Everything Else

Game #23 – I’m Now Huffing Gas and Sniffing Paint to Take Away This Buzz That I Call You – Hawks 2 Lightning 4

By John Pullega 1826 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

A really good team played a borderline mediocre team tonight. The Ning put this away early, but there were a few things that weren’t a complete diaper filling tonight. Let’s do it quick, because there’s a $30 handle of Eagle Rare calling my name.

– I’m not sure about this man-to-man defensive scheme. Goals 1 and 3 looked to be the result of the man system breaking up, and both of them occurred with 20-19-88 on the ice. On the first, you had Brandon Saad and Patrick Kane both shadowing Nikita Kucherov on the far boards, leaving the near-board side open. With Toews covering on the left wing, you get Saad positioned too high and Kane positioned too low, giving Tyler Johnson all the time and space in the world between the circles to shelf an easy shot off a Kucherov feed.

On the third goal, it looked like another instance of missed coverage. After Seabrook belched a clearing attempt in the neutral zone, Erik Cernak shouldered in behind the net, dropped an easy pass to Kucherov, who then hit a streaking Brayden Point through the middle. Once again, Saad looked a bit too high between the circles, but Erik Gustafsson having his back to the play was way more emblematic of why I’m not entirely sure about the man-to-man defensive scheme.

– Duncan Keith is turning more and more into a question with no answer. Yes, he and Forsling ended up with a 60+ CF%, but the Ning were up their asses the entire first period. The second goal was a direct result of a Keith turnover in the neutral zone, Keith getting overpowered by Kucherov in his own zone, then a back-and-forth Johnson–Kucherov–Johnson connection, all from a spot where Duncan Keith would have been five years ago. Asking Gustav Forsling to cover for Cowboy Keith is never going to end well, and Johnson’s second goal was a direct result of Forsling dropping to cover for an overpowered and out-of-position Keith. He also had a slashing penalty while the Hawks had possession, which had red ass written all over it.

– My initial reaction is always going to be “defend Erik Gustafsson,” because I’m a goddamn idiot. But tonight was simply a pile of horseshit puked on with a belly full of Malort for Cowboy Gus. Gus got pantsed on the Ning’s fourth goal by Ryan Callahan, who would have a hard time juking a box with a roll of quarters. He and Brent Seabrook were just awful today, finding themselves on the ice for three of the Ning’s four goals.

– Anyone who wants to talk about how Jeremy Colliton is this Great Communicator can take that idea, melt it down into a cylindrical wax, use it as a lip balm, and kiss my entire ass with it. On what fucking planet is it acceptable to scratch your fastest, most talented puck possession defenseman in Henri Jokiharju against a team that Daron-Malakian-lookalike John Cooper has flying into the red night in and night out? Colliton said that this was a part of his development and even had the nuts to allude to Joel Quenneville’s (SKY POINT) elusive MORE that Jokiharju has to give to the team. By all the metrics I could find, Jokiharju has been the Hawks’s most effective defenseman all year and especially lately (at least in terms of possession). If Colliton wants to look like Ben Wyatt, he can knock himself out, but don’t turn Jokiharju into fucking Ice Town.

– The Fortin–Kampf–Kahun line is like chocolate-covered mayonnaise. They’re decent at getting the puck in the zone, but once they’re there, they fumble like they’re trying to plug their dead vape pen into the outlet behind the couch in the dark. Any time they charged the zone, it was only a matter of time before the wheels entirely came off, which was no more obvious than on Fortin’s hilarious broken stick on a breakaway in the first.

– Mike Milbury called Corey Crawford “average” since his return to the Hawks and said he “needed to see the wins and the right numbers.” What a stupid asshole.

Super excited to learn what Jokiharju got to learn as a part of his “development” in the press box tonight. They’ll visit Uncle Dale and the Panthers tomorrow.

Onward. . .

Beer du Jour: Great Divide Fresh Hop in the first and second, Eagle Rare with a High Life back for the third.

Line of the Night: “As part of his development, it’s Jokiharju’s chance to watch and learn.” – One of the national telecast weiners paraphrasing THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR on why Jokiharju was heathy scratched.

Everything Else

Game #23 – Hawks vs. Lightning Douchebag Du Jour: An Awful Lot of Mouth for a Guy With No Teeth

By John Pullega 1683 0

Because the NHL is primarily owned, operated, and played by a dominant group of rich hillbillies, it will never shake its unnerving crush on PLAYING HARD and SACRIFICING THE BODY. Countless clods who would have a rough go at following instructions about how to dig a ditch have made multi-million-dollar careers acting out the soft snuff fantasies of decrepit front office HOCKEY MEN who are somehow both proud and in denial of the fact that watching young men give and receive physical abuse to and from other young men is what gets their blood pumping enough to throw absurd amounts of money at them. Though hockey physicality isn’t a problem per se, its elevation as a necessary tool is how we get guys like Raffi Torres, Gorilla Salad, and Cedric Paquette.

If the name Cedric Paquette sounds vaguely familiar, you’re likely grasping at the memory of him running his mouth during the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015. You’ll recall him talking about how he was trying to piss of Toews and Kane in Game 1, a game the Ning ended up losing and in which Paquette managed to hold the 20–19–88 line to a 50 CF%. He also scored the game winner in Game 3, which got him chirping about how the Ning had four lines that could step with the Hawks, which made it all the more fitting when he found himself getting domed in possession for the rest of the series and on the ice for Duncan Keith’s game winner in the Cup-clinching game (assisted by Patrick Kane. Oops.).

