[A] New Kids On The Block: Oilers Beat Up Blackhawks 9-2

[Ton]

The face of adversity stared the Blackhawks in the face this weekend in two horrendous losses that would like to be shaken off the minds of fans everywhere. Giving up 14 goals in two games, the defense certainly did not cope well with the loss of Brent Seabrook.



Saturday night, the revolving door of Corey Crawford and Ray Emery in the Blackhawks net couldn't handle the high-octane Oilers who beat them by a touchdown. Although the amount of shots didn't surpass the Blackhawks, the quality of chances certainly has been plentiful lately for opposing teams due to the Blackhawks lack of discipline to play within a system.



The horror story doesn't end there: The Oilers scored four power-play goals, several chances were gifts by the referees including a delay of game penalty given to Bickell at 10:15 of the 2nd period and missed high sticks from the Oilers. Although this is no excuse for the play on the ice, this certainly did no favors to swing the momentum at key points in the game which sent Patrick Kane into a rage after hopping over the bench and obtaining an unsportsmanlike conduct infraction.



The future of the Oilers will be destined for a similar path as the Blackhawks. The young trio of Hall, Nugent-Hopkins and Eberle combined for 12 points of explosive offense that certainly will help them to a Stanley Cup in the next three to five years if they can maintain the team from a management standpoint.



They will hit some bumps and bruises along the way similar to the Blackhawks young core, but eventually the Oilers will be recognized as a Stanley Cup team and will contend for many years. This loss should come as no joke to the Blackhawks, although the Oilers may show flashes of inconsistency now this game was a statement and testament to what we all can look forward to in the future. Lets hope that's not the case. The Blackhawks can learn from this and if they deal with this correctly they'll be able to carry the torch in the Western Conference for many years in the next decade, but those young Oilers will certainly be waiting for their moment.





THE PROBLEM



MAN-TO-MAN: The Blackhawks clearly had no intentions of playing within a system on defense. They ran around their own zone like chickens with their heads cut off chasing the puck from a young team who definitely had the legs to out-skate them.



UNDISCIPLINED PENALTIES: So the referees didn't help the Blackhawks in many ways, but the Blackhawks also did not help themselves. Keith was tagged with a boarding penalty to kick things off and the rest of the team followed suit by adding to the list of bad penalties to take. Kane took a four minute high-sticking along with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, Bolland with a hold and Mayers with a tripping call. All lazy penalties.



PROTECT THE NET: No, it wasn't a lack of physical punishment that was missing from the Blackhawks defense, it was an actual lack of protecting the net from pucks going in. Goaltending was awful and Tom Gilbert was given a free lane to shoot pucks all night.





BLACKHAWKS STARS OF THE GAME



Unfortunately, there are no Blackhawks Stars Of The Game for this debacle... not a single player deserving of even the smallest praise. The Blackhawks will have to mark their calendar on January 2nd for their comeback.



Click here to view the article

 

[roshinaya]

Has there been any info about if Shanaban is going to look at Keith's boarding penalty? I know it didn't result in any injuries, but it seems like it's a thing that you could get a slight suspension for.

 

[Maiden]

Has there been any info about if Shanaban is going to look at Keith's boarding penalty? I know it didn't result in any injuries, but it seems like it's a thing that you could get a slight suspension for.

The problem with Keith's boarding penalty is that Hall turned into the boards (like all these young players have started to do and put themselves in a horrible postition) unexpectedly. Keith anticipated Hall would continue up the boards. Suspension in this case seems unlikely.

 

[LordKOTL]

IMHO Brent Seabrook wouldn't have helped at all. As we all know, this is a team sport that takes a team to win and lose. Unless Seabrook was the lone guy in the locker room that somehow would manage to spark the entire team to start *actually* playing some D, I doubt his presense would have changed the outcome--a loss in which the team, by not playing like a team, deserved to be completely embrarrassed.

 

[Ton]

Well, I'm not sure if we would have won against the Oilers, but that statement was geared more towards the general census that since he has been gone the defense has not played well. IMO, even in the Vancouver game the D was awful, the difference was Crawford. Then of course he (Corey) could not repeat the same performance against the Flames and finally the Oilers steamrolled a bad D with a back-up goaltender.



In this particular loss, I don't think the addition of Seabrook would have turned the game in our favor but it could have helped. The main reasons I think we lost wasn't due to the injury bug, rather the 3 points I placed in "The Problem" part.



Team defense was a huge problem, they ran around all night with no system in place. You can't do that to the Oilers, we are a quick team but they are faster. We learned the hard way.

 

[MassHavoc]

Seabrook being in means Keith isn't playing 30 minutes again which in itself not only helps the team by having Seabs there, but by getting Keith off the ice.

 

[LordKOTL]

Even so, let's say for the sake of the arugment that Seabrook comes on and plays good D, relieves Keith of some minutes and Keith plays good D. You would still have 16 skaters and 2 goalies that played really, really, really shitty D.



My frustration is like a lot of fans; this is not a reason to take a swan dive off of the John Hancock, but we know the team is better than the way they played--especially when they play like a team and not haphazardly like they've done for awhile.

 

[winos5]

I expect a rebound tomorrow night after the consecutive craptacular games. I'm glad the reception (center ice) for the Edmonton game sucked balls, I got frustrated with trying to reload the game constantly and turned the thing off early in the 2nd. If they don't come out with an attitude I'll be disappointed as hell. Then it will be time for the coach/cap[tains to wake up the team in some fashion.