Blackhawks MVP for 2013

[averagejoe]

Historic season. Lots of positives. I realize that many times the MVP is decided heavily by points. But I'm asking to consider the intangibles as well.

So who would you nominate for MVP this season? Here are some of my personal considerations:

1) Hossa - the guy is arguably the strongest and most talented Hawks' player. Tough to knock off the puck. Makes everyone around him better.

2) Toews - Led by example. Did more dirty work this season, and made some incredible drives in the crease in the process.

3) Leddy - Really matured this season. Hard to believe we questioned the trade that sent Cam Barker to the Wild for him. Seems so lopsided now in the Hawks favor.

4) The Bickell-Shaw-Stalberg line. They were a mismatch for any other 3rd line to take the ice. (Or any other line.) They single-handedly changed the momentum of games.

5) Ray Emery - no one expected much from him. He went above and beyond.

Thoughts?

 

[HockeyDoug]

What's going on Joe? I just signed up, saw the familiar avatar.

As far as the MVP goes, I can't really say, lots of good story lines.

 

[averagejoe]

I'm too used to calling you Bob. Now your Doug? Take off you, hoser!

I believe this was the last thread I posted on CBS before the message board got axed. I know I worded it differently from the original but you get the gist.

Glad you're hear Bob, I mean, uh, Doug! Not much activity on this board, but with all of your hockey knowledge, I'm sure you'll be posting updates on AHL, ECHL, KHL and maybe even a few high school teams... Ha.

I hope some of the other regular contributors to CBS show up soon too!

 

[averagejoe]

One more thing, my Strange Brew friend...

I realize that Coach Q is trying to give guys like Brookbank, Bollig, and now LeBlanc some "experience" before the playoffs begin. But I think it's too late for that. Brookbank looks lost out there. Jury is out on LeBlanc. And Bollig's only positive contribution is that he might beat the snot out of someone, otherwise he's a pylon out there.

After the way the Hawks got knocked around in the Nucks game, I'd much rather see Q build some chemistry with guys that always seem to be healthy scratches, like Mayers and Carcillo. Hard to get in a rhythm (speaking of Mayers and Carbomb) if your watching from the luxury box.

What are your thoughts?

 

[HockeyDoug]

I'm trying to avoid thinking too hard about what Q does after they locked up the 1 seed. Q loves playing with lines so I don't know what to think. The Vancouver game was just a turd, I'm not going to pay attention to it. They had nothing to play for, they were tired and uninterested. Vancouver was ready, Chicago wasn't.

Not a fan of getting LeBlanc the start, on the other hand, letting him get 1 game to see the pace and speed of an NHL game might give him some excellent insight for what he'll have to do to make the next step. The brief experience (similar to Pirri or Morin) might have been part of a development philosophy to let him see where he stacks up and where to focus for his training this summer and what to focus on in Rockford next year. I may be reading too much into it, but I doubt he leaped Pirri on the depth chart.

For the playoffs my feelings on toughness and grinding gritty stuff (I hate the terms and I hate the implications) will remain the same. Size helps, but give me talent over more than one of Bollig/Carcillo/Mayers in a playoff series. The Hawks are puck possession team, if they can't make the first couple passes out of the zone it doesn't matter if they play physical or not. They are talented enough to win corner battles, it's a matter of whether or not they want to take a hit to complete a pass in my opinion.

I agree on your thoughts on Bollig. Brookbank hasn't looked good, but he's a 6/7 with Roszival so I have to remember that opposing coaches are trying to exploit the matchup and make them look bad. He aggravates me but I like the Hawks' bottom pair over everybody else's bottom pair.

I expect Q to spend the last 2 games doing everything he can to make me scratch my head until hair starts coming out.

Are you a site refugee right now like me Joe or do you have a regular board?

 

[cju84]

Leddy/Bickel/Stalberg/Emery.. No. Most improved maybe, but not MVP.