Since Paquette’s hee-hawing about how he was going to get under the skin of future Hall of Famers, he’s managed to do less than or equal to dick. His 14–15 rookie year saw him top out at 19 points (12 G, 7 A), and he’s been on a downward slope since then (11, 10, 9, and 4). But he’s mostly a fourth-line, defensive guy supposedly. Except that his CF% Rels have also sloped downward over the past four years: -1.9, -2.4, -3.6, -3.9, despite the fact that he’s begun to see an uptick in oZ starts over the past two years (49.2%, 34.5%, 44.3%, 47.7%). OK, but he’s an asset on the PK, right? Only if you define “asset” as a guy whose PK timeshare has fallen precipitously since his rookie year (132:13 in 64 games then, 30:07 in 56 games last year, 38:03 in 20 games this year) and who’s been on the ice for 10 PK goals in the last 68 minutes over two years.

Paquette doesn’t score, has made his team worse in possession when he’s on the ice year-over-year, and has seen his PK timeshare fall off the table recently. And he’s still making $1 million this year because once upon a time, he said he was gonna make some Hall of Famers mad. When you model your playstyle after Hall of Fame Pissbaby Ryan Kesler, you should aim for the years when Kesler could back up his shitmouth with results, not current-day Kesler.

In some distant future, people will look back on the likes of Paquette and the wart-marked toads who continued to throw piles of money at him for HIS HARD WORK and add it to their never-ending list of why the NHL isn’t fit to wash the balls of any of the other three major American sports with a warm rag.

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 #22 – Hawks vs. Capitals Spotlight: Michal Kempny’s Phoenix

By John Pullega 1775 0

You knew it was going to happen. From the second the Hawks traded Michal Kempny for a conditional third-round pick from Washington (which in an annoyingly roundabout way turned into Niklas Nordgren, who might be a scoring threat in 2021), he was destined to play a noticeable role in getting Washington its Cup. You’ll remember three of his five playoff points (one goal, two assists) coming when the lights shined brightest as we all pondered how often he must have “run over” Q’s “dog” to have himself relegated to a position in which trading him for a pick that won’t matter until people stop caring about the Hawks again seemed appealing. But you’ve read this crown of sonnets before, so what’s he doing now?

Since departing, Kempny has had two things break his way. First, he’s simply getting more playing time, primarily because he hasn’t been the Lionel Hutz to Todd Reirden’s (and Barry Trotz’s before him) Judge Snyder. Through 17 games this year, Kempny is averaging well over 18 minutes of ice time, by far the most of his career. Second, he’s played a good chunk of his time with John Carlson instead of whichever one-legged vagrant Q demanded he drag around in the three-legged race Ulf Samuelsson and his hairpiece called a defensive strategy in his time with the Hawks.

Over the past few games, though, Kempny has found himself away from Carlson, instead pairing with Matt Niskanen and taking more dungeon shifts than just about anyone expected. In the last four games in which they’ve spent most of their time together, they’ve started in the oZ 25%, 80%, 25%, and 0%, respectively. This weirdness seems like a consequence of the Caps’s hot and cold start to the year. It makes some sense, since dungeon starts have been Niskanen’s MO since he got to Washington and Kempny has always shown a penchant for possession. In theory, it should work.

Perhaps most interesting about Kempny’s rebirth in Washington is how he’s been used since arriving. Over his last five games, Kempny has played at least one minute and as much as 5:55 (against Arizona) on the PK, which was rare in his time in Chicago. Both Trotz and Reirden have tended to use Kempny more often in the defensive zone. In Kempny’s 31 games with the Hawks last year, he started in the offensive zone at an enviable 54+% rate. Upon arrival in Washington, those starts plummeted to around 43% over 22 games, which has continued into this year. And though that put a dent in his CF% (from 53+ to 47+), his high-danger-scoring-chances-for percentage stayed at a constant 52% after the trade, bolstering the argument that when Kempny was on the ice, scoring chances tended to crop up more often than not.

But for all the kisses we’ve blown Kempny’s way, there’s been the nagging fear that last year’s performance was more a dead cat bounce than a sign of tapped potential. And early on, you can use the primary stats to pad that fear. He’s got no goals and just three assists (one of which came in 3-on-3, so who fucking cares?) in 17 games. Though Kempny’s never really lit up the stat sheet, you wouldn’t be off in expecting a few more points from him having played a decent amount of time with Carlson and behind the Alex Ovechkin line. He’s also got 16 PIM early on, good for third on the team behind Evgeny Kuznetsov and Lars Eller. Though Kempny’s always had more snarl than his Werewolf of London hairdo would suggest, the 77 PIM pace doesn’t really bode well for a guy whose appeal lies in his puck possession abilities.

Still, when you look at the peripherals, it’s hard not to ask “What if?” A 50.3+ CF% despite starting in the oZ just 46.4% of the time is strong, especially since that’s never been how Kempny’s been used until now. His 2.1 CF% Rel trails only Christian Djoos and Carlson for Caps D-men, and they start in the oZ at respective 57+% and 54+% rates. And there’s still time for him to find his stroke, especially if he’s still shaking off rust from the concussion Robert “Big Pussy” Bortuzzo doled out in his efforts to elbow his way to the last slice of gabagool earlier in the year. At the very least, it’s safe to say that Kempny’s four-year, $2.5 million per against the cap and ability to skate and puck-handle without circumcising himself would look a lot better than Brandon “It’s the Zone-Defense Scheme’s Fault I Suck” Manning’s albatross (and given how bad he’s been, even two years at $2.5 million per is an albatross) any day of the week.

All of our eyes will be on Kempny in a sweater he wants to wear, wondering why he never got the shot we’d all love to see now.

