Hockey

So Strap on That There Jammy Pac, and Get Up Off My Floor—Hawks vs. Oilers—Special Teams

By John Pullega 1874

So far, we’ve generally argued that given the weirdness of these play-ins, the relative depth of the forward corps, and Corey Crawford returning from COVID-19, the Hawks could squeak out a win in this series-that-shouldn’t-be against an extremely top-heavy Oilers squad. But if you’re looking for an abandon all hope kick in the crotch, you’ll find it in the special teams matchup.

Oilers Power Play and Penalty Kill

PP%: 29.5 (1st)

PK%: 84.4 (2nd)

Edmonton has the best power play percentage among all NHL teams by far. They’ll typically ice McDavid and Draisaitl on the first unit, along with RNH, Alex Chiasson, and Oscar Klefbom. Athanasiou and Yamamoto feature on the second unit, with Nurse, Bear, and James Neal.

We’re sort of at a loss for words about what a hot bucket of enema-induced diarrhea this matchup is going to be. The thought of McDavid and Draisaitl finding ice time against Slater Koekkoek or Olli “Buyout” Maatta is dreadful. There likely isn’t a faster or more offensively talented two PP units in the game. I guess we can rest assured we likely won’t see much of the second unit?

The Oilers penalty kill was also close to the top of the league. The PK units themselves aren’t anything to write home about, with Klefbom, Riley Sheahan, Nurse, Bear, the enormous Jujhar Khaira, and Josh Archibald taking primary PK responsibilities.

It’s their goaltending that’s done the heavy lifting on the PK. Sike Mmith has managed to put up a better save percentage on the PK (91.8%) than at 5v5 (90%). What an asshole. Mikko Koskinen is no slouch on the PK either, boasting a strong 90.1%. So, even if the Hawks can find a way to enter the zone (and they won’t), they’ll come up against the best PK goalie tandem in the game. Joy.

Hawks Power Play and Penalty Kill

PP%: 15.2 (28th)

PK%: 82.1 (T-8th)

The Hawks power play is and always will be a drooling dog’s sore dick. There’s little point in getting wound up about it anymore, but you can bet your ass we’ll be red and nude when we see it. They’re going to look foolish and will likely give up at least one shorthanded goal, and it’ll probably be to James Neal, who will score it by barreling into Crawford, whose head will then fall clear off and float down the Rogers Place River.

If there’s anything the Hawks can hope for, it’s that some combination of Toews, Kampf, Carpenter, Saad, Murphy, and Keith can minimize any damage McDavid and Draisaitl will set up. The true nightmare will be Murphy tweaking his groin, de Haan not being able to shake off the rust, and the top PK minutes going to Maatta.

As with 5v5 play, David Kampf will need to play an outsized role in shutting down McDavid if the Hawks will have any hope at keeping Edmonton’s PP at bay. Any extended time on the PK will also eliminate the slight depth advantage the Hawks have at forward, with Toews and Saad typically taking second unit duties.

Advantage: Oilers by a mile

It’s simple: If the Hawks find themselves on the PK any more than three times in a game this series, they will lose that game. On average, the Hawks found themselves shorthanded slightly under three times a game during the regular season. With a sizeable speed disadvantage, along with four months of rust, don’t be surprised to see the Hawks marching to and from the box more often than they did in the regular season. If that happens, they’re fucked.

Forwards Preview

Defense Preview

Goalies Preview

Coaching Preview

Hockey

Overthinking, Overanalyzing Separates the Body From the Mind—Hawks vs. Oilers Preview—Forwards

By John Pullega 1755

The 2020 play-ins and playoffs will more closely resemble preseason hockey than any sort of competitive matchup between in-rhythm teams at the peak of their production. In these situations, raw talent typically beats systems. Given the alleged system that Jeremy Colliton runs—which often includes such scenes as “Connor Murphy chasing at his own blue line” and “developing 2-on-0s at the top of the circles despite the Hawks icing five guys in their own zone”—you might think this bodes well for the Blackhawks. And it actually might in terms of forwards.

Oilers forwards and potential combos

Nugent-Hopkins–McDavid–Kassian

Ennis–Draisaitl–Yamamoto

Athanasiou–Sheahan–Archibald

Neal–Khaira–Chiasson

In their heyday, the Hawks focused on speed to overpower opponents. Though that ship has sailed for this iteration of the Hawks, it’s clearly found safe harbor in Edmonton.

Connor McDavid is not only the best player on the planet but also the fastest. Draisaitl—who won the Art Ross and is in the running for the Lindsey and the Hart—also fast. Yamamoto? Fast. Joakim Nygard (if he plays coming off a broken hand)? Fast. Athanasiou? Really fucking fast. With at least one burner on each line in the top 9 for Edmonton, the Oilers will have a North–South advantage.

