Hawks Weekly Update: 2/12 - Losing is my business... and business is good
Blackhawks hockey is back. Not a whole lot has changed since the All-Star break. All of your Blackhawks weekly updates are down below. First, a couple of housekeeping items.
Working through improving the look of the website. Removed the cover pictures because they take up so much space on each post. It's the way this "theme" works for the blogging platform I use.
I'm also working on improving the game recaps. Trying to incorporate some tables to make digesting information easier.
A reminder about my new Instagram page @blackhawks_history and the page for the blog itself, @eatthehatchet_blog.
With that being said, let's get into the previous week.
- Weekly Updates
- Game Recaps
- Week Ahead
- Sick Bay
Weekly Updates
This week we saw Tyler Johnson return to the lineup on Feb. 7 against the Wild. His presence was missed because the Hawks have zero offensive punch at the moment. I anticipate that Johnson will be traded before or at the deadline. Don't hold your breath. He won't fetch much as he missed a lot of games. I'm thinking around a 5th rounder.
Louis Crevier was also called back up to the lineup after having been sent down to Rockford at the start of the All-Star break. He suited up for only one game which was on Feb. 9 against the Rangers.
The biggest news of the week was the announcement that the Blackhawks would be hosting the 2025 Winter Classic. Connor Bedard made the official announcement on TNT during the Feb 7 game. The outdoor game will take place at Wrigley Field against the St. Louis Blues.
This will be their 7th outdoor game with a record of 1-5-0 (not that that matters). Hockey fans who aren't Hawks fans are upset that the Hawks get another outdoor game. I'll take it. I do think waiting one more season would have been better, however. The Hawks are still going to be pretty bad next year and the Blues aren't going to be a good team.
The NHL kind of had their hands tied. This year's Winter Classic had its lowest ratings. Putting the next face of the NHL in an outdoor game on national television is their solution. The NHL will also be competing with college football, which makes things more difficult in terms of ratings.
Jared Tinordi is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. He did not play in the game against the Rangers.
Game Recaps
Glossary for stats and terms can be found here.
The Hawks only had two games this past week. Both were L's.
Feb 7. vs Wild
2-1 Hawks Lose
| CF | CA | CF% | SF | SA | GF | GA | GF% | xGF | xGA | xGF% | SCF | SCA | SCF% | HDCF | HDCA | HDCF% | HDGF | HDGA | HDGF% | HDSH% | HDSV% | SH% | SV% |
| 40 | 43 | 48.19 | 17 | 19 | 1 | 2 | 33.33 | 1.48 | 2.49 | 37.19 | 16 | 26 | 38.1 | 6 | 15 | 28.57 | 1 | 1 | 50 | 25 | 90.91 | 5.88 | 89.47 |
Nick Foligno scored the lone goal for the Hawks after an awesome Philipp Kurashev play. The first period was particularly brutal as the Hawks only put up 1 shot on goal the whole 20 minutes.
NICK AT NITE pic.twitter.com/F0I4s8LhhQ
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) February 8, 2024
Speaking of Foligno, both Nick and brother Marcus scored in this one. Marcus Foligno also had a nice fight against Jared Tinordi. The fight was awesome, but it was ill-timed. As soon as Tinordi initiated the fight, the Hawks were in the middle of a nice rush.
Feb. 9 vs Rangers
4-3 OT Hawks Lose
| CF | CA | CF% | SF | SA | GF | GA | GF% | xGF | xGA | xGF% | SCF | SCA | SCF% | HDCF | HDCA | HDCF% | HDGF | HDGA | HDGF% | HDSH% | HDSV% | SH% | SV% |
| 47 | 38 | 55.29 | 27 | 25 | 2 | 3 | 40 | 2.55 | 1.92 | 57.11 | 25 | 24 | 51.02 | 11 | 10 | 52.38 | 1 | 2 | 33.33 | 11.11 | 75 | 7.41 | 88 |
This game marked the 6th loss in a row for the Hawks. At least they walked away with a point after taking the game to overtime.
Alex Vlasic got his 2nd goal of the season and he had a pretty decent defensive game again.
this Vlasic goal is dill-lightful 😁 pic.twitter.com/EQGvzjqITV
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) February 10, 2024
Foligno would score with 6:23 to go. A few minutes after, with the goalie pulled, Seth Jones would take a nice point shot which was deflected by Jason Dickinson to tie the game.
Lukas Reichel had some small flashes again, but he was mostly quiet. He only skated 6:58 of 5v5 icetime.
It's nice to see the players skate with heart, which can be attributed to Luke Richardson's coaching. It's reminiscent of last years games, but no amount of heart can make up for the lack of scoring. (Bedard, please come back).
Also, let's not forget this circus show of a sequence...
New York goal!
— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) February 10, 2024
Scored by Chris Kreider with 13:44 remaining in the 1st period.
Assisted by Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren.
Chicago: 1
New York: 2#NYRvsCHI #Blackhawks #NYR pic.twitter.com/DjZgYt5o1i
Week Ahead
- vs Canucks 2/13 @ 7:30pm CT
- vs Penguins 2/15 @ 7:30pm CT
- vs Senators 2/17 @ 2:00pm CT
The Hawks have a tough game on Tuesday against the Canucks. Who knows, maybe the Hawks do that weird thing where they beat a really good team.
The other two opponents are a dying Penguins team and the Senators. The Hawks, theoretically, should be able to fair better against these two. However, the Hawks have been blown out by bad teams more than once already.
Sick Bay
- Taylor Hall – Knee/Out for season
- Andreas Athanasiou – Lower body/week-to-week
- Lukas Philp – Achilles/6 months
- Anthony Beauvillier - Wrist/unknown
- Connor Bedard - Jaw/6-8 weeks
- Connor Murphy - Lower Body/day-to-day
- Nikita Zaitsev - Knee/unkown
- Jared Tinordi - Lower Body/Day-to-day
- Tinordi was scratched on the Feb. 9th game due to a lower body injury.
Until next week.
Let's Go Hawks.