Weekend Wrap Up: No Shows In Cali

The Blackhawks need to release pregame statements when they just aren’t going to care to save me the time of watching games like Saturday.  It looked like they never shook off the final 10 minutes of the Dallas game on Thursday and carried it into Saturday and Sunday.

They were doomed from the start in LA and never looked like they were into the game.  John Scott should be banned back to the pressbox for his dumb elbowing penalty that lead to the first of 3 Dustin Brown goals.  Dylan Olsen made a bad rookie mistake by getting way out of position and gave Brown way too much room to shoot.

Viktor Stalberg took an equally dumb boarding penalty 8 minutes later that lead to Brown’s second goal.  Marian Hossa had a defensive breakdown when he failed to cover the point after losing the faceoff.  The Blackhawks forwards need to be more aggressive on defense and need to prevent shots from the point on the PK.

Brown made a great play to force a neutral zone turn over that lead to a short handed breakaway goal and a natural hat trick.  I think the Kings should leak trade rumors about Brown every week, it seemed to light a fire under him.  The Kings 4th goal was helped by Michael Frolik getting caught down way to low on the play.  Too many defensive relapses, too many lazy hockey players.  Corey Crawford was pulled after the 4th goal but he was left hung out to dry.  Brown’s 3rd goal is one he could have had, but with no help from his team mates he did as best as he could.

The Blackhawks power play is the world’s most  unfunny joke right now.  It is a momentum killer.  The Hawks caught a big break, after going down 1-0, when Anze Kopitar got called for goalie interference despite never touching Crawford. During this power play Willie Mitchell took a Scott like boarding penalty to give the Hawks a 2 man advantage.  This would have been a huge chance to turn the game around but instead the clown shoes showed up.  It is sucking the life out of this team and I don’t know what should be done anymore.  Can the Blackhawks just decline penalties?

Last night the “Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde Express” rolled into Anaheim for a date with the Ducks.  The Ducks have been one of the hotter teams in hockey as of late and have gotten themselves right back into the playoff race. They are now 17-4-4 since the start of 2012.  Head coach Bruce Boudreau has proven that he was not the problem in Washington.

The Blackhawks dropped their third game in a row with a 3-1 loss.  Yes, Patrick Kane finally got the Hawks a power play goal, their first of February.  Big deal!  The team still played tentative and with no confidence.  You would have thought that goal would have sparked the team the rest of the night, but it didn’t.  The power play unit went right back to it’s normal clown shoe ways.  Too many passes not enough shots.

The shots on goal are a scary stat for me.  The Blackhawks gave up too many and did not take nearly enough.  You can’t give up 38 shots, with your backup goalie in net, and expect to win very often.  The Blackhawks had 10 shots in the first period and managed only 19 for the game.  They had 4 shots on goal in the 3rd period.  They had 2 power plays in the 3rd and still only got off 4 shots.  Where’s the desperation?

We shall see what Stan Bowman decides to do with this team before 2pm today.  I would love to see Bryan Allen and Derrick Roy in the Indian Head today.  I don’t think is going happen. Instead I think we need to get ready for another round of Jaroslav Spacek or Chris Campoli.  Don’t forget to drop in our live trade deadline chat today as the Fansided hockey writers talk all things trades.