Adam Hess – Page 8 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

Everything Else

Game #23 – Hawks vs. Lightning Spotlight: The Clock That Won’t Strike Midnight

By Adam Hess November 23, 2018 1857 0

It’s rather fascinating to look at the state of these two teams now three years and some change after they matched up in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final. The Lightning were an ascending team at that time and a lot of people seemed to think they might end up being the next kind of team to have an Era like the Blackhawks had. It hasn’t happened for the Lightning in the postseason obviously, but they’ve remained one of the better teams in the NHL since then while the Hawks now find themselves closer to the cellar than the ceiling.

With the amount of young talent the Lightning have, it’s not exactly surprising they’re second in the league in points right now. They’ve built their team extremely well around their core stars in Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, and Victor Hedman while also supplementing the whole deal with really talented depth – hey, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? They made what now looks like one of the smartest trades in recent memory to get Mikhael Sergachev from the Habs, and then got aggressive in adding good veterans along the way as well. They’ve made the absolute most of their situation as they look to win a Cup in what looks like a really wide open window for them.

But perhaps their greatest and no doubt the most surprising find has been Yanni Gourde, who I promise you is not some random pumpkin-themed comic book villain. If you’re reading this and thinking “who the hell is Yanni Gourde?” you are probably not alone. As a 25-year old rookie, Gourde came out of absolutely nowhere last year to post 64 points (25G, 39A) in 82 games last year and solidified himself as one of the Bolts’ key depth contributors. This year he’s gotten off to an even better start to the season with 21 points (9G, 12A) in 22 games, and he just signed a huge, six-year extension in Tampa with an AAV of $5.167MM. It’s not often you see that kind of rise from guys with just 22 games of NHL experience before they hit 25-years-old.

The thing that feels so weird about Gourde is that all of his success just seems so unsustainable, and yet he’s sustained it. He shot 18.4% last year and is shooting 19.6% this year. On his entire career he’s at 18.9% shooting. That’s basically a goal for every five shots he takes, which just doesn’t make any damn sense. Mike Bossy is one the best goal scorers in NHL history, and he shot 21.2% for his career. Gourde’s own teammate Stamkos is one of the best modern goal scorers, and he’s shot just 16.4% on his career. Alex Fucking Ovechkin is probably gonna end up as the best goal scorer ever, and he’s shot just 12.5% on his career (though he does shoot more than most). Gourde’s conversion rate isn’t just high – it’s almost unprecedented in the modern age.

Obviously that doesn’t discredit Gourde in any way, because at this point it’s easy to think it’s just more dumb luck. This might be who he is as a scorer. Maybe he just has a shot that fools goalies better than most players, or maybe he just picks his spots really well. He’s been a brilliant addition for the Lightning, obviously, and he’s exactly the kind of sneaky good addition that high level teams tend to fall ass-backwards into. It’s not like the Blackhawks didn’t have similar lucky finds – Patrick Sharp didn’t score 20 goals until he was 25, and from that point forward he was a virtual lock to reach that benchmark. But even in Sharp’s case he never shot higher than 17.2% in a season.

Gourde is a fun player to watch, and like I said before he is a fun story. I am happy for him, and I definitely don’t want him to stop being fun and good at hockey. I am not sure that he will keep being able to score at that kind of rate, but even if he does eventually falling off a cliff in terms of shooting percentage, he’s still going to be a productive player. But at this point, he seems to be a Cinderella Story with a clock that won’t strike midnight.

Game #23 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #21 – Wild 1, Hawks 3 – The Boys Are Back, Kinda

By Adam Hess November 18, 2018 1941 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

The Blackhawks and Wild played in the least interesting Chicago-Minnesota matchup in the Windy City tonight, but in what is hopefully a harbinger of what is to come at Soldier Field, our hometown boys brought home the win. But when I say “least interesting,” I really mean it, cuz this was a snoozer. Let’s do it:

– The most important takeaway for the Hawks in this one is that they had what appeared to be a functioning NHL power play. Their first goal of the night came with the extra man, and it was the result of some beautiful puck movement that opened up a passing lane for Patrick Kane to hit a wide open Jonathan Toews in front of the net, and all the captain had to do was stand there and let the puck hit his stick. They got two other shots at the power play in the game and didn’t convert, but still looked more competent in that regard, which is a major step in the right direction.

