Is Preseason a prelude to regular season?
October 3rd, 2008 by FrankThe Chicago Blackhawks are currently a very solid 4-1-1 in the preseason so far with 2 games left to go. While one should never put too much stock into preseason games, the positives that can come out of it are definitely worth savoring.
Thursday night the Hawks played a heck of a game against the Dallas Stars coming out on top with a 4-3 victory in a shootout. The winning goal was scored by Andrew Ladd in the second round when he put one past Stars goaltender Marty Turco. Anti Niemi was very solid in coal for the Hawks, thus making the potential release, trade, etc of Nikolai Khabibulin looking like a good decision.
Thursday’s game was filled with 141 minutes in penalties which included 5 fighting majors and a good old match penalty to tough guy Ben Eager.
With opening night not too far off, these are the kind of games that the Hawks are going to have to win. This type of game can be a real confidence booster for the young club, and will be something that they can build on. It will be very interesting to see the mental toughness of this group as the season begins, and see how many of the youngsters have actually made some headway in the maturation process.
ESPN predicts a 4th place finish in the Western conference, which I think is a pretty solid pick. This conference is going to be tough, and the battles will be aplenty. If last night is any indication of what the Hawks are capable of doing, then as my tag line says, we will be watching alot of
“Hard Hawk Hockey”.
Thanks for reading.
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