Game #22 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #4 – Ain’t No Particular Sign I’m More Compatible With – Hawks 3, Wild 3 (Wild Purify Themselves in the Waters of Lake Minnetonka)

By John Pullega 2108 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

We all whined and moaned about how the Hawks didn’t give us enough hockey last year. They’re making us whole now, with their fourth straight OT game and point. Let’s kick it.

– Reports of Jonathan Toews’s death were wildly exaggerated. As he’s been wont to do this year, Toews took the bull by the balls in the first period and looked like the kind of guy they build statues for. His assist on the first goal was one of the first times we’ve gotten to see the kind of Old Man Strength Marian Hossa used to put on display, and it looked good on The Captain. His awareness and speed gobbling up the rebound on Top Cat’s blocked shot and passing off to DA BIG KAHUNA gave him his second point of the night. You’d think that he can’t do this all year, but barring injury, I don’t know that there’s any reason he can’t. He’s playing like he has something to prove, and we should relish it.

– Congrats to Dominik Kahun on his first NHL goal. It’s hard enough to get one over the shoulder from the angle he had on it, and it’s doubly hard when the goaltender is an actual giant, but he kept his cool throughout. Kahun has impressed so far on the top line, and he led all Blackhawks with a 56+ CF%. It’s still too early to tell whether this is going to be a thing going forward, but Da Big Kahuna has handled the pressure as well as you can ask.

– Thank Christ Alex DeBrincat is 5’7”. For all the guys who have ever had a really nice girl lie to them about how size doesn’t matter, you now have someone tangible to point to. His one timer on the PP was gorgeous, but perhaps even more impressive was how stout he was with the puck. Since coming up last year, DeBrincat has had a penchant for either not turning the puck over, or, on the rare occasion that he does, turning around and picking it right back up. It’s one of the less talked about aspects of his game, but DeBrincat’s ability to cause turnovers is sometimes otherworldly. Motherfucker is special and can probably score 40 goals with Toews this year.

– One last totally positive note: Nick Schmaltz’s stickhandling was divine tonight. The fancy stats won’t back it up, but Schmaltz was everywhere. Late in the first, Schmaltz walked the blue line through Jan Rutta after Rutta’s puck allergy flared up, which turned into a one timer for Schmaltz after he passed it off to Patrick Kane, who mostly couldn’t be bothered tonight. Schmaltz also had an A+ chance in the second on the PP, but got stuffed by Devan Dubnyk and his stupidly spelled name. And in the OT, after looking like he was going to fumble the puck away, he managed to pry it back in the offensive zone at the end of his shift. He may not have had any tallies, but this was a good-looking game for him.

– It’s hard to blame Cam Ward for tonight. The Hawks posted a fucking 39+ CF% on the night. That’s really hard to do. The first goal was the result of Jan Rutta having his legs cut out under him and a no call. The second resulted from a behind-the-net pass from Eric Staal, followed by Chris Kunitz pondering the great mysteries of life for the first and most inopportune time of his life. You can maybe give him some of the blame on the third goal, but again, it’s hard to get mad at a goalie for giving up a goal that started from behind the net. Cam Ward should never have to face 40+ shots, but given that he did, he did much better than anyone could have predicted.

– Brandon Saad was a little more noticeable for the right reasons tonight. He had at least two high-quality chances that he couldn’t pot, and his possession numbers were garbage (38+ CF%), but there was a little more life to him.

–  Henri Jokiharju. We love him. He’s going to be excellent. He was excellent tonight, relatively speaking, and flashed a ton of confidence throughout most of the game. He’s probably going to be looked at as the at-fault defenseman on the Wild’s game-tying goal on the short hand, but this is the kind of stuff we’ve been warning people about. He’s 19, so he’s going to get overpowered at times. You take the bad with all the good.

– If we’re going to be subjected to Brandon Manning and Jan Rutta, tonight is probably the best example of how to turn shit into a shingle. They played strictly as a third pairing, and neither of them made any horribly egregious errors (other than, you know, playing professional hockey instead of working a 9–5. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED). As much as I want to fault Manning for skating too far up on the wrong side of the ice in an attempt to clear right before the Wild’s first goal, if Rutta gets the tripping call he deserved, it’s a load of nothing.

If anyone had told you the Hawks would capture six of their first eight points, you’d ask for a dose of whatever they were taking. It looks like this team is going to be exciting if nothing else.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life

Line of the Night: “I thought that pass was purrrrrrfect to The Cat.” –Eddie O. on Top Cat’s PP goal.

St. Louis City Hall
Everything Else

Game #2 – Hawks at Blues Preview: The ‘This Year’s Different’ Cup

By John Pullega 1860 0

at St. Louis City Hall

RECORDS: Blues 0-1-0   Hawks 1-0-0

PUCK DROP: 7:00 p.m. Central

TV: NBCSCH

IT’S NOT HIS FAULT HE CAN’T READ: St. Louis Game Time

The NHL decided to kick off a weekend of inferiority complexes early, as the Hawks took I-55 south to practice in an abandoned fucking mall because St. Louis is less a city than it is a cluster of trash piled together by no fewer than five rat kings. If there’s one good reason to watch, it’s that the Blues managed to do one thing right for the first time in team history for tonight’s game, choosing to don the powder blue uniforms that might deceive the undiscerning eye into thinking this is a team that chooses not to employ players who drink rainwater from the rafters for sustenance. And yet . . .

The first game of the “This Year’s Different” Cup couldn’t come quickly enough for the Blues, who had a mudhole stomped in their asses by Winnipeg in the season opener. Trash City hung with the Jets for an entire two periods, presumptively because no one in St. Louis can count higher than two, before giving up three goals in just under two minutes in the third. It’s once again the Blues’s woeful defense and goaltending that will keep it from ever doing anything worthwhile.

