Hawks Weekly Update 3/4: Quiet Trade Deadline Looms, Hawks Play Awful Hockey

I have good news.

The trade deadline is this week.

There's nothing to look forward to as a Hawks fan for this year's deadline. BUT. What does that mean for you? The regular season is almost over.

First, some housekeeping items.

I'm once again flip-flopping over to Twitter for social media. I'm keeping @eth_blackhawks_blog on Instagram open for now, but don't expect a lot of posts from me. My other page, @blackhawks_history is still very active.

I'm thinking of writing some Blackhawks history stuff on here over the summer when news is slow. We'll see.

• Weekly Updates
• Game Recaps
• Week Ahead
• Sick Bay

Weekly Updates

It's been another quiet news week.

Connor Bedard was talking about touching Nathan MacKinnon's stick.

Andreas Athanasiou is expected to return sometime soon. The last time AA played was Nov. 9 against Tampa Bay. That was also the last time the Hawks won a game on the road. Athanasiou apparently hurt his leg in training camp and tried to play through it. It makes sense as to why he wasn't producing at the level we expected him to.

His absence wasn't noticed as much as Taylor Hall's or Corey Perry's (mostly because of the drama), but I am a believer that AA's absense played an impact on the Hawks' lack of offensive production.

The trade deadline is this week March 8. Don't expect the Hawks to make a lot of moves, if any. I wrote about what to expect here.

Bedard has been the target of some dirty plays that are seemingly going uncalled. This raises the question of why isn't there anyone stepping up? Does Kyle Davidson need to sign a tough-guy to protect Bedard (not that there's any upcoming free agents that fit that mold).

Other than that, not a lot happening in Hawks-land.

Game Recaps

The Hawks only played two games in the past week. One was an understandable blow-out to the Avalanche, the other... well, I'll talk about the Columbus game in a bit.

2/29 Hawks vs Avalanche - Hawks Lose 5-0
Recap can be found here.

3/2 Hawks vs Blue Jackets - Hawks Lose 5-2

I'm not doing a full-on recap of this game. It was so bad that there's not a whole lot to get into. Also, I didn't catch this game because I was doing life things.

The Hawks lost their 6th straight to a 29th place Blue Jackets. And they lost in ugly fashion.

One goal I want to point out is Alexandre Texier's goal 30 seconds into the game. Seth Jones started what was to become a night full of mishaps.

What's frustrating about this loss isn't the fact that it's a loss. It's how this team played. We've seen this team put up a competitive fight even during hopeless games. To see this Hawks team simply give up against a team that's a lot closer to their skill level is... well, it sucks.

We got the memo of the tank plan since last season. I've beaten that dead horse just as much as anyone else. It just really sucks having a performance this bad. I thought watching this team last season was bad enough, I didn't expect this level of turd play this season.

That one's not just on Kevin Korchinski, by the way. Alex Vlasic didn't do an awesome job of paying attention to what was going on either.

What has me worried is the whole "culture/identity" thing.

The only player that seems to be bothered by the losses is Bedard. The last thing we want are players comfortable with losing. Sure, in the grand scheme of things these games don't matter. Fans shouldn't put too much emotional investment in these games. But the plays need to.

That leads me to Richardson.

There are some on the internet (message boards and Reddit) who are putting the blame on Richardson.

I'm still not convinced we can criticize his coaching until he has a roster that he can work with. As far as culture and all that, we do see his impact in a positive way when the Hawks play competitively.

Hell, we saw it last year when this team was really in the running for the Bedard sweepstakes.

Now, I don't think Richardson is the guy when this team is ready to make a run for the cup. But I do think he's doing a fine job. There are others on the coaching staff that I might have my eyebrows raised at and I do think this whole "identity" thing is on the players.

We'll see what happens next season, and just a heads up. I really don't think it's going to be much better than this.

Week Ahead

• @ Avalanche 3/4 @ 8:00pm CT
• @ Coytes 3/5 @ 8:00pm CT
• @ Capitals 3/9 @ 6:00pm CT
• vs Coyotes 3/10 @ 6:00pm CT

The Hawks have 4 games this week.

Tonight, they take on the Colorado Avalanche. I won't be expecting a win. However, I will be expecting some sort of fire from this team after Bedard was pushed around in their last meetup. The Avs are still in third in the Central with 79 points. Their last game was on Saturday when they got spanked by a hot Preds team, 5-1.

Tuesday, the Hawks go down to the desert to take on a miserable Coyotes team. They are good for 2-7-1 in their last 10 games. After going through a 14 game losing streak, they have bounced back a little bit. They beat the Senators 5-2 on Friday and the Capitals 5-2. Expecting this one to be an L for the Hawks. It seems like the Coyotes may be regressing towards the mean after all of that losing and the Hawks don't exactly have the best track record against bad teams.

On Saturday, the Hawks swing all the way to the East Coast to take on a struggling Capitals team. As of Monday, the Caps are 5-3-2 and have Ovechkin heating up a little bit. Either way, I have a feeling in my gut that this may be the lone win of the week. Athanasiou is expected to be back and the road-losing-streak can't last forever.

Sunday the Hawks are back home to play the Coyotes again. I can't really predict how this one will go. I think it all depends on how the Hawks play against them on Tuesday.

Sick Bay

• Taylor Hall – Knee/Out for season
• Andreas Athanasiou – Lower body/week-to-week
• Connor Murphy - Lower Body/day-to-day
• Nikita Zaitsev - Knee/unkown
• Lukas Philp – Undisclosed/unknown

Go Hawks...