Kimmo Timonen Not to Blame for Blackhawks' Deficit

[ASquared]

Kimmo Timonen’s brief tenure in Chicago hasn’t gone exactly as planned. In 15 playoff games with the Blackhawks, the 40-year-old blue liner has been held completely scoreless on a minuscule 9:25 of average time on ice per game.
Clearly, this isn’t what GM Stand Bowman had in mind when dealing for the 15-year veteran. But if all the blame for being on the brink of elimination is to be aimed at Timonen, that means other factors are being overlooked.......

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My take is that the Blackhawks had to have known the risk that came with Timonen and his cap friendly $2 million AAV. Further, they were a bit quick to jump on Timonen before other teams landed other defensemen on deadline day. There's obviously a lot more to it, but I detail it in the article. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Daydream Nation]

Have you watched Timonen play? He has been absolutely terrible.

I don't really understand what your overall point is. The trade has been a major failure and if he was giving the Hawks average play for a 3rd pairing dman, they would be in much better shape than facing elimination.

And if it makes you feel more comfortable to share the blame contributing to the Hawks deficit, you can point at Q's indefensible game 3 benching of Vermette and TT and the shakeup of the best line in game 2 (the 4th line), the invisible play of Bryan Bickell and Patrick Sharp, and lack of production and seemingly overnight aging of Marian Hossa. Add in a quiet series from Kane, a sporadic powerplay, and the fact that the Hawks are playing a very talented and deep team and you can see why they trail 3-2. All of these are glaring reasons as to why the Hawks are in the predicament that they are in. And I don't know where you are basing your idea that everyone is piling on Timonen excessively. Most knowledgeable fan will point to all these reason.

[The Bottlenecker]

What used to be the Blackhawks strength, their depth, is no more. Let's face it, with Rosival's injury, the Hawks are down to four ready-for-NHL dmen, and the minutes they have logged are piling up. Timonen's poor play was expected, in my opinion, but it just goes to show you how little depth the Hawks have that they were willing to grab him.