Blackhawks Fill Central Division Trophy Tracker
NHL.com is running weekly installments of their Trophy Tracker series this season, polling writers across the league for their thoughts on the league’s annual awards.
Five NHL.com writers per division rank their top three for each award. This week, the Blackhawks were incredibly well represented.
Kevin Lankinen was voted the runner-up to unanimous Vezina would-be winner Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Patrick Kane was the unanimous selection for the Hart Trophy in the division.
Why I picked Kane: “Kane leads the Blackhawks in scoring by a large margin, a big reason they are in a playoff spot.” — Nicholas J. Cotsonika, columnist
Regarding the voting for the Calder Trophy, Chicago was represented with all three finalists in the division.
Lankinen received 21 points (four votes for first place), Pius Suter received 17 points (one first place vote) and Philipp Kurashev received four points.
Why I picked Lankinen: “Even after he allowed five goals against the Blue Jackets on Saturday, Lankinen is still among the NHL leaders in save percentage. Never mind rookies, he’s one of the best at his position in the NHL right now.” — Brian Compton, deputy managing editor
Good to see these youngsters getting recognition they deserve as well, good show.
Tab pumping out posts all over the place, which is great but I lose track of where I posted stuff. :-)
Anyway … I read a comment on another Hawks blog by a guy that seems clued into the Hawks front office and he said they think Dach will be ready to return in 6 weeks. So if he comes back on Saturday April 17th – there would still be 10 games left.
Assuming he is fully recovered and there is no advantage to holding him out longer – I hope they let him play so he and the team can assess where’s he’s at after such a long layoff. If he shows he’s right back where he was then the Hawks erase a big question mark heading into the off season.
I love the recognition and think that the future is bright. I also notice that the calls for Stan and Jeremy being fired have quieted down some. Maybe they do know what they’re doing.
ER – would love to see Dach return before end of season maybe for the playoffs if Hawks can hang on
At the risk of being called out fir trolling why wasn’t Boquist named for the Norris lol
#eb. I wouldn’t take a chance with Dach, he should be 100% and not before.
#JackB. I’m a person that said StanBo should go and I still don’t think he’s the guy for the job. That being said the rookies have done well so far for the most part and they are gaining experience of playing in the league and we’ll see how they do against stronger opponents now. Some young players should hold their own and others will be exposed for what they are.
https://www.nhl.com/news/devils-blackhawks-kings-lead-nhl-in-games-played-by-rookies/c-321964964
Hawks on the top of the Leader Board in games played by rookies this season – by a wide margin. The Hawks have 127 games played by rookies which is 54 more than 2nd place New Jersey that has 73 games played by rookies. LAK (71), OTT (71), Van (64) and NYR (61) round out the top-6 teams in games played by rookies. Of those 6 teams – only the Hawks are in a playoff position.
Not bad!
Hammer Time, Of course you don’t risk it if he’s not 100%, but I did qualify my post by saying “Assuming he is fully recovered and there is no advantage to holding him out longer “, so …
Dach healthy enough to return for final few games would be good to see.
Just looking at a recent draft ranking, things changing. Top 3 now fwds., Power out of top 5. As far as middle of the pack picks, Coronato who Craig said he heard Blackhawks liked alot, crept up to 26th. Defenseman wise Carson Lambos at 14th, likely staying lower because he isn’t playing could be a steal for someone. Still no decision on draft changes, need to renogiate cba service times and few other things to move it back a year.
Now that it’s looking unlikely the Hawks are going to be in a race to the bottom with Detroit and Ottawa – I hope they don’t delay the 2021 draft because it could benefit the teams not in the top-10 because there would essentially not be a consensus top-10. There a better than normal potential to get one of the best players out in the teens or 20’s because they dropped when any other year they wouldn’t have.
Nice to see some of the Hawks individual players being recognized nationally. Lankinen, Suter, Kurashev, Hagel, Mitchell, and Beaudin came into this season ready to contribute from day one. They’ve each helped strengthen this team because of the shortened learning curve. Coupled with Kane and Cat both noticeably improving their 200 ft games, and you have a team that is staying competitive most nights, which is all you can ask of such a young team that is also facing significant injuries. It’s a shame that this team isn’t 100 percent healthy. It would be interesting to see how they all look on the ice at the same time. But I digress, excited to see how they measure up to Tampa Bay this week. Win or loss, they’ll learn how they handle a team that is probably among the deepest in the nhl this year.
