From: scholvin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Scholvin)
Subject: Hawks News 1-4
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 15:51:19 GMT


Not one, not two, but *three* Hawks game summaries! Happy New Year!

First up was the much-awaited rematch against the Lightning on New
Year's Eve. The miserable yuppie bar I was stuck in didn't
(wouldn't) put the game on TV, even with the sound off, so I don't
have much to write about except based on what I've gleaned from the
papers. The Hawks did what one would expect them to do: dominate an
expansion team. Belfour and the unscratched Michel Goulet led the
way to a 5-0 whitewash at the Stadium. It was Goulet's first game
after sitting out nine games with a groin pull, and he celebrated
by scoring the game's first goal and assisting on the second.
Belfour apparently didn't need to make too many spectacular saves
as the defense played well. Milan Tichy and Brad Lauer were called
up to bolster the defense in the place of Kravchuk and Smith, and
both performed admirably, each picking up an assist. Scoring
summary: Goulet (Roenick, Tichy) 7:36 2nd; Roenick (Goulet, Larmer)
12:49 2nd; Chelios (Sutter, Matteau) 11:16 3rd; Sutter (Matteau,
Lauer) 16:30 3rd (pp); GRIMSON! (Roenick, Goulet) 18:33 3rd (pp).

It was Stu's 3rd career goal, Belfour's fifth shutout of the
season, the team's seventh, and Marchment whiffed on a penalty shot
early in the third. 'Nuff said. 

Saturday, after my 36 hour hangover cleared up (I'm getting too old
for this), I dragged myself out of bed to watch the Hawks take on
the red-hot Capitals. The Hawks and Caps skated to a 2-2 tie. The
game matched two of the best team defenses in the league, and the
results were what you might expect: not too many fantastic scoring
opportunities. In fact, the Hawks limited the Caps to only five
shots on goal in the entire third period, and one in the overtime
period. There were odd moments throughout the broadcast where the
fans would cheer for no apparent reason, and it turns out that many
had brought TV's and radios to check out the Redskins whipping on
the Vikings (yes!).

Miller opened the scoring for the Caps only 2:06 into the game on
a goal that Belfour normally saves. Miller slapped it from the top
of the right circle, and Belfour saw it all the way but for some
reason it trickled off his pad and into the net. Goulet then scored
his second goal in as many games at 18:41 (Sutter). Sutter stole a
pass from Carpenter, and then got it over to Goulet. Goulet showed
off his sniper skill, waiting until Hrivnak committed, then he
flipped it to his backhand and put it over him. Dirk Graham, who is
only five goals short of last season's total now, put the Hawks
ahead at 12:41 of the second (Ruuttu, Gilbert), capitalizing on
another turnover and a nice move by Ruuttu to draw the defense to
him before passing off to Dirk. Khristich evened the score up at
15:23 on a power play, and that was it for the scoring. Jocelyn
Lemieux was back in action, playing with some kind of strangely
modified face mask after 100+ stitches were put in his lip. The guy
is tough. 

No scoring in the third or overtime, but Hrivnak saved the game
with 2 seconds left in regulation on a point blank shot by Chelios.
The Hawks took it to the Caps pretty hard the last 25 minutes of
the game, outshooting them 15 to 5.

Winnipeg was back in the Stadium last night, hoping for a better
performance than they put in last time. I'm sure Darryl Sutter was
hoping for a better performance, too. He almost got it, as the
Hawks came roaring out of the gate to score three goals in the
first period and cruise to a 4-1 victory. It wasn't exactly old time
hockey, just like Eddie Schorr (sp?), with Stu Grimson and Tie Domi
dropping the gloves only a minute and ten seconds into the game and
three more undercard bouts after that. Former Blackhawk Mike Eagles and
Roenick went at 18:27 in the second, Matteau and Tkachuk at 3:24 in the
third, and Kennedy and Cam Russell at 14:03 in the third. Unfortunately,
there was no satellite feed out of Winnipeg, so I got the radio-only version
of all this. Pat Foley did an admirable play-by-play of the fights, and
could conceivably find extra work handling boxing in the off-season.

As far as hockey goes, Chelios started the scoring at 6:23 (Ruuttu,
Dykhuis) by walking into the zone and making a nice move before
putting a long shot by Essensa. Larmer then followed with a special
teams pair, first shorthanded (Chelios) at 11:14 and then on a
power play breakaway at 13:37 (Sutter, Kucera) after a Winnipeg
defenseman fell down. (Incidentally, Pat Foley's call of the
breakaway was outstanding.) Larmer went top shelf (I saw this one on
the local news), a breathtaking shot. When he's on, there's none better,
and he is *on* right now. The Jets were a lot more physical than
they were in their last trip to the Stadium, as evidenced by their
willingness to go toe to toe and a lot of hard checking in the first period,
but it didn't work out. The Hawks can play that game as well as anyone
right now.

The Hawks let up a bit in the second, apparently figuring that this
one was over (they should have learned from Houston and New Orleans),
and the Jets outplayed them in the second. Davydov scored at 4:23 in the
second, cutting the lead to two on the power play, and the Jets outshot
the Hawks 13-7 in the period after being on the short side 13-6 in the
first. Brent Sutter cooled the Jets 22 seconds into the third (Goulet,
Chelios) on the power play, and it was Hansen brothers hockey after that.
Particularly amusing was Tie Domi taunting the crowd after one of the
late fights. Uh, Tie, your team is losing 4-1 late in the game. You'd
think a guy with such a huge head might have some amount of gray matter
in there...

NOTES:

It's funny: all my non-hockey fan friends saw the highlights on the
news of Lemieux's facial from Konstantinov. They were all saying
things like, "Did you see what happened to that guy's
mouth?"...Apologies to Dale Hunter, but I nominate Chris Chelios as
God. He seems to get better every year. Offense, defense, special
teams, toughness. When he keeps his temper under control, there is
no defenseman in the NHL I'd rather have on my team. I feel so
stupid for not liking that Savard trade...The kids who the Hawks
are calling up are really playing well. Marchment, even, is playing
really solidly right now, aggressive but not dirty. I wish I could
have seen his penalty shot...Keith Brown is practicing with the
team again. He may be ready to play in a week or two...The Hawks have 51
points at the midpoint of the season, ten more than last year after 42
games...Belfour allowed three goals in three games over the last four
days, and is 11-1-2 in his last fourteen. He's also 11-2-3 on Stadium
ice this season. Right now, he's absolutely running away with the
Vezina...Kravchuk's injury may not be as serious as originally thought.
He may be back in two weeks (sprained ankle). It'll be tough to send
these kids back down when he, Brown, and Smith get healthy again.


-- 
John Scholvin                           |  "Sometimes I wish I was Catholic
scholvin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu            |   I don't know why"
echo Y | del c:\windows\*.*             |       -Cracker
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey