Monday, October 6, 2008

Season Preview: Dustin Byfuglien

And yes, I can spell that without even looking it up now. Quite simply, Buff is one of the key masters to this Hawks season (along with Havlat and Bolland.). When the monster from Minnehaha was moved to forward he scored at a 30-goal-a-season clip. Because of Tallon's fun-with-numbers style of GM'ing, he's going to have to keep that up for our forward line to resemble an actual playoff team's. The signs are encouraging. All reports out of camp are that he's slimmed down, worked his ass off, and his playing more physical. All of this is good. Judged by watching his performance last night which I witnessed, this is all true.

Buff needs to play with a mean-streak. In today's game, where defensemen and NFL cornerbacks meet in support groups to figure out why the world's against them, Buff should be unstoppable. He has the same problem that you see some people say about LeBron James, in that he needs to get his ass near the goal. Buff should be blotting out the sun like Persian arrows to goalies, and then simply outmuscling any opponent for rebounds and tons of garbage goals. Bertuzzi made a career of this, and then just the thought of this after he became a criminal and lost his edge. A second PP unit of him in front with Havlat on the wing would be a strong force. Hopefully, Buff is really angry about the economic downturn or the war in Iraq, and we see the streak every night.