– Toews and Saad both having the “bounce-back” campaigns we needed to see from them is extremely encouraging. Both of them were excellent tonight and seemed to be on the ice when the most excitement was happening. It would be a lot better if these two were doing it for a more competitive team, but for now we will take the best players on these squad performing well.

– Corey Crawford is all the way back. He was absolutely huge tonight, and he needed to be huge after the first period. The Hawks did play well in that opening frame, but still lost the Corsi battle, and from there it only got worse. Minnesota had 56% of the shots in the second period and 62% in the third. Obviously part of that is Score Effects, but overall the Hawks were not the better team tonight and Crawford was the difference.

– Biggest takeaway for me from the first full (kinda, I was flipping back and forth after the Bears started) game I’ve watched in the Colliton Era is that the Hawks are playing a bit simpler than they were with Quenneville. They just seem to have a bit more pep because they’re just playing more instinctive hockey and not trying to coordinate a system. Maybe that’s partly confirmation bias based on what I thought they needed to do after Q got the kick, but there is still an obviously different approach and I think it is effective.

Everything Else

Atop the Sugar Pile – So the Lesson is, Never Try

By Adam Hess November 13, 2018 2052 0

The Hawks are in a weird spot right now, and that’s being downright generous. They’ve lost seven in a row and perhaps you heard something about a recent coaching change? Oh, you haven’t? Well, let me assure that everyone around Chicago took it very well and no one is overreacting or furious or aghast in any way. Yet in the midst of these chaotic times we still need to parse who’s doing what and how (we’re self-hating masochists to do this but you knew that already). So let’s take a look:

The Dizzying Highs

Patrick Kane: Kane’s give-a-shit level was down around -50 for much of the early part of the season, but whether he wants to or not, he’s had to shoulder more of a load (literally) and is one of the few bright spots on this team right now. Colliton has been leaning on Kane for minutes—his TOI jumped up nearly 10 minutes from Quenneville’s last game in Calgary to Colliton’s first at the UC against Carolina. Kane had a goal and as assist in that game, and if you ignore the fact that neither he nor anyone else did jack shit against Philly yesterday, Garbage Dick has four points in his last five games. He’s also been kept on the ice for the entire power play a few times in this brave new Colliton era. Again, this hasn’t resulted in an offensive explosion quite yet but he belongs out there…and so much the better with some right-handed shots finally. Kane’s shooting percentage is a robust 16.9 right now, so you’d have to think that if Colliton keeps him out there as he’s been doing—both on the power play and at the even-strength minutes—then Kane’s points total, which is already leading the team at 21, will only go up. At least that’s what we can hope.

The Terrifying Lows

The Entire Defense: You know what, at this point I almost feel bad for Brandon Manning. Almost. He’s admitted publicly that he sucks, acknowledged that he was struggling with Q ignoring him, and said that he’s looking for a fresh start. And then he gets a fucking own goal in Philly. I mean, you can’t make this shit up. He’s exhausted my loathing for him (and we’re not even 20 games in!), and now it’s verging on pity.

I’m feeling something close to pity because it’s not like Manning is the one fucking things up defensively and everyone else is just peachy. Duncan Keith has had bad turnovers lately. Erik Gustafsson has joined in on the fun, with some of his own in the Carolina game. Brent Seabrook seems like he’s trying but he’s still slow, even if his nacho belly is a little smaller these days. Brandon Davidson, Jan Rutta…what can you even say?

The Hawks are second-worst in goals against right now (64) and goals against per 60 (3.72), with only Ottawa coming in worse in these stats. And you know it’s not all Crawford’s fault—it’s because they’re giving up an average of 33 shots per game. But here’s the real kick in the ass: they’re averaging that same number of shots per game themselves (33.1), yet they’re giving up more high-danger chances than they’re getting (13.66 HDCA/60 versus 11.56 HDCF/60). So while you’d think that at least based on shots they’d be closer to equal in terms of goals for/goals against, they’re giving up a shitload of the types of chances you can’t allow and hanging Crawford (and Ward, to a lesser extent) out to dry. It’s a mess.