Gotta be Toews imo. Kane/Hossa close as well.

 

[gmalis1]

Toews is the heart, soul and leader on this team. Tough as nails. As dependable as it gets. He wins the Hart trophy, IMO. Definitely the Hawks MVP this year.

 

[gmalis1]

Also, when playoff times comes around you will see this:

Hossa-Toews-Saad
Sharp-Handzus-Kane
Stalberg-Bolland-Bickell
Frolik-Shaw-Kruger

Keith-Hjamarlsson
Seabrook-Leddy
Oduya-Rozsival

The three centers on lines 2, 3 and 4 are interchanbeable...depending on how the game goes.

Brookbank a healthy scratch most, if not all, nights. Rozsival has more game than Brookbank.

Mayers, Carcillo and Bollig add nothing to the team except toughness. Don't expect to see them on the ice during the playoffs.

Hawks will get pushed around and manhandled, like they usually do in most games.

Hoping for Red Wings to get in as the eighth seed. Seem like the best matchup for the Hawks. Wings not too physical, Hawks have more talent and depth, Howard not gonna steal games for the Wings. Columbus worries me for some reason.

Oh, and Crawford starts in the playoffs. Unless a game gets out of hand early, doubtful we see Emery in net.

 

[gmalis1]

Hard to believe Kane and Toews are just 24 years old. Shaw, Leddy, Saad, Frolik, Kruger, even Bolland all under 27 years old. Bright future for the Hawks.

Add in Pirri, Morin, Ben Smith, Jimmy Hayes, Adam Clendening...things looking good all the way around.

 

[gmalis1]

Oh, glad I found everyone on here! Missed everyone...especially "The Ditch". Hopefully we can get some good insight into the playoffs going.

 

[averagejoe]

Are you a site refugee right now like me Joe or do you have a regular board?

Actually the guys that I play fantasy football with (across the country) also got bumped from CBS and we were looking for a new home.

We tried jumping over to ESPN's forum but we got frustrated with it.

Someone suggested this Hoppla site and most all of us came over. I kept checking this Hawks board and the Bears board too, but both were pretty quiet.

I've been told that once you hit 50 posts here on SportsHoopla, you'll be able to send private messages (like on CBS) and have some additional options available to you.

Glad to see gmalis made it over! Already, he's starting with the line combos... lol.

 

[HockeyDoug]

I'll try this site out for a while. So far I like it, hopefully some more hockey posters show up for the postseason. ESPN is tough to get into and it seems more than half the posters are trolls. I like HF for content but can't really commit to it. Some other refugees are on NGS but they don't cover hockey too much. A few went to mudncleats but that's a football site mainly.

Enough about that (can't pm yet), I'll be checking this board out once a day for a while I think to see how it goes.

Back to the topic at hand. Toews would probably be the MVP but I would have to give it to Kane. He carried the pp for most of the year when it was working, he carried a terrible center and variable wing (or slumping) most of the year and is 4th in points on the top team in the league.

While Toews have been more important the last half, I think Kane did far more in the first half.

I'm not suggesting that I take Kane over Toews when it comes to building a team, I'm only saying Kane has been more valuable to the team THIS year. If Toews was carrying the same defensive workload this year as he did in 2011 and 12 I would pick him for the 2013 team MVP.

There's not really a bad answer.

Bowman has had an awesome year. Crawford missed a couple weeks, Sharp missed 19 games or so, Hossa missed more than 2 weeks, Bolland missing a dozen or more games and they still finished with the top record in the league. Wouldn't have guessed that.

 

[gmalis1]

Glad to see gmalis made it over! Already, he's starting with the line combos... lol.

That's what I'm here for! LOL!

 

[gmalis1]

Bob, aka Doug...time to start another "Ditch" thread in the NHL forum.

Couldn't pass up a day without it. I miss it!

 

[HockeyDoug]

We'll see who else is around here and we'll get one going.