While many of the flapping heads are pronouncing the local squad as now having a closed window and figure to be on the outside looking in come playoff time, it is the two-time champions on Figueroa who have won but a single playoff game in the last three seasons since their last championship. And though they cleaned house in coaching and management with complete scumbag Dean Lombardi finally getting launched and the decidedly unfunny and cantakerous Darryl Sutter going with him, many of the same pieces that have never been able to buy a fucking goal are still here, just now older and with even more miles on the odometer.
Let’s get one thing straight—the owners of NFL teams are terrible people. They’re succubi who feed off of young men, particularly young men of color, by profiting from the damage done to those young men’s short- and long-term health in exchange for a large sum of money that, while still large, is actually a fraction of the wealth of the owner, and more importantly, a fraction of the wealth that the player will bring to the owner, who ends up coming out way ahead in that deal. They’re succubi who feed off of taxpayers by extorting stadium funding, the receipts from which go overwhelmingly back to the owner, rather than the community that paid for the building. This is the most blatant of their extortions, but they also suck out subsidies and tax breaks that, like a slow bleed, drain resources away from the very community that is then threatened by the owner with the loss of their team.
I miss Marcus Kruger already, don’t you? There was a level of trust there after years of reliability that I just don’t have yet with the newer centers. But what’s done is done, and with the merry-go-round of forwards the law of averages would say that there has to be a suitable replacement among them, right? Well, there just might be one in our very own Working Class Kero.
If the Leafs are going to be the annoying bandwagon team in the East, whose fanbase will be the constant drone of the season as they try and flagellate themselves as publicly as possible, then the Oilers are going to be that in the West. They won their first playoff round in 10 years last year, and probably should have beaten the Ducks in the second round. It won’t take people long to point out that Toews and Kane won a Cup in their third season, and that Crosby was in a Final in his third. The training wheels are off Run CMD and the boys. It’s basically June or bust for them. Unfortunately for them, their dumbass GM may have put too many roadblocks in their way. Or more to the point, behind them on defense.
Edmonton Oilers
’16-’17 Record: 47-26-9 103 points (2nd in Pacific, out in 2nd round to ANA)
Team Stats 5v5: 49.9 CF% (18th) 51.0 SF% (9th) 49.7 SCF% (19th) 8.2 SH% (9th) .927 SV% (7th)
Special Teams: 22.8 PP% (5th) 80.7 PK% (17th)
Maybe a week ago, I would have told you that I was pretty excited to see what the Calgary Flames have in store this season. It has one of the most exciting young players in the game in Johnny Gaudreau, even if he’s a MAGA dipshit. He plays on a very entertaining line with Sean Monahan (is there a chance he could bend?). They have Michael Frolik whom I adore, who’s on a line with fellow hockey Zobrists Michael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk. They have three #1 d-men, and just added Travis Hamonic who could be one of the better #2-3s in the game. And VERSTEEG! is here!. They look poised to make some serious noise in the West since 2004.
And then their owners started bitching about their arena deal not getting done and now I hope they go 0-82. Because fuck those guys. And wear the fucking throwbacks all the time, dillholes.
Cal And Gary Flames
’16-’17 Record: 45-33-4 94 points (4th in Pacific, torqued in 1st round by ANA)
Team Stats 5v5: 50.5 CF% (10th) 50.5 SF% (10th) 49.9 SCF% (18th) 7.6 SH% (16th) .920 SV% (22nd)
Special Teams: 20.1 PP% (12th) 81.5 PK% (12th)
Vinnie Hinostroza—whenever I hear that name, I’m immediately back in Elmwood Park at my great-uncle’s cousin’s house for some random relative-of-a-relative’s baptism, or maybe a birthday, stuck in an Easter-egg colored taffeta dress with tights, making awkward conversation with the other pre-pubescent kids who are there not by choice. And I bet if you ask Vinnie, he would know it’s called gravy, not sauce.
As the latest team to be run by a analytic wunderkind, every hockey fan who’d like to see the game move forward in any way, there is some investment in the success of the Arizona Coyotes. With some smart summer moves (not necessarily Hjalmarsson), the Yotes are going to be some people’s pick to surprise. They’re not there yet, or at least don’t look it, but they’re finally trending up. Whether they can get anyone to care in the desert is a question that’s gone on far too long and will never die.
Arizona Coyotes
’16-’17 Record: 30-42-10 70 points (6th in Pacific)
Team Stats 5v5: 45.0 CF% (30th) 44.9 SF% (30th) 42.6 SCF% (30th) 7.2 SH% (20th) .924 SV% (12th)
Special Teams: 16.1 PP% (26th) 77.3 PK% (27th)
Leave it to Toronto. The Maple Leafs have been the hairy asshole of the NHL for the better part of a century now, yet they continue to claim themselves as some kind of important, historic NHL organization. The media that covers the team has ruined hockey coverage. Their fans ruined hockey Twitter. And now, after years of exploiting the ever-living shit of the LTIR cap exception, the team may have just managed to screw things up for the whole league in that regard.
