Since not much has changed since the last time we convened and we can only beat so many topics to death, we cover what are apparently declining television ratings for the local squad, as well as how they stack up against another very much hated franchise in another sport. Eventually we get to some reader questions as well. Give it a listen after the jump.
Ben Remington covers the Wild for ColdOmaha.com (I love that name). You can follow him on Twitter @BenRemington. Bryan Reynolds, on the other hand, is just some lunatic who won’t leave us alone so we toss him this bone every so often to make him go away. But it never works. Anyway, he’s on Twitter @BReynoldsMN.
We’ll get to the tough one first. The Wild are on pace for their best regular season ever. They should win the division for only the second time. Is it a mirage or is this for real?
Remington: From what I’ve seen, it’s hard to not say that it’s for real. As usual, some of the fancy stats point to regression, but others bear out that this team has been very, very good so far this season. Even the players that are ‘slumping’ are having decent seasons, and we’ve seen monumental steps up from young players that have been underachieving for most of their time here. Dubnyk is still the key, and him continuing to play well will be the difference between them winning the conference or not, but even with a noticeable regression to the mean recently, his January was just average, not bad, and he could catch fire again.
Reynolds: I’m a Minnesota sports fan, and I’ve learned that nothing happens faster than a Minnesota sports team imploding. In this case, I’m calling them a mirage right up to the moment Mikko Koivu grabs the Cup from Commissioner Gru’s tiny Trump hands and gives Gary the steely eyed death glare and maybe mutters, “I can’t believe Pantera made a song for the Stars.” I have no idea what that last part even means, but no, I don’t trust this anymore than I trust the Oilers to select a defenseman in the draft.
I did this a little while ago, and we’ve got a couple days here with not much to talk about. So now that the Hawks are exactly two-thirds of the way through the season, thought we’d check back in on the awards chases. And once again we’ll try and look at these things more logically than the actual voters will.
Hart – Connor McDavid
Earlier in the year, this would have been Sidney Crosby no question. But Sid’s scoring rate has slowed just a touch, and the Penguins are kinda good when Sid isn’t on the ice. When McJesus isn’t on the ice for the Oilers, they are straight up bad. Patrick Maroon already has seven more goals this season than he’s ever scored in a season. Leon Draisaitl is straight up clocking chumps. He leads the league in points. You don’t have to overthink this one much.
We like to discuss the slog of January/February hockey. Maybe complain or bemoan is more accurate. The games can be very forgettable or unentertaining and ultimately meaningless. If more games were like Saturday’s between the Hawks and Stars, we probably would find another dead horse to wail upon.
Perhaps Lindy Ruff is the key ingredient as he lets his team open the game to allow multiple odd man rushes, breakneck scoring opportunities and frantic scrambles. Then you see where his team is at in the standings and you understand why more teams don’t incorporate that type of style.
But it makes for fabulous viewing.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 31-17-5 Stars 21-21-10
PUCK DROP: 7pm Central
TV: WGN locally, NHL-N for you elsewhere
RIDE ‘EM IN: Defending Big D
PROJECTED LINEUPS
TEAM ADJUSTED CORSI %: Hawks – 50.3 (16th) Stars – 49.4 (2oth)
TEAM ADJUSTED xGF%: Hawks – 47.8 (24th) Stars – 49.3 (18th)
POWER PLAY %: Hawks – 18.1 (17th) Stars – 18.1 (18th)
PENALTY KILL %: Hawks – 75.9 (28th) Stars – 73.4 (Dead Ass Last)
The Hawks get the chance to back up their streak-snapping win on Thursday by playing another expressway of a defensive team, the Dallas Stars. It would behoove them to get it, because next week’s slate of Wild-Jets-Oilers before the bye week is looking a bit nasty at the moment, considering either the standing of those teams or their previous record against the Hawks the past couple seasons or both.
