The Two-Line Pass

My old buddy Alan Siegel from the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune sends along this video of a young Milan Lucic. BOXING!

The video is from the summer of 2004, when Lucic’s father sent him to Champlain Heights Community Center to learn how to box as a means of helping him mature and compete as a hockey player. And, well, you see the results. He won three of his four amateur fights, including the above video, a first-round TKO.

“His hook was perfect,” McInnis says. “I’ve seen him use it in hockey. He brings it over with the elbow slightly curving. A lot of guys will do it sideways.”

I mean, look at how bad Looch pummels that kid. Bloodied his nose on his first real flurry, then did it even worse on the second and the fight had to be stopped. Because even at 16, Lucic was a bad dude.

The Lead

So Chicago’s down three goals to a Northwest division opponent, ties the game, and then gives up the game-winner on an egregious turnover. After that, the Northwest division opponent adds and empty netter.

It happened last week, you may recall, when Chicago erased a 4-1 second-period deficit in Calgary but went on to lose 6-4, and it happened again tonight.

Only this time, it wasn’t Eric Nystrom pumping in a rebound off a rebound from a big point shot due to an own-zone turnover. Rather, it was Sami Salo picking up a rebound as the late trail on a 3-on-1 thanks to a Kris Versteeg turnover.

Memo to the Blackhawks: Any time Kyle Wellwood is springing 60 percent of the guys on the ice for a break the other way, you blew it.

But this was the deserved result, in all honesty. Vancouver, despite a teeeeeeerrible power play, scored beauty goal after beauty goal and dictated the flow for pretty much the entire game, save for the 14 or so minutes that Chicago needed to score all three of their third-period goals. And if you’ll remember, that’s exactly what they did against Calgary as well, taking the contest over with eight minutes or so of vibrant, exciting hockey before fading back to the monochromatic, blasé style they’d employed from puck drop to inspiration.

Chalk it up to the Blackhawks being a young team, I guess. When lightning strikes for them, they’re a devastatingly effective club. But when it doesn’t, they give up five goals, including one to Pavol freaking Demitra.

Oh, and you’ll never guess what. The empty-net goal was created because of an attacking-zone turnover by who? You guessed it: Frank Stallone Brian Campbell.