Everything Else

Stan’s Off to Market – Free Agent Shopping List: Joe Pavelski

By John Pullega 1594 0

With unrestricted free agency opening in just four days, let’s get a little weird. The Hawks have allegedly begun addressing the skidmark on the salad fork that is the blue line with de Haan (fine) and Maatta (barf), which means we should probably look at who can fill out the top six on the forward front. If there’s one guy who might be that guy, it’s Joe Pavelski.

Physical Stats

Height: 5’11”; Weight: 190 lbs.

Age: 35; Shot: Right

On-Ice Stats (2018–19)

Team: SHA-ARKS Position: Center/Wing

75 GP, 38 G, 26 A, 64 P, 22 PIM

54.7 CF% (0.7 CF% Rel), 56.99 xGF% (3.41 xGF% Rel), 53.3 oZS%

Why the Hawks Should Sign Him

Pavelski is an outstanding possession player who’s capable of slotting as a center or a wing. If the Hawks are going to commit to the idea that large, not-fleet-of-foot defensemen are the way to go (it isn’t), then they’re going to need forwards who can bury the puck in their opponents’ ends (PHRASING) more consistently. The Hawks were slightly below middling in the possession department last year with a 49.34 CF%, which, despite StanBo’s shameless gaslighting, isn’t great for a team with no actual top-pairing D-men. Pavelski’s career is a seminar in consistently good possession.

Pavelski also gives the Hawks DAT GREASY GOAL SCORER Stan wants. And unlike the stale beer farts that are Corey Perry or Wide Dick Arty, Pavelski still has the skating and hands to do more than simply stand in the crease. As much as we scoff at the notion of Annette Frontpresence, Pavelski is the best version of that theory, though the prospect of having to experience Eddie O’s vinegar strokes for each crease goal Pavelski pots is off-putting enough to disqualify him as an option.

His versatility is another plus. You can see him as a winger with Toews and Saad. You can see him centering DeBrincat and Kane. As a righty, you can see him just about anywhere on the PP. This versatility, combined with Pavelski’s offense and possession, would be undeniable enhancements over anything the Hawks had last year.

Why the Hawks Shouldn’t Sign Him

Cap hit and term are going to be the biggest bugaboos in considering Pavelski. He’s coming off a $6 million per contract and a 38-goal season. Thirty-eight goals are impressive per se, but the fact that he did it at 34 is even more impressive. You can see him trying to squeeze in one more decent contract, and that should give the Hawks pause with DeBrincat due for his Fuck You Pay Me contract next year.

You also need to be concerned about Pavelski’s age and brain booboo from this year’s playoff run. At 35, it becomes more and more likely that the production will fall off a cliff. Though Pavelski’s never shown signs of slowing down (excluding the 2013 season-in-a-can, Pavelski’s scored at least 20 goals a year since 2008–2009), nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.

And for as good as Pavelski’s possession is, when he’s caught in his own zone, he tends to get buried. This might limit his versatility a bit: God forbid you find him, Top Cat, and Kane stuck in their own zone with any regularity, which is a possibility given Kane’s do-more-with-less style of possession and play.

Verdict

If you can get Pavelski on a one-to-two-year term, the Hawks should take a run at him. He solves a ton of problems, especially in the Annette Frontpresence category. He’s a proven, genuine top-six skater, which would let Beto O’Colliton slot Dominik Kubalik in the bottom six, which is probably the kind of soft landing you’d want to see him get. But if he’s looking for more than two years, it’s a little bit more tenuous. The Hawks would absolutely need to win a Cup to justify more than two years, because at that point, most of the Core would be approaching or past the twilight of their careers.

All of this assumes that Pavelski even wants to leave San Jose. For as good as he’d look in red, black, and white, it’s hard to picture him in anything but teal.

Everything Else

The Children Better Be the Future, Cuz We Ain’t Got No Present – Bowen Byram

By John Pullega 2360 0

Welcome to the FFUD #3 Pick Preview. Each day, we’ll look at one prospect the Hawks might have a chance at with the #3 pick and walk you through the ins and outs, the what-have-yous, the strands going through ol’ Duder’s head. We’ve narrowed it down to five guys, and much like the restaurant chain, you’ll likely walk in thinking, “This was a good idea,” and walk out grabbing or clenching some part yourself that you shouldn’t have to. Today is Bowen Byram.

Physical Stats

Height: 6’00”; Weight: 194 lbs.; Shot: Left

On-Ice Stats (2018-19)

League: WHL; Team: Vancouver Giants; Position: Defense

26 G, 45 A, 71 P, 80 PIM

Why the Hawks Should Take Him

Bowen Byram is the best player likely to be available to the Hawks at #3. Just about every scouting outfit has him as the #3 best prospect. Though we have a tenuous-at-best relationship with scouting reports around here (“DeBrincat will top out at 20 goals,” dear reader), this is what we’re working with.

Byram is fast and an outstanding skater. The Hawks have precisely zero of those on their blue line. According to Corey Pronman, he’s one of the best skaters available, full stop. In case you weren’t watching me evacuate my bowels all over every wall that I could about it last year, the Hawks need better skaters out of the backend.

Keith isn’t it anymore, no matter how much anyone wants to wail for it to be 2013 again. Murphy’s never really been that guy. Gustafsson can be recklessly creative but he’s the kind of fast you see when the slowest horse wins because all the other ones fell down. Forsling sucks. Seabrook blows. Maatta is blue line Anisimov. The rest of the flotsam have names that sound like their skill levels. This blue line is hot garbage, and unless the Hawks find real contributors, they are going to suck out loud again.

With Byram, the Hawks can have their cake and eat it, too. They don’t need to decide between best and need, because the best player available is the one they need. Unlike the current crop of defensive prospects the Hawks have in Harju, Boqvist, Beaudin et al., Byram projects to be ready on both ends of the ice immediately.

