McClure – Page 41 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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

By Matt McClure September 17, 2018 2037 0

For the longest time under the stewardship of Bobby Clarke and Paul Holmgren, the Flyera simply threw good money after bad in always chasing the name brand free agents and trade targets in search of a Cup that has eluded the franchise since 1975. But under the leadership of notorious red-ass as a player Ron Hextall, the team has taken a much longer view and trying to actually build consistent winner from scratch. The results so far have been middling, but at least it’s been consistent in its vision. But this team’s psychopath fanbase isn’t going to be particularly patient with a non-linear progression. To conclude, the Flyers are a land of contrasts.

’17-’18: 42W-26L-14OT 98PTS 251GF 243GA 20.7%PP 75.8%PK 49.7%CF 7.83%SH .9245%SV

Goaltending: The same way that Bears fans wouldn’t know solid quarterbacking if it bit them in the nuts, there has been an institutional bungling of goaltending by the Philadelphia Flyers for generations. They even had a future multi-Vezina winning netminder in their system in Sergei Bobrovsky, but of course traded him for a big bag of bullshit to Columbus. Which brings things to the present day where the crease is entrusted to Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth, two “1B” goalies in their 30s who have wilted either under expanded workloads or not having lock-down systems in front of them. Things got so bad last year that the team acquired the completely broken Petr Mrazek and promptly let him walk at the end of the year. Elliott was the defacto #1 getting 42 starts and throwing up an unacceptable .909 overall with a slightly more respectable .926 at even, but an .812 on the PK which dragged things down. Special teams numbers can spike both ways for factors outside of a goalie’s control, but at 33, Elliott kind of is what he’s always been, which is certainly not a long term solution. Neuvirth had a similar disparity in his numbers (.915 overall, .934 evens, .810 PK), so it does speak to something systemic with the Flyer’s penalty kill. Either way, even if these two stay around this level and the PK picks things up, there’s not a lot here to make anyone a long term believer, particularly with Carter Hart waiting to assume the starter’s spot in Lehigh Valley should one or both piss their pants.

Defensemen: On the Flyera blue line, there are certainly some foundational pieces here in Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gosthisbere, but what their respective roles are going to be once this team intends on mattering again remains to be seen. While Ghost’s offensive and possession numbers are all impressive and what a puck mover should put up in the modern NHL, he’s still a bit of a turnstyle in his own end and will need some manner of protection in the form of a center-field type partner, optimized zone starts, or both. Provorov’s possession rate is basically directly at the team’s while playing much harder minutes all while still putting up 40 points from the back end. And with the likes of likely future war criminal Radko Gudas and the perpetually hurt or bad or both Andrew MacDonald complimenting these two young defensemen, it does not appear that there are any long term solutions currently in the organization, and leading to an unbalanced group.

Forwards: Claude Giroux had 102 points last year and Jakub Voracek had 85, and absolutely no one gave a shit. Moving Sean Coutourier and his two way abilities to the #1 center role and in turn moving Giroux to freestyle a little more on the wing certainly had everyone reaping the rewards, as Coots himself had 76 points along with devouring the souls of whatever center he drew as an assignment on a nightly basis. But doing so drastically altered the Flyers’ center depth to the point where they actually had to rely on any kind of contributions from the now departed Valteri Filppula and Finnish punchline Jori Lehtera down the middle. They haven’t done much to address the issue over the off season, as bringing back prodigal son James van Riemsdyk certainly gives them another rugged set of hands on the wing along with Meat Train Wayne Simmonds, so it will be necessary for Travis Konecny to take the next step and spend more time in the middle.

Outlook: Much like the Devils across the River, the Cold Ones probably did themselves more harm than good by making the playoffs last year only to promptly go home, as they would have been better served getting into the lottery. But with their top point-getters all right around 30, another development year might not have been the best route either. So Ron might have to get a little spicy and trade some franchise cornerstones to restock the system and fully start over should things sputter a bit, because the development arcs of their kids and the aging curves of their vets don’t sync up.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: New York Rangers

By Matt McClure September 16, 2018 2093 0

For seemingly eons now, the New York Rangers have been foisted upon the general hockey viewing public based solely due to the city they play in despite being boring as shit and never winning anything, culminating each spring with the torpor of yet another series against the Capitals. Mercifully they spared everyone another round of that misery by being particularly terrible last year and missing the playoffs, and will no doubt do the same this year as they enter a full-on rebuild with no real clear plan in place.

’17-’18: 34W-39L-9OT 77PTS 231GF 268GA 21.2%PP 81.4%PK 45.92%CF 7.55%SH .9222%SV

Goaltending: Obviously the discussion here begins and ends with Henrik Lunqvist and just how much of this shit he wants to put up with when he’ll be turning 37 in March. Lundqvist isn’t what he once was, throwing a pedestrian-to-bad .915 overall and .919 at evens last year, but given that he was under seige behind a team with a league-worst share of shot attempts that was going nowhere, he could hardly be blamed for selling out. He could probably still help a team that felt it needed goaltending help, but having the heftiest price (and mostly deservedly so based on past performance) and full no-trade protection, it makes any deal dicey. There’s also the question of if Hank would entertain leaving Broadway for one of the NHL’s lesser outposts that might even put him to use in the spring, as it’s never been any secret that the impossibly handsome Lunqvist enjoys everything that Manhattan affords a man of his wealth and good looks. Marek Mazanec and his 25 career starts and .895 overall will be backing Hank up to start, so he could very well play 60-65 completely meaningless games, and it’d more than likely be nobody’s choice but his.

