Thursday night the Chicago Blackhawks faced the Columbus Blue Jackets and last night they had a visit from Jerome Iginla and the Calgary Flames. Both games went in favor of the Hawks by a tremendous amount of points. Prior to these games Chicago had been on a losing streak and had just come off of being shutout by Halak and the St. Louis Blues.
The Columbus victory was another good display off Chicago depth with 12 different players earning points for their stats. Toews scored 2 goals and Montador scored his first in a Hawks sweater. Kane, Brunette, and Hossa each added to the score sheet and we saw Crawford go 27 for 30. The biggest problem going into this game was the lack of effort in the power play. The Hawks had converted on 2 of 3 opportunities which is a much better number than that past week has seen. Columbus is looking to be the worst team in the league, which was something I never saw coming with the offseason additions of Jeff Carter and James Wisniewski. Mark Letestu was traded earlier this week to Columbus from the Penguins and scored a goal against Chicago. I’m not saying he is the x-factor as Letestu was barely much help for Pittsburgh. Chicago left this game with a score of 6-3.
Last nights game was bit more of a test as Chicago was facing a team that has more than 5 points in the standings. Calgary with a whopping 13 points came to the United Center to take on a Hawks team that was back on course. Chicago came out on top with a score of 4-1. Sharpie added three assists and Keith scored his first goal of the season for Chicago. Stalberg, Kane, and Seabrook also added goals of their own. Emery was in net for this game and played almost perfect. Emery went 24 for 25 shots and is changing my mind on his position as backup goalie. Chicago only did convert on 1 of 4 power plays which begs us to ask if this problem will ever be fixed. But, if these guys can score in 5 on 5 situations than I think it doesn’t matter. Score in some way or another and this team is fine. It just boggles my mind that a team with such an offensive force as Chicago cannot take advantage of having an extra attacker. Also if anybody caught the warmups, Chicago wore authentic camo jerseys for Veterans Day. I know they were for Veterans day, but man did they look god awful.
These two wins helped but were also against 2 of the worst 5 teams in the league. Calgary is a team that never seems to break the playoff picture. They traded away Phaneuf to Toronto and he has proved that by doing that they made a mistake. Iginla deserves to have his name etched onto the cup, but sadly I do not think it can be done if he continues to play on this Calgary team. Chicago is now 10-4-3 and is number 1 in the Western Conference with Dallas trailing by a point. Sunday night Chicago takes on Edmonton which should be a bigger challenge with their young team seeing some success. This is much better proving ground than Calgary and Columbus. Going in hot off of a win streak of 2 games, I think the Hawks will nab the two points here.
