Burned In the Sunshine State: Hagel's Revenge?

Despite being out-shot 43-23, the effort looked better than the night before on the back end of the back-to-back against the Stanley Cup champion, Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning struck twice in the first half of the first period, but the Hawks fought back to even the game, scoring two goals before the end of the period. Tampa Bay's, Ross Colton scored a pair of goals in the second for a 4-2 lead and former Hawk, Brandon Hagel put the game out of reach with an empty net goal in the final minute to make it a 5-2 Tampa Bay win.

Random Thoughts:

• Hawks goals: I was ragging on him last game, but Calvin de Haan is on a bit of a hot streak. He scored to give him 2 goals in the last three games. His "seeing eye" shot made it's way through traffic on the Hawks first goal. The Cat now has 5 goals in his last six games after scoring a PP goal tonight. He now has 39 goals and with only 13 games left on the schedule, he should set a personal high (41) and has a crack at 50. What a season for the Cat, despite playing for a bad team and he just might be the Blackhawk's MVP this season!

• Lanky: Kevin Lankinen had a strong game to follow-up his not-so-good outing in his last two games. You can't complain about the Hawks goaltending during this Florida trip, both he and Delia faced over 40 shots in each game and played well against two of the best teams in the league. The Hawks are relying way too much on their goalies as they haven't out-shot an opponent in the last six games.

• Jonesy: Another guy you can't complain about is the play of Seth Jones. I know there are fans that are grumbling about what the Hawks gave up and the size of his contract, but he's been a monster this season and has been everything I expected and more. As the season has rolled on, he has gotten better, more confident and joins the rushes constantly. His offensive contributions will continue to improve especially if they can surround him with more skilled players, he is to Chicago, what Hedman is to TB. He played a game high 31:58 in regulation time!

• Undefeated: Not to rub it in any further, but Andrei Vasilevskiy undefeated streak against the Blackhawks continues. He is now 13-0 in regular season games against Chicago. Blah!
  

 

• Bagel: Nice to see Brandon Hagel fitting in on Tampa's third line. On a deep team like Tampa, Hagel played just over 12 minutes, but he'll find his role on the team and they're hoping it'll payoff in the playoffs. We'll see...

Up next: Hawks home to the Coyotes on Sunday, then a break until Thursday when the Seattle Kraken make their first visit to Chicago. I'll also be checking in on the Winnipeg Jets this week and see how their fight for the playoffs is working out.