Chicago Blackhawks 2013

[wrangler 157]

I guess you missed the Morrow Interference call that lead to the GWG in OT? That was one of the weakest interference calls I've seen in a while.

No; that was a different type of call, and confusing in its own way. Looked like Seabrook was barely holding his stick.

I was talking about the routine interference where a player dumps the puck along the boards while crossing the blue line into the offensive zone, and a defender blocks him from pursuing the puck, freely using his arms. They let many plays of that nature go by without a call, while making a really lame interference call of that nature earlier in the game.

The 4-on-3 and 3-on-3 just made the 4-on-4 overtime play rule look dumber, for me. It changes the game way too much.

[hb4167 6]

6-0...This bandwagon is filling fast...Am I a bad person or hawks fan if I partially wan't to root against the hawks against Minni just to revel in my bandwagon friends reactions?

Also for what its worth, I think the ship sailed on Crawford a long time ago. But in this shortened season who knows what will happen. Next year I would like to see a new #1...

[wrangler 157]

Crawford's doing better, but not as well as they make it sound, just like last year he wasn't as bad as it sounded. He is certainly good enough, if they can continue to play in front of him like they have been. As always, though, it's the playoffs that count.

To answer your question, if you're a fan, you'll root for your team. That's pretty much what a fan is.

Six games is a tiny sample. We can't draw conclusions from six wins, though we can analyze the gameplay, and extrapolate somewhat more reliably from that. They're not about to go undefeated. Soon they'll lose one, maybe more, and we'll see how they move on from that. We still see the same problems of not skating 60 minutes, though not as bad, but so far they've got away with it, like they did before the 9-game losing streak last year. Fortunately, the penalty killing and power play have improved nicely, again, so far.

[hunt3rsean 44]

I think this game against the Wild will be a real test. STL was a test, that they almost lost, and the Wild will be another one in my opinion. It seems like the Hawks are slowing down a little bit from their "sprint out of the gate" start. Although, two non-day games in a row may help refuel them and being back in your own time zone never hurts. Definitely looking forward to tonight.

As far as rooting them to lose....never! But, a part of me wouldn't terribly mind a loss just so the "undefeated" talk would go away. It's hockey and there are too many games with to much parity to have a team go undefeated.

Also...a quick note on Crawford...more rebounds out of his glove vs Detroit. Not sure if he's not watching the puck the whole way in or his glove reaction is slow for some reason? I've never played goalie so I definitely do not understand the mechanics and fundamentals. Just mentioning how I see it.

[wrangler 157]

I thought the game against Columbus was a test, as it was the first team this year that came out really physical, the historically used attack on the Blackhawks' speed. And physicality can take more of a toll, with the densely-packed schedule.

We'll get a loss, don't worry, but we need the points when we can get them, especially with the travel coming up.

Crawford may be settling in, playing more regularly, and building confidence that he's the #1 goalie. I hope so. I don't know what the problem could be with his occasional problem catching, other than the effect of rust on timing.

[Law Goalie 147]

Part of it is that he tends to hold his glove on his hip, back in the plane of his body, rather than forward in the visual field; this is a very common issues with Quebec goalies, especially ones trained by the Allaire brothers and their associates. My guess is that he didn't get much experienced in hand-dominant sports as kid: baseball, &c. When he's 100% wired in, he can compensate for it with really good proprioception and puck tracking, which is where the rust comes in.

[wrangler 157]

Our "analysts" often tell us that Crawford is very good "technically", but I don't have the knowledge or expertise to evaluate that for myself. Is the glove positioning something he should try to change?

[TeamHonda401 54]

Saad has looked dangerous all night. I'd say he earned another start on the first line after tonight.

[wrangler 157]

Saad's been busting his ass, and looking good. He earned his chance in the shootout, but they didn't need it.

[TeamHonda401 54]

Showed some good chemistry with Toews and Hoss, but that is a pretty easy line to look good on. If he can stay healthy he looks like he is ready to be out there 15-17 minutes a game.

[Chadd 916]

9 games played, 7 of them on the road and points in every game so far. That is not a bad way to start the season.

[hunt3rsean 44]

Last three games at least 1pt taken each time. Not too shabby. You can see the condensed season taking its toll. I think the Calgary game was very apparent of this. Emery was amazing. But too small sample size to start thinking will take #1 spot.

[wrangler 157]

Showed some good chemistry with Toews and Hoss, but that is a pretty easy line to look good on. If he can stay healthy he looks like he is ready to be out there 15-17 minutes a game.

That's a point, but I'm looking at what Saad does on his own.

Last three games at least 1pt taken each time. Not too shabby. You can see the condensed season taking its toll. I think the Calgary game was very apparent of this. Emery was amazing. But too small sample size to start thinking will take #1 spot.

I don't think Emery's even getting a shot at the #1 job; it's pretty clear that's Crawford's right now. While it's possible that any starting goaltender can fall apart and be replaced by a backup, I don't see that it's even a consideration right now.

