the coach. you can't fire the core so that leaves you with few options. I still think we need to continue the mini rebuild. I agree we may never get back to ST level with kane and T on the roster but we are not going going to get there unless we get lucky with some young players being better then we think, and getting a solid return for some of the core that has value.

Right now, all my support is behind the Panthers, Redwings, Canadiens, & Oilers. I'm pulling for these teams to play well so they could pass the Hawks in the standings.

If the Hawks don't blow up the core, they are foolish. They are not going anywhere with the aging core.

If Keith and Anisimov are still here at season's end, the Hawks are foolishly extending the pain. If lightning strikes and they find takers for Seabrook, that would also be a plus. I just don't think that is going to happen because none of the other GM's are suckers.

Right now, all my support is behind the Panthers, Redwings, Canadiens, & Oilers. I'm pulling for these teams to play well so they could pass the Hawks in the standings.

If the Hawks don't blow up the core, they are foolish. They are not going anywhere with the aging core.

If Keith and Anisimov are still here at season's end, the Hawks are foolishly extending the pain. If lightning strikes and they find takers for Seabrook, that would also be a plus. I just don't think that is going to happen because none of the other GM's are suckers.
- isu83boo

Never say never.... not trying to be a jerk but Chicago did take Rob Scuderi off Pittsburgh's hands 2 years ago and that was a move no one thought was possible.

You guys are in a bit of a catch 22 with respect to the draft.... on one hand having a top 5 pick could be huge for you going forward but on the other hand not being able to sweeten a potential deal with a 1st round pick for someone to take a bad contract could make dealing someone nearly impossible.

Sorry, fellas, I just can't do the "I hope they tank" dance.

It's so soft to me.

Right now, all my support is behind the Panthers, Redwings, Canadiens, & Oilers. I'm pulling for these teams to play well so they could pass the Hawks in the standings.

If the Hawks don't blow up the core, they are foolish. They are not going anywhere with the aging core.

If Keith and Anisimov are still here at season's end, the Hawks are foolishly extending the pain. If lightning strikes and they find takers for Seabrook, that would also be a plus. I just don't think that is going to happen because none of the other GM's are suckers.
- isu83boo

Keiths contract matches his skill level at this point.

The writing has been on the wall for months, can we finally just accept it and move on? I'm tired of seeing the same questions and the same answers from the team each time they lose. 'We know what we have to do, we just need to do it' etc, just record it and hit play.

Some honest to god questions I have:

Why are they rushing to bring Crawford back when the writing is on the wall? Trade bait going into the off season? The assumption that if Crawford gets better, magically everything else will sort itself out and they could actually make it to the playoffs? Ticket sales? Who knows. Honestly, I'm not understanding the justification behind pushing Crawford.

When will Duncan Keith finally get the scratch that he deserves? You scratched Seabrook ( and you should do it again, especially after last night), but why doesn't #2 get the same treatment?

Right now, all my support is behind the Panthers, Redwings, Canadiens, & Oilers. I'm pulling for these teams to play well so they could pass the Hawks in the standings.

If the Hawks don't blow up the core, they are foolish. They are not going anywhere with the aging core.

If Keith and Anisimov are still here at season's end, the Hawks are foolishly extending the pain. If lightning strikes and they find takers for Seabrook, that would also be a plus. I just don't think that is going to happen because none of the other GM's are suckers.
- isu83boo

Take a lap, yeah let's get rid of the one NHL caliber defenseman on the team. Let's trade Kane too! I want to see zero talent out there next season.

Take a big old lap.

Q should have been fired after his tantrum at the Draft , in excusable IMO . No ability to adapt last year in the playoffs . His bench management against ST'L was atrocious .Hell his bench management even when this team had all the horses was terrible ..Q must go, should have gone before the season started . Now that we are in complete free fall,might as well keep him around for the Dive for 5 or better .. GO HAWKS !!

Q should have been fired after his tantrum at the Draft , in excusable IMO . No ability to adapt last year in the playoffs . His bench management against ST'L was atrocious .Hell his bench management even when this team had all the horses was terrible ..Q must go, should have gone before the season started . Now that we are in complete free fall,might as well keep him around for the Dive for 5 or better .. GO HAWKS !!
- oldduffman

Ahh..c'mon. All this Q headhunting is out of control in my opinion.

What tantrum?

You mean when he stormed out of the office at the draft? Who cares. You ever get fired up at work or have a disagreement or conflict with a co-worker? I don't get why this is held against him, especially since it was the media trying to make a soap opera out of it.

These are grown men working in a high-stakes environment. Differences in opinions/direction of a team are going to happen. Sometimes stuff boils over and people get heated. So be it.

Ahh..c'mon. All this Q headhunting is out of control in my opinion.

What tantrum?

You mean when he stormed out of the office at the draft? Who cares. You ever get fired up at work or have a disagreement or conflict with a co-worker? I don't get why this is held against him, especially since it was the media trying to make a soap opera out of it.