His 71 points in the WHL were third among all WHL D-men. His 26 goals led all D-men by far. He played on the PK, and his PIM numbers show he’s no shrinking violet, so he’s got appeal to both nerds and the hardest giardiniera farters in town. And he was only seven-fucking-teen!

You probably won’t ever get anything like that from Harju. There aren’t grumblings about his defense like there are with Boqvist and Beaudin. Though you never want to pin your hopes on an 18-year-old D-man, Byram is about as ready as you can be.

The Hawks should take Byram because their defense is a shambles. Maatta is a $4 million prayer who’s had more bad seasons than good. On a team comprised of two second-pairing guys (Murphy, Keith), a ton of 6s and 7s, and a bunch of kids who might not actually know how to play defense, Byram would immediately stand out. He’d also give the Brain Trust breathing room to trade someone like Boqvist or Harju as part of a package for a real D-man.

This shouldn’t be hard. The Hawks need better, faster, NHL-ready D-men. Byram is that. Pick him.

Why the Hawks Shouldn’t Pick Byram

More than anything, the Hawks shouldn’t pick Byram for Byram’s sake. As the years have gone by, it’s become clearer that good defense is born-on-third-Bowman’s clitoris: He can never find it, always looks in the wrong spot, and the things he does when he thinks he’s found it cause more agony than ecstasy. But man, oh man is he going to brag about even getting in the area code.

Re-signing Jan Rutta. Trading Rutta for Koekkoek, then re-signing Koekkoek. Not (yet) capitalizing on the Myth of Erik Gustafsson. Bragging that Brandon Motherfucking Manning was just about to enter his prime. And that was all just last year! You look at just some of these moves and wonder whether Bowman even remembers how the Hawks won all those Cups. It wasn’t with bloated and middling-at-best D-men. Yet, that’s his refuge of late.

The last successful D-man that they’ve brought up through their system was Hjalmarsson. The last successful D-man they even fostered was Nick Leddy. Is this a fate we want for a rising star like Byram?

More seriously, you can maybe make the case that the Hawks have a logjam at defense and that Byram might not have room to fit. Disabuse yourself of that notion, because it’s horseshit. The “logjam” is Seabrook; Forsling; Koekkoek; Dahlstrom; a fading Keith; and a bunch of defensive maybes in Boqvist, Beaudin, and Harju. Byram could walk into camp and break that logjam up in one or two sessions. But you watch Stan & Co. make that argument when they draft someone other than Byram and continue trotting out this Eric the Clown blue line next year.

Verdict

Unless the Hawks made the Maatta move as a table-setter for someone like Dougie, it’ll be a huge disappointment if they don’t take Byram. He’s a gifted skater with proven offensive skills who is good at worst at playing defense. This Core isn’t getting younger, and if the Hawks want to squeeze one more Cup run out of it, they need fast D-men who can push play and hold their own in their own end. Byram is that guy right now, and he’d be the only one with those credentials on the Hawks for Game #1 if they take him.

Pinning your hopes on an 18-year-old D-man. Just slap us sideways and call us the Sabres.

Everything Else

F*ck It Dude, Let’s Get P.K. Subban

By John Pullega 3399 0

Last week, The Maven brought up the idea of trading Brandon Saad. You should read the whole thing, but the SparkNotes version is that the Hawks might have as many as three forwards who can maybe do what Saad does for less money. This money will be important for re-signing Alex DeBrincat after next year.

While we’ve been hemming and hawing over how the Hawks need to make a legitimate run at Erik “My Crotch Is Itchy” Karlsson, it’s hard to picture the organization having the stomach to pay him the $12 million per over eight years he’ll probably ask for (and deserve). EK65 will always be the dream(boat), but you can see the Hawks balking, with DeBrincat and possibly Strome asking for the money the Hawks owe them in arrears for setting the world on fire.

With all that in mind, there are three things the Hawks should be looking to do this offseason:

1. Shore up the defense

2. Improve the penalty kill

3. Add a top-six forward

Shoring up the defense and improving the penalty kill are so far ahead of adding a top-six forward in my view that if the Hawks decided to trade Brandon Saad—who himself is a top-six winger, even if Beto O’Colliton thinks he was born for this third-line horseshit—to solve the first two problems, I wouldn’t even be mad.

I’ll stop edging you here.

Let’s offer Brandon Saad, Erik Gustafsson, and a pick/prospect for P.K. Subban.

How the FUCK Did You Come Up With That?

After the Preds were hilariously bounced from the playoffs much earlier than anticipated, the trade rumors around Pernell-Karl began circulating immediately. (Whether they’re true or not doesn’t matter right now. We’re bored and don’t really want to think about the Cup, so this is what we’re doing.) If there’s even a small consideration that David Poile would trade someone as dynamic, fashionable, and wonderful as P.K. Subban, you absolutely must make a phone call, division rivalry be damned. (As much as I’d like to use the Hartman–Ejdsell trade as proof that in-division trades can happen, what I’m proposing is a much more unwieldy beast than that.)

P.K. Subban on the Hawks definitely shores up the defense. He most likely improves the penalty kill as well.

OK, Dumbass, Why Would Nashville Ever Do That?

Let’s say you get Poile on the phone and offer Saad, Gus, and a pick/prospect. Let’s say the pick/prospect is either Boqvist or this year’s second round pick (#43 overall). Is this comparable? Let’s start with the stats.

2018–19 GP G A P CF% xGF%
P.K. Subban 63 9 22 31 53.61 50.54
B. Saad 80 23 24 47 52.69 47.27
E. Gustafsson 79 17 43 60 50.24 45.50

Last year was Subban’s worst year as a professional hockey player. He posted his lowest games-played total (not counting the season-in-a-can in 2013), his lowest assists total, his lowest points total, and third-lowest goals total. He was out for six weeks nursing an upper body injury, which no doubt contributed to his off year.

