Shark Meat

Table of Contents

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

It’s been a wild week. For me, that is, not the Hawks

I know you’re not here for my life story. You’re here for the Blackhawks. So I’ll spare you the soap opera.

As always, before we move on to Hawks stuff, I’m going to dive into some housekeeping things.

With the All Star break right around the corner, I’m thinking of changing some things around the blog. Mostly some very minor cosmetic stuff.

I’m trying to nail the format for the game recaps. I don’t want to go into too much detail and make this a super long read. But I don’t want to leave anything important out either.

I also want to include weekly updates on what's going on around the NHL. Might add this to the end of the blog.

Weekly News

The Hawks won 2 and lost 1 this week.

It was enough to finally move us out of the 31 spot in the best power ranking on the internet.

But I think we can all agree that we can't wait to get Connor Bedard back on the ice. He can't wait either. He's been skating after practice. The latest is that he will remain in Chicago and his timeline is unchanged. No need to rush him.

Nick Foligno is expected to return soon as he is making the road trip with Chicago. Otherwise, he spent his time recovering doing some CHGO stuff.

Jason Dickinson signed for an extension on Jan. 16. The deal is a 2 year extension at $4.25mil. Certainly an overpay but that's the whole point. The Hawks do have a cap floor to worry about in the offseason.

On the 16th Connor Murphy was placed on IR due to a lower body injury. He may return to the lineup at some point during the trip, along with Tyler Johnson.

Speaking of injuries, Nikita Zaitsev was injured on the 16th against the Sharks. As of right now, he has an unknown timeline with a knee injury. Zaitsev was playing a little decent so it does somewhat suck that he's out. Moreso for him than for the team. He has 2 goals and 5 assists this season.

The Zaitsev injury triggered Louis Crevier to get called up to the NHL again. He only spent 8 days in Rockford, where he belongs for development's sake.

Other than that, not a lot of Hawks-related stuff. Let's get into the games.

Game Recaps

Stats are from Natural Stat Trick. Link for a glossary of terms.

Hawks vs Sharks 1/16
2-1 SO Hawks Win

The first of 3 matchups with our toilet bowl rivals took place on Tuesday night. Both teams walked away from Turd Bowl Tuesday with at least 1 more point in the standings.

With an attendance of 16,401, it was the emptiest game of the season. Fans didn't miss much.

Murphy missed this one as it was announced that he was placed on IR earlier that day.

This game highlighted the Blackhawks' defensive struggles. The Sharks should not have looked as good as they did. And believe you me. Once you see the stats, it really was an uglier game than I thought.

• The Blackhawks scored on a weird bounce 10 min. into the first. Ryan Donato took a shot from the high slot after a faceoff win. Cole Guttman collected the rebound and the goal found its way into the net. It was a powerplay goal too, so there's that.

• The Hawks had some moments where they looked ok in the 1st. They had a particularly decent OZ shift around the 15:15 mark. The Sharks had poor gap control which allowed the Hawks to show us what they can do when they have possession.
• From the 2nd period onwards, the Sharks dominated most of the game. For the 2nd and 3rd periods, the Sharks had 77% of shot attempts (or a .77 CF). Our defense looked particularly bad giving way too much open space in the middle.
• At 5v5 the Sharks had 33 shots on goal to the Hawks' 16. They also had 32 scoring chances to the Hawks 15. The Sharks also had 15 high-danger chances to the Hawks 5.
• We had a scare with Lukas Reichel taking a boarding hit. Guttman immediately went for the jugular and stood up for his teammate.
• Jared Tinordi's fight was pretty badass. However. The moment that led to the fight was a huge no-no. Tinordi did an ill-timed hit that gave the Sharks a great opportunity. The Hawks would benefit more from Phillips making mistakes and learning from them. Yet, here we are with Tinordi somehow in the lineup.
• For the sake of ending on a positive note, the Dickinson line was the strongest. They had a 52.17 CF%

Somehow, we walked away with a win.