On top of speed, the Oilers have two guys who can do it all by themselves in McDavid and Draisiatl. Yamamoto’s emergence as “the guy Stan Bowman wished Alex Nylander were” gives the Oilers matchup options for when Coach Nathan For You shows us yet again that he has no idea how matchups work. RNH was having a strong year for himself and was on pace to put up his best point-per-game total of his career. Even Zack Kassian potted 15 goals and James Neal came close to 20. There’s a bit more depth to this forward corps than meets the eye.

But it’ll boil down to speed and the fact that the Oilers have two 90+ point scorers on the ice for at least two-thirds of the game. That’s a tough hump to get over.

Blackhawks forwards and potential combos

Top Cat–Toews–Saad

Nylander (Christ)–Strome–Kane

Kubalik–Dach–Caggiula

Carpenter–Kampf–Highmore

This is as close to the classic Hawks 3–1 forward makeup as we’ve seen in the Colliton era, even if the second and third lines are half baked. If there’s a bright spot to how this play-in will work, it’s that Jeremy Colliton can get away with his only useful move: icing Patrick Kane for 30–35 minutes a game. On three months of rest and with nothing to lose, Kane by himself could at least make this series interesting, even if Crawford can’t go.

The big story out of camp has been how good the Kane line has looked with Nylander and Strome. It’s always fun to hear about how good Alex Nylander looks in practice and watch him score slick goals when the Hawks are up by three or four. When shit matters, he’s a ghost, but you can bet your bottom goddamn dollar Colliton is going to keep trotting him out there. Kane and Strome have a ton of proven chemistry, and though it’d probably be wiser to slot Kubalik over Nylander, there’s no use in asking a giraffe to change its spots at this point.

The most interesting line will be the Dach line. Though Kubalik is decidedly not a third liner, and neither is Dach, putting these two together makes sense. Dach’s hands and vision coupled with Kubalik’s speed, shot, and willingness to GET IN DA DIRTY CORNERS DARE MY FRENT could expose the Oilers’s soft underbelly. Patrick Kane will be the one keeping them in contention, but this is the line that will win it for the Hawks, if they’re going to win.

Everyone who’s seen Dach in Magic Training Camp II says he looks faster and stronger than ever before. Whether that’s per se or simply because he’s skating with a collection of rusted jalopies is the question, but given how he really started coming into his own late last year, we buy it. Pairing him with Caggiula makes sense in theory, as Caggiula would be the primary go-get-the-puck guy. But with his concussion history and the massiveness of Edmonton’s fourth line, he’s vulnerable to another serious head injury out there.

You figure the Kampf line will try to shut down McDavid while the Toews line works Draisaitl et al. Kampf had success against McDavid the two times he saw him during the regular season, and he’ll need to repeat that if the Hawks are to have any hope of not giving up six goals a game. The real question will be whether Toews and Saad can handle Draisaitl and Yamamoto.

Forward advantage: Hawks by an asshair

The Oilers have better top-end talent but slightly less depth than the Hawks. For as fast as Athanasiou is, that’s all he really is. So, if Colliton can find a way to match the Dach line against him, they’ll get some opportunities. The Hawks will need Dach and Kubalik to continue outperforming expectations to hang with this squad, but it’s doable. If the Toews and Kampf lines can hold serve against McDavid and Draisaitl—especially if DeBrincat can shake his rotten shooting luck—the Hawks can at least make a run.

Lotta ifs, though.

Hockey

On Jeremy Roenick

By John Pullega 3698

Jeremy Roenick is a weeping wound on the unwashed asscrack that is the NHL off the ice. His recent lawsuit, which claims that NBC fired him as a result of “heterosexual discrimination,” is both a laughable farce and a boot on the neck of people who face actual discrimination simply for being who they are.

Let us be clear: Jeremy Roenick is not a victim of any kind of discrimination. He is simply a gigantic asshole and sexual harasser who faced the consequences that gigantic assholes and sexual harassers ought to face. Going on a supposed sports podcast as a representative of a national broadcasting company and openly suggesting a threesome with a coworker, then getting fired for it, is not discrimination. If you, like Jeremy Roenick, want to point to some comments Johnny Weir made about a figure skater once on a half-baked variety hour skit brought to you by Seth MacFarlane in Roenick’s defense, fuck you.

However the lawsuit plays out, one thing will remain true: Roenick was an excellent hockey player once but will always be a useless asshole otherwise. His schtick is consistently showing us what a massive piece of shit he is off the ice because frankly, he doesn’t have anything else he’s good at. Past the post-hockey career money, fame, and everything else, not being good at anything useful anymore has to eat at him.

The sooner Roenick permanently disappears from the airwaves, the better off we’ll all be.