The Creamy Middles

Jeremy Colliton: It’s the smallest of sample sizes, I know. But the pace is accelerating, they’re being more creative (or trying to), the power play is at least seeing some needed personnel changes, and by all accounts he’s trying to address neutral zone issues and many of the myriad problems this team has. The crappy results in these last two games can’t be directly attributed to coaching miscues. Colliton is still trying to figure out what the hell he’s going to do with these guys. He hasn’t been a train wreck and has appeared calm and collected despite the vitriol and dumbshit performances surrounding him this week. And that’s about all we can ask for at this point.

Everything Else

Game #13 – Hawks 2, Canucks 4: The Jaws Of Victory Are Easy to Snatch From

By Adam Hess November 1, 2018 1782 0

Some combination of last year’s horrible season and all of the insane optimism I have about the Bears has resulted in an all-time low level of expectations about the Blackhawks this year, and with that it’s been difficult for me to get worked up about bad losses. So it should tell you something when I say that this loss was really aggravating. Let’s just get this over with:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– At a certain point Brandon Saad is going to have a breakthrough on offense this year. I feel this is a certainty. His performances have been too dominant in almost all other aspects besides actually finding the back of the net, and even tonight he managed to that, albeit in a really weird way. He almost had a second but he Maradonna’d it into the net with the kind of backheel touch I’d like to see in Man City’s midfield (yes I am a Citizen. No I don’t know why Sam still lets me write here). Overall he was probably the Hawks best player tonight, and his 70% shot share at 5v5 bears that out (though it was actually third on the team to Wide Dick and Kunitz, his linemates). It’s either gonna come together for him or continue to be the most frustrating season imaginable. Hopefully the former.

– I don’t know what kind of galaxy brain shit led Joel Quennville to a defensive pairing of the Brandons Davidson and Manning, but the results of that pair being on the ice is what Q and his team deserve for not just putting that pair together, but sticking with it all night. Manning continues to be unarguably the worst player on the ice, and his presence on this team is an affront to humanity and the sport of hockey. He almost murdered one of the Canucks players tonight (it’s too late for me to go back and try to figure out who it was) and in my opinion the only just result is that he gets banned from the NHL forever. It’s only right.

– Meanwhile, Manning was a land of contrasts tonight. There was a 30 second stretch before the Canucks second goal where he did an excellent job closing Elias Petterson out in the defensive zone, basically completely shutting the rookie down on the rush. Then 30 seconds later he seemed like he had no clue what to do with Jake fucking Virtanen as he rushed, and Manning ended up leaving Virtanen way too much room to shoot, and he burned Crow high. And then probably about two minutes later he boxed out Louis Eriksson extremely well to shut down a rush. So what the fuck? Pick a lane my dude.

– This was a really bad loss, mostly because the Hawks played so much better in the first two periods than the Canucks. But when you get brained so badly you only manage 28% of the shots in the third period, you deserve to lose. Let’s agree to never speak of this again.

Everything Else

Game #9 – Ducks 1, Hawks 3: Nobody Told Me You Could Die From Bliss

By Adam Hess October 23, 2018 2362 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

There is something so satisfying about this kind of Blackhawks win. Were they perfect? No. But they were the better team on the ice from start to finish. The players you want to see step up and play well did just that. Corey Crawford did his thing. Sure, it was the Ducks. That doens’t make this kind of win any less fun. Let’s get to the bullets:

– The Hawks played well in the first period, but there was enough within the period that made me say “yuck” that I almost choked laughing when Chris Boden and Jamal Mayers posited that it was the best period of the season for the Hawks. The breakouts that were such a major issue for the Hawks against the Lightning on Sunday were an issue yet again, and if the Hawks have any real strategy on getting through the neutral zone it was hardly on display tonight, let alone in the first period. If they can’t have one guy – usually Kane or Toews, it seems – carry the puck all the way through the zone, they’re completely lost, and it seems no one is capable of making a good pass in that zone, including 19 and 88. The Ducks love to sit back and let the other team charge at them, which is incredibly stupid, but tonight it worked, because the Hawks were still having trouble getting into their own zone.

