Tonight's recap is guaranteed to be completely incoherent.

What's worse than having swine flu H1N1?  Try being the only person in your family that doesn't have H1N1.  It sucks.  I hate the flu.  Fucking hate it.  Poor Mrs. CT is laid up in bed, while the kids are sick but have recovered enough to think that they're well and are going completely stir crazy.  So we're all stuck in the house for two days and I'm responsible for feeding, clothing and caring for everyone, not to mention cleaning up the odd excretion off the living room floor.  Cripes, I can barely care for myself, I was not ready for this.  Anyway, I was looking forward to this game as a nice way to relax going into a (hopefully) healthy weekend.  Unfortunately, the Hawks had other plans.  The good news is, you can drink alcohol while taking Tamiflu.


THE GOOD

VERSTEEG! - Steeger was forced to play center tonight, and he didn't back down from the challenge, winning face offs, making some good plays and getting a couple of assists.

Andrew Ladd:  Ladd scored a goal, got kicked in the fucking face and later returned to the game.  Let me reiterate, Ladd got kicked in the face with a skate and returned to the game.  If there was any justice in the universe, Ladd would have scored the deciding goal in the shootout, but he didn't.  So if I've just shaken your faith in universal justice, I apologize.

THE BAD

Antti Niemi:  Holy shit, those last two goals were weak.  I'd give Niemi some credit for his showing in the shootout, but that seemed to be more a product of terrible shooting than good goaltending.  No more talk of this guy as a full time starter, please.

Power Play:  Quenneville and Company appear to be grasping at straws with this unit now.  Granted, they were without both Toews and Bolland tonight, but they're further weakening the forward corps on the PP by playing wingers on the point.  I know Byfuglien scored a goal from the point, but the coaching staff just seems to be randomly throwing guys out there now.  Oh, and the power play surrendered a short handed goal, and another that came just as that same penalty expired.  Guh.

THE UGLY

The Shootout:  Nobody covered themselves in glory in this one, except maybe Patrick Kane who undressed Craig Anderson with a sick move.  Other than a nice save by Anderson on Kris VERSTEEG!, most of the other misses seemed to be due more to the incompetence of the skaters than the brilliance of the goalies.  And Quenneville using Cam Barker with Duncan Keith and Brian Campbell still on his bench?  REALLY?!?

Up next:  CT goes to bed and wakes up in a fluless wonderland.