The Blackhawks made quite a splash yesterday afternoon, prior to the game, announcing that they had traded Richard Panik and Laurent Dauphin to the Arizona Coyotes for Anthony Duclair and former Blackhawk Adam Clendening. I can understand Stan Bowman dumping Panik’s salary to clear up some cap space in preparation for the trade deadline. Panik has become a bottom six forward, and just too expensive for that role. It is also pretty clear that the Yotes wanted Dauphin back in their organization, so General Manager John Chayka requested that he was part of this deal while unloading an unwanted asset in Adam Clendening. I have always been curious about Anthony Duclair, though.
Before he was traded to Arizona I thought he might be worth taking a shot on but, silently, thought to myself, “Meh, just another low risk/high reward project that the Hawks won’t want to bother cultivating.” He showed a lot of promise in the 2014-15 World Juniors, and has some blazing speed with a scoring touch. My initial impression is that his delay in development has been between his ears, though. This is the second organization to give up on him, and he is only 22. Lets be completely honest, the Coyotes are not exactly blessed with a plethora of disposable raw talent.
Maybe a more strictly structured organization is what he needs to become a top six NHL regular. I have an open mind, and really hope the Blackhawks can develop him, because he could be an absolute Patrick Sharp-for-Matt Ellison style steal and I’ll be the first to grab that Duclair player shirt.
Do not confuse my open mind with blind optimism, though. Joel Quenneville can absolutely crush young egos into a pile of smoldering ashes so, if he gets off on the wrong foot, he could end up being the next Marko Dano.
Here are Duclair’s career stats:
- Joel Quenneville decided to start Anton Forsberg on the bottom half of this back-to-back which was a bit surprising, based on the love affair of Jeff Glass. I guess he was tired of feeding the meatball beast.
- The “controversy” of the Brent Seabrook goal, was an absolute joke. The NHL should be thoroughly embarrassed at what an absolute circus this whole nonsense has turned into. The fact that a coach can roll back a play over 30 seconds, 43 to be exact, to possibly negate a goal is ludicrous. I have said it before, for a league that prides itself on attempting to increase scoring “for the fans“, they are sure pulling a lot of goals off the board for off-sides calls that have no bearing on the goal. The night before, the Oilers were robbed of a game tying goal the same way, and it is flat out criminal.
- Patrick Kane is playing at another level. He was double shifting all night and dominated puck control most of his shifts, at least early. He might have suffered some fatigue later on, but that will happen to a forward playing
- It might be said that Corey Crawford (or Jeff Glass for that matter) would have definitely resulted in a Blackhawks win, because neither Wild goal was all that good. I beg to question, though, how many break-a-ways and high danger chances did Forsberg face, and stop? I would say they are a wash, or maybe come out in Forsberg’s favor. Quenneville likes to use 5-on-3 power plays to gauge critical moments. His theory being that the result of the 5-on-3 leads heavily into the result of the final score. I am a firm believer that the team that giving up the most break-a-ways (scored or not) loses the game, most nights. This is a indication, albeit primitive, of the quality of defense for a team. It was not even close in this one.
- As I said the previous night, don’t let the power play goals against the lifeless Sens fool you. The power play is far from fixed. The Blackhawks went right back to their normal selves and botched all of their man advantages, Wednesday night. All they needed to do was convert on one, and they get the crucial divisional point.
- The staggering stat from last night’s game was that the Wild “officially” blocked 21 shots in first period alone. I do not see how that can be even remotely possible.
- Marcus Foligno took a penalty for a high hit on Jan Rutta that looked to have rung Rutta’s bell. As a result, the Blackhawks defenseman had to take a trip to the quiet room for a few minutes. Rutta was back shortly thereafter but, after missing time with a concussion recently, we all held our breath for a few moments. I am sure the Department of Player Safety has taken a look at the play, because it was dangerous. Speaking of the Department of Player Safety, if podcasts are your thing, go listen to the episode of the Craig Custance Podcast “The Full 60” with Patrick Burke. You may think twice before tweeting, “You need to take a look at this play” to them.
- I stated this last night, but the NHL website is an embarrassment to pro sports. It constantly locks up, and is extremely buggy. If you were following along last night, this is what the live shift tracker looked like at the start of the second period, and continued until you actually closed the window and started over.
Great job with the website @NHL. Perfect pic.twitter.com/ymhez2Y2FU
— Gatekeeper (@PuckinHostile) January 11, 2018
What kind of professional organization allows their website to perform like this night after night? This example is not just a rare occurrence, either. It happens almost every game I have followed. I will not even get into the mess that the stats portion of the site has turned into. Just goes to show how out of completely ignorant and touch this league is to innovation and technology.