Defensemen: The Rangers promptly diving face first into the shitter is hilarious on a lot of levels, one of the best ones being that Kevin Shattenkirk (Kirk Shattenkevin) basically telegraphed for two years that he was going to sign here, and then sucked to high heaven along with the rest of the team when he finally got to MSG. Shat has always been a bumslayer that flatters to deceive as a true top pairing guy, and there will be no hiding him as this team routinely gets its skull kicked in again this season. Blog favorite Brady Skjei got long term paper over the summer as an RFA, and he could usurp Shattenkirk as the Rangers’ best option to move the puck from the blue line, as Skjei’s defensive zone instincts aren’t nearly as abstract. Marc Staal is still alive, but has about the same pulse and moves at about the same rate as moss on a downed tree branch does. And Rangers recently just went out and traded for Adam McQuaid, as if Staal by himself wasn’t slow enough, they needed to and slow and stupid and always hurt to the mix. And it’s not like they didn’t have the market cornered on stupid to begin with in the form of Brendan Smith, who somehow makes Trevor van Riemsdyk seem decisive and heady in his defensive zone approach.

Forwards: There are some halfway decent constituent parts up front for the blue shirts, as Mika Zibanejad is a fairly dynamic center, and Chris Kreider, while never living fully up to expectations, plays like Brandon Saad on a bottle of Jager and a bag of meth. Vlad Namestnikov was a possession darling in TB before coming over in the McDonagh deal, but he’ll be hard pressed to be as territorially dominant without the benefit of how stacked the top of the Tampa lineup was. Ryan Spooner would be a fine fourth line energy center but he’ll be playing second line minutes here. And the dipshit college boys in Kevin “Captain Stairwell” Hayes and Jimmy Vesey remain here and continue to underwhelm. There’s no underlying thought process or unifying theory of what the Rangers want to be as a forward group, so they’re left with this quarter-cooked crockpot ful of crap to run out the clock on an entire 82-game season with.

Outlook: Bad, and made even worse by virtue of the fact that this team will still be on national TV constantly just because of their laundry. GM Jeff Gorton went out and grabbed David Quinn from Boston University to replace Alain Vigneault as head coach, which at least shows he’s trying to approach things differently. But the entire season is basicaly a formality in finding out if Henrik Lunqvist can be moved for a KING’S RANSOM (GET IT?) to jump-start this full-on rebuild job that’s barely accumulated any real prospects to date.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Columbus Blue Jackets

By Matt McClure September 13, 2018 2068 0

It remains a mystery what purpose exactly the Columbus Blue Jackets serve in the league, though now their ineptitude proved to be a catalyst in propelling the perennially underachieving Washington Capitals to their first ever Stanley Cup victory after going up two games to none in Washington and proceeding to lose four straight in the first round. It takes a special kind of pants shitting to have made these Caps look like the killers they always should have been, and based on their relative stasis in the off season, that trend appears to primed to continue.

’17-’18: 45W-30L-7OT 97PTS 242GF 230GA 17.2%PP 76.2%PK 51.49%CF 7.44%SH .9283%SV

Goaltending: There is little doubt that Sergei Bobrovsky is the pillar of anything the Jackets hope to accomplish and has been since he came over from the perpetually goaltending challenged Flyers for a 2nd round pick, having won two Vezina Trophies and four all star games while the Flyers still have a handful of themselves in the crease. Bob’s numbers took a slight step back from his 16-17 Vezina campaign, dropping 10 points overall from .931 to ONLY .921, while still being unimpeachable at evens with a .935 from a .938 the year prior. The big drop was in his shorthanded save percentage, dropping 60 points from .892 to a far more pedestrian .831, by far his lowest in Columbus. But all things being equal, there’s no reason to expect much deviation from Bob this year provided he stays healthy, which he has the past two years, playing 128 of 164 total games. In an ideal world, a true #1 goalie should play somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 games a year to avoid overworking, as Bobrovsky’s numbers in April have a precipitous dropoff. In the series against the Caps he sported only a .900 even over those 6 games, which is actually well ABOVE his post season average of .891, and that simply will not cut it, particularly behind a team that isn’t particularly dynamic offensively or behind the bench. Joonas Korpisalo is slated to back up Bobrovsky once again, and his .897 in 17 starts last year is certainly less than inspiring. If he can’t provide even replacement-backup-level netminding, Bobrovsky’s workload will stay at what it’s been and the Jackets will once again meet a similar fate unless some outside help is brought in.

