Prizefight

Hide the women and children.

2500 fine for Weber. Hilarious. Deciding punishment based on the severity of the injury is an unbelievably dangerous precedent to set.

I think they'll pair Toews with Sharp and Stalberg and keep the Kane-Hossa-Brunette line together. Good problems to have either way. We'll probably see both the same game knowing Q

Stalberg has been in beast mode for 20+ games now. Maybe the best game of his NHL career last night. He's earned himself new paper. The 10-16-25 line has been phenomenal. Kruger does all of the little things very well. If he can add a bit more goal scoring flare to his game, he can be a very solid player for the long time. I drool at the thought of 19 returning and our top 6 being 88-19-81 and 10-16-25. Watch out West.

Group A: Jose Bautista Group B: Votto, Longoria Group C: Hosmer, Sandoval, A-Rod Group D: Adam Dunn, Jason Heyward, Ryan Zimmerman, Hanley Ramirez, Colby Rasmus WC: PM'd

Remember this hit from the playoffs last year? Alain Vigneault called it a 'good hockey play' but wants the book thrown at Dunc. I hate everything about that team.

Sedin isn't playing tonight and is flying home to see specialists. I've never thought the league should take the resulting injury into account, but I think they do. Either way, glad it can't be more than five. Under no circumstances should the severity of the injury of the player be taken into account. I agree that the league does and it's frustrating Should be two games for Dunc and the ginger

Phone hearing for Dunc. Means it'll be at most 5

He's definitely a first time offender. The mouth breathers in Vancouver want 10 games. 1-3 wouldn't shock me. Alex Burrows is the biggest piece of [expletive] in all of professional sports. Someone needs to end him. Patrick Kane is quickly becoming my favorite hockey player of all time. His CORSI last night was stupidly good

825k cap hit. A 4th line of Carcillo/Mayers/Shaw doesn't offend me at all

Carcillo extended two years. Fine with this completely depending on the cap hit.

Bryan LaHair NL MVP

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting interview. Who knows if this will translate onto the field, but he sure sounds like he knows what he's doing

The Lynch deal will be a better starting point. He'll want more guaranteed than Lynch and deserves it strictly comparing the two players.

Crawford just seems incredibly fragile. A badish goal early and he's done for the game. He'll lose his confidence and net discipline. Start flopping around and taking horrendous angles. It's become apparent to me as well that the team is losing confidence in him. They can't play the type of style they want to play with no confidence in their goalie. Worst part he, he is still probably the best goalie between Chicago and Rockford with Salak crapping the bed this year

This teams handling on concussions this season is approaching criminal negligence.

man i love khabibulin, but yeah, give me nabokov instead. Why does anybody like Khabi? I'm sure a fair amount of bartenders do.... :-"

Don't get the Nabokov love. He was a headcase like Luongo before being a headcase was cool. Much better off improve the D and forwards than trading for a goalie with what's available. Although, that said, I'd give Colorado a call about Giggy

I think, or at least I'm trying to convince myself, that #2's game is suffering as a result of the ineptness in front of him. I think he feels that he needs to be playing perfect games and take advantage of every opportunity so much so that it's leading to turnovers and mental errors. They obviously need another defender and I wouldn't be the least bit upset if they did. Because Q has decided that Lepisto is worse than Scott and not even worth an extended look. But these defensemen would look a lot better and play much more relaxed if the forwards on this team were consistently doing their jobs. There's a lot more to it, but 2 years ago, this team allowed an NHL best 25 shots a game on goal. So it was fine for them to have a very middle of the pack goalie performance (90% sv %) since they just weren't allowing that many shots. Last year, the shots per game increased by around 4 while the goaltending stayed more or less the same and we started to see some decline. This year, they are allowing almost 30 shots per game, 5 worse than the cup year. And while much hand wringing has been made about the goal tending, the save % is at .899% which isn't so drastically worse than even the year they won the cup. Clearly neither Crawford nor Emery have stolen any games for us this year, I think a case can be made that the crux of the problem is the 5 guys on ice in front of them. Their forwards. Wow. Some truly atrocious defensive play from these guys. Watch a few replays from last night and you'll see how many times all 3 forwards are caught deep with a defender pinching. ONE of those forwards HAS to stay back. It's hockey 101 and they aren't capable of doing it on a consistent basis. That cup winning team obviously won on puck possession. But they were just as good without it. Guys like Madden, Ladd, hell even Versteeg were great without the puck and relentlessly backchecked. The crop of borderline AHL guys, either due to talent or age, they have making up lines 3 and 4 just can't cut it. Also, there's plenty of blame to go to Q, again, for making zero adjustments last night. Same odd man rushes from the 1st through the 3rd. Same Hawk strategy all night. Toews is hurt a lot more than we are being told. I'm sure no reporter will ask about it though. He's been invisible(by his standards) and careless with the puck. TL:DR. The problems are much deeper than our goaltending and d-men. It's just as much on our forwards as well