Year in and year out, the Blues try to convince everyone that Alex Orange Jello and Jabe O’Meester are not only not dead but also top-pairing guys. And they’ll do it again tonight, mostly because there’s nowhere else to go for them on the blue line. Vinny Dunn and his gabagool-stained sweater will likely pair with Colton Parayko, and these two can move the puck if nothing else. And let us assure you, they can’t really do anything else. In the season opener, Dunn–Parayko had CF%s under 25%, despite the Blues having a 54+ CF% on the game and despite those two starting in the offensive zone more than 70% of the time. You have to try to be that bad. Behind them is the Cronenberg pairing of Chris Butler and Jordan “The Lesser” Schmaltz, which might be worse than anything the Hawks throw up on the ice today. That’s a real commitment to sucking.

All of this makes you wonder just how long Jay Gallon can go before having a complete mental breakdown. As the perennial presenter of the “This Year’s Different” Cup, Jake Allen has seen this movie play out, and it never ends well. And lo, Thursday saw him toss a .800 SV% up, including a short-handed goal, despite his strong first 40 minutes. At some point the Blues will have to admit that Gallon probably isn’t the guy to get them to the WCF, let alone past it, but that day is not today. He’s likely to get the start, but if humanoid marital aid Mike Yeo gets itchy, it’s possible to see Chad Johnson take his first start for the Blues. Johnson is about as much of “a guy” as you can find, right down to his frathouse-appropriate name.

Even with all the dreck on the back-end, the Blues do have dangerous weapons up front. Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko have all the skill to be a holy terror, provided the aptly named Patrick Maroon doesn’t trip over his own dick too often and kneecap them. You can count on him getting into at least one fight tonight for HOCKEY REASONS, and god willing it’ll be with Brandon Manning and result in match penalties for both.

Behind them is the quick and crafty line of Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, and Jordan Kyrou. Kyrou is just 20 years old and stands as a beacon for St. Louis’s future offense, as he’s fast and has outstanding hands and vision. With most teams looking to blanket the O’Reilly–Tarasenko line, this is where you figure the Blues can do the most damage. Bozak is on the third line where he belongs, but slotting him in with Steen and alleged-living-person David Perron as the Blues’s version of a dungeon line is going to have him wondering what the fuck he was thinking signing in STL. The Ivan Barbashev–Rob Thomas–Sammy Blais line rounds it out. Thomas (20th overall in 2017) and Blais are both supposed to be a thing for the Blues.

As for the Hawks, the song remains mostly the same. Cam Ward will try to build off a decent performance against the Senators, assuming the Hawks don’t fart and belch their way through their own zone like they did on Thursday. The Hawks had a hard time fending off pressure from Ottawa’s crashing defensemen on Thursday, which simply doesn’t bode well against a team with better weapons like the Blues do.

There are no changes for the Hawks defensively. Duncan Keith and Henri Jokiharju will have their work cut out for them against either the O’Reilly or Schenn line, and this will be HJ’s first real test of his defensive awareness and abilities. Erik Gustafsson and Jan Rutta will keep doing whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and this game is set up to allow Cowboy Gus to be an aggressive bum slayer. The shutdown pairing is Manning–Seabrook, which is fucking hilarious because the only thing Manning has ever shut down is any hope that the Hawks’s pro scouting department has any idea what a hockey player is, let alone what a passable hockey player looks like. Brent Seabrook did look better than expected on Thursday, but whether that’s per se or resultant of playing next to Manning remains to be seen. If God were merciful, you’d have Davidson rotate in for Manning, but alas.

Before I digress into another fit about Manning, let’s get to the forwards. The only change that might be made is subbing in John Hayden for Andreas Martinsen on the fourth line. We still aren’t sure why Moonface Luke is playing center over Kruger. The Toews line figures to carry most of the momentum in this game, and if the Hawks can get more than just 10 minutes of giving a fuck out of the Kane line, there are plenty of advantages to take against the Imo’s Pizza that is the Blues back-end. We’ll likely see Kunitz–Anisimov–Kampf out for far too long against Tarasenko, because it’s completely fucking normal for a team with playoff aspirations to have line like that as their third. Truth be told, that line was the most dominant in possession on Thursday, but the Blues are much, much better than the Senators you assume, so there might be a violent regression here.

The more they say things will be different, the more they stay the same.

Let’s go Hawks.

Game #2 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups And How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #1 – You Know I’m Still Here, the Faithful One – Hawks 3, Senators 3 (Hawks Win Sap Boil)

By John Pullega 2632 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey’s back. And to quote our Fearless Leader, whether it was fun or just fun-bad, it was, without a doubt, a fun game. Let’s do it.

– Everyone ought to be relieved by how good Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat looked tonight. Throughout most game, the only time anything happened for the Hawks was when those two were on the ice. Each scored goals by themselves (Future Norris Winner Erik Gustafsson got an assist on Toews’s, but it was a Toews effort from start to finish), and while those probably aren’t goals anyone scores against a team that isn’t the personification of a bad mushroom trip, they were still impressive. DeBrincat’s had a flash of “Fuck you, I got this” that spawned memories of the dearly departed Marian Hossa. He made Thomas Chabot look like a horse’s ass, using him as a screen to pot his shot over DA LOCAL GUY’s glove.

Toews’s goal was the result of Mark Borowiecki deciding that the best way to defend a 2-on-1 is to drag your ass on the ice like a dog with worms. You could hear Toews thinking “Is this fucking guy serious?” the entire time he drove through the circle. But you take what they give you, and Toews did that. He looked like vintage Toews, complementing power and speed with excellent vision all night. He and DeBrincat were dominant in possession as well, each posting 55%+ on the night.

