Hawks Weekly Update 5/20
Men's World updates and some off-season news
What’s up everyone.
As per usual, below are some housekeeping items. If you don’t want to read that crap, just scroll straight down to the Weekly Updates. Seriously. This first section is just me word vomiting and I should probably stop.
Part 2 of the Draft Preview is getting a slight postponement. I’m waiting for Elite Prospect’s draft guide to drop before I finish my preview. Once that drops you can expect my preview to come out shortly after. EP does a great job on these draft guides and it’s an awesome way to get smart on prospects. Apologies to anyone who was actually looking forward to it, I just don’t want to sound like r/hawks in email form.
The first Hawks History article is in the works. I’m going to try to add a little personal touch to it. It’s about the 2014 Stadium Series game vs the Penguins.
Wait. I know what you’re thinking.
Out of all of the historical events in Blackhawks history, an organization that’s been around for almost 100 years, my first Hawks History post is about a Stadium Series game that just hit 10 years old?
Yeah, dude. It is. It’s sentimental.
In other news, I’m terrible at memes.
Album of the week has been moved to the end.
Weekly Update
Some not-so-great news came out on Wednesday. A former contractor who worked as an advisor for the Blackhawks made allegations of sexual harassment, abuse, and fraud. Give the article a full read. A lot of important details are at the end of the previous link. I’ll quote a part of the Hawks’ response below. Sander’s contract was terminated after the Blackhawks received feedback from external agencies that no longer wanted to work with her.
In response to Ms. Sanders' allegations, the organization immediately conducted a thorough investigation with the assistance of outside counsel, including interviews with internal and external parties, and review of pertinent materials and digital records. Based on the information available to us, we found insufficient evidence to substantiate her claims. Of note, the persons identified by Ms. Sanders in your question are not, and have never been, independent contractors with nor employees of the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Hawks released an episode of Every Shift.
Scott Powers did an interesting interview with Blackhawks prospect Roman Kantserov.
Here’s a pretty comprehensive look at Ivan Demidov written by a couple of Hawks fans. The formatting might load funny (it’s a reddit post).
Second City Hockey did a solid breakdown of Kevin Korchinski’s first NHL season. Might be paywalled (sorry). There are some very good comps to previous defensemen who played their first NHL season at 19 years old. Korchinski ranks at the bottom for every possession metric, however, one huge contributing factor is the team he was on (a very bad Hawks team). Also, Jaycob Megna was the partner he spent the most time with. They also have an article about Philipp Kurashev, which I haven’t read yet (lazy bum).
Men’s World Championship
Alex Vlasic and Seth Jones had a quiet game on Monday. USA lost to Slovakia 5-4 with both Jones and Vlasic absent on the score sheet. In their 5-0 win over France, Jones had an assist. Vlasic would get an assist in their next game, a 4-1 win over Poland. On Sunday, both were absent on the score sheet in a 10-1 win over Kazakhstan.
Connor Bedard scored his 5th goal of the tournament in a weird, topsy-turvy 7-6 OT win over Austria on Tuesday. He’s had a quiet stretch the last couple of games in all three of Canada’s last wins logging no points.
Philipp Kurashev won the game for Switzerland against Czechia on Monday. Kurashev ended up scoring in the shootout to put the dagger in Czechia. Petr Mrazek did not play for Czechia in this one. On Saturday, Kurashev didn’t get any points in their 8-0 win over Denmark or in their 3-2 loss to Canada.
Germany got whooped on by Sweden 6-1 on Monday. I watched most of this one and let me tell you, Germany looked baaaad. Lukas Reichel did not score. He did, however, get 2 assists in an 8-1 spanking that saw Germany beat Latvia on the 15th. Reichel also scored 2 goals in Germany’s 8-2 win over Kazakhstan and had an assist in their 4-2 win over Poland.
Mrazek hasn’t played since last week as he’s been backing up Lukas Dostal. Mrazek has only played in 2 of the 6 games with a .906 SV% and 1.50 GAA.
This should be the last full week of the tournament, so the next time you guys get an update I’ll try to compile total stats and any big moments if they happen.
Album of the Week
Keeping the tradition of Chicago punk bands going, this week’s AOTW goes to Articles of Faith’s compilation Complete Vol. 1. Technically, this is a collection of their early stuff and let me tell you, it’s worth the listen. There’s a reason Articles of Faith is one of the Big 4 in Chicago hardcore. I’m going to be sticking to Chicago artists for a while and don’t worry, there’s going to be more than just punk and metal.
Let’s Go Hawks.