I decided to wait until this morning to post my thoughts on this one. It didn't help. Eager/Janssen: I reckon they picked up on TV the ref jumping in and telling before the faceoff not to go. Given that Eager obviously wasn't interesting, Janssen should have gotten a penalty for instigating. After that shift and even when the next period started, Eager was yelling at someone on the Blues bench. I didn't see any Blues player yelling back at him. I think it was one of their coaches. Whatever it was, it was pretty heated. Honestly, the way the Hawks were playing, Eager probably should've thrown down. The team needed a spark, and he needed to take the risk that Janssen would kick his ass. Again. His later fight against Winchester (I think) was a solid effort. For that matter, Walker made a good showing in his fight :30 into the game. The guy sitting next to me said he was surprised Crombeen went with him. I see why. Kane: Cyno, I went back and read your comments during the game, and I totally agree. The guy was pretty gutless last night. I know it's not his game to take the body, but on at least three occasions I saw him approach a Blues player on the boards. Rather than hit him, he skates by and jabs at the puck with his stick, trying to move it forward. It didn't work each time, and the Blues were able to keep the puck in the zone. He also didn't seem to carry the puck with any conviction, being taken right off several times. Refs: Oh dear. First of all, at the end of the 2nd, which led to the 4-on-3 that the Blues scored on (I think), the Hawks player put a clean hit on someone. I can't remember who they were. Then Backes came in and mugged him badly. Obviously the Hawks had to retaliate. And Backes didn't even get a freaking penalty! There wouldn't have been any funny stuff if not for him, and we're the ones who ended up shorthanded. Unbelievable. The rest of the night, the refs called the game a bit too tight for a low-scoring game. Overall, the guys just looked slow. Old Man Ladd looked particularly slow. Havlat didn't have any jump, and even Keith looked shaky. Aaron Johnson looked like he didn't belong on the ice. I shudder to think what the guys are going to have left in the tank tonight. I know we've talked about the ridiculous road trip before, but how about the swift kick in the balls of having to play a back-to-back to finish it up. Hopefully they will feed off the home crowd tonight. Speaking of crowds, there were far fewer Hawks fans there last night than the last game here. But that one was a Saturday night. And we didn't really have anything to cheer about. The people around me were cool and surprisingly I didn't get any crap from anyone when we were leaving. I was prepared to say something about enjoying watching us in the playoffs. Let's go get 'em tonight.