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Three Little Birds – Blackhawks
- Updated: March 19, 2016
The Blackhawks have hit a bit of a rough patch as of late, and people are starting to worry. But should they? If the Times and Trib are to be believed, then absolutely. Reading the papers lately would have you believing that the Hawks are doomed and will never win another game. But let’s look at this rationally, shall we? Let’s take a look at each of the Hawks problems and find out just how worried you should actually be.
The scale we’ll use is out of three little birds. Because, this:
The more birds needed to calm you down, the more worried you should be.
Lack of offense
After the moves the Hawks made at the deadline, they’ll need some time to figure out how everything best fits together. Q jumbled up the lines this week, and it worked in Winnipeg, though long term, playing Toews and Kane together isn’t ideal. Far from it, actually. For the playoff run, my guess is the lines look like this:
Ladd – Toews – Hossa
Panarin – Anisimov – Kane
Fleischmann – Teräväinen – Weise
Desjardins – Kruger – Shaw
Extras: Panik, Rasmussen
Given some time to gel, that’s an awesome forward group. The Hawks should be fine.
How worried should you be?
0 little birds out of 3
Panarin’s in a slump
This kind of goes along with “lack of offense,” but you shouldn’t be worried about this, either. Players go through slumps. It happens to everyone. With Panarin, a big factor is how much attention teams have been paying to Patrick Kane lately. If teams can bottle him up, Panarin’s not going to be able to do all that much damage. With Hossa back and playing well as of late, and Ladd, who’s also been producing, on the other side of arguably the best all-around hockey player in the world on what I assume will be the top line in the long run, most teams will have to start picking their poison.
How worried should you be?
0 little birds out of 3
The defense has been struggling
The Hawks have four good-to-great defensemen and a fifth who’s at least solid. In the playoffs, that should be fine, because Keith can play cyborg minutes. Is that ideal? No, probably not, but it can be done, and it can work. One of Ehrhoff, Svedberg, Gustafsson, and Pokka just needs to be serviceable and be able to give 10 or so decent minutes a night during the playoffs. I like those odds.
How worried should you be?
1 little bird out of 3
The penalty kill has been awful
The Hawks really missed Hossa here and they still miss Kruger. Is Kruger going to be a cure-all? No, but the fact remains that he’s probably the Hawks’ best penalty killer. The only reason this is a legitimate worry is because of how important a good PK is. If the Hawks can’t kill penalties, they won’t be making a deep run in the postseason.
How worried should you be?
2 little birds out of 3
Crawford has been on-and-off lately and is dealing with an upper body injury now
Just for a minute, let’s look at the worst-case scenario: the injury lingers and/or Crawford struggles a bit in the playoffs. Do I think either of those are very likely? No, not really. But if one of those things happens, the Hawks have a backup who’s proven himself to be a solid goaltender in his own right. Darling’s good enough to get the Hawks deep into the postseason so long as the team in front of him plays well defensively. But if they don’t play very well defensively, it won’t matter who’s in net. Corey Crawford has, for the most part, been very good this year for the Hawks. However, let’s not pretend like the team in front of him hasn’t had something to do with that. Is that the only reason he’s been so good? No, and it’s not even the biggest one. But it’s a factor. The defense is going to be the key in the postseason; if the Hawks have to rely on Darling, they’ll just need to be a little extra good. This, by the way, is another reason to play Darling more now. You don’t want to get into a situation like the one they were in in 2014, where Crawford’s struggling and the backup’s not prepared to come in in that spot.
How worried should you be?
1 little bird out of 3
So there’s really not much reason to worry. If the slump continues, we’ll reevaluate things, but right now, it looks like every little thing’s gonna be alright.
Twitter: @KSchroeder_312 (New Twitter account. Go follow that one.)
E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com