Compare that to the two players the Hawks would give up. Erik Gustafsson not only had the best year of his career by far but also was one of the best offensive D-men statistically in the NHL last year. He and P.K. Subban have exactly the same number of 60-point seasons under their belts. He’s also younger (27 vs. 30) and on a much friendlier albeit soon-to-be-ending contract ($1.2 million vs. $9 million). Something tells me you can use these points to convince Poile it’s not a bad idea.

Likewise, Brandon Saad’s 47 points would have made him a top-five scorer for the Preds last year. His 23 goals would be third behind Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg. His 24 assists would also be top five on the Preds.

Based solely on last year’s numbers, this trade is a huge win for the Preds, statistically.

But of course, we can’t neglect history. P.K. Subban is without a doubt one of the top D-men of his generation. He’s been a consistent force on both sides of the puck and on both sides of the special-teams ledger. His presence on the PP is devastating, and in the four years prior to last year (2014–2018), Subban played a top role on both the Canadiens’s and Preds’s PK units: Each team’s PK finished 7th, 12th, 15th, and 6th, respectively, and in the two years a Subban team finished outside the top 10, Subban had missed at least 14 games. Neither Saad nor Gus have anything close to his pedigree.

At this point, it’s probably not a bad idea to talk about cap implications, because that could matter.

With this trade offer, the Preds would free up $1.8 million in cap space, giving them just about $9 million to play with (according to CapFriendly). Maybe they use that money to add another scoring threat in, like, Jeff Skinner, I don’t know. Fuck Nashville, I’m not doing this for them.

The point is: If Nashville truly believes it’s Subban’s fault they got knocked out so early and would consider trading him for it, Gus and Saad both provide as much or more offense than they currently have for less money. Nashville can then use that additional money to re-sign Josi or sign Duchene or Ferland or whichever other good ol’ boy they think is the missing piece but obviously isn’t. Plus, Poile might be getting itchy feet, as his team hasn’t yet won the Cup all of its entitled, illiterate, hillbilly, raising-banners-for-nothing-that-matters fans have been stealing college chants about, such is the depth of that pool of cleverness. He can MAKE A MOVE and trade his misidentified scapegoat in one fell swoop.

While Saad and Gus would be good adds for Nashville in the contexts of last year; Nashville’s need for more scoring from their forwards; and their need to replace the defensive offense Subban provides; P.K. Subban is a legitimate star who can pull the receipts out of any one of his agonizingly fashionable outfits as proof. That’s where you’d hope the #43 pick pushes this offer over the top.

I had wanted to use the #3 overall pick in this peyote-driven fantasy. As much as I love Subban (fuck, I’m offering SAAD for Christ’s sake), giving up 100-plus points AND a decent lottery ticket is probably feeling my oats a tad too much. Maybe you talk #3 if it’s an either/or with Saad and Gus, but that’s gonna complicate things more than I’m willing to get into. So you offer the #43. If they say no to that, or if they said, “No, we’d rather have Boqvist,” fine, I don’t fucking care, you can have him.

Because remember, you’re getting P.K. Subban, a proven two-way D-man who can play well on special teams. Boqvist doesn’t project to do that, and even if he ever became that, the Core will be long dead by then (or retired or whatever it is hockey players do when they’re done playing). And by all indications, the goal is to make one last run at it with this Core, specifically, Kane and Toews.

So again, the point of this trade is to shore up the defense and improve the PK, with the overarching goal of making one more run at a Cup with the Core. If the price is right, Subban might be the missing piece.

I’ve Made It This Far. What’s It Look Like?

What do the Hawks look like if something like this goes through? Let’s start by using the current roster after the trade.

DeBrincat–Strome–Kane

Kabulik–Toews–Kahun

Perlini–Kampf–Sikura

Caggiula–Anisimov–Wedin

Hayden

Murphy–Subban

Keith–Jokiharju

Boqvist/Beaudin–Koekkoek/Seabrook (Kill me)

Crow

Delia

That top four on the backend starts looking a lot better. Subban also gets Seabrook off the PK, which is an absolute must after last year’s trainwreck. You can mix and match Murphy and Harju, Subban and Keith. Having Subban back there solves a lot of defensive and PK problems. Subban also knows how to move the puck, which the Hawks have missed as Keith has aged.

This line up as you see it makes a few assumptions. First, I’m assuming that the Hawks re-sign the entire third line at $1 million per: Each of Perlini, Kampf, and Sikura is an RFA this year. This is purely a guess at what they’ll get. I’m also guessing that Kabulik brings a $2 million cap hit, because I don’t know what his contract actually looks like.

With these assumptions, the Hawks still have $11–12 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly. That’s probably not enough to both sign a top-six forward this year AND re-sign DeBrincat/Strome next year, unless you find someone willing to take Anisimov’s contract. This also asks a lot of Dominik Kabulik, but slotting him with someone he knows (Kahun) and someone he can probably trust (Toews) is about as soft a landing as you can get. It ALSO doesn’t consider what the Hawks will do about Crawford, who is a UFA after next year.

P.K. Subban would solve a ton of problems the Hawks have. He’d give them the second-best shot (after Karlsson) of shoring up the Hawks’s woeful blue line (and he might be a safer bet than Karlsson anyway). He’d keep this Core’s window open just a little bit longer.

If the Hawks could get him for Saad, Gus, and the #43 or a prospect like Boqvist, I’m pulling the trigger on that every day. For P.K. Subban, the whole package is more than worth it.

If the goal is to make one more run at a Cup with the Core, Subban can help. We’d just need Dave Poile—the winningest GM in NHL history, except in the one game that matters—to prove what a huge fucking genius he is one more time.

Stats from hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick. Cap shit from CapFriendly’s Armchair GM tool.

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Dylan Sikura

By John Pullega 1404 0

In Dylan Sikura, the Hawks might have a Brandon Saad Lite: A guy who’s a possession wizard but doesn’t quite deliver what you expected in scoring. There aren’t many 6th-round picks that came with the kind of fanfare Sikura did coming into this year, but if you ignore that pesky “0” in the goals slot, you wonder if indeed Sikura has the makeup of something more than “a guy.” Let’s round this shit out before we retreat to literally anything but the farce that is a Boston–St. Louis Cup matchup.

