Straight Into Compton

Tommie Lee
Jun 25, 2014
4 min read

More on “Straight Into Compton” in a bit.

First…does anyone else feel a draft?

Like a three year-old who found the key to the pantry, the last week of the offseason has been bouncing off the walls and running around with pudding on its face.

Hopefully, we’re heading into the weekend of the NHL Draft with a weather eye on the defensive horizon. Granted, Tuesday night at the league’s Sidney Crosby Is Our Favorite Player Awards, Chicago took home the only defensive bit of hardware the NHL has. We are all thrilled that Duncan Keith picked up that wonderful little Norris for the second time. It was well deserved and Duncs joins Chelios and Pilote as the third Blackhawks to win it multiple times. However one man does not a defense make, and I feel like most of the rest of the guys on the Hawks’ D could use an influx of new blood to freshen things up.

We love Hjammer and Johnny O and Seabs, and we saw some great potential this year in Leddy and Brookbank. Still, we could probably stand to get a little defensive dialysis this off-season, given how things collapsed down the stretch at the wrong moments.

However, unlike pretty much every other hockey writer, I will admit that I know next to nothing about drafting talent. I could talk about Nick Schmaltz, the excellent Chicago native who plays center for Green Bay in the USHL and might be the eventual right fit for the hole left by Handzus. I could talk about that Demko kid out of Boston College who would give us a ridiculous amount of depth in goal. I would rather defer to the experts in the office.

Chicago always drafts well. Really well. This is an organization that knows how to grab young talent and cultivate it. The system has been good under the current administration and I trust it. Chances are the Hawks’ 27th overall pick will not go to waste.

The bigger question is whether or not Bowman makes a major move this weekend at the draft to try and fill that void at second-line center. There are some high-ticket items out there on the block, names like Kesler, Spezza and Thornton. Stastny might be on the market, too. I can’t imagine hoping for a big move like that more than wanting us to keep, say, a guy like Patrick Sharp. The core of this team has been together for quite a while, and they damn near won another Cup this year. A big move would require an equally big gouge in that framework. Nothing Toews or Kane-sized, I’m sure, but something that would sting more than losing Bolland did just a couple of weeks after last year’s Cup win.

The schedule was also released this week for next season. The preseason begins with a visit from the Red Wings on Tuesday, September 23rd and includes a trip to Saskatoon to play the Oilers. We head to Dallas for the regular season opener October 9th and host the Sabres October 11th to open another season at the Madhouse On Madison.

This year’s circus trip will be Nov. 20-29 and will take the Blackhawks to CGY, EDM, VAN, COL, ANA, and then we finally get our first crack at the defending champs in LA. St. Louis comes back to town looking for a little payback on December 3rd. Columbus hosts January’s All-Star game this year, and after the break ends we have a rough road trip that includes LA, ANA, SJ, MIN, and STL. The team’s longest home stand will be 8 games spread out over 15 days in February.

The Blackhawks finish up with a tough April, scratching their way through four brutal division match-ups with the Blues and Wild at home, then on the road for St. Louis again and then Colorado. The boys will be pushed pretty hard heading into a possible playoff run. As usual.

The highlight, though, will be a trip to the nation’s capital to play Ovi and the Caps in the 2015 Winter Classic on January 1st. Within minutes of the announcement being made last week, I saw fans of the other teams whining on Twitter that Chicago was going again. “There’s other teams, you know…” and so on.

Memo to the fans of those other teams: The Blackhawks are good, and fun to watch. Deal with it.

My favorite announcement from the last week, though, is that the Hawks will be returning to the Compton Arena at Notre Dame for their 2014 Training Camp, September 19th through the 21st. Everyone reading this in should make an attempt to attend at least a day of this. It was amazing watching the team on the Irish ice, and I can’t wait to do so again. I hope it becomes a yearly ritual for the team.

Oh, and if I may quote ESPN…congrats again to the “Sacrameto” Kings on their Stanley Cup victory. (facepalm)

Now I want pudding.

Go Hawks.