Previewing the Canucks and Blackhawks with Jim Neveau
Entry posted by Andrew Bucholtz
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[The original piece can be found here]
The Canucks kick off their second-round matchup with the Blackhawks today at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific. I'll be live-blogging it at Canuck Puck and <em><a href="http://www.sportingmadness.ca/">Sporting Madness</a></em>, so feel free to stop by then and chat! To get you set for it, I interviewed <b><a href="http://twitter.com/jim_neveau">Jim Neveau</a></b> of Fanball's excellent Chicago blog, <i><a href="http://paintitblackhawks.com/">Paint It Blackhawks</a></i> on what we can expect from the Blackhawks this series. My questions and his answers are below.
<b>Andrew Bucholtz:</b> The Blackhawks knocked off Nashville in six games in Round 1. Was that pretty much what you were expecting, or was it a tougher or easier series than you'd anticipated?
<b>Jim Neveau:</b> With seven teams making the postseason in the West with 100 or more points, it wasn't much of a surprise that the Hawks went six games against the Predators. Nashville plays a very defensive style of hockey, mucking up the middle and generally trying to frustrate their opponent into mistakes. It is a style that teams with limited offensive talent generally try to employ to even the playing field, and Nashville did it very effectively against Chicago.
The series probably would have ended sooner had the Hawks not stubbornly tried to stick to their perimeter game plan in the first three games of the series. Once Chicago started to crash the net, set up screens in front of <strong>Pekka Rinne</strong>, and start to really attack Nashville in the corners of the offensive zone, the series was pretty much over.
<b>A.B.:</b> <strong>Jonathan Toews</strong> finished the first round with eight points, while <strong>Patrick Kane</strong> had seven. Which of the two stars do you think will be a bigger offensive threat against the Canucks?
<b>J.N.:</b> While each of the two young Chicago stalwarts has an opportunity to have a great offensive series, the more likely candidate seems to be <strong>Patrick Kane</strong>. He played very solidly at the beginning of the Nashville series while his other teammates struggled, and he had a penchant for scoring clutch goals, as evidenced by his game-tying tally in Game 5 in Chicago.
Toews is great at creating screens in front of goaltenders, so he is likely to get more of the "assists that don't appear on the score sheet" than actual helpers, but he will still pound in some rebounds like he did in the first period of Game 6 of the Predators' series.
<b>A.B.:</b> On defence, how has <strong>Brent Seabrook</strong> (note for readers: a guy <a href="http://www.sportingmadness.ca/2010/03/hockey-interviewing-brent-seabrook-and.html">I interviewed</a> not that long ago) looked since returning from his concussion? Is he back in form, or does he still have a ways to go?
<b>J.N.:</b> Seabrook was one of the hardest hitting Hawks in the Nashville series, and his physical play indicates two things: one, he isn't afraid of contact after the vicious hit that he took from <b>James Wisniewski</b>, and the second is that his body is allowing him to continue playing his game, thus proving he is healthy enough to be an asset.
<b>A.B.:</b> <b>Duncan Keith</b> seemed pretty quiet in the first round, finishing with just two points and a -4 rating. Do you think he'll step it up in the second round?
<b>J.N.:</b> Keith struggled mightily for most of the Nashville series, but he had a sort of coming out party in Game 6, scoring a goal and adding an assist in a little over 28 minutes of ice time. Add this to the fact that he played better defense in the second half of the series, and you have the potential for a breakout in the Western Semi-Finals.
If Keith can get into a groove passing the puck (he had 55 assists during the regular season), and if he can continue to play solid blue line defense against a relentless Vancouver attack, then he could be poised to have a series befitting a Norris Trophy nominee.
<b>A.B.:</b> How confident are you in <strong>Antti Niemi</strong>'s goaltending?
<b>J.N.:</b> Inconsistent play plagued <strong>Antti Niemi</strong> at times during the first round series against Nashville. He displayed some poor puck-handling, and allowed a number of soft goals that very easily could have helped end the series sooner had he stopped them.