Stats

33 GP, 0 G, 8 A, 8 P

55.42 CF%, 50.45 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

Everything we’re going to talk about comes with the caveat that Sikura played less than half a year’s worth of NHL games this year. Nonetheless, Sikura led the Hawks with a 55.42 CF%. He led the Hawks with a 7.6 CF% Rel. He was the only Hawks forward who finished with an xGF% above 50. He had the best HDCF% share among Hawks forwards at 49.24. If you’re into giveaways vs. takeaways, Sikura was way above board there, with 23 takeaways to 7 giveaways. And he did all of it playing mostly with some combination of Saad, Kampf, Toews, and Wide Dick. The first two are definitely defensive stalwarts. Toews used to be. Artie is really slow, but I guess pylons occasionally stop things. What we’re saying is putting up those numbers playing with guys known for their defensive prowess forebodes something good.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

The problem is that Sikura posted all of those fancy numbers while averaging just a bit over 11 minutes per game. Another is that Slater Koekkoek had a better xGF% and HDCF%, and he sucks so hard that we couldn’t even be bothered to write about him at all. So while the numbers look nice, the context makes them mean less, if not meaningless.

And of course, there’s the big fat fucking zero in the goals column. Usually, you wouldn’t think too hard about that from a 23-year-old in his first extended time in the NHL. But the whole storyline with Sikura was how he found himself in the last two years of college, where he posted 111 points (43 goals, 68 assists [so close]) in 73 games.

Can I Go Now?

Sikura should get playing time over guys like Perlini, Hayden, and probably even Anisimov. He’s the forward version of Henri Jokiharju in that despite good play, Colliton’s older, balder, fatter sons got the first bite at it.

Sikura is an RFA, and you have to assume that he’s got a spot on the third line next year. Even in a small sample size, with peripherals as good as Sikura’s were, it’d be stupid not to give him another go at it. Once he gets that first goal, he’s probably good for 15–20 a year, and you’ll gladly take that from a third liner with strong possession numbers. If you bought into the hype of Sikura coming out of college, you’re gonna be disappointed. But if he keeps the possession numbers up, he shouldn’t be considered a disappointment.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Dylan Strome

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

Dominik Kahun

John Hayden

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Drake Caggiula

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Drake Caggiula

By John Pullega 1558 0

Drake Caggiula is a nice player to have in general. He’s a good combination of decent skill, board-crashing puck retrieval, and missing teeth that each and every rockhead broadcaster pollutes his britches over year in and year out. What makes Caggiula even better is that StanBo got him for Brandon Motherfucking Manning. Sane people may argue that the Strome trade was tops on the year, but we all know that this was truly the feather in StanBo’s stupid fucking cap.

Hawks Stats

26 GP, 5 G, 7 A, 12 P

49.71 CF%, 45.48 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

This one’s easy. Drake Caggiula isn’t Brandon Manning. In case you’ve forgotten, Brandon Manning managed to get sent down to the AHL while playing defense on the Edmonton Oilers. There is no better metaphor that can accurately capture how fucking bad he is at his chosen profession. What an asshole.

On top of not being Brandon Manning—the PETA of hockey players—Caggiula looked serviceable if not good in his 26 games here. He spent most of his time on the first line with Daydream Nation and wasn’t a total clusterfuck up there. Granted, if your first line consists of Drake Caggiula, either your coach is an idiot or you suck, but since we know that the latter is certain and the former is a distinct possibility, you live with it. On the first line, he came close to scratching even in possession, and was above board in the relative Corsi share (+1.8). He was the guy doing what everyone wishes John Hayden would do, which is retrieve pucks and set up his more skilled linemates.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

Caggiula is a bonafide bonehead. Two games after spending a month in the dark room with a concussion, ya boy went out and got his skull caved in by Dustin Byfuglien, a man with hardly enough motivation to elbow his way to the front of the buffet anymore. It’s hard to have a consistently positive impact for your hockey team if you’re too concussed to play.

By virtue of being on the first line, Caggiula had plush starts, starting nearly 60% of his time in the offensive zone. This makes those possession and expected goals percentages look pretty shitty. But that’s also a function of playing with Garbage Dick, who tends to make a lot out of very little.

Can I Go Now?

Caggiula is still pretty young (24) and is on a decently cheap contract for next year ($1.5 million cap hit). Having him available to play top line minutes is a plus, but it shouldn’t be what we expect from him going forward. He looks like a much better fit as a puck retriever in the bottom six, but I’m not sure I’d trust him with the kind of defensive responsibilities you’d give to the Kampf line.

If the Hawks are going to stick with Saad on the third line, that could be a safe spot for Caggiula, especially if we’re looking at Caggiula as a center, which seems to be where StanBo and Beto O’Colliton want to slot him. Something like Saad–Caggiula–Sikura/Kahun could make for some decent depth scoring and responsible possession. With no history of defensive responsibility, you’re sort of forced to put him in a role where he can take advantage of softer zone starts. But he’s shown he can handle that in a small sample size last year.

Overall, Caggiula is a fine if not good puck retriever with OK speed and a bit more touch than the average grinder. Certainly better to have that than whatever it was the Brain Trust thought they were getting with Manning.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Dylan Strome

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

Dominik Kahun

John Hayden

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega 1650 0

We turn now to the most confounding Blackhawk, Brandon Saad. Since coming back to Chicago in the Panarin trade, no Blackhawk has managed to do so much and not do enough. Of all the “get the band back together” trades/signings StanBo has done in his tenure, this one stands out as one that worked. And yet, there’s a feeling that he’s never quite lived up to his potential and never will. Let’s try this.