Hockey

Let’s See What’s in the Newspaper Today: Crawford Unfit, but Seabrook in

By John Pullega 2119

Welp, they’re gonna go through with it. A close-contact sport during a spreads-via-close-contact pandemic played by a collection of rockheads who breathe way too hard through their mouths as a matter of course, pushed and propped up by a cavalcade of immorally wealthy assholes who wouldn’t care what a virus did if it weren’t simultaneously attacking their bottom lines. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

With a restart about two-and-a-half weeks away, we figured we might as well take a shot at talking about the Hawks happenings over the past however fucking long it’s been. We just can’t help ourselves. Let’s kick it, 900-number style.

Corey Crawford unfit to play on Day 1 & 2

In recently-used-metal-grinder-pressed-against-your-bare-ass fashion, the one guy who might have let the Hawks sneak by the Oilers wasn’t on the ice for Day 1 or 2 of camp. Deemed “unfit to play” according to Jeremy “Unfit to Coach” Colliton, it’ll be impossible to determine what’s going on with Crow. As part of the restart, injury information will be binary and vague—either a player is fit to play or not. This is the NHL and NHLPA’s effort to maintain player privacy during COVID-19, keeping in line with the NHL’s “out of sight, out of mind” business model that’s helped build such a glut of trust among the highers up of the league.

Suffice to say, if Corey Crawford misses any time, the Hawks should forfeit and not waste our time. He was the one clear advantage the Hawks had against the Oilers. Not having him goes well past “Do Not Pass Go” and into “Box up the entire fucking game, now NO ONE gets to be the dog” territory.

Without Crow, the Hawks will rely on some combination of Malcolm Subban, Collin Delia, Kevin Lankinen, and Matt Tomkins. Against Connor McDavid (the best hockey player in the universe), Leon Draisaitl (2019–20 Art Ross Winner), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2 goals, 2 assists in 3 games against the Hawks this year), and Kailer Yamamoto (26 points in 27 games, including 11 goals, which is one more goal than Alex Nylander had through 65 games, in case you thought I fucking forgot about him). And though everything is made up and the points don’t matter at this juncture, it’s hard to have confidence that Subban or Delia will make a miracle run a la 2015 first-round Scott Darling.

To make matters worse, if Crow can’t make the bell—whether due to concussion, COVID, or simply saying “Yeah, fuck you guys,” as he is in his entire right to do—we likely won’t see him in a Hawks sweater as a player again (unless he takes a pay cut, which he shouldn’t). That would be an ending right in line with his Dangerfieldian career in Chicago. But just because he’s unfit to play for Day 1 doesn’t mean he’s necessarily done. It’s just a bad start to this farce.

If Crawford can suit up, the Hawks will at least be watchable, maybe even have a shot to advance. If not, Edmonton in 2.

Brent Seabrook unfit for play, but playing anyway

At least we can actively reminisce about times before COVID-19, since that was the last time we saw Brent Seabrook on the ice for the Blackhawks. Until now. Yes, dear reader, Seabrook was on the camp roster, skating, and getting ready for a Blackhawks playoff effort. In 2020.

Jesus Christ bare-assed on the cross. This is our reality.

It’s sincerely nice to see that Brent Seabrook is on a road to recovery from two hip surgeries, as a person and revered player in this team’s history. But for fuck’s sake, let’s fucking not. With all the precautions the team and league are saying they’re going to take regarding player health, how is Brent Seabrook playing even within the realm of acceptable?

Putting this virus to the side, which is apparently the most American fucking thing you can do these days, Brent Seabrook wasn’t in playing shape when he was in playing shape. He was somehow worse than Slater Koekkoek and Olli Maatta, which is something you’d otherwise have to try to do. Now, you want to give him a shot to be on the ice against the fastest human being on skates? I seriously debated whether I’d rather have Seabrook or Nick Seeler suit up, since at least Seeler would only get eight minutes a game. That is not a debate anyone should ever have to have.

That Coach Nathan For You is even entertaining this idea is further proof that we’re all marks for whatever outdated version of Punk’d the Brain Trust is using up its three-Cups-in-six-years goodwill to produce. The Hawks have a chance to play with house money and give Boqvist, Beaudin, Carlsson, and, fuck it, Chad Krys a chance to play meaningful-ish minutes. And yet, here’s Brent Seabrook, the answer to a question no one asked.

Quoth The Maven:

Blackhawks decline to change name, logo

No surprises here, but worth a mention. With the football Washington Whatevers dropping their slur name and logo, questions about the Hawks were bound to come up. Powers did a better job of doing the history reporting than we’d do. Our thoughts on the topic live in our name. If you want a prediction, I’d say give it another 5–10 years before they seriously consider a name and logo change.

Don’t be shocked when this all falls apart

We’d be lying if we said we weren’t excited about the prospect of hockey coming back. But obviously, the circumstances are suspect. Players are going to get sick with COVID-19. It’s already happened several times—to the Lightning, to the Blues, to the Canadiens, and perhaps the Penguins, as Fels reported recently.

Nothing is normal about playing hockey at this time, despite the normalization of doing the exact opposite thing that you need to do to stop the virus’ spread. In short, this is gonna get worse before it gets better. And for what?