@ebonyraptor..agreed regarding the draft..I hope that the Hawks can take advantage of some of the inefficiencies to scouting for this year’s draft. Good opportunity to draft a top 10 talent in the mid to late teens..there is going to be some serious variance between every team’s draft boards this year. I of course, will be routing for us to take the best available center on the board, but I’m open to the Hawks surprising me. I wouldn’t mind if there is a run on defensemen and Chaz Lucius slipped down to us.
The problem with that logic is normally drafting high picks is an educated guess with bit of luck. Now in this tyoe of year it’s alot more luck and limited educated guess, great if you get lightning in a bottle but odds of even getting an nhl player decrease too. Obviously that’s why teams want it moved because odds of a lost draft are just too great, got to believe in your scouts and giving them their best chance too. Getting a top 5 in middle off 1st would be great but getting 3rd or 4th rounder middle of 1st which would set back pipeline isn’t so great. See what happens.
Ian, I’m not equipped to get into a discussion on statistical probabilities and the like cuz even though I grad-ee-ated the six grade, the only one I scored better on my math test was my classmate Jethro Bodine … but, it seems to me that regardless of how many NHL caliber players are in a draft, the probability to select one of them declines rapidly the farther into the draft you go – in a normal year. In a year when many of the draft eligible players are playing less or not playing at all, current data to assess those players is minimized so the assessment is compromised and therefore a player who would have graded out at a certain level in a normal assessment period is more of an unknown.
I understand your point regarding the same is true in reverse, but in my simple six grade educated brain it seems more likely you get a top-10 player at the 20th selection that a 4th round level player at #20.
EB doesn’t have to be a certain round, my point was and you hear all Gms say it, in 1st round teams want to be confident they are drafting best player available, that’s your scouts job and what they are paid for. That’s what the teams are saying not me, plus they have 7 rounds of prospects to choose to try and land the right picks not just top 15 picks. I have no problem moving the draft and think makes sense if they think it’s the best move for the organization. Problem will be the cba clauses it would violate and addressing that.
Ian, maybe I’m just not fully understanding it but if the situation were reversed where the Hawks were going to get a top-5 pick – I would hope the 2021 draft was delayed so the Hawks would get to see the 2021 draft eligible players for another season (essentially their D+1 year) and make it less of a crap shoot projecting a 19 year old player than it would be in a normal year projecting an 18 year old player.
Thus, with the probability the Hawks will be drafting somewhere in the teens I think it’s to their advantage to not delay the 2021 draft so to introduce more uncertainty which increases the probability of the team drafting above them to make a mistake leaving more plums to pick from for teams drafting after them.
Maybe put it this way – there’s less probability that the Pastrnaks and Barzals will fall out of the top-10 if teams have the opportunity to assess their D+1 year.
That may very well be, i see what you’re saying, could get lucky. but from what i read most if not all teams want the draft pushed back. Hard for me to agree that taking away your scouts best tools of giving them proper chance to do it, to take a gamble like that is the best route to take.
Ian, howza bout keeping the 2021 draft after the season per normal, but doing away with the ping pong ball lottery for the 2021 draft with the rationale being the ambiguity of this draft eliminates the need to introduce ambiguity with ping pong lottery to deter teams from purposely tanking.
ER, I didn’t see a post in the Blackhawks hammer Redwings thread in awhile so I go to main page and see like 5 new ones.
Just post in most recent thread when that happens.
ER, it just in playoff position but +5 which is good. There are a lot of good teams around -2 -1 0 1 area that should be better then they are. So it might end up being really good for us to get high draft player and very good experience in the 2nd half in meaningful games. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t go 12-4-4 since first few games.
For playing better teams we have played the all already. Sure more gas it only bottom 5 tram in division. We didn’t get lucky however in that DAL CLB NAS haven’t played as good as they really are and they will. CLB is not that good anymore since they loaded up at tradeline and bet TB since then there a low end mid tier team at tops.
NAS is a mystery maybe they are on there way with PIT coming next with them to join teams like SAN ANA LA as being an elite top 5/10 team during the Blackhakws dynasty decade and now a bottom 10 team.
Thing with harder sch is timing and when you play certain teams. We had that by in one of the CAR games and played NAS DAL when they were way off.
DAL is the team that is really a top 4 team in this division NAS should get there act together and get the 4 seed.
Mo, I know – it’s hard to keep track where I post stuff. :-)
EB – I wouldn’t be too sure about the Hawks not being a part of the race to the bottom. Let’s see where we stand after the next dozen or so games. We are about to get a real test.