All Entries Tagged With: "Jonathan Toews"
Chicago Two Months On: Doctor Jekyll & Mister Hawks
December dawns, and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks have, if their recent record can serve as evidence, found firm footing. After staggering through the first half of November going 2-4-1, they scorched through the next two weeks at 5-2-0 (though their loss in Calgary was, to pardon the expression, a flame-out). Evaluating their status at the quarter pole, this column suggested, “If the Hawks can find strength in their recent adversity, and come back from their road trip with a solid harvest of points, December will look a whole lot better.” They did, and it does.
Predators Win Second in a Row With a 4-3 SO Win Over Chicago
When a team endures a losing streak, one of two things can happen. They can hang their heads and limp along; or the losses can be extremely clarifying, causing a team to focus on what it takes to win games and get back to those fundamentals. For the Nashville Predators, the latter has occurred, as [...]
Weekly Fantasy: The Magical Fourth Year
Last season I looked at some players that had great season because they were entering their magical fourth year in the NHL Anze Kopitar’s Torrid Start And The Magical Fourth Season . Let’s have a look at how five of these fourth-year players fared in comparison to the previous year. Dustin Penner, Edmonton Penner finished [...]
Luongo Steps Down; Why Kesler is Right Captain for Canucks’ Cup Chase
After a summer’s worth of speculation, pushed back meetings and enough twitter debate to make your fingers ache, the “Captain in the Crease” era is over in Vancouver.
Who should be the next Sharks Captain?
Rob Blake served as San Jose Sharks captain for just one season before retiring. Now the keys to the car are available for the second straight off-season. The question is who takes over? The importance of the little “C” that’s patched to a players sweater is debatable. There’s evidence of a team’s captain being completely [...]
Blog Watch: Quick Hits to Close out Your Weekend
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I hope that you all had a terrific weekend and are all refreshed for the week ahead. To close out the weekend, I figured I would give you folks some hockey blogs to check out before shutting your eyes and dreaming about the upcoming hockey season. Enjoy: The Hockey Guys: [...]
Tonight The Bruins Will Pick…
It’s hard to contest that the Boston Bruins have had a draft pick as important as this one since 1997 when the club selected center and future Art Ross winner (albeit not completely with Boston) Joe Thornton with the first overall pick. Now, 13 years later, the B’s find themselves in possession of the NHL’s [...]
Bittersweet: Passing the Cup to a new but worthy champion
One week has elapsed since the end of the 2009-10 NHL season. Watching last Wednesday evening’s proceedings at Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, I was reminded once again that one of sport’s most magical, frozen moments is when the captain of the newly crowned champions raises the Stanley Cup over his head. As 22-year old Jonathan Toews lifted [...]
Don’t feel guilty cheering for Chicago and Hossa, Pens’ fans
This time of year is never easy for a hockey fan whose favourite team has already been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs. It is doubly difficult as a supporter of the Penguins to watch the action after having a rooting interest in the past two Finals and knowing that the championship belt, already taken away, will [...]
Richards vs. Toews: Stanley Cup’s historic matchup
Both are one the best captains in the NHL, two of the top stars in the entire league, were linemates in the 2010 Olympics for the Gold medal winning team Canada. They are the Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews and Flyers’ Mike Richards. Of all the interesting matchups leading into Saturday nights game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals, Richards vs. Toews is probably the most anticipated. [...]
What Went Wrong: Analyzing Luongo, Questioning Character and What Needs to Change
IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. The Vancouver Canucks 2010 season has been a tale of two teams, and unfortunately for the Canucks their regular season performance was far superior in comparison to their playoff success.
BATTLE STATIONS: BLACKHAWKS-SHARKS WCF ’10
When Troy Brouwer scored the first goal of the Blackhawks’ 5-1 series clincher, he put the game of hockey in perspective. With his father recovering from surgery to alleviate a blood clot in his brain, Brouwer showed courage, coming back from his absence while he stayed with his father, and getting his game in focus. “It feels great,” he said. “Sitting out those couple games gave me a little bit of perspective and thankfully the coaches stuck with me. I didn’t want to disappoint them or the team or my dad.” Now the perspective switches to the Hawks’ second consecutive WCF and a first playoff meeting ever with San Jose.
This Conference Final brings together the number one and number two Western powers, whose final standings were separated by a single point. Tough to imagine two clubs more evenly matched.
The history between the Hawks and Sharks, then, is limited to their regular season contests, though there are some interesting relationships.
Never Say Die – Canucks Set to Battle Blackhawks; Extend Series at GM Place
The Canucks had no choice but to step up and prove their critics wrong, after talking about all the right things throughout the playoff series against the Blackhawks, the Vancouver Canucks executed their game plan to perfection, jumping on the favoured Blackhawks early and often on Sunday. After Brent Seabrook’s early wrist shot surprised Roberto [...]
Playoff Chokers advance to Conference Finals
The San Jose Sharks are entering uncharted waters. They’ve only been to the Western Conference Finals once in the franchises history. Try telling them that. After years of watching the team look like fish out of water, Sharks’ fans are pinching themselves trying to let the thought of this team advancing past two rounds register. [...]
De Ja Vu; Canucks Look to Avoid Elimination at Hands of Blackhawks Inside the Madhouse on Madison
The Canucks’ have shot themselves in the foot so many times this series, it is simply not possible for them to collectively harm themselves again, their metaphorical feet have already been blown right the [Gretzky] off.
Luongo, Kesler Lead Confident Canucks into War with the Blackhawks
After Vancouver’s impressive game one performance, the Canucks and Blackhawk’s continued the series trend of dominating visiting team victories as the Blackhawks manhandled the Canucks on Wednesday night at GM Place. The Blackhawks used their playoff specific game plan to simply outwork, outhustle and outwit the Canucks in game three. Chicago’s ability to force pucks [...]
Get Your Towels Ready; Canucks and ‘Hawks Take the Series to Vancouver
There comes a time in every young man’s life when he must make a very important decision, free tickets or day to day responsibilities? As hockey fans, you will all understand that the right choice is of course, the tickets. With that in mind, I apologize for the light article today; I’m busy racing to [...]
Canucks Look to Build on “Embarrassing” Game Two for Blackhawks
With a bad taste in their mouth that has lasted with them for a whole season, The Vancouver Canucks returned to the Madhouse on Madison determined to silence the crowd after being run out of the building in last year’s crushing season ending defeat. After a tense opening ten minutes, the Canucks got to work [...]
A Fight for Revenge; Canucks and Blackhawks Set for Battle in Conference Semi-Final Rematch
After a frustrating and at times scary series against the Los Angeles Kings, the Vancouver Canucks have once again emerged out of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with hopes of making the next step by advancing to the Western Conference Final for the first time since 1994. While the young and talented [...]
THE NARROW MARGIN: BLACKHAWKS-CANUCKS’ GRUDGE MATCH 2010
“Whenever you can win a playoff series, it feels good. I don’t know who said it was going to be an easy series or we were going to get upset. It was two teams that played hard going back to the regular season. It was a very tough series. I give them a lot of credit. It could have really gone either way.”
This was Patrick Sharp’s summary of the series against the Predators, but it could have been a preview of the rematch between the Blackhawks and the Vancouver Canucks. The ingredients for a classic combat are there. Two talented teams with a history of hate; two teams who match up in a variety of areas; two teams who have been anointed as legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup.