There’s nothing special or unique about the precautions the NHL is taking, except perhaps in its arrogance. The league has specifically stated that it’ll take more than one positive case to shut things down again, but gives no inkling about what that would take. They say they’ll do constant testing—which has gone SO WELL in the real world and is why we don’t have hundreds of thousands of new confirmed cases in the last week with no end in sight oh shit wait—but won’t give any indication about where any potential hot spots started or spread to. This all has a “remain calm, all is well” feel to it.

And while the league says that anyone who tests positive will have to quarantine, do you really think that’ll happen? Especially if someone like Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, or Connor McDavid gets it? Can’t wait to hear THOSE justifications.

Compounding this worry was Jonathan Toews’s completely normal and well-educated take on COVID-19 recently. It’s always fun to point to Toews as more of a thinker than his coworkers when he’s going Greenzo on everyone. But this is the kind of arrogance, misinformation, and willful ignorance that sets this season as the farce it is and will be.

Not to say that Toews is a shithead or anything—he’s not—but he ought to know better, especially as one of the less unsavory (savorier? This fucking language . . .) players in the game. It gives us no hope that “take one for the team” will take a backseat to doing the things we need to do to cull this pandemic, which has killed over 135,000 Americans to date, and infected 3 million plus nationwide and nearly 13 million worldwide.

But hey, that’s hockey baby, and only one thing matters, which is why we’re here at all.

Hockey

Game On? The NHL’s Wildly Wondiferous Playoff Plan

By John Pullega 2718

Let’s not bury the lede you came for, dear reader. So long as the NHL plays this summer, the 2019–2020 Chicago Blackhawks are a playoff team (sort of), just like the Brain Trust fucking said. Chicago will get its first taste of playoff hockey (sort of) since Nashville smacked it out of their mouths in their piss yellows three years ago.

Given the circumstances, there was no chance that whatever the Board of Governors (or whoever) and NHLPA came up with would be the belle of the ball. But the whole what-have-you they did come up with isn’t as horrid as you’d expect from this condom-in-the-toilet of a league. The seven worst teams in the league don’t get playoff hockey. They’ll likely have any playoffs in just two Hub Cities to reduce travel. Bettman talked about the nebulous concept of “having enough testing” before things resume. And most importantly for us, the Hawks will be there, which, combined with the Habs making it, is a Gribble of an idea.

So, here’s what we know and don’t know, relative to the Blackhawks (mostly).

What We Know

The Regular Season is over. All stats, awards, and the like will be based on where the league stood when it paused on March 12. DETROIT SUCKS.

Playoffs determined by points percentage. Never hurts to play in a conference with the Ducks, Sharks (apparently), and Kings, the only teams worse than the Hawks in the West. Two teams that got the pud-end of this deal are Buffalo and New Jersey, who each played two fewer games than Montreal and could have jettisoned over them with just one win in either game. Back and to the left.

Top seeds play round robin, lower seeds play elimination. The top four teams from each Conference will play each other in a round-robin format to determine their seeds. This round robin will use REGULAR SEASON RULES, which includes five-minute OTs and the spicy late-Sunday-morning giardiniera fart that is the shootout. If the round robin ends in a seeding tie, then regular season points percentage will determine the higher seed. Each of these eight teams have a guaranteed spot in the first round and will end up playing one of the remaining 16 teams that will play qualifying rounds.

The bottom eight teams in each Conference will play a best-of-five series for a shot to move on to the first round. The qualifying round uses PLAYOFF OVERTIME RULES, which is a full fucking 20 minutes of overtime hockey until there’s a fucking winner, baby. Who plays whom is based on points percentage. So, the 5 seed faces the 12 seed, the 6 seed faces the 11 seed, and so on. The winners of the qualifying rounds in each Conference will play one of the four top-seeded teams in their Conference, but there’s not much detail after that.

The Blackhawks will play the Oilers when shit gets going. The Hawks get first dibs at the Connor McDavid experience. The Hawks managed to beat Edmonton two of three times during the regular season. With the qualifying round taking a best-of-five format, the Hawks have a legitimate shot at not just making the playoffs (sort of) but also advancing.

At the season’s pause, the Oilers were a bottom-five Corsi team. They have a game-breaking forward and current Art Ross winner. Aside from goaltending, when the Oilers look into a mirror, the Blackhawks scream back. In the words of ol’ JR, this has SLOBBERKNOCKER written all over it. If ever this city were going to appreciate the beauty of Corey Crawford, this playoff series would be it. With at least three future Hall of Famers between these forward corps and a sun-bleached blown-out diaper on the ass ends of each team, goaltending will likely be the thing that wins this series. And Corey Crawford is fucking better than Mike Smith, 2011–12 be damned.