Yesterday, the NHL and You Can Play announced ambassadors for YCP for each team in the NHL. Reading the press release, it isn’t really clear what these ambassadors are supposed to do and whether it’s simply ceremonial or not. I’m guessing they just stand there during a press conference whenever a team is having a You Can Play night, and god help us if they have to talk. As far as I can tell the Hawks don’t have a YCP night, but maybe that will change. Trevor van Riemsdyk was named the Hawks ambassador. I don’t know whether he volunteered for it, or was chosen simply because no one else wanted it. I hope it’s the former. It would be really great if someone with real clout on the team was named, who wouldn’t be afraid of being out front on the issue either. But I guess they’re too busy telling me which type of kale I should grow? Is he going to be at Pride in June? The Hawks have had a delegation there recently but the only active player to ever appear was Brent Sopel, and “active” is being kind at that point. There’s certainly more to be done.
Anyway, there was some consternation that Andrew Shaw was chosen as the Montreal Canadiens’ ambassador for YCP. The reasons everyone would take notice of that are obvious, given that Shaw was suspended for calling a referee a “faggot” during Game 4 of last year’s first round and was suspended a game.
I’m not so sure Andrew Shaw isn’t exactly the type who should be chosen, or close to it.
In case you didn’t think the Hawks weren’t mired in their annual January/February slump/weirdness/malaise/hangover, tonight’s tilt against the Coyotes was an excellent reminder. Despite having played well enough to at least draw a point in their previous three games, the Hawks have drawn a blank thanks to 3rd period wackiness not seen for almost two and a half seasons.
Tonight looked it would be no different.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 30-17-5 Coyotes 16-27-6
PUCK DROP: 8pm Central
TV: CSN
SUCH A FINE SIGHT TO SEE: Five For Howling
Projected Lineups
ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Hawks – 50.1 (16th) Coyotes – 45.1 (29th)
ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Hawks – 47.7 (24th) Coyotes – 42.7 (29th)
POWER PLAY %: Hawks – 17.3 (20th) Coyotes – 15.2 (25th)
PENALTY KILL %: Hawks – 75.7 (28th) Coyotes – 77.2 (26th)
If you were dreaming of a way the Hawks mini-losing streak could be arrested at the “mini” stage, you would probably design it to have a game against the Coyotes right here and right now. Well guess what campers, that’s exactly what the Hawks get. A chance to get the confidence up in front of a Hawks fan-filled Gila Monster Arena or whatever the fuck it’s called now.
This wasn’t hard to see. You had a team that had quit on Ken Hitchcock a couple times in the past already, and its biggest star had clearly soured on him. You then announce he’s leaving after the season and his replacement installed right next to him. It was a pretty easy leap to think he wouldn’t finish out the season.
There were some thing that are out of Hitch’s control. He didn’t let Backes and Brouwer, a combined 40 goals, walk out the door and try to replace them with just David “Most Annoying Sound In the World” Perron. Hitchcock didn’t trade Brian Elliot and be forced to hand the job to Jay Gallon who has never proven he was ready for it. Ken Hitchcock didn’t fail to provide a #1 center any better than Jori Lehtera.
But that doesn’t mean Hitch isn’t responsible for a lot of what’s gone wrong in St. Louis, and you wonder if it isn’t so scorched that there’s nothing Mike Yeo can do.
The sad thing is, however infinitesimal, that there was a good portion of this game that the Hawks played with some gusto, verve, pepper, whatever word you want to use there. But it might be a while before we see that again. Tonight’s loss leaves the Hawks six points behind the Zack Wyldes, having played three games more. Unless they take both the games in the next month in St. Paul in the reg, they’re going to finish second. There simply just isn’t much to play for the rest of the season, which is going to lead to some awfully snooz-y hockey.
Anyway, for tonight, both teams came out of the break rested and wanting to push the pace. The mini-problem was that neither teams is really capable of playing at the pace they attempted tonight, at least not for any long stretch. Thankfully they didn’t stop, which made for some wonderful entertainment. But there were a lot of missed passes, turnovers, scrambles at both lines, which did open things up for chances, at least for the first 40 minutes.
In the end, the Hawks were undone by two bits of bad luck and two bits of Hjalmarsson and Keith getting caught just a tad out. They also may have fallen victim to going a bit conservative in the 3rd period, only managing one shot in the last seven minutes or so. But I won’t hate on them for thinking at least a point at a Western Contender’s garden (in the shade) is a nice enough haul. Two shots wide that kick right back out in front, with Hammer on the first and Keith on the second not really having time to go from trying to front the shot to tying up whoever was in front (and on the second it caught up in Crow’s pads anyway). That’ll happen.
