Everything Else

High On The Hog: Fewer Fights, Fewer Fans?

By 1559

The Rockford IceHogs, AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, currently have a commercial you may have seen occasionally while watching Blackhawks telecasts. The ads, which also run on local Rockford stations, declare that IceHogs hockey is, “a beautiful combination of violence, speed, and intensity.”

It surprises me just a bit that the club would lead off that mix with “violence”. The IceHogs definitely try to get families into the BMO Harris Bank Center. You’d think that fisticuffs would be something the promotions department would put a little further down the list in terms of marketing the team.

Besides, the men of Rockford aren’t doing much fighting these days. They also aren’t drawing as well, either. Or winning.

Everything Else

I’m a Copp You Idiot – Jets 2, Blackhawks 1

By 1207

Box Score

HockeyStats.ca

Natural Stat Trick

It would’ve been borderline criminal for the Hawks to draw a point in a game where they surrendered three breakaways; were severely outplayed for large portions and didn’t generate a whole bunch of extended offensive zone time.

Yet, there they were with two minutes left firing pucks at will on Connor Hellebuyck. The mad scrambles were turned away and the Hawks finished their weekend back-to-back with 0 points to show for it.

There’s a few things to get to. Let’s not waste time. Westworld awaits.

Everything Else

Here Come The Warm Jets: Jets at Hawks Preview/Satellite Dish Cleaning

By 1400

warm-jets vs. Hawk Wrestler

RECORDS: Jets 12-13-2  Hawks 16-7-3

PUCK DROP: 6pm Central 

TV: CSN, Rogers for the creepy-ass Hometown Hockey Mishegas in Canada

COLDER THAN A WELL DIGGER’S ASS: Jetsnation.ca, Arctic Ice Hockey

Projected Lineups

jets-lineup-card

blackhawks-lineup-card

ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Jets – 47.5 (24th)  Hawks – 50.4 (15th)

ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Jets – 48.3 (21st)  Hawks 48.2 (22nd)

POWER PLAY%: Jets 15.2 (20th)  Hawks – 16.3 (17th)

PENALTY KILL%: Jets – 78.4 (25th)  Hawks – 71.3 (dead ass last)

The Hawks get an immediate chance to get the Listerine out to wash out the taste of yesterday’s loss. The Winnipeg Jets dance on in here, though if the Flyers speed was something of an issue, there’ll be no reprieve from the Jets. It’s been augmented by a return to health for Bryan Little and analytic darling Mathieu Perreault, which they didn’t have last time the Hawks saw this squad. And that one didn’t go all that well anyway.

Everything Else

Jets Q&A With Garret Hohl

By 1371

Garret is a contributor for JetsNation.ca. You can follow him on Twitter @GarretHohl.

Let’s start with Connor Hellebuyck, who was supposed to fix the Jets’ biggest problem for years. It hasn’t worked out that way. What’s been the problem? Still hopeful or is this worrying? Are most of the problems on the kill?

Hellebuyck has indeed been better than Pavelec’s overall average. A career 914 save percentage is still better than a 907, and that’s significant. All things being equal, that is an improvement that will lead to wins.

The issue is that all things have not been equal. Team struggles on special teams, penalty differential, and have been their worst shot metric team (both Corsi and expected goals) since the move to Winnipeg.

It’s still early to tell what Hellebuyck will be, you need about 3000 shots (ish) for that. I have confidence he’s an answer to getting something better than Pavelec. The real question: how much better?

Everything Else

In This Room, Another Lonely Afternoon: Hawks 1 – Flyera 3

By 1205

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey Stats

On a day that started with possibly the first ever combination of the words “NHL” and “Temple University,” the Hawks got a glimpse of the results their play has deserved lately but Crawford has kept from happening. That’s not to say Scott Darling was bad, he was far from it. But it’s an example of the other-worldly play Crow has had to put forth at time to get the Hawks two points consistently. When you go from other-worldly to just pretty good, the chances these Hawks surrender right now make for less than two points.

