The Morning After… Blackhawks vs. Flyers 3/16

Posted By on March 17, 2016

Three Stars:

  1. Marian Hossa
  2. Jonathon Toews
  3. Patrick Kane

Well, the blender started functioning again. And just when we needed to develop chemistry the most. Let’s get into it.

Last night’s lineup was the oddest amalgamation of hockey talent I’ve ever seen. As a recap, here are the lines players had last night:

Fleischmann-Toews-Kane
Panarin-Anisimov-Hossa
Ladd-Teravainen-Shaw
Mashinter-Desjardins-Weise

Keith-Seabrook
Hjalmarsson-Van Reimsdyk
Ehrhoff-Roszival

Yeah, I know. It’s insane. Some things to take away from last night’s continuation (although be it much smaller and a much better game all around) of our losing streak:

  1. Andrew Ladd and Andrew Shaw should not play together unless centered by Andrew Desjardins. Actually, you know what, I’ve never wanted anything more.
  2. Marian Hossa and Artem Anisimov need to be played together on PK from now on. A shorthanded goal when we’ve had scoring woes? Holy crap these two can be lethal together. That’s not to say that KaneGB needs to be broken up permanently – in fact, Panarin and Kane will always be better together. However, if Kane and Panarin are given to Toews to center and Hossa and Arty get to work off each other, I’m not complaining.
  3. Weise needs more ice time. It’s gonna be a complaint from Bowman soon, and the fact he’s languishing on the fourth with the same ice time as Mashinter says a lot about how Q needs to learn experiences.  \
  4. Roszival and Ehrhoff should never be a pairing when Goose is healthy. It’s wrong not to develop talent, and welcome back to the Coach Q school of relying upon lesser veterans and not developing talent.
  5. Toews scores as soon as Ladd is taken off his wing. Coincidence?
  6. We’re getting better. Any progress is good, especially when we’re on a losing streak. The fact we didn’t allow five goals is a testament to Darling’s play and to the fact that people finally stepped up. We need to get back to the place where our reliables (Shaw, Panarin, Seabrook, Keith, and Kane) are our reliables again. We’re getting closer.
  7. We’ll win again when our power play scores again. We’ve gone from the best to nothing. We can be the best. Just gotta quit the usual March Slump. When everything starts going Mad we get sad.

Time to go back to put the blender on pulse. There must be some combination that wins.