Oh baby, oh mama. The Hawks are back. Game one of the preseason and I think I can say that, as a unit, Hawks fans were more excited to see Jonathan Toews on the ice than see any offseason acquisition.
The first period was testing for the Hawks. They got scored on by Michael Rasmussen. 10 minutes after that though, Dominik Kubalik rocketed a shot past the goalie, seemed a little surprised himself.
The Hawks did not do bad here. First period on the ice with so many new pieces, I’ll take coming out of it tied at 1.
Into the second period, the Hawks got on the puck quick. Brandon Hagel, our sweet bagel boy, scored just 2:08 into the period. Chicago breaks the tie and a minute after that, Jujhar Khaira got the game up to 3-1. Sadly only a minute following that Mitchell Stephens scored to get the score 3-2. The Hawks spent a lot of time on the power play and it was looking good, nothing slipped through but the passes were connecting, there were great opportunities. Great look for the first game of the preseason. The Hawks kept this lead into the start of the third.
Third started with, you guessed it, another power play. Noting overly spectacular came of it or in the following 10 minutes. The Hawks got their first penalty with 9 minutes remaining in the game. They killed it off no problem. Things were fine and dandy until Bobby Ryan scored with just 2 minutes left in the game to tie this 3-3.
So into OT we go.
The start of overtime was a stressful 2 minutes. Hagel and Toews had absolutely killer shots but they couldn’t get it past Pickard. Toews final shot of OT stopped on the GOAL LINE. ON IT.
Anywho, this one went to a shootout. Jonathan Toews, king of my heart, scored first in the shootout. Reichel had a rocket, two guys who were huge in this game. Alas, in the end, the Wings won. Whatever, kick rocks, it’s preseason. So Detroit wins with a 4-3 final. The Hawks finished with 39 shots on net while the Wings only had 33. Hawks had a shit ton of hits this game too, 34 – 29.
I thought Adam Gaudette kicked ass this game. In the first period alone, he had about 4 minutes of ice time but two shots on net including one that was a millimeter from going into the net. In the second he saw some power play time and had some big shots on net, sadly no saw the back of the net. Regardless having big chances during the power play is always needed.
I really loved our first look at Lukas Reichel. He had a -1 with 16:18 on the ice along with that shootout goal.
He played a lot on a line with Gaudette and Kirby Dach, all of them looked spectacular out there. I’d like to see some more of them moving forward. That whole line just played awesome tonight. Toews was definitely adjusting to being back out there. He had a few slip ups but after not playing for 407 days, you’re going to be dusting off rust. I liked how he started off though regardless.
For game 1 in the preseason, I liked what I saw (minus fumbling a late game lead). We have a few more before the games matter but this is a good foundation so far. They’ll be playing the Blues on Friday night and more than anything, I need them to kick ass. I’m feeling good about them and I’m so excited to see more. Bottom line: Jonathan Toews I love you every day and fuck the Red Wings.
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