Joel Quenneville Starting To Get Desperate With New Lines

The Chicago Blackhawks were blown out last night at the United Center before a stunned crowd. This is not the Chicago Blackhawks we have come to know and love, and it appears that Head Coach Joel Quenneville is starting to get desperate. His new lines are kind of a mess if you ask me heading into tomorrow night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

Let’s Jump right into it with the tweet sent out from Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times with the lines at this morning’s practice.  You can tell that Coach Q is starting to get a little rattled because the Hawks would never have a practice after a game in years past.  Anyways here are the lines.

The Top line I don’t like because of the simple fact that Vinnie Hinostroza was being highly productive with Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad.  It’s not that I don’t like Anthony Duclair or what he can bring to the team, but Hinostroza in his short time on the top line was creating plays.  In my mind in the short time Duclair has been here, he can make plays with his speed, but overall he needs someone to set him up not be a table setter that Hinostroza was doing.

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The second line with Patrick Sharp on it is a complete stretch, and really a wish that Patrick Kane can drag #10 along for the ride.  Sharp in this stage of his career should be the guy bouncing from the pressbox to the 4th line and has no business on any scoring line right now.  His streaky scoring touch is long gone, and now Kane will have to be a real magician to get this line highly productive.

Ok, the third line I kind of like for a third line.  Artem Anisimov could create a lot of traffic for Alex DeBrincat to get off his sneaky fast shot and find the back of the net.  Ryan Hartman is fine in this role or being the tough guy on the 2nd line, but like his predecessor Andrew Shaw he needs to be productive early in a game to be productive at all.

I guess the bottom line is ok, I still don’t know why Tomas Jurco was called up in the first place, but if he’s here you might as well play him.  I figured Tommy Wingels would be in instead of David Kampf, but I guess they want him on the penalty kill as they groom him to be the next Marcus Kruger. Hopefully this unit will be hungry and fight for every loose puck like Wingels and Lance Bouma have been doing all season long.

Here’s what I have to say about the defensive pairings..  Find a rotation of 6 and stick with them, and Connor Murphy should be in that 6 from now on.  He’s the one guy that’s young and throws his body around and why he was sitting Saturday night is beyond me.  Jan Rutta and Gustav Forsling should never be a pairing again this year.

Like I said earlier, Coach Q will ride the hot hand in net, and while neither goalie looked good last night, Jeff Glass looked better that Anton Forsberg did so it will be Glass in net.

All of this screams desperation! Hopefully something will click tomorrow night!

Next: Is It Time For a New Voice?

What do you think of Coach Q’s changes?