– For all the nervousness we had (and still have) about Cam Ward, he looked pretty good tonight. The only goal you can really put on him is the PK goal, which Colin White stuffed right through his legs. But he buckled down and made a couple of surprising saves in the third, keeping the Hawks in it in time for Patrick Kane to start giving a shit. The first came off a redirect, and the second was the result of all five of the Hawks’s skaters either falling asleep or doing something monumentally stupid. And that one all started with Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning.

– Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I adopted a cat. She was a good cat, but she had a heart defect. I tried giving her medicine to make her better, but the day came when I had to put her down. She was just 4 years old. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, and I still think about it all the time.

I would rather put that cat down every day for the rest of the fucking year than watch Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning play another minute in a Hawks sweater.

There aren’t enough adequate superlatives to describe what an unmitigated disaster Brandon Manning was tonight. He’s the Bret Hart of being a complete fucking ass wart: The worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be.

Let’s start with the second goal the Hawks gave up, which occurred with Saad–Schmaltz–Kane and Manning–Seabrook. LOCAL GUY Ryan Dzingel had the puck on the near boards, and Manning went out to cover him. He gave him a body check, which, fine, whatever. But long after Dzingel had passed the puck to Matt Duchene behind the net, Manning continued to ride him into the boards for no other reason than Brandon Manning is a shit-sipping mongoloid who would drop his dick in a urinal if it weren’t attached to his dumb fucking body. Because he decided that dry-humping Dzingel into the boards was the best play to possibly make, it left a huge hole in front of the net. Seabrook tried to cover as best he could, but where the fuck do you think Maxime LaJoie was when he potted that goal? If you said, “Where Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning should have been,” you win the prize of not being Brandon Manning.

Then, on the penalty kill goal, while Cam Ward shares some of the blame, the only reason Colin White had all the space in the world to stuff a between-the-legs shot was because Brandon Manning stood slackjawed at the top of the paint. At no point did he even feign an effort to break up anything Colin White was trying to do. He stood there like a 3-year-old who just realized he can’t hold his shit in anymore and mother is going to be so mad that she has to handwash the corduroys again.

Holy fuck this guy sucks. If the Hawks hadn’t won this game, I probably would have quit my job, moved back to Chicago, taken whatever construction job was happening outside the UC, and rubbed my red Italian ass on StanBo’s clean windows until he relented and cut Manning from the roster. He brings nothing to the table except an opportunity for us to completely lose our asses, which you can bank on happening every time Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning laces up his rock-lined skates. Fuck this guy to the end of the Earth and back.

– Getting back to things that don’t cause a complete aneurysm, it was nice of Patrick Kane to show up 50 minutes into the game. For most of the outing, he was in mid-February “can’t buy me a fuck” mode, with a ton of lazy passing and stick handling. But when Patrick Kane decides to turn it on, there are few better. His seeing-eye pass from behind the net on Brent Seabrook’s goal was art, and the top-shelf backhander to end it is the reason most of us tune in at all. While 60 minutes of that effort would be nice, you’ll take what you get.

– I liked how Seabrook looked overall. That might just be because he was paired with Ass Wart all night, but there was a bit of pep in his skating. And he channeled early-dynasty Seabrook on his one-timer in the slot. He looks a bit thinner and quicker, so maybe all that “he’s working out” talk in the offseason was more than just another marketing ploy.

– We’re going to say this a lot, but Henri Jokiharju had a hot and cold night. He was overpowered in the first period, which led directly to Ottawa’s first goal, and he needed Cam Ward to bail him out after Dzingel broke away from him off an outlet pass in the third. But those two boners aside, HJ had himself a decent game. He finished at almost 60% on the Corsi share, took three shots on goal, and drew a tripping penalty in his own zone. You’ll take that just fine for an NHL debut.

– Brandon Saad had a ho-hum game. He was putrid early, but picked it up a bit as the game went on. He probably should have been more aware on LaJoie’s goal, and didn’t really bust his ass much to fill the spot Ass Wart left open. He had one of the lower possession shares among Hawks forwards (51%+) and deferred on a couple of prime chances. This is going to be something to keep an eye on, since there are rumors that he only plays up to the level of the guys he plays with, and Patrick Kane couldn’t be bothered for most of the game.

A win’s a win, but this shit isn’t going to fly against the Blues and the Leafs this weekend. Still, if the Hawks can at least be chaotic fun, I think we’ll all have something to occupy us until the Bears roll into the playoffs.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life/Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “As good as it gets.” – Pat Foley describing Dollar Bill Wirtz’s death and Rocky’s subsequent takeover as Hawks chairman on Rocky’s birthday.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Dylan Sikura & Luke Johnson

By John Pullega 1492 0

For the past year or so, there have been rumblings about how Dylan Sikura was going to be a classic Bowman late-round pick. He was going to wildly exceed all expectations and give the Hawks the scoring depth they needed to recapture the dominance of the early-to-mid 2010s. After an ineffective camp, Sikura gets to take a gray trip up the Jane Addams to Rockford, while despite the odds, Luke Johnson gets to break camp. Let’s double dip.

Dylan Sikura 2017–18 Stats

5 GP – 0 G, 3 A

41.8 CF%, 64.3 oZS%

Avg. TOI 13:24

A Brief History: The former sixth-round pick in 2014 made his debut for the Hawks late last year. After increasingly strong performances at Northeastern from 2016–18, which saw Sikura tally 111 points in 73 games during his junior and senior years combined (43 G, 68 A), Sikura signed a two-year ELC last year. He played most of his time with Alex DeBrincat and Victor Ejdsell in his five games up, tallying three assists despite having his head caved in on the possession ledger. While two of those assists came in his debut during the Scott Foster Game, you’d gladly take three assists over five games. Things were looking up.

