Young Guns Part II

The Sequal

It’s been four season in Chicago since a youth movement has shown this much promise and excitement! Granted sequals rarely live up to any hype and even though they usually create a lot of buzz they generally leave the audience wanting more.   In 2007-2008 Jonathon Towes and Patrick Kane started their careers and had outstanding rookie seasons. Towes had 24 goals and 30 assists in 64 games while Patrick Kane scored 21 goals and 51 assists in 82 games in his rookie of the year campaign.  This was the ground work for the 2010 Stanley Cup returning to Chicago for the first time since 1961!

Youth has returned to the United Center ice and it has been a very exciting two weeks seeing the Andrew Shaw and Jimmy Hayes take to the ice with 100% gusto!  They have done it all! They score, pass, throw their bodies around with little concern for their own good, and they are willing to drop the gloves!  After watching Bickell skate around like he’s at an open skate at Southwest Ice Arena it has been very exciting to see these  guys, that may be playing over their talent level or may still have a higher ceiling, playing hard every shift hitting everything in site and getting rewarded for their efforts!!

TIGER WOODS ENDORSEMENT

The true sign that any player has arrived is something Tiger Woods did to make people think he belonged.  No its not some easy joke about women on the rode (althought Mrs Woods probably had a good slap shot) its how he put a zy or er at the end of another players name! When i heard Coach Q say Shawzy at the press conference after the Sharks game, it became official that Coach likes what the kid brings to the table! Shaw has 5 goals in 8 games with an assist.  Its crazy to think he’s going to keep this scoring up when his best season in the minors was 22 goals last season, but if he continues to get ice time like he did against Buffalo in all situations maybe their will be an onslaught of “Shawzy” jerseys entering the U.C on a nightly basis

Jimmy Hayes hits the ice and every announcer seems to drool over his size and skill set! He has 4 goals and 3 assists in his first 10 games.  He took a penalty the other night when the Buffalo player didn’t want anything to do with him!  Hayes checks and hits and checks again which is what the Hawks were missing at the beginning of the month as the routinely were out hit by large margins.

The one original Young Gun that seems to be struggling is “Kaner”! He has run in to some tough luck with Annti Niemi robbing him Sunday with a top 10 save of the year, but lately it seems that he is battling against cuteness/harlem Globetrotterness instead of shooting he tries to make the Sportscenter highlight pass! Get pucks to the net and good things will happen!!

Until the trading deadline passes the names of the new youth will undoubtly be mentioned because the Hawks need defensive help!  The Hawks stuck to their guns after the Stanley Cup and refused to budge on trading away any of their core young superstars and even though they may bring us a defenseman that can take some heat off Keith and Seabrook, it would be nice to see how these new young guns continue to grow in the Red Sweaters of the Hawks for the rest of this season.

Tonight is the start of back to back games at home versus Florida and then a big road test against a division rival in Nashville!  Ray Emery gets the start tonight.  Will the young guns bring it tonight? We are only a few hours away!!

Lets go Blackhawks!!!