The draft will be a fucking zoo. We’ll probably talk more about this in a different post, but the Hawks could have a 3% chance at the first overall pick if they’re eliminated by the Oilers, and some other goofy shit also happens that we don’t feel like thinking about right this second.

What We Don’t Know

Where or when things will start. We know that teams will end up playing in one of two Hub Cities. One city will serve as a hub for the East, the other a hub for the West. Bettman mentioned 12 potential cities they could use as a hub, including Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas, and Edmonton (but not Arkush). But outside of that, we don’t know which cities they’ll play in.

We also don’t know exactly when things will start. Bettman made it clear though that formal training camps—otherwise known as “Phase 3”—would not start anytime before July 1. So, best case, you’re likely not looking at any actual hockey until about mid-July, since the NHL hasn’t even reached Phase 2 (voluntary practices at home facilities with like six total players or something). That assumes that the NHL will have the means—both physically and financially—to conduct the constant COVID-19 testing necessary to prevent another massive outbreak.

What the playoffs look like after the qualifying rounds. After the round robin and qualifiers, there’s not much info. Bettman explicitly said that they will not reveal how matchups work because it’s what the players wanted. He hinted that they’ll likely do it by seeding or brackets, which is a welcome respite from their bend over, shit on the wall, and read the Rorschach method they’ve been using since any of the previous lockouts.

The only thing we know for sure is that Conference Finals and the Cup will be a best of seven.

Whether any of this will happen at all. Bettman made a point to say that the NHL won’t resume play until they get the go-ahead from health professionals and governments to do so. Given how cohesive and in agreement everyone in this armpit nation has been about even the simplest of sacrifices in such aspects as “wearing a fucking mask in public even if you’re a healthy person” and “not drinking bleach as a cure,” there’s still a very real possibility that this is all window dressing.

What’s Next?

We’ll have thoughts on all this shit as more information trickles out. But for us as Blackhawks fans, you’ll take this setup. While the Oilers aren’t a pushover, they’re the precise team that the Hawks can at least try to outgun.

Yes, McDavid and Draisaitl are going to kick gum and chew ass against whichever combination of Seeler–Maatta–Gilbert–Koekkoek Coach Nathan For You throws out there. But they’ll also have to deal with Playoff Garbage Dick on months of rest, which probably means 40 minutes of Kane every fucking night. This playoff format fits right into the strengths of Colliton’s system.

And until Corey Crawford shows us that he isn’t the guy doing all the fucking, it’s hard to bet against him in favor of Sike Mmith.

It’s not pretty. It’s not perfect. It’s hockey. And the 2019–2020 Blackhawks are in the playoffs (sort of).

Just like the Brain Trust fucking said.

Hockey

And Then There Were 2: Rocky Fires John McDonough

By John Pullega 3198

Well now.

Despite the silent scream of COVID-19 keeping us all locked up, pissed off, and stir crazy, Rocky Wirtz made a stunning albeit welcome-around-these-parts move in firing longtime President and professional autofellatio guru John McDonough today.

First, the good. McDonough was here for 13 years. He ushered in an era where Blackhawks fans could not only watch hockey on the goddamn television in 2007 but also enjoy it. After squeezing as much blood out of the Loveable Loser stone as he could for the North Side Nine, he oversaw a renaissance of Chicago hockey.

Nine straight playoff appearances. Five Conference Finals appearances. Three Stanley Cups. And whether you like it or not, he had a hand in making the game an experience that 20,000+ could enjoy night in and night out. But we won’t go too far into that, because we’re sure if you hold your ear close enough to the ground, you can hear McDonough himself pucker up to kiss his own ass about it.

For all the good McDonough bestowed upon this team during his tenure, it’ll always be hard, if not impossible, to forgive the 2015 Notre Dame debacle. Of all the contributions we at FFUD will remember him for the most, it’s his vile effort to turn a horrifying rape allegation against his star player into a fucking marketing push.

You might remember him calling the Hawks’s three Cups in six years a “Camelot” era for the Hawks. In the same place where he and his spineless GM tucked tail and ran when pressed on what they would do with their alleged rapist of a star. For a guy who has a gas mask connected to his asshole 24/7 when it comes to talking about what a great marketing campaign looks like, he couldn’t have dreamed of a better way to fuck the optics of that one up. Then again, perhaps in true Galaxy Brain form, he just knew that the troglodytes would bury any earnest concern in the name of winning.

But that was always McDonough’s MO when it came to doing things that didn’t involve sucking his own farts: When in doubt, run, deny, or reroute.

When Andrew Shaw got caught using a homophobic slur, it was the NHL, not McDonough et al., who punished him. McDonough was nowhere to be found during the Garret Ross revenge porn disaster. When something other than the sellout streak came up—something that would have required a semblance of sac or true, honest to God leadership—you better believe McDonough had something else better to do.

