Game Recap: Hawks vs Flames 3/26

I miss it.

I miss when the Hawks were good. When most nights meant fun hockey. Last night was fun and sure, most of those players aren't going to be on this team when the Hawks are good again. But when you have a prospect (that I admittedly was not too high on) put on a good show, you take it. When you have a player score two goals and get to 20 on the season, you take it.

But we have a bit of a long road ahead of us before we get these kinds of games on a nightly basis.

The Hawks played alright while the Flames looked bad. Particularly, the Flames struggled on their transition game as the Hawks took advantage of with a couple of rushes that led to chances. Jacob Markstrom was also quite off tonight. So while the Hawks had things go their way, the Flames also just played bad hockey where it mattered.

Possession-wise, the Flames owned 68.09% of shot attempts at 5v5. Petr Mrazek stopped 40 of 41 shots for a .976 SV% at all strengths. While this might make it look like Mrazek stood on his head (he did), the quality of those Flames shots are actually pretty bad. They took a lot of shots on the perimeter, and this is attributed to the solid defensive work the Hawks played tonight.

Yes. You read that right. The Hawks defense actually looked half-way decent.

Other than that, on to the thoughts.

Thoughts

• That Hawks powerplay that led to their first goal was solid. It was probably their best powerplay of the season, and I find myself saying that every game as of late.
• Landon Slaggert's first NHL point was an assist that launched a beautiful 2-on-1 from Jason Dickinson and Joey Anderson.
• Speaking of Slaggert, he looked great tonight. I'm happy to eat my words when I said that I was a bit skeptical. He had 2 points, 3 shot attempts, 1 shot on goal, and 2 scoring chances.
• Wyatt Kaiser had a bad turnover when he attempted an in-between-the-legs pass in his own zone. I think this was more out of desperation, so I'm not going to hold it against him. When Kaiser was on the ice, the Hawks had a .25 expected goals, which is good.
• Slaggert almost made a fool of Markstrom for what could have been his first goal.
• Dickinson's 20th goal of the season was the result of some wonderful work by Anderson and Slaggert down-low in the slot. You don't always want your F3 to get too low, but in cases like this, it works out.
• For the Flames' lone goal, Mrazek was screened pretty badly. Kaiser could have done a better job at boxing out his opponent.