Then, preseason happened, and Sikura looked more like Freshman Year at Northeastern than Top Prospect in the Pipeline material. He had zero points on six shots at evens. His possession numbers were somehow worse than they were at the end of last year, as he posted a woeful 39.62 CF% despite taking 56+% of his draws in the offensive zone. His only notable contribution was a power play assist.

Oh, and by playing in just one game last year, the Hawks burned year one of his ELC deal, meaning Sikura is a restricted free agent after this year. Overall, not how anyone had it planned, if anyone had a plan at all.

It Was the Best of Times: We’ve already gone through something like this with Nick Schmaltz back in 2016. Schmaltz struggled early, got sent down to the Hogs, kicked in skulls, then came up for good later that year. The hope (and really, the necessity) is that Sikura follows a similar path as Schmaltz. While Sikura doesn’t have the pedigree that Schmaltz does and would need everything to go perfectly to top out as a second-line right winger, he does have a template to work with. If all goes well, he’s up with the Hawks around Thanksgiving or so and contributes 30–35 points on the third line.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Sikura turns out to be nothing more than a by-product of Adam Gaudette. This has always been the FFUD fear with Sikura, that he’s just the result of a bigger, stronger, better player at center. Since the only person who fills those criteria is Jonathan Toews (Artem Anisimov is too slow, Schmaltz is too small) and Sikura hasn’t proven he can make much on his own to this point, there’s reason to worry he’s much of nothing and peters out after this year, only to sign elsewhere and unlock the potential the Hawks always assumed he had after this year. One bad preseason doesn’t mean he sucks, but he does have the potential to suck.

Prediction: We’ll be lucky to get 40 games out of Sikura this year. I think it’s going to take him longer than anticipated to get comfortable to just AHL speeds, let alone NHL. That’s going to make it a tougher decision when deciding what to do with him as a restricted free agent come this offseason, but with all the water the organ-I-zation has carried for Sikura thus far, they’ll probably re-up him regardless.

Luke Johnson 2017–18 Stats (Rockford)

73 GP – 13 G, 17 A

8.1 SH%, 3 PPG, 62 PIM

A Brief History: Usurping Sikura’s role will be Luke Johnson. Originally drafted by the Blackhawks back in 2013, the moonfaced Johnson has spent the glut of his career in the AHL. And when I say glut, I mean it literally: A big reason he’s never made it to the NHL to this point is because of his weight. He began his IceHogs career at 5’11” 198, and it wasn’t until he dropped nearly 20 pounds last year that he started seeing greater success.

Johnson is essentially a guy. He’s got OK speed now that he’s lost some weight, an OK shot (he shot 8.1% for the Hogs during the regular season last year), and isn’t a zoo without cages in his own end. He was a strong contributor in the IceHogs’s Calder Cup run, with eight points (4 G, 4A) throughout those playoffs. He’s looked good on the fourth line, where he’s spent more time in the defensive zone and has still posted a 54+ CF%.

It Was the Best of Times: Johnson’s not going to light the world on fire. Best case, he stays on the fourth line with Kruger and some combo of Hayden, Kampf, or Martinsen. He plays well enough on the PK to justify rotating him in whenever Hayden disappears or Martinsen goes beyond sucking.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Quenneville gets it in his head that Johnson belongs on a line with Anisimov and Kunitz, and that line gives up 50 goals by itself before Thanksgiving.

Prediction: Johnson earned his shot with a strong camp this year. He’ll play well as the Hawks’s 13th forward and turn into a David Kampf Lite. He’ll get into a fight or two that will endear him to the “I’m gonna wear a headdress to the game” crowd and will pot, let’s say, nine points on the year.

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

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Victor Ejdsell

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

John Hayden

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Colorado Avalanche

By John Pullega 1695 0

Few teams have ridden the roller coaster as hard as the Colorado Avalanche. You probably remember them best as the ruptured polyp in the direct center of the Blackhawks’s asscrack over the past five years, when, no matter how bad they were, they always seemed a little bit faster than the Hawks. You’ll certainly remember Patrick Roy swinging his shit-filled diaper over his head like a slingshot night in and night out as he slobbered the 2013–14 iteration of this team to a 112-point first-round bounce, only to have the entire team fuck off to the land of wind and ghosts over his next two years because he’s a gigantic horse’s ass.

This team has been Jared Bednar’s for the last two years, and after finishing dead last in his first year, they spasmed a playoff appearance last year on the backs of Nathan MacKinnon and noted woman beater Semyon Varlamov. Word around town is that they have playoff aspirations this year as well, so let’s see if there’s enough oil in this buggy to get them there.

2017–18

43 W, 30 L, 9 OT, 95 PTS

257 GF, 237 GA, 22.0% PP, 83.3% PK

47.59 CF%, 10.5 SH%, .917 SV%

Goalies: For as long as they’ve mattered, the Big Foot has relied on stellar goaltending to keep them afloat. And credit to Joe Sakic for understanding that this is now a goaltender league, because on top of having an NHL-caliber piece of dogshit in Varlamov, he went out and got a 1A goalie in Philipp Grubauer. The idea is to keep Dogshit at around 50 games, which is typically where he’s done his best work. Last year saw Dogshit post a strong .923 SV% at evens and an outrageous 90.7 SV% on the kill, which went a long way in jettisoning the Avs to the fourth-best PK slot in the league.

With Grubauer backing Dogshit up for when he gets hurt or arrested, the Avs managed to get even better in net. You’ll remember Grubauer as the guy who started for the Caps early in their playoff run last year when Braden Holtby started to run out of gas. Grubauer’s regular season numbers at evens were outstanding, with a .931 in 35 games. His short-handed percentage sat at a pedestrian .870.