And though you can’t discount how much more visible he made the team, it would have been challenging for anyone not named Bill Wirtz to not succeed in the spot McDonough fell into. Putting an up-and-coming hockey team on television and then marketing it even a little bit does not require the genius that John McDonough wants you to believe it does, unless your opening act is the Bill Wirtz and Bob Pulford “Wet bag of human shit covered in burnt hair” routine.

McDonough certainly wasn’t the worst Hockey Man, but he certainly wasn’t the best either. He came on at a time where all he had to do was ride the wave and capitalize. The foundation of hope had been laid with Toews and Kane. All he had to do was sell it, which wasn’t terribly hard after the organ-I-zation spent the better part of a decade literally hiding the team under a rock (although in the late 90s and early 00s, you sort of get it).

If you want to give him credit for building this team, you should also place blame for where it is now. A team that’s grown fat on its throne with little urgency to do anything outside of chastise a fanbase with its eyesore of a scoreboard and no effort to make this team faster and better. Recall that in the last two years, Dennis Gilbert, Brandon Manning, Nick Seeler, John Hayden, and Chris Kunitz all played meaningful minutes for a team that McDonough himself wanted you to believe was a playoff team.

He will go down in the Hawks annals as a legend, despite the fact that we still aren’t sure what he’d say he did here that was revolutionary or forward thinking. Fortunately, we no longer have to figure it out.

What this means for the future is anyone’s guess, especially since Rocky went out of his way to assure everyone that Bowman and Colliton are his guys. Then again, now that McDonough is gone, so too could those two. If we had to guess, we’d say that Stan Bowman pulls a Shel Silverstein while Rocky goes out and looks for a GM whose greatest asset isn’t his consistent ability to look like he’s holding in hard gas.

What it DOES mean is that someone up there is seeing the shit we’ve been seeing down here and finally said “enough.” You can’t imagine that Daniel Wirtz, Rocky’s little brother (or son, whichever), will be anything other than an interim President.

It took a literal act of God to get us to this point, with Rocky saying that COVID-19 gave him some time to reassess the team’s direction. But given the suddenness of the firing, you shouldn’t be surprised if something unsavory slithers out of the front office as cause for the firing.

Better late than never.

Hockey

Weekend Update – Rocky Likes His Guys and Other Flotsam

By John Pullega 2114

Though it looks less likely that we’ll get more hockey this year with each passing day, that doesn’t mean the Hawks aren’t not doing anything. Here’s a weekend update about the goings on with the Men of Four Feathers.

– In an interview with Scott Powers, Rocky Wirtz said that there will be no front office changes in the near future. That means all your favorite stars like John McDonough, Stan Bowman, and Jeremy “Please Stop Saying I’m the Worst Coach in the League” Colliton are sitting pretty on the velvet couch of the Blackhawks Brain Trust, where you can suck for three years and still make bank.

With this decision, Rocky Wirtz has finally given us a morsel of what the plan is. And that plan is to continue being an abysmal defensive team coached by a stubborn putz whose system clearly doesn’t work with the guys he’s got, and generally managed (though we use this term in its loosest form) by a man whose solution to his bad defense was to make it slower and ouchie-er.

If we needed proof that Rocky doesn’t watch the games at all, this:

“Well, if I wasn’t confident, they wouldn’t be employed,” Wirtz said. “Yeah, I’m very confident. Like I said, we had a good run, but that doesn’t mean when you’re drafting 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th … You know it’s a young person’s game. You have to put work in there. Stan, right or wrong, after ’10, ’13 and ’15, you essentially had to trade half your team away. Yeah could we have been a dynasty if it was back in the Edmonton days? Of course. The 2010 team could have been around for a long time. But with the salary cap, you couldn’t do that. It is what it is. You got to work within the system.”

There you have it. In what’s becoming a theme around these parts, the Blackhawks brass is reaching back to the greatest hits to justify things they’re doing five years after the fact. If the whole point is “You got to work within the system,” what’s inspired confidence that Bowman’s been doing that effectively? Was it the Brandon Manning signing two years ago? Was it trading Jokiharju for Nylander the Lesser last summer? Was it signing Olli Maatta and Calvin de Haan who suck and have no shoulders, respectively, last summer? We know Bowman had to rip those championship teams apart. We were there. What does that have to do with what he’s done lately?

Rocky’s got some thoughts on that too, buddy.

“I’m very optimistic on some of the young players,” Wirtz said. “It’s the system we have in place to draft and then develop players I think is good. I think that’s what you’ll see. If the system’s right, then we’re going to be OK. I think that’s the key thing. So, I’m optimistic. I don’t do doom and gloom and stuff.”

The system they have in place is good and maybe right, he says. The same system that hasn’t produced a worthwhile defenseman since Nick Leddy. The same system that can’t find a spot for Dylan Sikura but has all the time in the world for Matt Highmore and Brandon Hagel. Kirby Dach has been a hit so far, yes. As has Top Cat. But who do they have down there who’s going to change anything who isn’t already here?