Stats

80 GP, 23 G, 24 A, 47 P

52.69 CF%, 47.27 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

Per usual, Saad logged an excellent year in terms of possession. He led all Hawks regulars with a 52+ CF% and a 5.1 CF% Rel. On the year, the only two Hawks who eclipsed him in both categories were Dylan Sikura (33 GP) and Henri Jokiharju (38 GP). Even better is that this was the first year that Saad played a higher percentage of his time in the defensive zone (50.1%). I’ll go to my grave babbling about how much more weight strong possession numbers have when you’re (a) spending more time in the defensive zone and (b) on a team whose defense is the personification of putting your dog down, mostly because this Hawks campaign made me want to fucking die. I digress.

Compared to last year, Saad had an offensive Renaissance. His 23 goals were his third-best yearly mark in his career. His 24 assists were his fourth-best mark. His shooting percentage bumped up to 11.8%, just above his career average of 11.1%. (This was the first year since 13–14 in which he took fewer than 200 shots, though.) His 0.59 points-per-game ratio matched his career average precisely. Everything about his offensive output was exactly where a normal, not insane person would expect them to be.

Saad also moonlighted (moonlit? This fucking language . . .) on both sides of special teams play. On the power play, his five goals were fourth behind the unholy chimera of Kane, Toews, and DeBrincat. On the penalty kill, Saad was by far the best among a bunch of bad in isolation. Of the Hawks who played at least 100 minutes on the PK, only David Kampf was on the ice for fewer goals against (17 vs. 16). Saad was also the best regular penalty killer in terms of suppressing high-danger shots (21.33 HDCF%) and goals (13.33 HDGF%) on the PK.

All in all, Saad was dinner at a sensibly priced restaurant followed by a night of efficient German sex.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

The problem with Saad is that, if you’ll pardon me going Q on you, you always sort of feel like he could be doing more. Admittedly, some of that might be of our own creation, as few people have carried Saad’s water like I have. You see 47 points over 80 games and think, “Yeah, that’s pretty good.” You can look at his fancier stats and see that Saad is at worst a strong hockey player. He’s the Dean Malenko of the Blackhawks. But when the expectation is Marian Hossa II, which is what he flashed early in his career (or at least what we saw), there’s always a twinge of disappointment with Saad when the dust settles.

You’ll occasionally see him simply overpower everyone on the goal line, putting his shoulder down and stuffing the puck toward the net. You’ll see him turn on the afterburners through the neutral zone and make defenders look like drunks who didn’t wipe well enough looking for a car they never owned. You’ll see this and wonder, “Why can’t he do this all the time?”

My soft belligerence toward Saad is that you sometimes have to listen to the notes he ISN’T playing to justify the point totals. You have to dig into the analytics to get a full picture of what he brings. His contributions aren’t intuitive, and so explaining why he’s good and why he’s important can easily sound like bullshit, even if we really believe it isn’t.

You sort of expect a guy with Saad’s speed, power, and awareness to crack 60 points at least once, especially when given the chance to play with guys like Toews, Kane, and DeBrincat. And though he probably should be playing with those guys regularly, he spent a lot of time on the third line with guys like Kampf, Sikura, and Kruger. He looked good doing it, but it falls short of the expectation we had for him.

Can I Go Now?

Saad will turn 27 before the first month of hockey ends next year. He’s still a possession dynamo who can contribute 20+ goals a year. He’s a stalwart on a bad PK and can chip in on the power play. The Hawks have him for another two years at a $6 million per cap hit. Though it’d be surprising to see him traded, of all the Hawks forwards, Saad likely has the most value in terms of movability (before you can say DeBrincat, just don’t). He’s a rhythm guitarist in a band full of shredders, and we’ll always wonder if he’ll ever be anything more.

And if he isn’t, that’s probably OK, too.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Dylan Strome

Jonathan Toews

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Chris Kunitz

By John Pullega 1608 0

On July 1, the Hawks signed Chris Kunitz, Cam Ward, and Brandon Motherfucking Manning. Of this Triumvirate of Suck, Kunitz was the least odious, both in the moment and throughout the season (probably). He was here, he is gone (likely to retirement or Pittsburgh), and that’s just fine by us.

Stats

56 GP, 5 G, 5 A, 10 P

51.07 CF%, 48.65 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

It took half a year, but once Kunitz got slotted where he belonged, the fourth line, things weren’t a total dumpster fire. He was one of just six Hawks forwards to post a CF% greater than 50 (with Toews and Saad being the only regulars to do so). He managed to do that while spending most of his 5v5 time in the defensive zone (56+%). His 5v5 xGF% was second only to Sikura among Hawks forwards. You’ll take small victories where you can get them.

Also, according to a more in-depth look by Stephen Yatsushiro, Kunitz seemed to not actively hurt David Kampf’s performance when they played together, which was kind of shocking. We all knew Kampf had defensive chops, but knowing that playing with Kunitz made Kampf better metrically was a nice surprise. The entire Krusty Komedy Klassic line was generally fine in its dungeon starts, and Kunitz wasn’t terribly out of place there.

He also played in his 1,000th game, which is neat.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

The Kunitz signing was redundant for any of the reasons you can think to sign a guy like 39-year-old Chris Kunitz. If they signed him for his grit, they already had Andreas Martinsen to do it more dumbly, Luke Johnson to do it more moon-facedly, and John Hayden to do it more arrogantly.

If they signed him to be a fourth-line grinder, see above, and then add Kampf, Kruger, and any other number of IceHogs who could have done the exact same thing.

If they signed him for his veteran leadership, why? Toews, Seabrook, Keith, and Kane have all won three Cups. Crawford and Saad two. Does winning a fourth Cup as Sidney Crosby’s passenger matter that much?

His contract wasn’t a back-breaker (though the NMC was curious at best) or anything. It was just fluff. Kunitz just seemed like a guy Bowman (or Q) wanted to have for REASONS. If you want to point to his play on the PK, why? That sucked too.

Can I Go Now?