The Leafs are hardly the only team to have circumvented the salary cap with the LTIR exception, but they’re without a doubt the worst offender. Because Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment essentially prints Loonies (which is probably a down market at this point in and of itself), they’ve been unafraid to write checks to players that they have no intent on playing. Hell, they traded for Nathan Horton for the sole purpose of getting LTIR relief, and more recently have been keeping an apparently entirely healthy Joffrey Lupul off the ice for the cap relief and to make room for the New Kids From The Block cover band that makes up their forward group.
In the infancy of this Blackhawks era, one of the litmus tests I came across for whether you were a “real fan” was to know who Éric Dazé was. With his hulking hockey body, high expectations, and myriad injuries, Dazé inhabited the intersection of “good enough to know” and “not good enough for bandwagoners to know,” serving as a marker between the bona fides of bandwagon fans and fans “who had always been fans,” which is an eternal pissing contest that’s about as dumb as having Jordin Tootoo on your roster. Now, I’m hearing more and more rumblings about local boy John Hayden, with his hulking hockey body and high expectations, and I wonder, “Who is John Hayden, and will he be another Dazé measuring stick 20 years from now?”
2016–17 Stats
12 GP – 1 G, 3 A, 4 P
52.7 CF%, 61.9 oZS%, 38.1 dZS%
ATOI: 11:41
A Look Back: The Blackhawks signed Hayden to an entry-level contract last year, which our fearless leader Fels pegged as a move caused by being once bitten, twice shy over stairwell-shitter and professional thumb impersonator Kevin Hayes dumping the Hawks for the Rangers in 2014. When he came up in March last year, there were plaudits for his size and worries over his speed, but he managed to look OK over 12 games: a little bit better than “a guy” but certainly not a Dazé.
The most noticeable thing about Hayden after his size (6’3”, 223) was his much-improved skating. He even found himself on a line with Toews every so often, which is where he scored his first and only NHL goal. While his 4 points over 12 games is a far cry from the 34 in 33 he put up at Yale before his quick call up, the ECAC (which is the conference Yale plays in) isn’t typically a hotbed for hockey prospects.
There might be some promise in his CF%, which was 1.4% better than the team rate last year, but he only played 12 games and spent most of that time in the offensive zone. And you have to wonder whether Hayden is projected to be a “start in the offensive zone” kind of guy.
A Look Ahead: Given the likes of Saad, Schmaltz, Sharp, Wiener Anxiety, and DeBrincat, who figure to slot in and out of the top 2 lines, it’s less likely you’ll see Hayden up there. Though with DeBrincat getting into a fight at a fucking prospect tournament to show just how low his nuts swing, it’s possible that Q expects DeBrincat to SHOW MORE, which could open up a spot for Professor Hayden, who’s smart enough to see what a terrible fucking idea that would be.
For now, Johnny “The Brain” Hayden (sky point Bobby) figures to fight for a spot in the lower half of the lineup, but the only guys I’d take him over are Wingels and Tootoo, two of the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked. Maybe if he impresses, he lines up on the right side on the 4th line, but then what? Q historically uses his 4th line as a defensive zone plug, and nowhere throughout his career has Hayden shown a talent or propensity for that. Hayden has made a name for himself by being the fat kid on the Kenny Hubbs team who threw 70 mph because he hit puberty at 9. That advantage goes away in the NHL.
Barring some sort of epiphany or major injury, Hayden probably slates to start the year in Rockford. If he can exceed what he did at Yale there, maybe he finds a spot on the bottom half, but again, it’s tough to see whom he replaces, since we don’t have any evidence that he can or will play the left side. But he is just 22, and he did show dedication to improving his skating at Yale, so it’s possible that he can mold his game to play as a right-handed left winger, replacing a guy like Lance Bouma if he ends up making me eat crow for believing in him. (Is this what it’s like to be a disappointed dad?)
So who is John Hayden? Hayden is a big, smart boy, but he’s no Dazé. He probably won’t be more than an answer to a trivia question in a few years (Who was the 20th Yale Bulldog to crack an NHL roster?). He’s the Atlas Shrugged of hockey players: not nearly as great as his proponents say, an overhyped tome of theoretical muck whose pedigree rests mostly on his size and standing out among the mediocre.
At least he’s got a sort of Hasselhoff handsomeness to him.
Stats retrieved from hockey-reference.com
Previous Player Previews
Night 2 of the preseason! Some random thoughts:
