Blackhawks Make Roster Changes Before Second Game
The Blackhawks are making a couple lineup changes for Friday night’s game against the New Jersey Devils.
Adam Gaudette will replace Ryan Carpenter up front; Dylan Strome is still on the trade block and watching from a suite.
And on the blue line, Ian Mitchell will take the night off. Erik Gustafsson will replace him in the lineup as Jeremy Colliton continues to keep Mitchell from ever getting comfortable in the NHL lineup.
Kevin Lankinen will get the start in net.
I guess JC is going for more D with the Gus insertion….smfh
Mitchell gets the night off and JC strapped him to the bench Wednesday night. How bout benching Seth Jones and send a real message? Gutless!
As was said on the first game thread umpteen times, Colliton needs to go before this team implodes. He is clueless, his system didn’t work last year and it won’t work this year. You want to see an example of a team that sucked last year but has a good coach and a system in place? Look at the Kings. They retooled in the off-season the same as we did, they have young, promising talent the same as we do, they have some older core guys in place the same as we do. But the difference is, they have a system and a coach. Last night they totally undressed the Knights. It was complete domination. I know it’s early and everyone is finding their legs and their chemistry, but watching the Kings game last night gave me a sense of foreboding about what’s in store for the Hawks if we don’t clean up this coaching mess and soon.
I think someone mentioned in the thread after the last game, or maybe the one before that, that you could hear the Benny Hill theme song “Yakkety Sax” playing.
I’m hearing it now.
And kudos to whoever it was that pretty much predicted this outcome after the last game.
I’m still kinda scrathin’ my head over the acquisition of Gus. I know there are the injuries, but there are still young guys who can benefit from those injuries by getting more and more NHL experience.
I noticed at the last preseason game, they did NOT mention Colliton’s name over the PA.
There are always a big round of boos when they do mention his name.
Coach Q certainly had the line blender going at times. And people certainly got in his doghouse. But JC just leaves me trying to (a) decipher his strategy, combined with (b) giving up and deciding he has no strategy.
I don’t understand the Mitchell love – he may develop into an NHLer but right now he’s an AHLer which where he should be and would be if it weren’t for injuries
Not playing Mitchell much is one thing JC has done right but as for other things like teaching a structured approach to team D it’s not looking good
If he can’t can’t get the team playing with structure by 20 games in I think Stan makes a coaching change – he didn’t give Seth Jones $9 mil a year to waste him with a structure less team
I liked Mitchell last year when he first started playing. But then he got tentative, looked indecisive and appeared to lose confidence. And his play was on a downhill slide that was hard for me to watch.
This year he looked a bit more confident, but still overmatched physically, and his skating doesn’t appear good enough to overcome his misreads. I, too, think Rockford is where he needs to be, the sooner the better for him.
Face it – we didn’t draft the young Dmen that are going to be studs in their ELC timeframes. There may be 4 Horsemen in our future, somewhere, but right now we only have ponies.
I continue to be amazed at how slowly our Dmen recover from getting caught out of position, how often we “chase” to a position where we are no longer in a defensive position with the players we are expecting to do the most work in preventing goals (Zadorov got out of position a lot last year, but probably had the highest recovery rate because of his long arms and poke checking ability). I also wince when I see the first guy to get the puck in the offensive zone is wearing 4 on his back, buried in the corner trying to win a battle for the puck. I see too many times that the opponent gets out of the zone too easily and I feel some of that is because we have our Dmen too deep far too often, trying to make offensive plays and expecting our forwards to cover the defensive point and slow the breakouts. I just don’t see that as a recipe for success, particularly against teams that skate like Colorado. This leads to far too many odd man breaks.
I don’t understand our defensive zone philosophy, and am hoping someone can explain – without my usual sarcasm – just what it actually is.
Face it – we don’t have the most gifted skaters on defense. In my opinion, probably bottom ten in the league. Gus, oddly, will be one of the better on the team.
That might be the scariest thing of all!
Very predictable moves. If I am Ian Mitchell,I want out and away from Colliton. At minimum I would ask to spend the year in Rockford to develop by playing regular minutes. Colliton should be gone in short order so maybe guys like Mitchell,R.Johnson, and Hardman can at least get a couple of full games with regular minutes before being stapled to the bench and then shipped out.
re Grey Hawk – you’re not sitting your $9.5M player after one game. It was one game.
re Mitchell – young players need some rope to make their mistakes and learn from them. Colliton has been as hard as Quenneville on young players. Maybe it’s because he isn’t confident in his job security? Maybe he knows he’s over his head? Either way, if he’s supposed to be the coach you helps nurture young players into NHL contributors he’s done a terrible job with most of the kids he’s been given. With the exceptions of Kurashev, Kalynuk and Hagel he hasn’t committed to any young players getting consistent run in the rotation – and even those guys had moments where they got lost at the end of the bench.