– This was another strong game for Saad, who finally cut off the snake’s head and got himself on the scoresheet with his first goal this season. He was dominant throughout the night as well, skating with a fire under his ass and playing a piss and vinegar kinda game. He was all over the ice in the final minutes as well, as the Hawks attempted to close it out. He consistently got pressure on puck carriers and was able to get the empty netter for goal number two of the night and season. The optimism around Saad remains high nearly across the board for the FFUD crew, so I don’t think anyone was near the panic button on him at all, but him finally scoring feels like a bit of a weight off (more for him than us, I’m sure) and hopefully he continues to play this way. If he does, the production is going to come to him.

– Another point on Saad – can people please stop bringing up the fuckin’ Panarin trade every time he does something good. You don’t have to validate the trade, and bringing it up only lends credence to the idea that it was a bad trade, which it wasn’t. You don’t have to convince people Saad is good – he is. Is he the offensive dynamo that Panarin is? No. But Panarin was a toy – he’s the kind of player that is a scoring luxury for a good team. He would probably be a detriment to this current edition of the Blackhawks. And Brandon Saad fucks. Thanks.

– Jokiharju is pretty much the real deal. For him to be doing what he is doing at the NHL level right now, at 19 years old, is almost unheard of from defensemen that aren’t heralded as generational talents prior to being drafted. Now, that doesn’t mean Joker is a generational talent, because he isn’t. But being strong on both ends of the ice, closing gaps and sealing opponents off from the puck, and being able to make plays with the puck on his stick like he can, all at 19 years old against grown ass men who are stronger and more experienced than you are all things that bode well for his NHL present and future. He might end up proving to be better than we all expected.

– I am admittedly not the best at noticing player trends thoughout a game if they’re subtle, so maybe I am wrong here, but I thought Erik Gustafsson had a pretty good game tonight. He definitely made a hell of play on the GWG, with a great shot fake that left John Gibson’s jockstrop in the crease before he fed Kane for an easy one-timer. He didn’t have a particularly outstanding game, but he was solid and didn’t do anything that was overtly bad. That probably counts as good for him.

– Thank God for Corey Crawford, and his brain that is (hopefully) not a blended mess, after all. He is still the same old top-five NHL goalie he was before he got hurt last year. That is good and I am happy.

– It’s just not the same to watch a Ducks game and not see the mutated pile of infant diapers that is Corey Perry on the ice. However, I enjoyed it greatly. May it continue forever.

Everything Else

Game #8 – And they say we’re doomed from the start – Blackhawks 3, Lighting 6

By Adam Hess October 21, 2018 2144 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

The Blackhawks were given the unfortunate task of trying to cheer me up after the Bears loss today, and instead of doing that they just took my already broken heart and ripped it out of my chest and stomped on it. Well, not really, because I don’t really think much of these Blackhawks even with how fun the early games this year have been, and with the Tampa Bay Lightning coming to town and Cam Ward in net, this was going to be ugly from the jump. But let me be dramatic, okay. Let’s do the bullets:

– Sweet merciful Jesus, can anyone on the blue line for this team skate anymore? I know the Lightning are one of the fastest teams in the NHL, but the Blackhawks defensemen literally looked like traffic cones more often than not tonight. The Lightning were skating circles around them all game long, and no one even really seemed interested in stopping them. Seriously, go watch the Lightning’s fourth goal again, if you can stomach it – I know I couldn’t. It’s like watching a new driver go through an obstacle course. Or like watching the Patriots receivers run through the Bears secondary. NO YOU ARE STILL MAD ABOUT IT.

– The second period tonight was perhaps the worst display of “professional” hockey I have ever seen the Blackhawks play. That really is where the Lightning did most of their obstacle course maneuvering, and they basically suffocated the Hawks the whole time. I don’t care how fast or good the team you’re playing in, to get outshot 34-6 in any period of NHL is hockey is inexcusable.