There’s no reason to re-sign Kunitz, just like there wasn’t a reason to sign him in the first place. He’s had a nice career, and the players seemed to like him, so great. He was here and then gone. He certainly wasn’t good, but he wasn’t as bad as he could have been. And that’s probably the best way for his Hawks career to end.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Carl Dahlstrom

By John Pullega 1637 0

Carl Dahlstrom is a nice #7 D-man. He’s neither so good nor so bad that you notice him. I would stop the review right there if I could, since that’s about all worth knowing about Dahlstrom, but they’re going to take my thumbs if I don’t expound. So let’s shit on Stan Bowman for a little while.

Stats

38 GP, 0 G, 6 A, 6 P

47.32 CF%, 43.72 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

The Hawks had to ask a lot of Donald Dahlstrom in what was technically his second time in the NHL. This is a thing that happens when your GM is too much of a sniveling, mealy-mouthed coward to fire the coach he so desperately wanted to fire before the season began. Never forget that Stan Bowman unironically signed Brandon Manning in a passive-aggressive salvo against Joel Quenneville, leaving Colliton frantically searching for bodies to throw on the blue line in response.

Dahlstrom happened to be one of those bodies.

Given the situations he got thrown into, Dahlstrom was fine. According to Corey Sznadjer (@ShutdownLine) and CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil), Dahlstrom was good at cutting off play at the blue line this year, but the sample sizes are small, both for this year and his career.

Playing dungeon shifts with Our Large Irish Son, his CF% at 5v5 was 47+. That’s pretty good when you consider that he started just 38+% of his time in the offensive zone.

He played on the PK and was a guy out there, on the ice for 10 PK goals allowed in about 71.5 minutes. He also had the highest PDO among all Blackhawks: 103.8 at evens.

But buddy, if we’re hanging onto an unsustainably high PDO and small-sample-size entry-defense stats as highlights, there’s not much behind the curtain.

Dahlstrom isn’t useless. He played 38 games and was OK. He’ll have a cap hit of $850,000 in each of the next two years. That’s not terrible. He’s a depth guy that should be splitting starts with Seabrook. That’s all.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

It’s important to restate that Dahlstrom got thrown into the deep end because Stan Bowman thought it was more important to give Quenneville a defensive monolith than to sign literally any other D-man than Brandon Manning. The only way it might have been worse is if he’d signed Roman Polak, and I assume the only reason he didn’t is because “Ric Flair of the Offseason” Jim Nill managed to get on the phone with him first. Because of that wretched signing and eventual trade, Dahlstrom had to pick up the pieces, and it wasn’t always pretty.

Among all Hawks D-men, Dahlstrom had the worst High-Danger Corsi For percentage at evens, with a 36.92%. That means he was giving up a shit-ton of high-danger shots while he was out there. But given the dungeon shifts he and Murphy were expected to take, typically against better competition, that number makes more sense. It’s still not good, but it’s not as awful as it seems in context.

In trying to think of other examples of any outlandishly bad play, I’ve come up short. He’s not particularly fast, which means he’s more inclined to play conservatively. His conservative play and positioning mean he’s usually not terribly out of position, but it also means he’s never going to contribute offensively. Given Colliton’s lust for run-and-gun, man-to-man defense, it’s hard to picture Dahlstrom having any sustainable success here, outside of spot starting.

Can I Go Now?

Donald Dahlstrom is here for another two years, barring a trade. You’ll hardly ever notice him, given his ghost-like features, and that’s fine.

In an ideal world, he and Seabrook would split starts right down the middle. But that would require Colliton to have the spine to scratch Seabrook, Bowman to have the mental wherewithal to trade for a true #1 D-man rather than vainly and embarrassingly comparing his team to the Islanders, and Brent Seabrook to be the leader everyone trips over themselves to say he is and swallow the scratches for the sake of the team.

I don’t like those odds, and you shouldn’t either.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Erik Gustafsson

By John Pullega 1785 0

It’s not often that you see a 60-point defenseman and think, “This guy probably tops out as a third-pairing bumslayer.” But that’s what we got with Erik Gustafsson, who’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a position on the blue line. He was the ambergris of the Blackhawks: a weird combination of gross–great as exciting, frustrating, and terrifying as discovering your sexuality.

Stats

79 GP, 17 G, 43 A, 60 P

50.24 CF%, 45.5 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

We didn’t bury the lede here. Erik Gustafsson scored 60 points. That’s sixth among all NHL defensemen. You know who else did that? Brent Burns, Mark Giordano, Morgan Rielly, John Carlson, and Keith Yandle. That’s good company.

And it wasn’t all on the power play. His 13 even-strength goals tied him for third among defensemen, along with Roman Josi and Kris Letang, and just behind Morgan “Fuck spelling” Rielly and Dougie Hamilton.

From about December 18 on, he took the point on the top power play unit and brought it back from the dead. From that day on, the Hawks led the league in PP% at 27.1%.

The only guys ahead of him in scoring on the Hawks were two future Hall of Famers in Kane and Toews, and a budding star in Alex DeBrincat.

All of this came from out of nowhere, too. After being drafted by the Oilers in 2012, Gus had only played a total of 76 games before this season, racking up 14 points in 15–16 (all assists) and 16 points in 17–18 (five goals, 11 assists). There were a few flashes of brilliance from him toward the end of the year in 17–18, especially when he was out there with Kane, but nothing that could have predicted what we got from him this year.

Plus, strictly by the statistics, Gus was decent in terms of possession. His CF% was a pubic hair above even, which, relative to the Hawks, was Dirk Digglerian.

And it’s all at bargain basement prices, as Gus is signed through next year at a cool $1.2 million.

And yet . . .

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

Gus couldn’t find his own asshole in the defensive zone with both hands and a hemorrhoid donut. Watching him in his own zone was like watching a never-ending game of “HEY WILLIE! CATCH THE FOOTBALL!” He took huge risks while skating with a partner who’s only slightly less of a cowboy than he is. He hung his goalies out to dry more often than not. And it didn’t look like he was actively trying to improve that as the year went on. Scoring 60 points excuses a lot of things.