Was hoping Gus be used more as insurance, not as a game changer type role. Seems kind of a reach, Mitchell deserved a better chance i think.
Interested to see what Gaudette brings. With TJ as a new C for Cat and Kane, Kurashev playing with Toews for time this year, plus Dach out most of last year, having never played with Borgstrom and Hagel, getting used to a new top pairing. The 4th line total overhaul now, Carpenter had familiarity with how the coaches want to play defense and pk, seemed pretty good at it as well, kind of surprising their scratching him already.
Well Strome is as good as gone. Just a thought do not be shocked if he lands himself in Buffalo in part of a complex eithel deal. Technically he falls in the category of a first round pick equivalent….Technically. anyway I was hoping this would be the year he finally made some big improvements. He may still just doesn’t look like it will be here.
If he stays fine, put him on the powerplay
Adding Gus as insurance is like buying a can of gas to throw on your house if it catches on fire. In his big year he did have chemistry with Kane, but unless they are on the same PP unit I don’t expect much.
We’d be lucky to get a mid-third rounder in a straight-up deal for Strome.
It’s now 1,639 days since the Predators blew us out in 2017. Stan should have gone the next day, so let’s be charitable and call it 1,638 days.
Send Mitchell to Rockford now
He doesn’t belong in NHL .
I am glad that Gaudette is in Tonight .
He can bring a lot to this team iff they play him on the ice not on the bench .
Hawks win tonight.
Man the posts since opening night make Debbie Downer look like a sunny optimist. If you thought we were going to be an elite team then I guess you are in for a reality check. There are many issues and I have to believe JC is on a very short rope right now. The question will be are we on track to be significantly better than last year? If there are no signs of that at 10-12 games then ol Danny boy better show what a strong leader he is since the buck stops with him (or dad). Any discussion of Ian Mitchell right now is silly. Seriously, he is a late 2nd round pick. He needs to be in the AHL playing regularly to see if he has a future in the NHL.
this coach has had years to prove he isn’t nhl material: if the first 17 minutes of game one this year didn’t cement that, I don’t know what will
this GM can’t admit a mistake, so the coach continues and Nylander remains with the team, we have no goalies in the system besides this year’s HOF rental…
tinkering around the margins won’t make this team a playoff team nor will a HOF goalie playing behind very very Swiss cheese: Seth jones was a very desperate overpayment for the player and to the player: doesn’t look like a D cornerstone at all.
avs, isl, car, Fla, TB TOR etc will be worth the watch: hawks have been and continue to be a slow motion train wreck/dupster fire….
it is time to clean house from the very top down
Is it the players or is it the system or is it a combination of both. As far as Seth Jones it was one game and he is being nailed to the cross. If they had somebody like him in the farm system to build around you don’t have to make that trade. But, from what I can see there were are no Keiths or Seabrooks so, you have to do something. I don’t like Nashville a lick but, he was drafted by them and they develop good defensemen. If you are waiting for him to be the second coming of Bobby Orr then don’t hold your breath. If they don’t make that trade then you basically have the same thing from last year. Then everybody would be complaining about that. It is a no win situation, damned if you do or damned if you don’t. All I know is the guy has proven that he is an NHL defensemen and leave it at that. If you want guys like Mitchell to develop they need to be playing big minutes in the AHL. Keith played two full years in the A before he came up. You have to have guys like Jones so, you are not rushing guys up when they are not ready.
There just seems to be so many so called Hawk fans hoping that he doesn’t do well just so they can say I told you so. If you are a fan then maybe you should be hoping that he does do well and helps the team. I have been a Blackhawk fan for well over 50 years and I have been proud to say that I have been a fan and not a critic. I root for what’s on front of the best jersey in all of sport and not so much for the name on the back. GO HAWKS!!!
I will cut the team some slack for a bad start on Wednesday. Colorado had every reason to come out flying – They were favored last year to win it all and Puked it up early. They are favored again to be there and needed to make a statement, especially without the McKinnon clown on the ice. Packed house – finally. Not making excuses for the Hawks, but I can understand why what happened, happened.
There was a building on Madison commonly referred to as “The Barn” that was known to be a terrific advantage to the home team. The old saying was the visitors had to survive the first 10-15 minutes, get out of the first period down by no more than 2, and they could then have a fighting chance to win the game.
Sports are about emotion. They had more than us, and they had pretty good control of it. But if you need a narrative to deep end over a coach and GM, I guess that game would suffice.
Murphy playing like he’s stoned
Defense definitely not in synch…colliton really needs to go, i don’t he’s bona-fide leadership material
Gus????? He should be in the A. The coach is a Bum. As well as his staff. They must all be taking instruction from Stan. To sum it up, get rid of the whole bunch of the above. I can’t believe Strom is that bad, anybody can lose considering the leadership they have to follow.
Colliton couldn’t sell a life vest to a drowning man!!