– Sam mentioned this on Twitter, but the Hawks best work in terms of getting out of their own zone tonight was whichever player had the puck just went up the ice with it, either skating or passing, instead of trying to fit into whichever weird-ass system Q wants them to run on the breakout. It worked for Jan Rutta, who in a a blind-squirrel-finding-a-nut moment sprung Alexandre Fortin on a breakaway for his first NHL goal.

– Those last two points bring me to a conclusion, and it’s one that I’ve talked about both sarcastically and seriously for a while now, and the podcast guys have talked about for a while now as well. And that is that it might just be time for Joel Quenneville to go. Now, I seriously doubt they’re going to make any serious move like that in season anytime soon, especially after the Scott Powers article that waxed poetic last week about how Q got here to begin with. But getting dominated in a period like that and success coming moreso from players doing their own thing rather than your system are not trends that bode well for the Stache. This is just one game, so I am not trying to jump to too wild of a conclusion, but it’s still something to monitor.

– Congrats to the Hawks on finally scoring a power play goal tonight. I look forward to the next one coming in December.

Everything Else

One Day As A Lion

By Adam Hess October 12, 2018 2071 0

As Sam goes on his Duncan Keith Appreciation Week, I asked him if I could jump in on the fun, because we all need to express more appreciation for Duncan Keith. Sam has already gone through a lot of praise and declarations about Duncs the other day. Everything Sam said was A). correct, and B. awesome (Adam is on many drugs. -ED). Duncan Keith has meant more to this franchise and the decade of success we as fans were able to experience with them than a lot of people realize, and maybe even more than Keith would want credit for. What he has meant to the team is almost difficult to put into words, and yet Sam has done it well time and time again.

I am here to talk about what Duncan Keith means to me, which is just as sappy and emotional as it sounds.

Unlike most of the others around these parts, I did not grow up with the Blackhawks. I was born in 1994 (please don’t yell at me for bringing that up), so I grew up in Dollar Bill era of Blackhawks history. They were never on TV. The most exposure I got to the Hawks as a kid was using them in NHL 2K4 on my PlayStation 2. To give you an idea of how little that meant, Tuomo Ruutu was one of the best players on the team in that game, and he was a rookie. It had Eric Daze listed as the captain, and when I learned later that he was never the captain of the team I felt betrayed.

So when the Hawks went to the Western Conference Final in 2009, that was the first real exposure I got to the team. I had watched hockey sparingly prior to that, usually just the Stanley Cup Final, so I didn’t know who Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews were; all I knew was what some of my friends were telling me – these guys are the truth and the future. The first Hawks game I ever watched all the way through was the clinching game against Vancouver that year, and then a few of the WCF games against Detroit. The only names I really recognized on the TV were from the Wings.

But my interest was piqued, so I started watching the Hawks regularly in the 2009-10 season. That season was also the first time we saw the full beauty and ascension of Duncan Keith. He was brilliant throughout the whole season and finished second on the team in points with 69 (NICE) in 76 games, which from the blue was a point total at the time that was seemingly reserved for Nick Lidstrom. He was the best player on the team in that playoff run – despite Toews’ team-record breaking production that ended up winning him the Smythe that Keith deserved – and the best defenseman in the NHL, and deservedly won the Norris Trophy over Lidstrom.

I played sports my whole life, and I was always more of a defensive player regardless of the sport. I was a shortstop and catcher, drawn to the positions because of how important they were to the defensive side of baseball. My 8th grade basketball coach always made me the primary defender on presses. I only played football one year, but I was a cornerback. Defense was my thing. So it was easy to be drawn to Keith, who was playing defense better than anyone else at the time.

I was a sophomore in high school (again, please don’t kill me for saying that) when the Blackhawks won that 2010 Cup, still young enough to play backyard sports with friends and at least pretend you were one of the players from your favorite team. A bunch of my buddies took to hockey because the Hawks were the talk of the town, and we had a whole ring of street hockey players (this is your only chance to make Jeffler jokes at me). I was a righty, but I still always imagined myself as Duncan Keith.