It’s one thing to be optimistic. It’s entirely another to be totally removed from what’s going on. But really, why should Rocky worry? People were still showing up in droves, after all. And what’s more important than packing the house and filling the coffers? Certainly not changing a system that clearly doesn’t work. Why do that when you can just not?

Rocky goes on to talk about players from Europe, such as Artemi Panarin and Dominik Kubalik, and he’s not wrong. The Hawks’s European scouting is outstanding. But to assume that guys like that will still just want to come play for the Blackhawks is dangerous and presumptive. It’s been three years since their last playoff appearance. Riding “We’re the Blackhawks” won’t have the same pull soon enough, especially with the most recent track record.

The last two years have brought us historically bad defense from the Blackhawks. It took them half a year to get Dominik Kubalik—now their second-leading goal scorer—out of the bottom six. Before Boqvist’s injuries and the season suspension, they were leashing the one kid who could drive play from the back end for . . . what? To improve his defense? You don’t get to say you care about defensive development when you’re icing Nick Seeler, Slater Koekkoek, and Dennis Gilbert at any time for any reason with a straight face.

But hey, at least now we know what the plan is. Just kind of hope shit works out. Rocky likes his guys. You wonder what Kane, Toews, Keith, and Crow think about that.

­– But it’s not all bad news with the organ-I-zation. Credit to Rocky (and Jerry Reinsdorf) for agreeing to pay all United Center game-day employees through what would have been the end of the regular season.

It would have been more of a surprise if the organ-I-zation hadn’t done so. If you’re cynical, maybe you look at this simply as good PR. If you’re optimistic, you see this as them simply doing the right thing. We’ll choose to be optimistic on this one.

On top of that, the Hawks committed to matching donations of up to $100,000 to the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund. Both very good things to do, and both things that take the sting out of Rocky’s “We like our guys” oafery.

That’s it for now. Stay safe, stay isolated, and keep watching the skis.

Hockey

Spread Your Wings and Fly Away – Smell Ya Later, Sam

By John Pullega 2352

With the season suspended, we thought we’d take a second to share some thoughts on Fels’s new adventure. Enjoy.

They say you should never meet your heroes. Sam Fels disabused me of that notion.

I can remember a game back around ‘08-‘09 with my uncle. We got there right as the gates opened, as is tradition whenever we go to any sporting event. As we approached the gate from our spot on Washington and Paulina, my uncle told me, “I need to get my Program.”

We walked around the gates until my uncle saw a man with a stack of papers in one hand, a wad of cash in the other, and a PigPen-esque cloud of cigarette smoke in his wake.

“Two Programs,” my uncle boomed in his deep clergyman’s bellow. As we walked into the United Center, I asked him, “What is this?”

It didn’t look like any program I had ever seen. It was homemade and had no gloss. It was cartoony. It said “fuck.” A lot.

“The Indian,” my uncle said.

I didn’t know it, but this was my introduction to Sam Fels, punk rock, and hockey as I now know it.

I remember sitting in the 300s, nary a soul around us, and laughing uncontrollably with my uncle. We each pointed out our favorite jokes and one liners. I pored over that Program the entire game. I don’t remember who they played or who won. But I remember the Program.

Since then, we’ve had three Cups and nine playoff appearances with the Blackhawks. Over the past 11-12 years, Fels has given us weirdos a voice, a guide, and more recently, a place to commiserate. He made the math fun and introduced many of us to why the stats mattered. More importantly, he clarified why this team mattered, on the ice and in our lives.

What always mattered most to me was the laughter and the irreverence at the bullshit. I remember killing time at jobs I hated, reading everything Fels wrote on SB Nation and finishing the day with a rare smile. From 2010-2013, Fels’s writing was a refuge from a reality I tried desperately to drink myself out of. And during the summer of 2015, Fels’s writing helped me confront and cope with a lot of problems I’d buried. It was always a bright light, even when the subject matter was dark.

Fels’s writing—in its punk rock, fearless, fuck-you way—changed us for the better. It gives me and people like you, dear reader, a sense of community and oftentimes respite. Fels’s writing combines art, arithmetic, and angst to create an easily adoptable identity and legacy. It’s a legacy we’ll do our best to keep alive here.

Fels’s writing is important. To me. To you. And now, to the wider audience fortunate enough to introduce themselves to it.

Congratulations, good luck, and smell ya later, Sam. You’ll do well. Because everyone’s got to get their Program.

Hockey

Season Suspended – You All Stay Safe Now

By John Pullega 2050

The NHL did it right. Starting today, the powers that be have suspended the season until further notice.

Between Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell’s respective positive tests for COVID-19 and the NBA suspending operations, this is the only correct move to make. The risks involved in carrying on vastly outweigh whatever benefits would come from playing in empty arenas.

There are tons of important questions that we do not and may not get answers to right away. What happens to hourly wage workers for teams league wide, for instance? Will they have protection and coverage while the league suspends games? You hope they do.