Remember that for a time, there was discussion about turning Gus into a forward because of how woeful he looked as a defenseman. And some of the numbers flesh that out. Despite starting a tad over 60% of his time in the offensive zone at evens (not just 5v5), the only defenseman to give up more high-danger chances against was his running mate, Duncan Keith (363 and 367, respectively).

It’s the same story with high-danger goals against, with the two of them present for 47 HDGA each at evens. While Gus didn’t have the worst rates in terms of high-danger chances and goals allowed (which belong to Carl Dahlstrom and Brandon Motherfucking Manning), it sure is odd for a guy who starts so much time away from his own goaltender to be on the ice for so many chances.

Unless, of course, you’re Erik Gustafsson.

Can I Go Now?

Erik Gustafsson is polarizing. It’s hard to true up the fact that he’s both a 60-point scoring D-man and a bad D-man, but here we are. He’s not quite a forward, and he’s not quite a D-man, but maaaaan.

The Hawks have shown no interest in trading Gustafsson, and it’s really as simple as pointing to those 60 points and that $1.2 million deal. But doubling your career point total from out of nowhere in your age 26 season is so far out of the realm of normal that it’s a hell of a risk to assume that he can do it again. And if he does it all over again, you can bet he’s going to be looking for some serious Fuck You Money.

Gus at $1.2 million makes sense. If he scores 60 or more again next year? That’s a hell of a decision to make with the re-sign. Are you comfortable paying $5–8 million a year for a D-man who doesn’t play defense, especially when you have four young D-men who are all offensively minded coming up in the next 3–4 years (in theory)? Especially when the only guy who’s shown he can play consistent defense is Connor Murphy?

It would hard to justify trading him (likely as a package) for anything but a proven #1 D-man. Sixty-point D-men are rare, even if they do look stupid out there sometimes. And above all, Gus is fun. If the Hawks don’t have a plan for how they’re gonna win another Cup with the Core—and to reiterate, they don’t—the least they can do is make it fun.

But if I’m Stan Bowman, I’m calling Dave Poile at whichever banner shop he’s at that makes every kind of banner except a Stanley Cup Champions banner and offering Gus, and Boqvist or the #3 for P.K. Subban, because anyone stupid enough to blame Subban for Nashville’s woes might take that offer no questions asked.

For now, all we can do is watch and wonder as Gus Diarrhea Dragon’s his way up and down the ice, bringing the backend offense we’ve so desperately wanted and the awful defense we’ve grown so accustomed to.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Brent Seabrook

By John Pullega 1723 0

When we divvied up who was going to write about whom a few weeks ago, we totally forgot to include Brent Seabrook in the mix. Call it wishful thinking or a Freudian slip if you must, but we can all agree that we all want to forget about the year Seabrook had. Strap in. This one’s long, and it’s gonna get weird.

Stats

78 GP, 5 G, 23 A, 28 P

46.77 CF%, 44.71 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

One good thing that happened is that Seabrook was close to his career average in points. Another thing was that as the year went on, Colliton started pulling back on the number of minutes Seabrook played. Whereas Seabrook was posting 20+ minutes with regularity in November and mid-December, once mid-December hit, the minutes started falling off.

The last time Seabrook played 20+ minutes in 2018 was on December 14. From that point on, he eclipsed 20 minutes just five times in the next 45 games he played. This has long been the argument that Hawks beat writers and talking heads have foisted upon us. If Seabrook only played less, he’d be more effective. Well . . .

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

From December 15 on, here are some of Seabrook’s stats:

  • 47.07 CF%. Only Dahlstrom was worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes (47.03%), but Dahlstrom also started in the oZ about 39% of the time, compared to Seabrook’s near 50%.
  • 40.07 HDCF%. Only Dahlstrom (37.24%) and Murphy (38.41%) were worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes. Again, the zone starts weigh heavy, with Seabrook starting in the oZ almost 50% of the time, while Dahlstrom and Murphy sat at around 39%.
  • 44.44 HDGF%. Worst among Hawks D-men with at least 500 minutes. If you include Forsling at around 465 minutes and a 37.50%, Seabrook bumps up to second worst. Joy.

Even with less time AND sheltered time, Seabrook was still getting exploited by opponents, so I’m not so sure that the “Seabrook can still be useful with less time and more sheltering” argument is a valid one.

It only gets worse when you look at the season as a whole.

Among 209 D-men who played at least 500 minutes on the year, here’s where Seabrook ranked in the following categories:

  • 170th in CF% [46.77]: Of the players who had worse CF%s, only seven spent more time in the oZ than Seabrook: Ilya Lyubushkin, Dmitry Kulikov, Jack Johnson, Jordan Oesterle, Joe Morrow, Cam Fowler, and Madison Bowey. Fucking woof.
  • 147th in GF% [46.46]
  • 189th in xGF% [44.71]: I’d like to note that this was worse than Brandon Motherfucking Manning, and better than both Gustav Forsling and Carl Dahlstrom. So anyone who says the Hawks can/should prioritize forwards over defensemen this offseason and outscore their problems can suck the shit out of a stray dog’s ass for all I care.
  • 198th in HDCF% [42.11]: Amazingly, three Blackhawks were worse than him: Murphy, Dahlstrom, and Forsling. Murphy and Dahlstrom were victims of zone starts (38% and 39% oZ starts, respectively). Forsling (52.11% oZ start) just fucking sucks.
  • 173rd in HDGF% [41.51]

And that’s just at 5v5! Seabrook also played the second-most minutes on the Hawks’s league-worst penalty killing unit, just behind Duncan Keith. In case you didn’t know, the Hawks’s PK finished with a 72.7 PK% despite being the sixth least-penalized team in the league. (Only the Leafs finished with a PK% lower than 80% among teams with fewer penalty minutes, and they finished at 79.9%. That’s fucking something.)