Barring injury, this is where the Avs are going to thrive, because even if Dogshit gets hurt, they have one of the best backups you can ask for in Grubauer. When your backup is tossing a .923 in all situations, it’s hard to worry.

Defensemen: Now this is where it gets dicey. Professional golf-cart crasher Erik Johnson will lead the Avs with his milquetoast interpretation of hockey defense, and he’ll be mostly fine doing it. Last year saw him pairing primarily with Nikita Zadorov in a shutdown pairing role, with the two of them posting 5v5 CF%s of around 48% while spending most of their time in the defensive zone. Also of note is young Grease Lightning Sam Girard, who at just 20 years old looks to explode on the scene this year. He potted 20 points in 68 games as a 19-year-old last year. When you think about how defensemen in the NHL will look in the next decade, Girard is probably as fitting a prototype as you’ll find. He can move the puck, has good vision, and his skating is legitimately artistic. The only real knock against him is he’s a bit light in the ass at 5’10” 160, but we’ve seen before that with the right skill set, size doesn’t matter much. And Girard has that skill set. He’s likely to pair with Johnson on the top pairing this year.

After that though, you look at the Avs blue line like a loogie dangling from the ceiling of the Blue Line. Ian Cole was brought in to do whatever it is that Ian Cole does, which is be a defensive defenseman? Tyson Barrie will continue to get to the wrong spot really, really quickly, and yet be a nightmare on breakouts. If Patrik Nemeth, Mark Barberio, or Mark Alt do anything for you, see a doctor. Overall, the blue line is a Hot Pocket, simultaneously ice cold and scalding hot and never quite cooked even.

Forwards: The first line for the Avs is insane. Nathan MacKinnon isn’t even fucking 25 yet and was arguably the best centerman in the West last year. Now that Patrick Roy isn’t spreading his GET MEAN diaper rash to Gabriel Landeskog, he can focus on everything else he does well, which is really everything. Mikko Rantanen scored 84 points as a 21-year-old last year and could be a 30-goal scorer if he keeps up his 15–16% shooting rate (do you remember laughter?). You’re looking at 200–250 points from this top line.

After that, it’s much less robust. Alex Kerfoot projects to anchor the second line on the left wing. His 43 points as a rookie last year were impressive. Tyson Jost could never quite put it together last year, which is exactly the kind of player you want centering your second line. JT Compher is fast and nothing more. Sven Andrighetto is the same person with a harder to spell name. Their shutdown line of Matt Calvert–Carl Soderberg–Matt Nieto will be a sandpaper lullaby. The Avs are high on their first-round pick Martin Kaut, and it’s possible he’s called up mid-season, depending on how the Avs shake out. Kaut is touted for his offense, which is precisely what the Avs will need down the stretch, given their hot-potato possession tendencies.

Outlook: The Avs are a get-up-and-go team. They do not give a fuck about possession, and with all the offensive firepower on the first line coupled with rock-solid goaltending, they really don’t need to. If Kerfoot and Jost put it together and Kaut manages to make the team down the line, the Avs will have a bit more cushion to work with offensively. You can see them squeaking into the playoffs again this year.

And they’ll also have the best shot at Jack Hughes in the upcoming draft, with Ottawa’s farcical leadership’s complete inability to do anything right ever keeping this year’s pick so they could draft Keith Tkachuk’s other garbage son. Come this time next year, the Avalanche might be a legit contender.

Previous Team Previews

Detroit Red Wings

Buffalo Sabres

Boston Bruins

Florida Panthers

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

Carolina Hurricanes

Columbus Blue Jackets

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Washington Capitals

Anaheim Ducks

Arizona Coyotes

Calgary Flames

Edmonton Oilers

L.A. Kings

San Jose Sharks

Vegas Golden Knights

Vancouver Canucks

Everything Else

Preseason Game #5 – Ottawanna Go Ta Bed – Hawks 1, Senators 2

By John Pullega 1803 0

Tonight’s preseason game was as invigorating as a toenail-clipping party. That’s about par for the course when both Ottawa is involved and Garbage Dick is on the sidelines. We did learn a little bit in this game though, so let’s get through it.

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– In true FFUD form, just a few hours after Hess wrote about how you’ll never really notice John Hayden out there, John Hayden was probably the most noticeable Hawk for most of the game. The Hayden–Marcus Kruger–Andreas Martinsen line was by far the best performer on the ice for the Hawks tonight, which is both good and bad: Good in that it’s always encouraging to see the fourth line dominate possession like they did, bad in that your fourth line probably shouldn’t ever be the most noticeable line, especially against a team contending for the first overall pick (IF THEY STILL HAD IT THAT IS). Hayden’s performance got him bumped up to the “second” line with Schmaltz and Anisimov later in the game, and while he wasn’t as noticeable in that role, he sure earned it.

– With Hayden moving up, Dylan Sikura got bumped down to the fourth line in the second half of the game. The hawk-eyed Mark Lazerus suggested that this could potentially be a death knell for Sikura’s hopes of breaking camp, especially with Luke Johnson and David Kampf playing relatively lights out. It’ll be a huge disappointment if Sikura has to start in the AHL, as just about everyone assumed he would be an offensive contributor out of the gate. Something to keep an eye on.

– Anton Forsberg only gave up two goals, and the first one was on blown coverage from “Hard J” Henri Jokiharju and Dominik Kahun. The second was on a Joe Louis Arena-esque bounce off the end boards. Overall, he looked decent, but he always looks like an eighth grader nervously asking his crush to dance with him when under pressure. There’s a loudness to his playing style that always has you on edge it seems.

