March 26, 2009 Stop worrying, Hawks fans TFP Columnist
Josh Mora has a message for Blackhawks fans: Chillax!
CHICAGO, IL -- It's been entertaining
over the past couple weeks watching the Blackhawks' various message
boards, and absorbing the catcalls from the cheap seats, as fans threw
a few high elbows rushing to jump off the bandwagon.
With no recent history of success
from their team, their fears are, in a way, understandable, if not
entirely rational or justifiable. I'm here to tell you, it's all going
to be okay.
The Hawks entered the homestretch staring down the barrel of perhaps
their toughest sequence of opponents in a row, only just barely
removed from their worst stretch of hockey of the season. Following
home games with San Jose and New Jersey, they would have a pre-playoff
battle with possible post-season opponent Vancouver, then close the
season entirely with 7 games entirely within the central division
rivals, all of whom still presently harbor playoff aspirations. On the
surface, that isn't exactly the math that adds up to a team play its
way out of a funk.
The interesting thing to explore is how a team gets into a funk in the
first place. The Hawks' slide seemed to start after their long road
stretch when they played 11 out of 12 on the road, winning nine of
those 12 games. Their first subsequent home game, they smashed
Minnesota, only to be stoned by Josh Harding and overruled in a poor
decision by replay officials in Toronto in a 2-1 loss. Next time out,
they blew a 3-1 3rd period lead in Nashville with a string of bad
penalties and shaky goaltending. Four weeks later, doubt had
supplanted confidence in the minds of the young Hawks, and one of the
most consistent teams in the NHL had suffered through its worst month
of the season.
Or how to explain Montreal, picked, in its 100th year, as one of the
favorites in the east? The Canadiens were as good as anyone in the
first two months of the season. They battled through the chinks in
their armor to the All-Star break, placing 4 starters on the Eastern
team, one of whom won the game's MVP award. But by the trade deadline
the Canadiens were in free-fall, and three weeks after that they'd
fired their coach. At this writing they had fallen to the very brink
of the playoff picture, and two of their second-year stars, forward
Sergei Kostitsyn and goalie Carey Price, were searching in an empty
sea for their games like Mark Wahlberg at the end of "The Perfect
Storm".
But just as quickly as a team can vanish, it can reappear. I covered
the 1999 Eastern Conference champion Buffalo Sabres, who in many ways
are similar to this year's Blackhawks, perhaps a half-season-or-so
ahead. Like the Hawks, that club was a mostly young-team full of
players who had won at other levels, anchored by an experienced
goaltender (though it should be argued, the Hawks have much more
up-front skill and their goalie has won a Stanley Cup. The Sabres'
goalie, Dominik Hasek, was the best player in hockey, though Cupless
at the time). Both teams were coming off a year in which they had
flashed their promise by finishing strong -- the Hawks with their late
run at the playoffs last season, the Sabres by charging to the Eastern
Conference Finals.
The 1999 Sabres raced out to one of the best starts in their team's
history, and by the halfway point of the season they led the Eastern
Conference. But in the second half of the year everything fell apart.
The team was torn up by a couple of malcontent players and some
in-fighting which didn't really get resolved even though one upset
player was moved at the deadline. The team finished as the 7th seed in
the east, failing to cinch a playoff spot until the final weekend of
the season.
The Sabres opened the playoffs in Ottawa, and in Game 1 at the Corel
Center the Senators blew them away, doubling their shots and
dominating them territorially. But Hasek played like the MVP that he
was that season, and stole the game for Buffalo. The Sabres then
exhaled, expelling from their lungs the virus which had tormented them
since New Year's Day. Game 2 was far more even, and when Miroslav
Satan scored in double-overtime, the Sabres had not only won the game,
but for all intents and purposes they'd won the series as well. The
Sabres went on to rip through the Bruins and the Maple Leafs to reach
the Stanley Cup finals, where they eventually lost in 6 games (and on
a famously controversial call) to a more star-laden and talented
Dallas club.
By the end of the playoffs the Sabres seemed to be a far different
team than the one which entered the playoffs, much as they seemed to
be a different team at the end of the season than they were at the
beginning of the season. But in truth, the difference was one of
spirit, not of body. They were the same guys. But when Hasek stole
that first game in Ottawa, the Sabres were able to recapture the elan
which had propelled them to the top of the standings in the first
place. They had the confidence that if they made a mistake, their
goalie would be there to cover up for them. Subsequently, they were
able to play with more confidence and more aggressiveness, and though
that would seem, logically, to put them at more risk for errors, in
practice the opposite tends to hold true.
The point is, it doesn't take a week's worth of games, or a month's
work of games, for a team to become a Stanley Cup contender. It can
take just one -- a goalie makes a big save, a shot bounces in off of
three players and two posts, a team wins a game it has no business
winning -- and a funk turns around. If the Blackhawks or the Canadiens
or any number of other slumping teams end up going deep in the
playoffs, no one will remember that those teams almost gagged on the
bit before they even got to the post-season.
Yes, it's a good thing that the Hawks are showing signs that they are
coming out of their slump with 10 games to go. But it's just as
important that earlier in the season the Hawks gave themselves -- and
us -- a sample of how good they can be.
So chillax. The Hawks are going to
play into late April at the least. And that should make for the most
entertaining spring we've had around here in a long, long time.
Josh
Mora,
a Columnist with TheFourthPeriod.com, is an Anchor and
Blackhawks Reporter with Comcast Sportsnet Chicago.
