Let's go back in time 13 years. A Canucks-Hawks meeting with 4 games left would have been a playoff warm-up with lots of hatred pumping through the veins of the two fanbases.
Tonight we have two teams that have sucked for years, because their respective owners are unable to figure out how to hire the right people to turn their teams around and their organizations seem to have a disconnect with their fanbase.
The Blackhawks won their last Stanley Cup in 2014-15 and promptly gave Toews and Kane matching $10.5 million/8 year contracts. You know how many playoff rounds they have won since...0. (they did win a qualifying COVID round and then lost in the 1st round). The difference between the Canucks and Hawks up until now, has been the fact that the Hawks have really suck for the past few years. There has been no false hope that a tweak here or there would the team. Instead their management has quietly gathered 19 1st-3rd rounds picks over the next 3 drafts. They traded away Kane and Toews's contract is done this year. The only bad contract they have left is Seth Jones. And the icing on the cake for that team is that they have a serious chance at landing Conor Bedard.
Blackhawks projected lineup
Lukas Reichel -- Jonathan Toews -- Andreas Athanasiou
Tyler Johnson -- Jason Dickinson -- Taylor Raddysh
Boris Katchouk -- Jujhar Khaira -- Joey Anderson
Anders Bjork -- MacKenzie Entwistle -- Reese Johnson
Andreas Englund -- Ian Mitchell
Scratched: Wyatt Kaiser, Nikita Zaitsev, Austin Wagner, Jarred Tinordi
Injured: Colin Blackwell (groin), Philipp Kurashev (shoulder)
Canucks projected lineup
Andrei Kuzmenko -- Elias Pettersson -- Anthony Beauvillier
Phillip Di Giuseppe -- J.T. Miller -- Brock Boeser
Dakota Joshua -- Nils Aman -- Conor Garland
Vitali Kravtsov -- Sheldon Dries -- Jack Studnicka
Scratched: Aidan McDonough, Jack Rathbone
Injured: Guillaume Brisebois (undisclosed), Filip Hronek (shoulder), Vasily Podkolzin (hand), Christian Wolanin (lower body), Noah Juulsen (lower body), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (ankle), Travis Dermott (undisclosed), Ilya Mikheyev (torn ACL), Tucker Poolman (upper body)
GAME DAY CHATTER
I wonder after the comments from Tocchet about professional behaviour, if he had a sleepover and babysat the players so he could see their routines. Brock saying he is tired of losing made me do a double-take as he so much more work to do on his 200 foot game. I still see him as the first or second guy to get traded before the draft because of his contract. All of these NCAA signings seem great, as long as the team can get rid of a couple monster contracts and the players that go with them. I still haven't seen or heard anything that makes me believe that Frankie and his minions will be able to trade Myers or will buyout OEL.
Game Day Battle Hymn
I haven't a complaint from Kent yet, when it comes to my choices for the Battle Hymn. I fear he is lurking in the jungle just waiting for me. While Big Wreck is officially from the US, the lead singer Ian Thornley is from Toronto, and the band only really made it big in Canada...so there. I do really love this song.
Go Canucks Go!
Any win over Chicago is a good thing, especially if it's Jonathan Toews last time in town as a Blackhawk!