And it’s not even as the Hawks were 60 minutes bad. For long stretches they were better, though those came after they were down two goals and could be partially attributed to score effects and having to throw more and more caution to the wind. Given the lineup though, even when the Hawks have the upper hand there are some shifts where they are running around their own end like a kids birthday party where someone gave them all soda. Or they make a mistake at the other line or neutral zone to cause odd-man rushes. Crow’s expected absence for a couple weeks will be an excellent chance to shore this shit up.

Let’s clean it up:

Everything Else

I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore – Hawks at Flyers Preview, White Elephant Drawing

By 1455

250px-Ozymandias @ phily-cheez-whiz

Game Time: Noon CST
TV:/Radio: CSN, SportsNet, WGN-AM 720
Travis Hughes Sucks, He Never Settled The Bet: Broad Street Hockey

blackhawks-lineup-card

flyers-lineup-card

For some obtuse reason, the Hawks travel to the armpit of the East Coast for a matinee in South Philly this reason. Normally these nooners take place after the Super Bowl and on NBC, but for some reason this one is only on the local outlets in the States. And because it’s a prime weekend matchup, the Flyera will more than likely be wearing their god-awful gold-trimmed 50th anniversary sweaters. But hey, home whites are home whites.

Everything Else

NWHL Q&A With Zoe Hayden And Hannah Bevis: Part II

By 1804

This is part II of our Q&A with Zoe Hayden from VictoryPress.org (@ZoeClaire_) and Hannah Bevis from TheIceGarden.com (@Hannah_Bevis1).

While it’s completely understandable to keep the four cities close for travel concerns, and Boston and Buffalo being hockey-centric markets, is the NWHL missing something by not including Minneapolis, which already has the strong Gophers program as a base. Or Chicago with a rapidly expanding youth hockey scene and even more so for girls (though the Cubs might start stunting interest in a hurry. No, honestly that’s how it works around here). Obviously the logistics are a nightmare for a league struggling to get by to be in the Midwest, but shoot for the moon and all that?

Zoe: The Midwest is such a quandary and even the NHL has really struggled to get a quality pro team going in Minnesota (all due respect to Wild fans, but it’s been a long time since a Minnesota NHL team competed for the Stanley Cup).  Wild games sell out nevertheless, but they are not a huge draw to television audiences.  For women’s hockey, the Whitecaps are out there but they haven’t been part of a league in quite some time.  Chicago, like you said, has so many other competing sports, but in Minnesota and Wisconsin the college teams have such huge followings.  I think the main hurdle is travel; it’s much harder to get anywhere via bus out there (and bus is currently how the NWHL teams travel, busing distance being a major reason for why the locations were chosen for the original four teams).

In the CHWL you have Calgary which is a huge outlier in terms of distance, but Calgary is a very important hockey city and it’s where the national team trains, which makes it impossible to exclude them or pressure them to move closer, I think.

If you can stabilize the original four NWHL franchises I think Pennsylvania is a good place to look at for expansion (really, anywhere, there’s a ton of hockey in PA at all levels, but I’m from near Pittsburgh and I live in Philadelphia so either of those would be amazing—and there’s also Wilkes-Barre and Erie).  Chicago is also not a bad idea.  Team USA has practiced/had camp in Chicago recently.  But like Hannah said I think it’s a ways away before that happens.

Hannah: Technically, there is a team in the Midwest already- the Minnesota Whitecaps, which isn’t affiliated with either the CWHL or NWHL, where the Minnesota-based players play against local area teams (last year, they played against a couple NW teams in exhibition games). They have a small fan base, and Minnesota is probably the last place that needs more focus on women and girls hockey right now- they’re hockey-crazy as it is. It makes a lot of sense to go there next, but the location isn’t ideal.

This may sound cynical, but the NWHL shot the moon when it said it was going to pay its players in its first year and now we have this, so…I don’t think they’re missing anything by not including Minneapolis. As someone who lives near Chicago, I would LOVE to have a team out here, and if we’re talking expansion, yes, I’d say a Midwest conference might be good if we could maybe have three or four teams to help make travel for Calgary a little easier. But I think there were points in the CWHL’s beginning where Calgary didn’t play every CW team because the distance made it so hard to get there. Weighing the pros and cons, I’d rather wait. 

