Everything Else

Let’s Check In On The Neighbors

By 1443

It’s been widely agreed that the Hawks signing of Brian Campbell, especially at that price, was one of the shrewder moves of this offseason. It’s even more so when you consider how many other teams have simply lost their minds and/or torpedoed their own team in the process. The Hawks still lack some bottom six forwards–though apparently that won’t be a problem when Richard Panik tears a whole in the space-time continuum which far too many people think will happen. But what has the direct competition been up to? Let’s check on in.

St. Louis: Last year’s conquerors haven’t exactly vaulted forward from what they thought was their breakthrough. They traded their goalie, finally giving Jay Gallon the job he’s never really grabbed with both hands. They watched Troy Brouwer and David Backes walk, neither a calamitous development. So far they’ve only brought back David Perron, because they simply had to replace all the stupid they lost when Backes beat it for the Hub. They seem intent on trading Kevin Shattenkirk for reasons they can only find in their head, hoping Colton Parayko can take second pairing minutes even though Jabe O’Meester is going to disintegrate sometime in January.

Everything Else

About This Time Of Night, 51 Phantom Gets To Feelin’ Right

By 1398

This was just about the worst kept secret around here in a while. The only question for the Hawks and Brian Campbell was just how cheaply they could bring him back. $2 mildo and the answer is, “pretty fucking cheap.” I hope Beavis and Butthead in the booth don’t pull a muscle having to backtrack all the things they said about him since he left.

In case you don’t watch the Panthers much, and there really wasn’t much reason you should unless you’re demented like me, Campbell spent the past two years playing with Aaron Ekblad and the two of them basically kicked the competition’s nuts up into their throat. They were +5.2 and +5.7% relative in Corsi to the rest of the Panthers, with pretty evenly split zone starts. Gudbranson and Mitchell (for some reason) took on the toughest competition most of the time for the Cats, but Campbell isn’t going to have to worry about doing that here either.

Everything Else

On The Blocks

By 1502

So the frenzy begins tomorrow, and the Hawks are doing last minute stretching and warming before they pick their targets. Both Michal Rozsival and Brandon Mashinter were re-upped today for dirt cheap, barely $1.1 million between them.

The Rozsival one is slightly interesting considering that no matter how much Q loves him, he was absolutely railroaded in the playoffs last year, supposedly what he was being saved for during a regular season where he wasn’t really all that bad. How he’s going to improve in the spring, even if he plays 40-50 games. Whatever.

The Mashinter signing is frustrating because we do this every year. Every year the Hawks have some tomato can on the roster who plays too much during the season and by the playoffs Q has discarded them into the ether, basically telling you that “the element we like” means jack and shit. Or either they/Mashinter/both is an actual player now, which will get hilariously exposed. Again, doesn’t really matter.

So where do the Hawks stand, lineup wise now?

Everything Else

I’m From Canada And They Think I’m Slow, Eh?

By 1754

I guess now we know who Gordie’s parents were, huh?

I don’t have the adjectives or the prose ability to be able to accurately describe what has transpired in the NHL this afternoon. But I’ll take a shot and when it’s over, to quote perhaps my favorite movie villain of all time, “Don’t think that I didn’t try.” But I think today’s trades are a perfect example of just how back’ards most of the league operates and what still matters to far too many teams (wrongly). Again, try and keep in mind that the last two Cups have been won by teams loaded with skill and speed, who beat teams built similarly. And the team that won the Cups when the ones that were loaded with skill and speed still had the puck all the time. This is important.

Ok, so let’s start with Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson. By the way, having simply written that four points fell off my IQ.

Everything Else

Playing Hardball And 51 Phantom

By 1723

Before we start to focus on what the Hawks might start to do on Friday in free agency, there’s been something I’ve wanted to address since the trade of Andrew Shaw. This marks the second straight summer that the Hawks waved the white flag on bringing back a player they really wanted to before the free agency period opened. Last summer it was Brandon Saad. Now, one was obviously a much bigger impact but the similarities are there. Both were headed to only restricted free agency, both were desperate to stay (at least they say so) and both were wanted by the Hawks (or at least their coach). And yet it didn’t work.