The next two years of Blackhawks hockey were not the best, as they bowed out of the playoffs in the first round in back-to-back years, but as I was finishing high school, the Hawks were one of my only reliable escapes from the typical bullshit of being a teenager, and Duncan Keith was the steadiest presence through all of it. He only missed eight games through those two years. And despite his best efforts, he wasn’t quite his dominant self.

Skip to me starting in college. There was no hockey for my first semester in 2012, which was probably a blessing, but once the lockout ended and we had that shortened 2013 season, what we got to experience was the most dominant three years of hockey Hawks fans had known to that point, and quite possibly will ever know. My memory of specific moments is sincerely awful, but there was never any secret that Duncan Keith was always the straw stirring the Hawks drink in that run, and as I was growing the most I ever had as a person, the Hawks were doing the most they ever had as a franchise because of him.

And let me tell you a bit more about this play that Sam talked about earlier today. I have to tell you guys, when Duncan Keith scored that goal, I almost jumped through the ceiling, and then had to keep myself from crying like a baby.

I had nearly died about three months earlier, after falling through a glass table in a truly exquisite show of idiocy – there wasn’t even alcohol involved in the incident, if you can believe it. My lung was punctured and collapsed, and over the next month (between March and April of 2015) I spent a total of 11 days in the hospital over different spans and ended up needing a surgery called a Thorocotomy which involved, as the surgeon described it, peeling scar tissue off my lungs like an orange peel.

I missed the rest of my college semester and was unable to do a lot of things I normally would’ve been able to do. The only normal thing in my life over those few months was the Blackhawks, and thus Duncan Keith being dominant. That playoff run kept me from falling into a dark place. Duncs’ goal in Game 6 let me release months of frustration and pain. Sports matter, guys.

I didn’t grow up with the Blackhawks through my youth, but I did grow up as a man with them, and I almost mean that literally because they were growing up as a team as I was growing up as a person. And as much as it must’ve been so beautiful for people like Sam, Matt, Slak, and others to get to watch it all happen as adults after slogging through the bullshit years, being able to grow up with this team was special. And Duncan Keith was a huge part of that for me.

So Duncs, even though you will probably never see this, ahead of your 1000th game, I wanted to write this and thank you. I might not be who I am today without you.

Everything Else

Game #3 – Leafs vs. Hawks Preview: Don’t Touch My Torch

By Adam Hess October 7, 2018 2314 0

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RECORDS: Maple Leafs 1-1-0 Hawks 2-0-0

PUCK DROP: 6:00 PM CT

TV: CSN Chicago

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THEM?: Pension Plan Puppets

If you were going through a tournament of the most insufferable franchises in sports, it probably wouldn’t take too long to end up with this matchup in the “Hockey Region.” If you spend more than five minutes scrolling through Hockey Twitter (and you shouldn’t, it’s bad for your health), you’re going to see these two teams come up most frequently – the Leafs because there are too fucking many of their shithead fans on the internet who do not shut up ever, and the Hawks because everyone hates them because they were really good for a really long time. Die the hero, become the villain, etc. etc.

The most exhausting and insufferable shit that has already been tossed around in the past, and you will probably hear at least once tonight, (and more if you for some reason watch the Canadian broadcast, which is a national one because of course it is) is that this could be some kind of torch passing from the Hawks to the Leafs because the Leafs have a young core with their key guys still ~~having their labor exploited~~ on their entry level contracts and that’s how the Hawks built their empire and the Leafs are using the same blueprint and blah blah blah I am going to fuckin’ puke.

The annoying part about that shitty narrative is that the parallels keep lining up, most recently with the Leafs making their big splashy free agent signing in John Tavares, which you could equate to the Hawks bringing in Marian Hossa prior to 2009-10, though it’s not even up for debate that JT91 is a better and more impactful signing. There was once an inkling of hope around these parts that StanBo and company would get in on the Tavares train, but we never get what we want because we’re all good people at this website.