[Law Goalie 147]

Our "analysts" often tell us that Crawford is very good "technically", but I don't have the knowledge or expertise to evaluate that for myself. Is the glove positioning something he should try to change?

His technique is generally very good, but what 'the analysts' mean is that it's 'very obviously good'. Even guys like Nabokov and Hedberg -- who had one hell of a goaltending duel yesterday -- are unbelievably powerful skaters with great lateral movement, but they make saves in a relatively wide variety of positions; Crawford will almost invariably make saves out of a tight blocking butterfly, and his stance is simply a way of moving around slightly faster than he could on his knees. Like many Quebecois goalies, his is a technique that is very rigidly defined. He's fairly good about 'breaking' the technique to scramble and battle for pucks, but that said, there are still limitations to the way he plays the game. One of them is that the glove position he's been taught is great for trapping pucks to the body, allowing him widen the wall he makes of his torso and arms, but it's absolutely sub-optimal from a 'catching' perspective. Ideally, goalies should vary their glove positions situationally -- Luongo's been *much* better about that this year, hence his better performance in shootouts, and he used to be a strictly locked-to-the-hip guy -- but it's tough not to default back to the same position.

You've also probably noticed that Crawford rarely catches pucks in front of his body or glove-side pad, the way many Finnish goalies do, and that he often won't get his stick on low shots to the blocker side; this is all a direct consequence of keeping his hands back in the plane of his body, and it often leads to Crawford booting pucks into dangerous areas. (This is also part of what's killing Ryan Miller: he used to get his hands and stick on EVERYTHING: now they're welded to his sides, and his stick is often swinging in the breeze.)

[wrangler 157]

Thanks for some ideas on what to watch. I haven't noticed a lot of those things, because my eye generally follows the puck, I suppose. I usually do notice a goalie's stick off the ice, especially when there's a shot at the five-hole, and I'm glad you confirmed my guess that it's due to hand positioning for blocking.

[Sort of Irish 1]

Lemme preface this by saying I'm not a goalie nor do I know too much about the position but are Crawford's pads to big for the way he plays the game? I noticed this last year more than this season but it looked like his pads prevented him from resetting and getting into position for rebounds. The only reason I say this is that our goalie in college switched from a Vaughn pad that was smaller to one of the newer and larger Reebok cuts and he struggled with the more cumbersome pad.

Again, I'm not a goalie and don't know anything about selecting the right equipment for the position.

[Law Goalie 147]

Yes and no... the pads Crawford is wearing, like all pads now -- not just one brand or another -- are no longer anatomical protection but allowable puck-stopping devices with some variable degree of allowance for the human behind them.

Crawford has been using custom pads that are basically straight boards with no breaks (flexible joints) anywhere, and only the faintest curve around the knee. This gives him some advantages in dealing with shots, but it does make the pad less 'forgiving' in some movements -- especially if he's maxed out his sizing under Kay Whitmore LDS guidelines simply as a matter of course, which he certainly appears to have done. It is possible that the combination of tall and very stiff pads is getting in his way in some situations.

That said, depending on when your goalie made the switch from Vaughn (assuming a Velocity variant) to Reebok, and most especially if that move included (as you imply) an increase in size (since Reebok pads are not not inherently 'larger cut' than any other pad), it's no surprise that he took a while to adapt. The early 'Shred-Pak' Velocities were *very* soft pads, despite having sheets of stiff HD foam in the boot, shin, knee, and thigh, and the early RBK models were basically inflexible, especially at the ankle where the Velocities were softest; add to that the change from a flat medial gusset (the surface that rests on the ice in the butterfly) to a round one (common to all Lefebvre pads until the new CCM line designed by son Patrick instead of father Michel), and it's a pretty big adaptation. It's not that RBK pads are necessarily 'more cumbersome'; they're just one version of a design that now varies little from company to company in its fundamentals.

[Chadd 916]

The last team to have not lost in regulation, hopefully this bodes well.

[wrangler 157]

Did you have to?

[Law Goalie 147]

At least he didn't say "shutout."

[wrangler 157]

Slap-o-gram on the way.

[Chadd 916]

At least he didn't say "shutout."

No reason to ever say that word in Chicago

[wrangler 157]

It looked like we were going to get a football score, rather than the advertised defensive battle, after the first 12 minutes. Good game.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall Keith going after an opponent before.

[Chadd 916]

Another case of the referees trying to do the right thing and being wrong. As much as I bag on Keith, I will give him credit for doing that. That was a leadership moment, addressing the issue head on and not waiting for your designated goon to finally catch up with the guy at some point down the road. I wish more players and more teams were like that. San Jose came out hitting hard in that game and Keith's action showed the rest of the team that they all had to stand up and react.

[wrangler 157]

I thought that it was an especially big deal for Keith to do that, considering it's not really part of his game, and how overmatched he was.