And it seems the Hawks have no interest in playing hardball with anyone.

Everything Else

The Negative Zone

By 2257

Restricted free agency in the NHL is a weird, middling, vague, and unpleasant realm of the CBA. Due to the League being run by a bunch of old white, back-slapping cronies, the top end of the RFA toolkit rarely ever gets used in trying to poach players that have drastically out performed their first and second contracts. It’s a bit underhanded, but it’s perfectly legal to do, and the it’s such a big deal when an offer sheet happens is because they are so rare. Whatever anyone’s thoughts on the Flyers or Shea Weber as a player, the offer sheet he signed was brilliantly structured with poison pills left and right that made it difficult for mid-market dope David Poile to swallow when signing him.

But there is an inverse, flip-side, bizzarro aspect to restricted free agency as well, and that is when a team declines to give a player it has under control a qualifying offer, the deadline for which passed yesterday afternoon, and sometimes it’s not exactly done on purpose. And the list of players now left out in the cold is quite interesting.

Everything Else

High On The Hog: Summer Changes

By 1607

The Rockford IceHogs are going to be a new-look bunch come fall. The departing faces on their parent club practically guarantees some changes.

Even in the offseason, the Blackhawks AHL affiliate has made the occasional headline. The Hawks and Hogs extended their union through 2021-22.. Rockford re-signed captain Jake Dowell for next season and said goodbye to goalie Michael Leighton in a couple of signings from earlier this month.

It came out yesterday via Scott Powers  that Chicago is not going to retain Leighton’s services. However, the writing was clearly on the wall based on how the organization addressed the net prior to this week.

In case you haven’t been in the loop, here’s the state of the Hogs heading into what could be a real period of roster turnover in the coming weeks. As there has been lots of recent changes in this area, let’s start in net.

Everything Else

Fare Thee Well, Chicken Hawk And Other Drafty Day Musings

By 1534

It wasn’t hard to be immediately smitten by Andrew Shaw. Within his first couple shifts as a Blackhawk, he’d already scored and gotten into a fight (guess which one Q noticed more?). You watched him skate around that first game in Philadelphia and thought, “This kid is nuts!” Hockey is probably the one sport where watching a player makes you say that, and that’s a good thing (though Willson Contreras might be carrying this tradition into baseball, and a young Charles Tillman did it for the Bears SKY POINT). In his second playoff game he ran over Mike Smith, fulfilling the fantasy of most Hawks fans (and I assume players as well). Sure, it didn’t help the Hawks much but that didn’t mean we didn’t glean a perverse joy from it.

Everything Else

Your Draft Day Primer

By 1400

We recognize that some of you may have not been around all that long, and this may be the first time you’ve watched the NHL Draft tonight. Or you have before but need a little help making sense of it all. Well, having taken in a fair few of these now (and the resulting depression that I’m actually watching the NHL Draft), let me prepare you for what you’re in for tonight.

-First off, NBCSN just picks up the TSN feed, and the Canadian broadcast will act like this is the most important date on the calendar for the country. Probably because it is.

-The opening segment will have a close-up of the obvious first pick, this year it’s Auston Mathews. But they’ll also try and drum up some drama on whether it will be Mathews at all, so they’ll also have a close-up of Patrik Laine. Both of them will look extremely awkward, because they’re teenagers and that’s what teenagers do, and their suits probably don’t fit. Also, no one will ask Mathews why spells both his first and last name wrong.

Everything Else

Good God Man, What’s The Plan?

By 1634

Last night, during the usual car crash that is the NHL Awards Show (and why does the NHL need a show? No other sport needs one), Chris Kuc from the Tribune tweeted out that the Hawks are actively shopping Marcus Kruger and even Andrew Shaw, though what he could bring back as a pending RFA really wouldn’t be all that much.

The Kruger one is especially baffling.