The Leafs are even in the process of the RFA fuck up parallel as well. We all remember well the Kris Versteeg situation that ended up giving this site it’s new namesake, and while Toronto hasn’t stuck their dick in a fax machine quite yet (but don’t put it past Kyle Dubas) they still haven’t stopped measuring it in negotiations with William Nylander, who wants to be paid like the good-as-shit player that he is instead of signing some bullshit “bridge contract” and risk getting hurt and losing out on the money. Nylander kinda has the Leafs over a barrel because he is such a huge part of what they’re trying to do there, but the Leafs have him over an even bigger barrel and in a much more vulnerable position because of the NHL’s ~~labor exploitation~~ contract and free agency rules. If I was Stan Bowman I would be annoying the shit out of Dubas until he gave in and traded Nylander to Madison St., but it’s not like the Hawks really even have anything to send the other way that would be worth more than a hearty chuckle when proposed in negotiations.

The most annoying thing about the Maple Leafs at the present time, though, is that they are actually, it pains me to say, going to be really good. Yes they got their shit pumped by Ottawa last night and I’m sure their fans have tried drowning themselves in some maple syrup as a result, but on paper the Leafs forward group (when they get Nylander back) is probably the best in the NHL. They have two of the top-10 centers in the damn league, and even though Nazem Kadri is a giant fuckstick, when he’s your 3C you’re in a really good spot. They have some holes on defense, but we saw Pittsburgh go back-t0-back with leftover popsicle sticks on their second pairing a few years ago. And the good players that the Leafs have are fun to watch. Auston Matthews is almost appointment television, Mitch Marner is a nasty playmaker, and we already know what Tavares is capable of.

So, yeah, the torch passing bullshit is annoying as fuck, and I don’t wanna hear it or think about it or deal with it. But the Leafs might really have something here, and while that’s bad news for anyone’s Twitter timeline, it could be entertaining as hell, even if they shitpump the Hawks tonight.

Game #3 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Build

Everything Else

Game #2 – I See The Things That They’re Wishing On Me: Blackhawks 4, Blues 4 (Hawks win Spoons)

By Adam Hess October 6, 2018 2385 0

Through two games of hockey, I am not sure what to make of the Blackhawks. There are times when I think they are completely awful, and others that I think they might be good. Not necessarily win the division good, but like sneak into the playoffs as a wild card and play spoiler good. There is enough there with some of the players they have that they probably aren’t the bottom-five NHL team that I (Hess) originally thought they were. I am not sure how I feel about that. But even if I don’t know what to make of it, these first two games have definitely been good watchin’. LET’S GET BACK AT IT FOLKS:

BULLETS

– I have been trying to tell y’all for like 13 months that Jonathan Toews is NOT done in the way that so many of the Toews haters and detractors have been acting like. I don’t have to rehash the numbers over and over again, but so much of his struggles the past two years came down bad shooting luck, and so far he’s getting the regression from that in a BIG way. Three more goals tonight for his fifth career hat trick and bringing his total to four through two games, to go with an assist in the Ottawa game have him at 5 points already. The pace is obviously unsustainable but he’s laid the groundwork to a 70 point season with this kinda start.

– Q sang the praises of Joker after the first game, and the melody ain’t stopping my frents. For being just 19-years-old, you’d be hard pressed to determine on your own that he’s not a more seasoned vet than some of these other assclowns the Hawks are dressing on the blue line. He is extremely solid defensively, which surprised me a bit honestly, because I felt like the tape I’d seen of him and the reports I saw sang his praises more as an offensive guy, but you will not get me to complain about it. He took the puck away from Tarasenko completely cleanly in the second period, which was really, truly, a moment of pure ecstasy. Then he added his first career point on Toews’ second goal of the night by trailing the play well and releasing a good shot that nearly beat Allen but ended up with a favorable rebound for the captain to pound home. Joker’s not some kind of franchise savior, and his ceiling may be high-end second pairing guy, but on this team right now that’s basically a #1 defenseman and through two games you can make the case he’s been their best blue liner.