Yes, and probably 8 of the best players on that team are still here. Right, but every good team has a solid core like the Hawks have. It's not unique to have two stacked forward lines and a top flight D pairing. And the Hawks STILL don't have a 2nd line center. What made that cup team special is they had a future captain in Ladd playing 3rd and 4th line minutes. Versteeg skated with the third most of the year. Both of those guys are very effective defensive forwards. When Buff actually tried, he was fantastic. Brian Campbell continues to be under appreciated for what he brought to this team. Madden was the vet grinder type that helped so much. Hell, even Burrish and especially Eager weren't quite appreciate enough. Guys who had a bit of a nasty streak, but especially w/ Eager, actually have a bit of hockey talent The guys they've tried to plug into these holes the past couple years haven't even come close. Frolik I'm done with. Same with Bickell. Mayers is just a guy, but would probably be fine playing a 4th line wing. John Scott is an empty uniform. Thankfully, there's a LOT of talent in the pipeline and some salary cap room to work with.

They are a cup contender. There hasn't been one team in the West who I don't think they could beat in a 7 games series. Well, maybe Edmonton #-o I think in 10 years, people will look back and the cup winning team will go down as one of, if not the best, teams in this new salary cap era. Absolutely ridiculous depth and forwards who played tenacious defense with goal scoring capabilities.

He's a hockey example of an average player who played out his mind for one season ala Tony Womack or other such Cardinal over the last 8 or so seasons. A bit (large) overstatement. He still shows flashes of the Norris winning player. For long stretches this year. It really is this simple. Stan didn't think the Hawks could win the cup this year. Look at the amount of aging veterans he signed to 1 year deals. He signed a lot of fillers until the kids in Rockford are ready to come here and contribute. After this season, Brunette, Morrison, Carcillo, Mayers, O'Donnell, Lepisto, Scott and Emery are ALL off the books. Much of those guys are going to be filled by the Hayes', Morins etc of the world. He thought they were a year or two away from being a legitimate cup contender, and he's obviously right. The Hawks racked up a ton of points on a very easy early season schedule and will be falling back as this season continues. This is still a playoff team, and a potentially dangerous one. Any team with Toews, Hossa, Kane, Sharp is one you don't want to take lightly. However, the holes defensively and offensively (even more so I would argue) are apparent. It's important to remember that things aren't as bad as they looked last night just as they aren't as good as they looked when they routed Vancouver in Vancouver earlier this year.

Bolland apparently isn't really healthy, which then leads thhttp://www.northsidebaseball.com/forum/search.php?search_id=newpostse question to has he ever been healthy? He's still a young guy to have a constant stream of injuries. I'm sure some of the inconsistencies in his game are a result of the shuffling/bad wingers around him. But he just looks indifferent most of the time. What's most frustrating is how crucial he was to that Stanley Cup run. I'm not ready to give up on him, but I think Stan really needs to evaluate what type of player he needs around him to make him effect. As an aside, I really miss Brian Campbell.

Could have been much worse. Kruger is skating again, although I haven't heard if he's cleared for contact, this team needs him back as soon as it's safe for him to be. I'm getting really sick of Dave Bolland. Leddy still making young player mistakes. Hammer maddeningly inconsistent. F Bickell

7 games is less than I thought he'd get/deserved.