Hawks @ Sabres 1/17 1/18
Hawks Lose 3-0

Usually, I'll watch a game when I miss it, as is the case for most of these games this week.

This one didn't make the cut.

It looked like it was a snooze fest and there's not a whole to digest out of this one.

• At 5v5, the Hawks had 23 shot attempts to the Sabres 43. That's a 34.85 CF% which is pretty bad. That means that the Hawks didn't have the puck a lot. And when they did, they only posted a 1.11 expected goals for, meaning they didn't have high-quality shots. Speaking of shots, the Hawks had 9 shots and the Sabres had 18. That's 5v5 and for the whole game.
• Arvid Soderblom finished the night with a .903 SV%. He stopped 28 of 31 shots. Not horrible. The Hawks expected goals against was 1.18 when they ended up giving 3. I can't say this looks to be totally on Soderblom.
• Zach Sanford had the best CF% at 50%. Meaning he was the most impactful player on the ice and a 50 CF% isn't good. He was on the ice for 7 shot attempts for and 7 against.

Anything else I missed?

Hawks vs Islanders 1/19
Hawks win 4-3 OT

I ended up missing this one too but caught the replay. (Why do I do this to myself)

This was a fun game to watch. Or maybe I'm saying that because my brain is complete mush right now because the fancy stats make this look boring. The Hawks even got a coach fired by the end of it.

• Boris Katchouk would tie the game in the second at 1-1. He had a nice breakaway chance and followed it up with a shot from the high slot. Love to see it. Sanford and Reese Johnson get the assists.

• Joey Anderson would get a goal right after. He received a well-timed pass from Colin Blackwell on a 2-on-1. Blackwell and Dickinson get the assists.
• In the 3rd period Dickinson would score off of a give-n-go with Anderson to put the Hawks up 3-1. Anderson and Seth Jones would get the assists. This would be Jones' 100th point as a Blackhawk.
• Jones would score his first goal of the season to end the game in OT.

• While the Hawks dominated the first period, the rest of the game went the Islanders' way. The Hawks had a 57.89 CF% in the first but would finish the game sharing 42.61% of shot attempts.
• Hawks had 24 shots on goal while facing 29.
• The Hawks started with decent offense. However, while they had 7 shots on goal until the Islanders put their first shot on net, the Islanders would score on their first shot of the game.
• I thought the second started well for the Hawks. They ended up giving up steam and the Islanders were looking to make a comeback as they had the puck most of the second period.
• I love seeing Isaak Phillips in the lineup but I think Tinordi just needs to go away. According to Powers' Tweet, the pair have been outscored 8-0.

• Reichel hasn't had a shot on goal in 3 games. I'm pretty patient with not worrying about young players. But this is starting to worry me. The talent is there, he's just in his head. Maybe it's time for a Rockford stint?

Sick Bay

• Taylor Hall – Knee/Out for season
• Andreas Athanasiou – Lower body/week-to-week
• Samuel Savoie – Femur/Out for the season
• Lukas Philp – Achilles/6 months
• Tyler Johnson - Undisclosed/Unknown
• Anthony Beauvillier - Wrist/unknown
• Connor Bedard - Jaw/6-8 weeks
• Nick Foligno - Finger/unknown
• Connor Murphy - Lower Body/day-to-day
• Nikita Zaitsev - Knee/unkown

Week Ahead

• 1/22 @ Canucks 9:00
• 1/24 @ Kraken 9:00
• 1/25 @ Oilers 8:00
• 1/27 @ Flames 9:00

The road trip is taking us out west, which means late games for all of you in Chicago. Foligno is expected to return during the trip and Bedard will be staying behind in Chicago. The Kraken are just off of a 4 game losing streak, they might have hate fuel to end the streak with the Hawks. The Canucks and the Oilers are the two best teams on this trip. The Hawks will either surprise the hockey world with wins or get blown out.

I think the Hawks get one win out of this and that's against the Flames. My source is my gut.

Let's Go Hawks
DirtyThird