Feathers to the Wall

So it's come down to this. Down 3 games to 1 against the defending Stanley Cup Champions.

Lovely.

As a Hawks fan, I start to wonder about what kind of effort the young, resilient team will put forth tonight, with Red Wings' forward Pavel Datsyuk and blueliner (and probably the best of this era) Nicklas Lidstrom once again not expected to play tonight.

It probably can't get much worse than the effort they put forth on Sunday.

I was reading a blog yesterday, that probably hit the nail perfectly on its head when analyzing what happened in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals in Chicago. To summarize: Young, inexperienced team, playing with a vendetta, lost complete control of the game.

It's that simple.

It all started when Detroit's Niklas Kronwall dealt out a hit (and a great, clean, hockey hit) on Martin Havlat in the first period of Game 3, sending him into the fourth dimension. Kronwall received a 5 minute major for the hit, which neither referee seemed to have called in the normal run of the play. With the Wings down already down 2-0, the Hawks had a chance to put them away, but failed to score on the powerplay.

Luckily for the Hawks, they found the third goal early in the second period, but then something happened.

For those of us that watched the game, we saw what ensued. The young Hawks played like scared young boys, while the verteran champion Red Wings came back from a three-goal defecit to tie the game before the end of the second frame.

Much to everyone's surprise (and to my fear), backup goalie Cristobal Huet entered the game for the Hawks to replace Nikolai Khabibulin due to a reported lower body injury. The third period was quite dry, with neither team doing much of anything, an the game was headed to overtime for the second consecutive game in the series.

Fortunately for the Hawks, on a play where Lidstrom broke his stick while checking Chicago forward Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp found the OT winning goal to claim Game 3, keeping the series well in reach, and sending the United Centre into a frenzy.

Post game comments were dominated by the Kronwall hit, and the status of Havlat and Khabibulin, and from the comments made by Chicago Head Coach Joel Quenneville, it wa apaprent that the Hawks had the wrong opinion on the hit.

The attitude was that the hit was dirty, that Kronwall was taking a 'run' at Havlat. The message was that every check on Kronwall in Game 4 would be finished, and that he would pay for what he did to Havlat.

Wrong.

The fact is that the hit was clean, and they should have viewed it as a 5 minute gift from the officials. Instead, the kids got scared, and were fortunate to have not blown that game as well.

It was more than apparent that the Hawks took the ice on Sunday in Game 4 looking for revenge, but it was not the time or the place to bring a vendetta with them onto the ice. That kind of thing should be reserved for next season, in a regular season game.

Not in the biggest game of the Western Conference Finals.

The rest is history.

I could start talking about how that $12 million the Hawks spent on Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet was a mistake (and it showed in Game 4) and make excuses for a team that was so concerned about making excuses throughout the entire duration of that game (including the Coach, as evidenced by his post game comments which got him fined $10,000 by the league), but I wont. They don't need another person making excuses for them.

Now, they face an uphill battle, with no room for error, against a defending Stanley Cup champion that boasts a lineup full of stars.

As a fan, you can only cheer and hope for the best and believe that they have learned their lesson from the mistakes they made in Game 4, which boiled over from the minute Kronwall flattened Havlat in Game 3.

It's a formidable task, but not an impossible one.

I really hope that I don't have to dress for a funeral tomorrow.



Mr. Monday Night