Sharks Finned

The only goal Antti Niemi allowed San Jose was an impossible ricochet off Duncan Keith.  He spent the rest of the afternoon diving across his crease to deny putbacks and standing his ground against an array of wraparounds, stuff-shots and point-blank attempts.

Too many rebounds, still, but a star turn nonetheless.

San Jose looks like a team skating in slush against a quicker opponent.  They may be big, but the Hawks did their best to stand up to their physicality -- hard hits early by Ben Eager and Niklas Hjallmarsson noteworthy.  The Hawks look like the better team.

My head is going to explode if the report in the Trib today about the Bulls is true.  I cannot say this strongly enough:  if the thought of ceding some organizational power to LeBron James and his "team" (perhaps including coach John Calipari) is too scary for Garpax and Jerry Reinsdorf to contemplate, then it is time to get out of the basketball business.  This is the big time in the modern NBA, and the Bulls cannot shy from it.  If they do, it will render meaningless all efforts to prepare for the most important offseason in franchise history.

The in-season offseason may be looming for the lifeless White Sox, as they listen to offers for A.J. Pierzynski and others.  They finished the weekend just as they began it -- eight games behind the Twins, who got a 2-out, eighth-inning grand slam from Jason Kubel off Mariano Rivera to beat the Yankees in New York.

And a win over the Pirates kept the Cubs' recent bad feelings at bay, with a glance at the standings showing them just five and a half games behind the first-place...Reds?