Playtime Is Over For Blackhawks

Tommie Lee
Sep 24, 2014
3 min read

(AP Photo/Charles Cherney)

The first preseason game is in the books. Chicago beat Detroit in OT, as The Hockey Gods demand.

The Blackhawks are hitting guys from other teams now. So playtime is over.

Camp has come and gone. The fans enjoyed a sneak peek at the Blackhawks at Notre Dame’s Compton Arena, and then back home Monday night at the United Center. It didn’t feel like a practice.

Johnny Oduya was skating hard, showing us that his wounds were sufficiently licked. Guys like Nick Leddy and Kris Versteeg and even Patrick Sharp were out there giving it their all, hoping to remove their names from the trade rumor mill. The faces of the future, like Teuvo Teravainen, Kyle Cumiskey, Adam Clendening, and Philip Danault were trying to impress everybody and put their names above the other guys with contracts. And as I said last week, the Blackhawks Greatest Hits collection gave us a couple of returning classics in Cam Barker and goalie Michael Leighton.

The atmosphere was intense, which means this round of preseason skating is anything but playtime. Barker knocked Teuvo to the ice in camp in front of a crowd at Notre Dame, and the Finnish Flash was a little slow to get up. The crowd turned on Barker and let him know about it. Teuvo remains day-to-day with an upper body injury. Back in Chicago in front of the fans, both Patricks ended up getting some fresh wounds. Patrick Kane took a puck to the left side of his mouth. Patrick Sharp took a mark under his left eye, courtesy of a stick held high by rookie Matt Carey. Both players got stitches for their trouble.

Playtime is over.

The lines are building chemistry as the preseason marches forward, with only a couple of weeks until the games start to count. Sharp-Toews-Hossa. Saad-Richards-Kane. Brad Richards in particular seems especially well-suited to the herculean task of keeping up with Kane. They skate together like pairs figure skaters with sticks and deadly passing ability. The energy is in mid-season form already, and that includes the fans. At every opportunity, the fans are showing themselves to be just as hungry as the team is to bring that Cup back to Chicago.

But who will miss the chance to lift it while wearing the Indian? The decision about who to cut to get under the cap still remains unresolved. Oduya’s name continues to come up. He has one year remaining on his contract for just under $3.4 million. The coaches continue to praise how he looks on the ice, and Oduya himself dismisses the speculation, focusing instead on the work he’s doing now to get ready for the season.

There are a couple of names to remember, because chances are they belong to a couple of young guys who will be an integral part of the team’s future: Mark McNeill and Brandon Mashinter. Each looked great on the ice during camp, and each seems to have a special place in Q’s heart at the moment.

Your top scorers for camp at Notre Dame? Kaner, with 6 points spread equally among goals and assists. Saad and Versteeg had 5 points. Marian Hossa had 4 and five different guys finished with 3, including Toews, Teravainen, and Shaw.

Leighton and Crawford were the most airtight goalies, with 2 and 3 goals against respectively. Darling gave up 4, Simpson 5, Raanta 6…and Carruth gave up 7. Each goalie spent 100 minutes between the pipes at Notre Dame.

Leighton’s and Raanta’s numbers are the most interesting to me. Leighton faced 41 shots, Annti 51. Leighton was on Team Red, which means he faced players like Sharp, Toews, Hossa, Shaw, and Teuvo. Only giving up two goals to guys like that in a very intense camp setting…well…that’s pretty good. Especially considering the Backup Apparent allowed three times as many goals to go by.

If you’re a hockey fan on Twitter you’ve no doubt been seeing the hashtag #IsItOctoberYet a lot.

It’s just about here.

Playtime is over.

Go Hawks.