Annual circus road trip!

The Chicago Blackhawks have an annual circus road trip the last two weeks in November.  Overall they were 4-2. Out of the 12pts they could have gotten...they got 8 pts.   Corey Crawford won 3 out of the 4 road trip wins.  If my math is right, they were 2 for 22 on their power play and were ranked 8th in the league.  The penalty kill killed off 20 out of 27 chances allowing 7 goals which had them ranked 25th in the league.  Here are the game summaries.

Hawks vs. Oilers (11/17/10)
Hawks win 5-0
Jonathan Toews gets a hat trick (3G).  Sharp and Bickell also tallied for the Hawks.  Turco earns his first shutout as a Hawks player.  Devan Dubnyk replaces Nikolai Khabibulin in goal for the Oilers the start of the third period.  Hawks outshot Oilers 47-18 for the game.

Hawks vs. Flames (11/19/10)
Flames win 7-2
Jarome Iginla scores a hat trick (3G) for the Flames.  Hagman, Moss, Morrison, and Glencross also tally for the Flames.  Dowell drops the gloves with Giordano 5 minutes left in the 2nd to try to change the momentum of the game for the Hawks but all the bad penalties, turnovers, and quiet offense lead to the huge loss.

Hawks vs. Canucks (11/20/10)
Hawks win 7-1
Pisani with two goals.  Kane, Toews, Brouwer, Seabrook, and Sharp have a goal each.  Corey Crawford gets the start in goal for the Hawks.  Roberto Luongo got pulled with 4 goals on 20 shots on goal.  Samuelsson ends Crawford's shutout with 6 1/2 minutes left in the game. 

Hawks vs. Sharks (11/24/10)
Sharks win 5-2
Antti Niemi starts in goal for the Sharks against the Chicago Blackhawks since leading them to the Stanley Cup championship last season.  Dowell and Sharp tally for the Hawks in the loss. Patrick Marleau scored twice with the empty net to seal the victory.  Dany Heatley, Joe Pavelski and Jamal Mayers also scored for the Sharks.

Hawks vs. Ducks (11/26/10)
Hawks win 4-1
The Hawks defense goes back to top 2 pairs Seabs-Keith and Jelly-Soupy....YEAH!  Keith scores a shortie, Sharp, Nicklas Hjalmarsson ended a 44-game goal drought, and Brouwer scores to have Hiller replaced 10 minutes left in the game.  Perry is the lone scorer for the Ducks. 

Hawks vs. Kings (11/27/10)
Hawks win 2-1
Sharp and Kane score the goals for the Hawks.  Kopitar scores for the Kings.  Crawford made 21 saves for the game.  John Scott and Kevin Westgarth dropped the gloves.  Scott won that one and had to be one of his best!!

Top leaders in each category (as of 11/28/10)
Goals- Sharp 15
Assists- Kane 15
Points- Sharp 27
+/- +10 Campbell -9 Kopecky
Penalty mins- 26 Dowell and Kopecky
Total ice time- 27:35 Keith
Power play goals- Sharp, Kane, and Toews 4
Game winning goals- Sharp 2
Hits-Brouwer 72
Shots blocked-Boynton and Keith 52

Who's Hot
Sharp- 5 goals and 2 assists in 6 games
Brouwer- 2 assists and a goal in 5 games and been using the body

Who's Not
Boynton- making way too many mistakes (turnovers, not covering your man)
Bolland and Bickell----where u at??

Who has finally appeared (nice to see you show up)
Hjalmarrson, Keith, and Brouwer

Report card
Penalty Kill-C-
Power Play-C-
Defense-  A-
Forwards- A-
Goalie-    A-
Overall-   A-

Interesting facts
-Toews has 15 points (8G, 7A) in his career vs. Oilers
-Turco earns his 41st career shut out vs. Oilers (11/17/10)
-Hawks only had 3 hits for the game vs. Flames (11/19/10) Sharp, Skille, and Brouwer were given credit.
-The Hawks had the largest victory over the Canucks in Vancouver
-Luongo and Hiller were the starting goalies that were pulled in their game.
-Hjalmarrson gets his first point of the season with an assist to Brouwer's goal on (11/20/10)
-Kane gets his 250th career point (11/20/10) as a Hawks players being the 2nd youngest Hawks player to do it behind Denis Savard.
-Sharp scores goals against former teammates Khabby and Nemo
-Garnet Exelby is signed to an NHL contract and assigned to Rockford.  He's been serving as the Icehogs caption.
-Hjalmarrson scores the 8th goal (11/26/10) for all the defensenman this season.
-Kevin Westgarth....as Pat Foley would say, "You've been Thunderstruck!"
-Kings had only 3 shots on goal for the second period against the Hawks.

Overall, the Hawks did pretty good on this road trip.  Nice to see certain players start to show up for the game….still waiting for a handful more step it up and get their s%@# together.  Corey Crawford did pretty well…..so let the goalie controversy begin!!!  The defense and offense both have turned up a notch….nice to see an overall impressive 60 mins game except when they played the Flames.   Maybe this is what the Hawks needed to be on the road and concentrate about the game instead of trying to impress the home crowd.  Keep up the great work and don’t let it slip.  If you guys could keep this up…..there is no-one that can stop yall!!!  GO HAWKS!!!!!