Hawks need next two days off badly. Easily they could have gone point-less this weekend but a couple of things went their way but they also showed some resolve that you didn't necessarily see all of last year.
Crawford has been great, but what about the defense? This is the deepest defense we've seen in a long, long time. IMO, a Leddy-Roszival pairing would be a decent 2nd pairing and that is our bottom pair. Then you factor in Montador and Brookbank as 7th and 8th defensemen and wow. Montador is a top 4 dman on some crappy teams IMO when healthy and he is probably our 7th dman. As long as Oduya continues to play the way he has this season and Leddy continues to show his improvements defensively than I am really happy. So much to those who said he hasn't made any strides defensively and is a pylon. He is 21 years old for ****s sake, most defenseman are in college or the AHL at this point in their careers.
A big thing I think for Leddy is that he is no longer on the PK. That HAD to kill his confidence because he was so brutal and the fact that he was even in that position was embarrassing for coach Q. Especially considering that even when Montador was health, Q still had Leddy out there getting burned on the PK. He is small and not great defensively. His best assets are his skating and transition game and neither is a big factor on the PK. His biggest weaknesses are strength and defensive awareness which are two of the biggest needs to be a good PKer. It was completely baffling why coach Q continued to put a square peg in a round hole ALL FRICKEN SEASON. I saw from the first couple games that Leddy clearly wasn't good on the PK even though I love the kid's game. I can't expect a 20 year old offensive defenseman become a shutdown dman over the course of a season. I am glad Stan addressed the situation with signing Brookbank, Roszival and getting Oduya last year to force Q to get him off the PK.
Awesome day all around. Hawks win again, had a great steak at Weber Grill with my parents, and just weighed myself for the first time since I started my diet at the New Year and already down 17 pounds, this in spite of having a nice-sized filet just a half hour ago.
I love Pirri, but putting him into a bottom six role is setting him up for failure.
I think if he had defensive minded players with him he could be successful on the third line as a creator/scorer. I am not quite sure how the lines would shake out if he was called up though.
I like the lineup BWC has there. It could get Stalberg going. He needs some others with some speed with him. And Shaw is the weak link on the whole team. Something will have to be done if he starts hurting us in an obvious manner but he is just a stopgap.
OK Important question from a non local...WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GORGEOUS BLONDE WHO USED TO DO THE POST GAME INTERVIEWS??? LOL!
Whoah? Kustok? Uh uh. She's way overrated.
One of my best friends is marrying a girl who's a close friend of Sarah's and played BBall with her at DePaul. I've hung out with her quite a bit in person and she's just not that hot, not even close to the cutest girl in the bar at any given moment. Nice girl though, good career path, smiling all the time helps.
Kruger is playing too well defensively, Frolik is playing very offensively aggressive which is awesome, and Stalberg and his 5 o'clock shadow are just awesome
I love Pirri, but putting him into a bottom six role is setting him up for failure.
Oh this is total nonsense. Pirri isn't some ridiculously talented offensive prospect. A lot of good prospects have to cut their teeth on the 3rd line. If he isn't good enough on defense to put himself in position to play on 3rd line, then he doesn't deserve the opportunity because the Hawks have no openings in the top-6 right now.
Not to mention, this team's third line is not always playing against other teams' best line, like it used to with Bolland. So that is helping them.
