As the regular season for the NHL winds down, I thought I would post something in retrospect. For those of you who don't know I'm a loyal Chicago Blackhawks fan and have been ever since my grandfather introduced me to the game of hockey when I was so young, I don't know how old I was. But the state of the Blackhawks has left something to be desired. We will miss the playoffs again this year and that makes basically a decade out of the postseason (minus the 1st round exit in 01-02 season).So never the less I'm a bit depressed as we've gone 31-40-9 for 71 points (that includes winning these meaning-less last 4 games) and haven't even managed to score 200 goals as a team. It's been a pretty depressing season even though things started out looking up. We acquired Martin Havlat who is a legit 1st line forward we've lacked since the departure of my beloved Tony Amonte. We got Handzus from Philly even though we had to give up Calder. Handzus is the type of player that every team needs, he's a huge, skilled, center who can play against the opponents best line and still manage to score from time to time. But then Handzus went down with a season ending injury (stupid knees) and Havlat got hurt (high ankle sprain) and to make matters worse was Habby followed suit. Anyways a long season, a coaching change, and other things later I feel rather depressed.
Handzus is an unrestricted free agent and we've got gaping holes to fill in our top 6 forwards (we probably truly need 2 more). Our young defense has started to grow together more and that's a plus. I love what I've seen from Seabrook (my new favorite hawk) as he's been physical and played pretty well at both ends of the ice. Plus he's a born leader always sticking up for teammates. Anyways next year with Duncan Keith, Barker, and Seabrook back their we should be ok, even though Aucoin has at best been described as a bust (not the player he used to be on the island). Anyways...
Next year seems bright, Toews seems like a real keeper, Skille's made progress, Bolland's gotten better after getting off to a slow start with Norfolk. Bertram seems to be a gamer (he scored 2 goals tonight for BC in the frozen four). So their does seem to be hope at the end of the tunnel.
Anyways the Chicago Daily Herald is doing a decent series about the state of Hawk Hockey so if your interested check it out...Part one and two are already up...three is still to come...
btw; if you want great hawks hockey commentary and such check out "The 300 Level"
