really tough

great to see kopi and richie rewarded for gutting that one out, but too bad they couldn't score in that first OT. from about 2 minutes in until about 14 minutes in, they seemed poise to take it.

second OT, played with too much fire, they gave chicago a handful of odd man rushes and eventually they had to pay. kane with kind of a cheeseball hat trick. one bunny off a blown penalty call, another off a flubbed icing thing (why quick doesn't cover that, i won't know, he made another poke check straight to either fro or stalberg later, too) and then the winner was legit. there's nothing funnier to me than the cheesy hat trick, carter had one last year in phoenix. i think it was a natural hat trick, in fact.

anyway, the breaks ultimately even out. you look at last year, they could do no wrong and they stayed astonishingly healthy all things considered. even with the layoff, it was tough as hell to repeat.

i hope they manage things well on defense. i really dont think they need to add much. i imagine penner and fraser have a pretty limited future, should see vey and pearson sliding in there.