These are grown men working in a high-stakes environment. Differences in opinions/direction of a team are going to happen. Sometimes stuff boils over and people get heated. So be it.
- Hank3Henshaw

Agreed, there'd be no progress without conflict. Stan and McD know that they could fire Q and get a decent replacement, but at the same time having Q is preferable to the players who know him and the mirage of the 'Hawks system'. Stan also only gets one coach firing before the sights get set on him.

Oesterle has come back down to earth.

He was not good, and hasn't been as strong as he was with his earlier play.

In his presser, Q said he had a "rough game" and did everything he could not to throw him under media bus.

I would expect him to be scratched next game or at least moved down to the bottom pairing.
- Justin Lowe

The fallacy is that he has ever been good. Other D-Men were doing so poorly that the focus was not on him. However, from the start I could see that he was not an NHL D-Man. That he has been absolutely, incomprehensibly brutal recently does not mean there was any time he was NHL worthy.

Take a lap, yeah let's get rid of the one NHL caliber defenseman on the team. Let's trade Kane too! I want to see zero talent out there next season.

Take a big old lap.
- ObeseOprah

The problem with this is at the start of next season
Keith 35
Seabs 33
Craw 33
AA 30
Teows 30
Kane 29.

That core will never go deep in the playoffs again. We rode it 1 year to long and got swept last year and now are out of the playoffs this year. The core is trending in the wrong direction. bring them back and we will be a borderline playoff team if Craw is good and the young guys get better and the old guys only regress 5% from this year. If we move some of the core to teams that have shots at the ST the next 2 years and return some Picks or good young players then yes we might not be better next year but really hard to imagine we would be worse but we could be improving as a AVG team compared to keeping the core means we will be getting worse as a AVG team. you could argue that AA is only guy that will get in front of the net of this team and score goals. and is our best D man is Keith. But Kane we are going to keep, Craw, Toews and Seabs are not tradable so the question is what would you do? We are not looking at good options we are looking at the best of the worst options at this point.

I don't see anyone lining up to waive their NMC. Wish 2, 7 and 19 would do it.
- Hank3Henshaw

Even if they did, 7 and 19 have difficult contracts, and 2 has that recapture penalty issue if he doesn't finish the contract, with the Hawks still on the hook for it even if he retires elsewhere. Saad is slumping, so that makes his contract harder to move right now, too.

All I can envision in my vast experience as an armchair GM is that they unload role players for draft picks at the deadline to a team that has a need.

Agreed, there'd be no progress without conflict. Stan and McD know that they could fire Q and get a decent replacement, but at the same time having Q is preferable to the players who know him and the mirage of the 'Hawks system'. Stan also only gets one coach firing before the sights get set on him.
- ObeseOprah

Def.

Last thing I want is a bunch of 'yes men' behind the bench.

Keiths contract matches his skill level at this point.
- riozzo

I do wonder what a possible return would be for keith... You would think a team like the leafs would covet him for a playoff run

The writing has been on the wall for months, can we finally just accept it and move on? I'm tired of seeing the same questions and the same answers from the team each time they lose. 'We know what we have to do, we just need to do it' etc, just record it and hit play.

Some honest to god questions I have:

Why are they rushing to bring Crawford back when the writing is on the wall? Trade bait going into the off season? The assumption that if Crawford gets better, magically everything else will sort itself out and they could actually make it to the playoffs? Ticket sales? Who knows. Honestly, I'm not understanding the justification behind pushing Crawford.

When will Duncan Keith finally get the scratch that he deserves? You scratched Seabrook ( and you should do it again, especially after last night), but why doesn't #2 get the same treatment?
- Crawford

The only Hawk Dman who is of top 4 quality?

Q!? What ever. He had no issues doing that to Gus after the playoff loss to the Blues. Another classic example of being in the Q club. If he likes you, you can do no wrong. If he doesn't? Well we know how that goes.
- z1990z

Hard to argue... Pat Boyle also brought that up that Oesterle could have easily been benched after that turnover, but wasn't.

Even if they did, 7 and 19 have difficult contracts, and 2 has that recapture penalty issue if he doesn't finish the contract, with the Hawks still on the hook for it even if he retires elsewhere. Saad is slumping, so that makes his contract harder to move right now, too.

All I can envision in my vast experience as an armchair GM is that they unload role players for draft picks at the deadline to a team that has a need.
- 333inthe3rd

Keith's is going to play out his contract IMO if he retires he walks away from the money. if he is Hurt he goes on LTIR and gets paid. hossa was way more front loaded
Kieth:
35 4.5mil
36 3.5
37 2.65
38 2.1
39 1.5

Hossa:
38 1 mil
39 1
40 1
41 1

Ahh..c'mon. All this Q headhunting is out of control in my opinion.

What tantrum?

You mean when he stormed out of the office at the draft? Who cares. You ever get fired up at work or have a disagreement or conflict with a co-worker? I don't get why this is held against him, especially since it was the media trying to make a soap opera out of it.