– Jokiharju is going to have a pretty steep learning curve to overcome on the defensive side of the puck, but that’s not the end of the world. His offensive instincts are there. He ended up with a 45 CF% on the night, spending most of his time with Keith.

– Thank fuck Alex DeBrincat is 5’7” and fell to the Hawks in the draft last year (with the pick they got for Andrew Shaw. Never forget that.). The pass he conjured through Chabot’s legs on the Jonathan Toews goal slipped past three Senators total, and was simply a sight to behold. They may have brought Saad in to reinvigorate The Captain, but Top Cat on his left side is going to be the Michelangelo to his Renaissance.

– I’ve been pissing and moaning about Brandon Saad on the third line with Chris Kunitz and Luke Johnson since it’s been announced, but his play was deserving of his status tonight. He had a few unforced turnovers early and never really got into a groove. He finished with a disappointing 44.44 CF%. There might be a couple of mitigating factors here: Namely, Kunitz and Johnson are grinders and Saad was playing on his off wing, which he’s never really done, but that’s not much of an excuse. With the Nick Schmaltz–Artem Anisimov–Sikura line being the only line to be more of a ghost out there, I still think putting Saad with Schmaltz and Patrick Kane will be best for everyone, but his performance tonight didn’t inspire confidence. The Fels Motherfuck knows no bounds, apparently.

– Let’s cut this “Nick Schmaltz on the wing” horseshit out now.

Join us next week when we watch the Hawks play the fucking Senators again, because nothing worth doing ever comes easy.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega 1962 0

No one, and I mean no one, was happier to hear about the Brandon Saad for Artemi Panarin trade last year than me. In fact, I distinctly remember writing something to the effect of “Is there really anyone out there who would rather watch Panarin than Saad on the ice?” in the early stages of the season. Call it a proto-Fels Motherfuck, because the answer to that question was a resounding “Yes, we all would.” And yet, this is the hill I will die a bloody death on, because Brandon Saad, regardless of performance last year, fucks. And this year, he will fuck again.

2017–18 Stats

82 GP – 18 G, 17 A

56.7 CF%, 60.2 oZS%

Avg. TOI 17:30

A Brief History: By pretty much all measures, the Panarin–Tyler Motte (lol) for Saad–Anton Forsberg trade was a loss for the Hawks in 2017–18. Whereas Saad went on to post his lowest point total since his rookie year during the season-in-a-can, Pantera built off his first two outstanding seasons, with 82 points (27 goals) last year away from Patrick Kane.

We went over Saad’s struggles multiple times last year. I wrote a fucking doctoral thesis on how last year was one of Saad’s best years of his career by all metrics other than points. His even-strength CF% and CF% Rel were both second highest of his career. Only Jonathan Toews had a better CF%, and no one had a better CF% Rel than Saad. Other than Tommy Wingels, no Blackhawk had a larger discrepancy between xGF% (51.62) and GF% (45.1) than Saad. Saad also logged his lowest PDO of his career BY FAR, with a withering 97.5 versus a career average of 100.4. Combined with his far-below-average shooting percentage (7.6% vs. a career 11.8% prior to last year) and the fact that no one he played with regularly scored, there were plenty of people ready to declare Brandon Saad dead.

Fuck that.

Brandon Saad isn’t far from being the Hossa Lite we all expect and need him to be. It really is as simple as him having a bit more luck on his shooting. It never looked like Saad had lost a step or was dogging it out there. Outside of maybe lowered confidence from shooting a full 4% lower than his career average, Saad looked just as good as he always did, and all the numbers—besides points—show that. If Saad had shot at just his career average, he’d have had 28 goals on the season, which would have been second most of his career.

But no one wants to listen to the notes he’s not playing. Fortunately, we won’t have to this year.

It Was the Best of Times: This is easy. Saad is going to be just 26 this year, and I don’t think we’ve even seen his final form yet. Playing on a line with Schmaltz and Kane, Saad takes every “trade Saad” proclamation ever uttered personally and tosses a 15% shooting percentage on 240 shots, good for 36 goals. He also contributes 55 assists, turning himself into the 90-point monster some people thought he might have been last year. He continues to be a possession behemoth, which makes Schmaltz and Kane even more dangerous than they were last year. He single-handedly keeps that line well above water on the possession ledger and even contributes on the second PP unit.

It Was the BLURST of Times: The worst thing that can happen to Saad is an extended injury, something that keeps him out for weeks like our woebegone Irish Son Connor Murphy. Unless he’s hurt, last year is probably as bad as it gets for Saad. It’s still possible, yet highly unlikely, that he’s now an 8% shooter, but there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that last year’s piss fest was anything other than an outlier. It’s also unlikely that he’ll be traded—which was one of our fears this summer—and after StanBo told Tom “Team Grit” Dundon that a Faulk-for-Saad trade was a non-starter, I don’t think there’ll be much worry about losing our Syrian Savior to trade anytime soon.

Prediction: I’m going all in on Saad this year. 30 goals, 40 assists, leads the team in CF% Rel. Helps Kane get to 95 points, helps Schmaltz break 50 for the first time. Is a complete nightmare for opponents on the PK. Chips in a few goals in the second PP unit (which, if you’re scoring at home, will be comprised of Gustafsson, Ejdsell, and Saad by my count. Throw in Schmaltz and Wide Dick, and there’s what I think the second-unit PP should be).

Everything else might go wrong for the Hawks this year. But Brandon Saad will not be one of them. Like a phoenix rising from Arizona, Brandon Saad will show us all why trading Panarin for him wasn’t for naught.

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

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Victor Ejdsell

Jonathan Toews