On the flip side, there were times during the series that he stepped up his play to a level that befits a playoff goaltender, including a Game 2 shutout victory and a masterful third period performance in Game 6 in which he stopped 15 Nashville shots and helped his teammates kill off three straight Predator power plays.
That Game 6, in fact, provided the perfect dichotomy by which to gauge fans' confidence in Niemi: if he plays like he did in the first period (allowing three goals), then fans will bemoan their fate in true Chicago sports fan style. If he can play like he did in the last 20 minutes of the series, then fans will rejoice that they may have found the perfect alternative to <strong>Cristobal Huet</strong>'s maddeningly inconsistent play.
<b>A.B.:</b> Both teams have made lots of personnel changes since they met last season. Which team do you think has improved more?
<b>J.N.:</b> The Chicago Blackhawks made one of the biggest splashes of the free agency period when they signed <strong>Marian Hossa</strong>, and his 24 goals in only 57 games played certainly made him a valuable asset to his team. <strong>Tomas Kopecky</strong> and <strong>John Madden</strong> were also added to the mix, with Kopecky scoring a career-high 10 goals and Madden serving as one of the best penalty killers on the team.
The Vancouver Canucks, however, made a couple of moves that have turned out to be just as profitable, signing <strong>Mikael Samuelsson</strong> to a three-year contract and trading for defenseman <strong>Christian Ehrhoff</strong> during the off-season. Samuelsson has been an immediate blessing to the team, scoring 30 goals during the regular season and helping one of the better offenses in the Western Conference.
Ehrhoff had an outstanding season as well, racking up a team-leading +36 and notching 17 power-play assists on the campaign. He also led the team in Time on Ice.
With all of those stats floating around, it's a tight race as to which team made the better acquisitions, but the edge has to be given to the Canucks. Their blue line was instantly bolstered by the addition of Ehrhoff, and Samuelsson was a valuable asset on the offensive side of the puck as well. Hossa and his brethren were certainly great pick-ups by the Hawks, but for sheer bang for the buck, the Canucks outdid themselves here.
<b>A.B.:</b> What do you think will be the key matchup of this series?
-With how much the two despised each other during the last postseason, a lot of folks will point to the match-up between <strong>Dustin Byfuglien</strong> and <strong>Roberto Luongo</strong> as the key to this series, but since we don't like to go with the conventional wisdom, here's another one that will be just as important: <strong>Ryan Kesler</strong> against <strong>Jonathan Toews</strong>.
Kesler brings some much needed intensity to the forward department for the Canucks, and he is just as likely to score a goal as he is to drop the gloves and have at it to help give his team a boost. Toews, on the other hand, is a cool customer, staying away from the agitating tactics that Kesler uses, and instead focusing on parking himself in front of the opposing goaltender, as well as being one of the best back-checking forwards in the league.
While the differences between the two centers are abundantly clear, one thing is certain: both players will do the little things to help their team win, and whoever does them better will be on the smiling end of the handshake line at the end of the series.
<b>A.B.:</b> Finally, what's your prediction for the series?
<b>J.N.:</b> Accuse me of homerism if you want, but this series will be a hard fought one, with plenty of scoring, hard-hitting, and good old fashioned hatred. The Canucks are a better team than the one the Hawks saw in the playoffs last year, but in the end, the Hawks' depth at the forward spot and excellent penalty killing unit should be sufficient to oust the Canucks from the playoffs. It will likely be a seven-game slugfest, but I pick the Hawks to prevail.
Thanks to Jim for taking the time to do this! Make sure to follow him on Twitter and check out <a href="http://paintitblackhawks.com/2010/05/01/pib-playoff-primer-who-needs-to-step-up-for-the-hawks-against-vancouver/">his preview post</a> over at <i>Paint It Blackhawks</i>. There are still almost three hours until the puck drops and the live blog kicks off, so here's my predictions for the series and links to some of the best other previews from around the web. Hope to see you tonight!
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