– My feelings about Cam Ward are not positive, and I have not kept that a secret. He wasn’t awful in the first game against Ottawa, and he did his best to at least look like he was keeping the Hawks in this game in the first period. But in reality, he was beat extremely cleanly on two of the Blues four goals tonight, and made a comically awful play on another one (Tarasenko’s tally in the first that made it 2-0). Ward may not end up being completely awful, and he’s done enough to get the Hawks two wins in these first two games, so you give him that credit. But he is sloppy as hell and I am not sure I will ever get used to watching him in net, nor do I want to.

– But, in defense of Ward, the Hawks were just absolutely shit in their own zone tonight. There was power play in the third period that St. Louis was able to keep the puck in the zone for the entire two minutes. And that’s just one glaring example of what was an all around bad performance in their d-zone tonight. It’s gotta get better.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Patrick Kane

By Adam Hess October 1, 2018 2781 0

We arrive at the final few days before the start of the season, with the preseason over and the regular season set to start on Wednesday for the NHL and Thursday for the Hawks. As we get here, we prepare to finalize our preview series of the team today and tomorrow. We start today with the most important skater on the team, Patrick Kane

2017-18 Stats

82 GP – 27 G – 49 A

51.59 CF% – 63.52 oSZ%

20:11 Avg TOI

A Look Back: Kane didn’t have quite the level of success in 2017-18 that he saw in 15-16 and 16-17, and that is likely in no small part because he lost running mate Artemi Panarin. You’ll still be hard pressed to find someone at this site that thought or thinks that Saad for Panarin swap was bad for the Hawks, but it was apparent that Kane missed Panarin a bit, even with spending a decent chunk of time with Nick Schmaltz who is a better play maker than Panarin, though not quite the shooter. The real pitfall was that Quenneville seemingly refused to put Top Cat on that line despite the fact that he’s probably the most natural shooter on the team, and therefore the obvious replacement to the skillset you lost in Panarin. There were times where Top Cat got with 8 and 88, but it wasn’t enough, and I think it cost both all three players a good bit of production. If those three get together more often and get you even 10 more goals total, last season might look a bit different. But that’s in the past. Kane was still one of the league’s better players, and he will be again because he is one of the top-1o talents in the league, and that’s not really up for debate.

It Was the Best of Times: Kane is likely to start the year with Schmaltz as his pivot again, and it’s looking like Brandon Saad will man the other side of the ice, at least early on. That is definitely a good fit because Saad is one of the best players the Hawks have when it comes to being extremely skilled and also doing the “dirty work” extremely well. Saad is strong in front of the net, so if Kane and Schamltz work their playmaking magic together, there should be some easy clean up duty for him. That probably won’t last too long, knowing who the coach is, so I’d like to see Top Cat get some work on Kane’s opposite flank as well, especially with Schmaltz as the center. If Kane is able to spend most of the year with Schmaltz in his middle and Saad or Top Cat opposite him and is able to reach his ceiling again he can climb into the scoring title race and flirt with 100+ points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Kane is easily the Hawks most important skater now, a mantle he takes over from Duncan Keith as the latter has started down the declining path that comes with age and a fuck-ton of minutes played. Any worst case scenario for Kane is pretty much worst-case scenario for the Hawks as well. If Kane gets hurt and misses significant time, even if Crawford is readily available, I’m just not sure the Hawks have the scoring punch to win games without him. If he gets a Toews and Sadd-like streak of bad shooting luck this year, it could be disastrous as well. As much as Toews and Saad are due for corrections on shooting percentage, and Top Cat can bring you good goal scoring as well, Kane is really gonna be the straw that stirs the offensive drink, and if he’s out or struggling, it’s gonna be hard to watch.

Prediction: Kane is another player where at this point we know what he is, so it’s easy for me to predict he’ll have 70-80 points and just cash in my prediction for clout on Twitter later. But I don’t wanna be boring. While I think this Hawks team is going to be bad, and maybe pitifully so, I think Kane is due for a strong season among it all. Again, he’s gonna need to account for a good chunk of the offense, and if he’s given good linemates as weapons to unlock that scoring ability, he is gonna have a good year. I think he will flirt with 90 points again this year, and yet it still won’t matter. He will look really good playing with Jack Hughes in 2019-20 though.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Alex DeBrincat