And the turnovers. Seabrook’s -53 giveaway/takeaway differential was worst on the Hawks and 15th-worst among all D-men. Only Alec Martinez and Scott Mayfield had worse differentials in less TOI.

Did I mention that Seabrook’s CF% Rel of -3.5 was only better than Andreas Martinsen (-6.0), Brandon Motherfucking Manning (-5.7), and Brendan Perlini (-3.8)?

I can’t go on. But the point is, there’s no metric that shows that Seabrook can play even third-pairing minutes anymore. Even if you go back to the bash-your-head-in-with-a-rock plus/minus stat, Seabrook’s -6 was tied for worst in his career. Combine all this with the eye test, and hoo boy.

All of this fucking sucks to look at. Pointing out that Brent Seabrook—who will go down as one of the most recognizable and venerated Blackhawks of both his generation and all time—sucks isn’t fun.

What’s even less fun is pointing out that he got to play minutes over Henri Jokiharju, whose performance was the polar opposite of Seabrook’s. While it’s not his fault that Colliton made that decision, it’s nonetheless frustrating. If the Hawks didn’t have anyone better to throw out there, you’d live with it a little more. But they do have at least one guy who’s better, and he got to finish in the AHL. That’s fucking stupid no matter how you slice it.

Now, let’s get weird.

Within every retrospective of Seabrook I’ve read, there’s always a paragraph or two dedicated to how much Seabrook means to the team off the ice. Everyone says he’s a great leader, the heart of the locker room, and so on. Fuck, one of the NBC talking heads quoted Patrick Kane as saying he thinks Seabrook is underpaid for what he brings in terms of heart.

I don’t think any of that narrative was of Seabrook’s own making, and thus, that narrative isn’t his fault. But a good example that he takes leadership seriously goes back to comforting Toews in the penalty box against the Wings in 2013. It goes back to Seabrook being the spokesman during the Keith–Sharp kerfuffle in 2015. And it runs through recently: When Seabrook was a healthy scratch last year, barrels of ink were spilled, including by me, about what a big deal it was.

Brent Seabrook matters, and he always will in the annals of history. But maybe his slide into badness could come with a bit more dignity if everyone would stop shoveling the LEADERSHIP narrative so hard.

I’m not in the locker room and never will be. I don’t doubt that the players see Seabrook as a strong leader. I don’t doubt that they love the guy for the things he says and does behind the scenes. I don’t doubt that he’s still important to a lot of the players, both young and old, on and off the ice. What chaps my ass is the idea that because he’s likeable and says things that pump his teammates up, he needs to be on the ice at all.

I don’t give a fuck that he’s getting paid close to $7 million a year. I’m anti-“Pay Him, Play Him” when the play isn’t worth the pay. Sunk costs blow, but the best way to handle them is to cut bait as much as possible. With all those fucking degrees from Notre Dame and whichever other institutions are at a perpetual up-their-own-asshole critical mass in the front office, you’d think they’d know how to avoid a sunk cost fallacy. But here we are.

Seabrook obviously carries a big stick, since anyone else who turned in his performance would regularly be scratched or in the AHL (the latter of which isn’t an option for Seabrook, obviously). And while I know that this goes against how hockey players (and athletes in general) only know how to compete and will never ask to be taken out, I wonder whether Seabrook, as a leader, would ever say, “Look, I’m obviously not as good as I used to be, and I’m sometimes hurting the team, but I still want to play. How can we split the difference between me playing every game and not playing at all?”

If he were to say something like that (if he hasn’t already), you have to imagine it would resonate. At that point, the entire organization can stop dancing around the fact that Seabrook isn’t good anymore and justifying playing him with this leadership narrative. They can stop filming five-minute videos about how Seabrook is in the best shape of his life in the offseason, only to retreat to his leadership when everyone mistakes him for Obese Homer trying to shoo kids away with a broom handle five games in. And we can all stop bemoaning the very public crumbling of a legitimate Blackhawks legend’s performance.

But at the end of the day, that’s on Colliton, Bowman, and McDonough, who are either too scared to tell him themselves or too arrogant to see that this isn’t the Brent Seabrook that won three Cups. That’s the real problem. Seabrook shouldn’t have to be the guy to take himself out. That’s the whole point of coaches and management. Yet another exhibit in the case that this Brain Trust was born on third and has no clue how to handle adversity.

Can I Go Now?

We have five more years on this contract, and with each year that goes by, it’ll be easier to forget what a horse Seabrook used to be. He’s not gonna be traded, so let’s snuff that out right away.

The guys over at Second City Hockey did a breakdown of what a buyout would look like. It’s not pretty, but it’s an option if his play continues to slide beyond redemption. It’s not Bobby Bonilla bad, but it’s reminiscent.

It’s extremely unlikely that Seabrook will leave close to $35 million on the table to retire and walk away from everything. It would be the easiest out, since there’s no recapture penalty attached, but Seabrook doesn’t owe anyone that.

My crazy idea would be for Seabrook to retire on the condition that the the Hawks immediately transition him into a coaching position of some kind for a salary that’s close to or equal to what he’s making now but doesn’t affect the salary cap. It would be the best of all worlds: Seabrook gets to stay around, get paid, and have an important role on the team, and his play doesn’t cost the Hawks goals or games anymore.

I’m sure what I’m proposing is impossible and stupid, mostly because Seabrook obviously still wants to play. But if the Hawks want to make one last run with this Core, it’s going to be impossible and stupid to take it seriously while this version of Brent Seabrook is still skating real, meaningful minutes. And that’s a shame.

Seabrook had a shitty year, but he will always reside in the tabernacle of our hearts. He’s a fading legend, an exploded supernova. For all the shit we toss his way, we’ll always remember and love all the good stuff he did.

I’d just rather not have to weed through half a decade of trash to remember it.

Stats from NaturalStatTrick.com, hockey-reference.com, and tsn.ca