It’s the Captain’s 900th game! whoa! doesn’t that sound like a hell of a long time playin? Time is relative and the Doaner can get just as frisky as if it was his first game all over again… And he will have to if the Yotes want any chance to come out of this game with badly needed points. I fear we are in another year of ‘how goes our captain, goes our team’. Look at the games so far this season, when Shane is ON, the team creates magic. When Shane isn’t ON, the team is lethargic and moribund.
We’ll most likely be missing the services of Daniel The Beast Winnik due to gettin hit during Monday’s practice (thnx for the heads up EmmBee)
Daniel Carcillo-Olli Jokinen-Peter Mueller
Kyle Turris-Steven Reinprecht-Shane Doan
Kevin Porter-Martin Hanzal-Mikkel Boedker
Todd Fedoruk-Viktor Tikhonov-Brian McGrattan
Jovo-Morris
Michalek-Sauer
Yandle-Klee
Bryzgalov
Tellqvist
*no definitive word on whether we see Telly or Breezy
The Blackhawks have a decent offensive team again this year. They are however still having problems with their netminders… But freakin Khabibulin continues to outplay Huet and given that he knows waaay too much about our boys after practicing with them in the unofficial summer camp, thats who we’ll be facing again tonight.
The Hawks are sitting on a 7-4-5 record right now. The new coach is playin hard ball (play hard or ride the pine, no matter who you are). Both teams are ridin losing streaks. The Yotes are 8-8-0 (what is it w/ us that we can’t nab some of these xtra points in losses?) Neither team is sporting significant injuries this time around.
The crash and bang, speed and burn game the Yotes have been having success with better be at peak condition tonight. We roll 4 lines but one of them has the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell of scoring. We run short shifts to keep the energy and speed at righteously scary levels (but our vets are going to have to dredge up whatever they’ve been conserving and match the kid’s energy).
The Hawks have just as much youth and speed as the Yotes with an added advantage of Toews back in action after a very slow start to the year. Look for the bruiser squad of Burrish and Eager, pretty nasty customers, who will probably try to keep things very physical since it seemed to work well last game.
Looks like Chitown will be rollin
Versteeg-Toews-Kane
Havlat-Sharp-Byfuglien
Ladd-Bolland-Skille
Eager-Burish-Adams
Keith-Seabrook
Johnson-Campbell
Hendry-Sopel
Khabibulin
Keys to the game?
Speed, simplicity and tenacity as always…we have to be faster and nastier from end to end. No loose pucks and nothing too fancy. Just get to the pucks!!! (if you don’t get there first, at least make sure you end up w/ the damn thing on your stick) and shoot the damn thing on net (sounds so simple doesn’t it?)
Physicality – we better bang and crash harder than these guys do. They’re once again on a losing streak, on a road trip and none too happy about their current position, Brian McGrattan, you been talkin a good game… how bout walkin the walk now set the tone early.
Start Telly – no really Wayne… start Telly. You been ridin Bryz like a government mule, its time to rest him up b4 we go out on the 4 game road trip anyway…and for some reason the boy can’t wrap his head around this team. So kill a bunch of birds w/ one stone… start Telly.
STAY OUT OF THE BOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