How long will this suspension last? Frankly, resuming play before this fucking thing is contained would be barbaric, and you can only hope Bettman and the owners understand that. They’ve gotten the front-end part right, which is a start.

As this suspension extends, we’ll keep you all posted on anything we hear or find interesting. For now, there’s not much more to say. This season for the Hawks was essentially over before the suspension, and this might make it official even earlier than any of us expected. In the meantime, we’ll keep rolling with scheduled baseball coverage, at least until they suspend that too.

But really, none of that matters right now. What matters is containing a pandemic. So, wash your hands and keep your distance. For more stuff you can do, visit the CDC’s website.

Stay safe out there, dear reader, and do your best to keep this shithead virus contained.

Hockey

Game #70 – Hawks vs. Sha-arks Preview: The Show Must Go On

By John Pullega 1472

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 31-30-8   SHA-ARKS 29-35-5

PUCK DROP: 7:00 p.m.

TV: NBCSN (WHAT A TREAT FOR THE NATION)

FLOTSAM, JETSAM, AND CHUM: Just follow @ItWasThreeZero

We’ll have our thoughts on The Maven’s well-deserved departure from this thing he created early next week. For now, the show must go on.

For all of our thrashing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth about this year, it’s nothing compared to what’s happened in the Armpit of Silicon Valley. Whereas some of us dummies unironically picked the Sharks to not only make the playoffs but also represent the Western Conference in the Finals, the Sharks may end up finishing with the worst possible outcome of all.

The Sharks currently sit in the bottom five in points, among other luminaries like the Red Wings, Senators, Kings, and Ducks. Though they’ve been a decent-to-good possession team all year (50+ CF% as a team), they simply can’t score. They’re bottom five in goals for. Their GF% is only better than Detroit’s. Shit, the Sharks are one of only about five teams to not have a single 50-point scorer thus far. Even Detroit has one of those.

Injuries have played a role. Erik Karlsson’s skeleton made of boogers Danse Macabre’d his season, as he’s been out since middle February with a broken thumb and won’t return this year. Tomas Hertl’s been out since January with an ACL tear. Logan Couture missed more than a month with a fractured ankle and might have a case of the dizzies tonight. The Sharks are seriously icing guys named Nikolai Knyzhov and former Blackhawk Brandon Davidson. Not great.

And the Sharks you do know have sucked. Brent “Glorified Erik Gustafsson” Burns is tied for second-most points on the Sharks with 45, which isn’t enough to cover for his disgraceful efforts in his own zone. Timo Meier is having a down year following his My First Real Contract signing last off-season, though he leads them in points. And though he’s been somewhat better recently, goaltender Martin Jones still has a sub-.900 SV% in the Year of Our Lord 2020, with a simply horrifying .863 SV% at evens.

And to top it all off, the Sharks were, in hindsight, pantsed and ass-slapped raw by Pierre Dorian in the Erik Karlsson trade. Despite likely finishing in a place that would give them lottery hopes, the Sharks will not have a chance at the lottery, having traded their 2020 first-round pick to the Senators as part of the Karlsson package. Though it’s hard to blame them for doing it then, it’s super easy to laugh at them for doing it now.

For the Hawks, the playoff run that never really was drags on. Though this is a Sharks team they should beat—based on the better top-end talent and real goaltending they have—we’ve often seen that, to quote Coach Cleft Asshole, the effort isn’t there against teams like this. Which, ironically of course, falls squarely on Colliton’s narrow and increasingly slouched shoulders.

Adam Boqvist will likely be out with a concussion after “Hacksaw” Oskar Sundqvist’s forearm shiver on Sunday, as will Lucas Carlsson. So, you’ll likely spend a third of the game peeking from behind your couch, as Nick Seeler, Olli Maatta, and Slater Koekkoek continue to be justifiably in a situation they’d rather not be in. On the plus side (?), we may get our first look at Brandon Hagel, thanks to Drake Caggiula hurting his hand in a fight. Here’s what Coach Gemstone said about him in January, according to Ben Pope:

“He brings something similar to [Matthew] Highmore in just his work ethic,” Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton said in January. “He’s a great skater, he wins races, he plays with a little edge. He’s got a little bit of rat in him, and we like that.”

Well, fuck.

We’ve said it all year: The only way this team has any hope is by Air Raiding and hoping their goaltending can be otherworldly. But too often, this team turtles at the first whiff of trouble. Or when they have the lead. Or when it’s tied. It doesn’t seem to matter. But this is a Sharks team whose defense might be as soft, if not softer, than the Hawks’s. If they come out with a KEEP FIRING, ASSHOLES game plan, they can continue ruining any shot they have at a lottery pick in a vain attempt to save everyone in the front office’s job. Because that’s the One Goal they have now. But if we’re looking for a reason, do it for Crawford. He deserves better than this.

Let’s go Hawks.