NEWSLETTER
It was bound to happen at some point, and that time came on Thursday evening in Montreal. Patrick Kane scored his first goal for a team other than the Blackhawks, tying the game with a power play snipe through traffic. It works for me that it happened in an Original Six game, but it still feels weird seeing 88 wearing a different sweater. Anyways, congrats Kaner! Go get a ring kid.
- A Sharks’ regulation loss (to St. Louis) last night bumps the Blackhawks back to third in the Bad for Bedard Sweepstakes standings. This weekend’s tough slate in Florida with games against the Panthers on Friday night and Lightning on Saturday will factor into the bottom of these standings. The only other game in the league on Friday night is Anaheim in Calgary.
- Before Michigan hosts Ohio State in the Big Ten conference tournament this weekend, the boys got their hair cleaned up a bit. Business in front, party in back for the Wolverines — including Blackhawks prospect Frank Nazar.
- There’s a lot of college hockey coming this weekend, and the Blackhawks still have 12 prospects competing in their respective conference tournaments this weekend.
- With Andreas Englund likely going to miss a couple weeks because of injury, the Blackhawks recalled defenseman Filip Roos on Thursday afternoon. He’ll join the team in Florida (I know, rough right?) for the games against the Panthers and Lightning on Thursday and Friday.
- Ben Pope at the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a nice piece about Jujhar Khaira yesterday. Khaira has missed roughly half of the last two seasons because of back issues (43 games last year, 26 this season). When he’s been on the ice, he’s been an effective player for the Blackhawks. But as a pending unrestricted free agent this coming summer, getting healthy is as much about gaining the mental confidence in his game as it is showing a future employer what he’s about at this point.
- You’ve gotta love it when there’s a nice story about a guy and he gets engaged on the beach later that day…
- UPDATE: The first front office axe of the spring has come. The Philadelphia Flyers have given Chuck Fletcher his walking papers this morning. Daniel Briere is replacing Fletcher as the Flyers’ interim GM, and Philly indicates they are going to hire a President of Hockey Ops and a General Manager. Lots of fans in Philly weren’t happy with the minimal number of moves the Flyers made at the trade deadline as they struggle to define their season (are they going to be completely awful or just be mediocre for a while?) and Fletcher’s inactivity didn’t answer that question. Their roster is a mess and they don’t have a lot of prospect depth to solve the problem. Sound familiar?
- Finally, the Bulls need to go on a run if they want to be a playoff team. And, when you need to win games, usually that implies the best players need to be good. One of the Bulls’ leaders has been hot lately.