Everything Else

NWHL Q&A With Zoe Hayden And Hannah Bevis: Part I

By 1670

A couple weeks ago, as you might have seen, the NWHL cut their players’ salary in half without any input from the players. I had a few questions about that and the league as a whole, so I went to two of the leading authorities. Zoe Hayden is the editor of VictoryPress.org (@zoeclaire_) and Hannah Bevis is the editor of TheIceGarden.com on the SB Nation network (@Hannah_Bevis1).

With the NWHL cutting salaries in half, clearly they had some projections that were not met. Do we know what those were and why that might be?

Zoe:

To be clear about your first question, I believe New York Riveters forward Madison Packer said that it was “more like 60%” and we don’t have exact figured on the amount of salary that players will be receiving if they sign the proposed changes to their contracts.

With regard to projections, NWHL Commissioner Dani Rylan was not specific in her statements, but she did say that lower attendance had been a factor.  Three NWHL teams changed their home rinks after year one which may have in part contributed to this.

I am actually working on a longer article about this so I don’t want to get too in-depth, but it’s been known since its inception that the NWHL was getting startup funds from private investors.  Translating that into sustainable income has seemed to be a problem, which is why the players are calling for an independent financial review, something that I think is a more than reasonable request.  I think that when you start talking about falling short of projections, it also becomes a question of how well expenses were planned for ahead of time relative to those projections.  

You also have to start to wonder where those projections were coming from; for example, how conservative were they when planning for Year Two with regards to growth, especially considering rink changes and an expanded schedule?  Ice time is expensive and fan retention with regard to ticket sales seemed an obvious hurdle with three teams moving to new facilities.  I don’t think this should have been such a bombshell.  It’s halfway through the season.  The logistics need to be closely looked at if this was a surprise.  And a vague answer about “projections” leaves a lot to the imagination.

In addition, we know that the league has had issues with some of its investors, namely Michael Moran and George Spiers (I can provide  source links if you need).  If the league’s Year Two revenue model included a significant amount of private investing as opposed to incoming revenue from ticket sales, merchandise, and sponsorship agreements, that’s a huge concern.

Everything Else

Looks Like I Pulled A Homer: Hawks 4 – Devils 3 (OT)

By 1407

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey Stats

If the Hawks weren’t very good to open the contest against Florida, they decided to see how much more the bottom could fall out and still get out with two wins against the Devils. The opening 10 minutes of tonight’s game might be the worst we’ve seen a patch of hockey from the Hawks in years. They were skating in mud, and not the good Mississippi kind. The Devils were three steps quicker all over the ice and worse yet the Hawks didn’t seem all that bothered to do anything about it.

Then again, I guess you don’t have to care when you know that Corey Crawford is almost never going to let a game get away from you. He did it again tonight, pulling off several saves in the 1st that could have basically ended it. The longer the game went on with the Devils in reach, the more chance it would be that their shoddy defense and a not yet full-strength Schneider would crack. One nifty play from Rasmussen to Kruger and the Hawks were on their way.

And for the second game in a row, they blew a third period lead that they’ll be able to cover up with victory in a post-60 gimmick. That’s not a trend you want to count on, but it’ll work for now.

Everything Else

Before The Devils Make You Dead: Devils at Hawks Preview/Car Tow

By 1636

jon_lovitz-devil-snl-46_2 vs. Hawk Wrestler

RECORDS: Devils: 10-7-5  Hawks: 15-6-3  

PUCK DROP: 7:30pm

TV: CSN

SWAMP SITTERS: In Lou We Trust

Projected Lineups

devils-lineup-card

blackhawks-lineup-card

ADJUSTED CORSI%: Devils – 49.4 (18th)  Hawks – 50.8 (12th)

ADJUSTED xGF%: Devils – 46.1 (28th)  Hawks – 47.4 (22nd)

POWER PLAY %: Devils – 13.7 (25th)  Hawks – 17.3 (16th)

PENALTY KILL %: Devils – 84.3 (9th)  Hawks – 70.7 (They’re above 70%!!!)

The Hawks begin the December portion of the schedule tonight in the most coma-inducing way possible, with a visit from the New Jersey Devils. If there’s a chance to look good in regulation against a team, which the Hawks haven’t really done since San Jose, this would be it. But then again, no one looks good against the Devils. That’s just their way.