These are grown men working in a high-stakes environment. Differences in opinions/direction of a team are going to happen. Sometimes stuff boils over and people get heated. So be it.
- Hank3Henshaw

Q headhunting? Are you kidding? He should have been fired years and years ago. Even when the team was successful the team was successful in spite of him and his stubborn approaches, not because of him. Duff is right he has NEVER managed his bench properly. This year when Q is combined with another stubborn imbecile Ulf the team is doomed.

Q lost the team and especially its veterans when he started treating proud 3 time Cup winner Sharp like garbage and sat out proud 3 time Cup winner and true Team Captain Seabrook. Toews too busy crying in the corner fantasizing about just how skinny he is getting. Sharp sat out in favour of whom? Bouma? Wingels? Kampf? Are you kidding me? Do these players ever have to actually get a point? Seabrook sat out why? - because he thought it was stupid to wildly pinch under Ulf’s completely idiotic “defensive” system? Even worse in favour of Forsling, Rutta and Oesterle who should all be in Rockford?

If the Hawks as an organization had any backbone they would fire Q instantly.

If we shut down Crow and put him on LTIR, what about taking a big expiring contract plus a high pick/prospect? I know we don't really have the pieces a playoff team would want, but it would give them space to go after someone they do want (or it could just be a three team trade like Duchene).

Ahh..c'mon. All this Q headhunting is out of control in my opinion.

What tantrum?

You mean when he stormed out of the office at the draft? Who cares. You ever get fired up at work or have a disagreement or conflict with a co-worker? I don't get why this is held against him, especially since it was the media trying to make a soap opera out of it.

These are grown men working in a high-stakes environment. Differences in opinions/direction of a team are going to happen. Sometimes stuff boils over and people get heated. So be it.
- Hank3Henshaw

I have been beating the fire Q drum for sometime . And yes when the draft is in your own city it is a big deal . U are either with us or against us , and with the coaching decisions being made recently and in the past he is not with us . Q ego has sored sine his big contract , and his coaching has flat lined ..

Keith's is going to play out his contract IMO if he retires he walks away from the money. if he is Hurt he goes on LTIR and gets paid. hossa was way more front loaded
Kieth:
35 4.5mil
36 3.5
37 2.65
38 2.1
39 1.5

Hossa:
38 1 mil
39 1
40 1
41 1
- kmw4631

Don't forget he has a divorce to pay for...

There are no words.....

The problem with this is at the start of next season
Keith 35
Seabs 33
Craw 33
AA 30
Teows 30
Kane 29.

That core will never go deep in the playoffs again. We rode it 1 year to long and got swept last year and now are out of the playoffs this year. The core is trending in the wrong direction. bring them back and we will be a borderline playoff team if Craw is good and the young guys get better and the old guys only regress 5% from this year. If we move some of the core to teams that have shots at the ST the next 2 years and return some Picks or good young players then yes we might not be better next year but really hard to imagine we would be worse but we could be improving as a AVG team compared to keeping the core means we will be getting worse as a AVG team. you could argue that AA is only guy that will get in front of the net of this team and score goals. and is our best D man is Keith. But Kane we are going to keep, Craw, Toews and Seabs are not tradable so the question is what would you do? We are not looking at good options we are looking at the best of the worst options at this point.
- kmw4631

Keith 35
Seabs 33
Craw 33
AA 30
Teows 30
Kane 29.

Boston Bruins:
Chara 40
McQuaid 31
Rask 30
Krejci 31
Bergeron 32
Marchand 29
Backes 33

The difference between their team and our's...
Pastrnak, McAvoy, Carlo, Heinen, Bjork, Debrusk, and a few more on the way.

They had two years of fans saying 'what the heck is going on, this team is swirling the drain with this old core'. The team was retooling. They bit the bullet and ditched Lucic, Hamilton, Seidenberg, and other 'key' pieces for picks and prospects. It took two years of missing the playoffs and hearing people bemoan their demise, but look where they are now. They struck gold with Pastrnak and McAvoy, and signed Backes with their newfound cap space.

The Hawks will have cap space at some point soon, we just need to do some serious homework for the next two drafts. It's going to hurt this year and likely next year, but this team is likely reaching it's nadir right now. They'll be trending in the right direction the second those standings lock in at the end of the year with draft positions.

Hard to argue... Pat Boyle also brought that up that Oesterle could have easily been benched after that turnover, but wasn't.
- Justin Lowe

Here's my opinion on this stuff...

Osterle is a top Defensemen for the Hawks right now. We're in a tailspin, fellas. Why would you sit one of the few guys doing the right things each night when you're in a desperate situation? For sake of fairness? "Oh, he benched this guy before for the same thing. He's playing favorites." Who cares. It's pro sports.

I think Q was willing to look the other way on that turnover/blunder for the sake of trying to get that much needed win against the WORST team in the league. He needs anything he can get at this point from these guys.

Realistically, Q could have sat five guys for awful turnovers last night. What can he do at this point, you know? Bench the whole team?

He's in a tough spot.