Too Little, Too Late
Hey, do you see that list of game results up there? It's got a
column filled with these funny-looking letters that look like
upside-down M's.
Yes, it's been quite a while since the Blackhawks have put together
this kind of a winning streak. (I'm too lazy to look up exactly
how long it's been, but some other guy said three years in his
column, so I'll take his word for it.)
The Hawks closed out their season winning six games in a row and
eight of their last nine. They won their last nine games at home,
dominating the United Center like no Hawks team had done since the
building opened.
So it was an easy decision for owner Bill Wirtz to make whether to
retain the services of GM Bob Murray and Coach Lorne Molleken for
another year. But it remains to be seen if the Hawks are really on
the upswing or if this late-season turnaround was an entertaining
but meaningless diversion.
Of course this won't be evident until the first tough stretch of the
1999-2000 season. The Hawks are a team that clearly plays best when
the pressure is off. When Lorne Molleken took over for Dirk Graham
as coach, the team was all but mathematically out of the playoffs
already, and his mellower coaching style and more offensive-minded
game plan further reduced the pressure on Hawk players.
Neither this incarnation of the Hawks nor its coach has had to face
any real adversity yet, and how they react when such a situation
arises will determine if the team has truly improved.
We Should Trade Chelios Every Week
For once, the reality lived up to the hype. The much-anticipated
return of Chris Chelios to the United Center produced one of the
more entertaining nights of hockey in recent memory.
Though Cheli played only a few minutes, his presence in a Red Wing
uniform recharged a great NHL rivalry that had lost some intensity
as the disparity in talent between the two teams continued to grow.
Blackhawks personnel shamelessly pandered to their fans'
anti-Detroit sensibilities by showing video montages of Detroit's
urban decay constrasted with spotless Chicago landscapes and by
piping in canned chants of "Detroit sucks!" in case anyone forgot
the words.
However, the crowd was very nearly 50-50, and Wings fans were not
about to travel 200 miles, pay 75 dollars a seat, and keep their
mouths shut.
As a result, the atmosphere resembled a college football game
between intraconference rivals, except the two factions weren't on
different sides of the stadium. So fans could get right in each
other's face while trying to drown out the chants of the
opposition.
I personally didn't see any fistfights, but there was plenty of
not-so-good-natured taunting and harsh exchanges. In other words,
playoff hockey. Maybe we'll get some of the real stuff next year.
News and Notes
The prospects for next year hinge greatly on the success of contract
talks with three of the Hawks top players. Anders Eriksson, Boris
Mironov, and Jocelyn Thibault are all restricted free agents, and
losing any of the three would make GM Bob Murray's wheeling and
dealing this past year largely fruitless . . . . Tony Amonte ended up
with 44 goals for the season. This was a career high and good enough
for a tie for second place in the race for the NHL's Maurice Richard
Trophy . . . . Murray told the Chicago Sun-Times he would not be
looking to sign another free agent in the Doug Gilmour salary range
this off season. Murray said he was looking for "a couple of
mid-level guys", particularly a stay-at-home defenseman who could
help the Hawks' swiss-cheese penalty kill.