Defense: Seth Jones is an absolute monster, and the time his nigh for his ascension into the Norris conversation annually. Jones will ONLY be 24 at the beginning of next month, and last season put up 16 goals, 41 assists, and a 54.1% possession share all while facing the toughest competition and zone starts available to him. He had 7 goals and 17 assists on the Jackets’ power play, which had greatly declined from the year previous. There is nothing he cannot do from the back end, plain and simple. Likewise, while not as defensively stout, Zach Werenski is a play-driving machine from the Jackets’ blue line, and though his scoring numbers were down from his fantastic rookie season, that was more of a function of power play production, where his assist totals dropped, and that can end up being circumstatial. Werenski put more shots on net and shot a higher percentage than he did from his rookie year, an exceptional 7.7% from the point. The problem is that these two spent 90% of their time together (only 142 of Jones’ 1387 even strength minutes were away from Werenski), and the only times they were split up were seemingly late game defensive zone draws where Werenski couldn’t be trusted to protect a lead. Behind these two is a complete bum squad, with David Savard running out of position, Ryan Murray never making good on his first round pedigree, and some things named Dean Kukan and Markus Nutivaara managing to take up $3.4 mildo of cap space. If Torts were somehow able to split up Werenski and Jones and not a) lose Jones’ offense covering for a dipshit partner, or b) have anyone else capable of playing free safety for Werenski to not give up as much as he produces, they’d have a solid grouping here. But as things currently sit it’s extremely top heavy and can be exploited by any coach with two functioning synapses and last change.

Forwards: Artemi Panarin‘s first season in Columbus went better than this outlet certainly expected, with him going a point per game (27G, 55A) despite not having a top end playmaker to get him the puck. But Panarin plays some of the most sheltered minutes in the league, almost exclusively starting in the offensive zone, and that can handicap a coach without having the center depth to get granular with who takes what faceoffs where. That’s not to say that Alex Wennberg and P-L Dubois are bad players, they aren’t, but they certainly aren’t going to maximize what a bad shot maker like Panarin can do, at least not yet. And Panarin is now in a walk year with his 2 year bridge deal at $6 million per coming to term, and the fact that he doesn’t have an extension yet doesn’t speak highly of his chances of remaining in Columbus. Panarin will likely command around $10 million a year, and with Jarmo wrapping up $11.3 mildo in Nick Foligno and Brandon Dubinsky for the next three years, it doesn’t speak highly to sound asset management. Cam Atkinson is a consistent 25-30 goal scorer in his own right, and he’s locked in at $5.875 per year, but he’ll also be 35 when his paper is up. This is a grouping still not sure of what it wants to be despite having some fairly useful parts.

Outlook: Because John Tortorella is a goddamn cave man with regard to his coaching philosophy and techniques in 2018, it will always handicap his team slightly, but in his defense he’s working with a roster that doesn’t have a consistent thesis statement defining its construction. This team has top end talent in a few spots, but it’s not necessarily complimentary to the other constituent parts of the roster. As a result, a wild card bid and a first round out is once again about what to expect out of this team, and if they flounder out of the gate or Bobrovsky gets hurt early, the trade market for Panarin could heat up in a hurry and offer them a chance to re-think this grouping, though Jarmo as a GM hasn’t shown much consistency in being able to properly augment his team either. The Jackets are in Hockey Hell and there’s no clear path at the moment to escape it.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Toronto Maple Leafs

By Matt McClure September 11, 2018 2298 0

But how does this affect the Leafs?

Any time literally anything in hockey, or sports in general happens, the Canadian Hockey Media and 95% of Canadian hockey fans pen either short or longform thoughts on this exact hypothetical. Maple Leafs fans are the most populous group in the sport, and they are also the most vocal and the most incapable of dealing with other human beings on any real level. They have made a ball hockey playing Baby Huey, a face painted cigarette smoking sexist, and an actual psychopath shrieking in front of his action figures in his basement “experts” via social media. Those that don’t even fall into those extremes are far more concerned with salary cap ramifications than the realities of actually winning a championship because doing so would completely strip them of their narcissistic, cloyingly self-deprecating, head-up-their-own-ass fandom. The latter tendency has led them to form a cult around a Rivers Cuomo looking ass motherfucker of a GM, whose sexual politics might actually be worse that Rivers’ in simply brushing aside a sexual assault scandal when he was in charge of a junior team. But hey, he hired a woman and bloggers for the front office, and a Candian junior team needs to have a bus accident to avoid having a sexual assault scandal of one form or another, so Kyle Dubas is a beloved figure kind of by default. It’s a goddamn shame that the on-ice product will probably be some of the most watchable hockey in the league, because all of the bullshit around this team is enough to gag anyone whose face isn’t painted blue and white.

’17-’18: 49W-26L-7OT 105PTS 277GF 232GA 24.9%PP 81.4%PK 49.82%CF 9.01%SH .9287SV%

Forwards: Might as well switch up the format and get right to it here, because this was already one of the more stacked groups in the league, and it only got moreso by adding the biggest free agent since the last lockout in erstwhile Islanders captain and hometown boy John Tavares. But while the crowing masses already planning the parade down Yonge St. still love to squawk about Dubas’ being a BRAIN GEANIOUS, he still managed to throw the first ever maximum salary in the form of almost entirely lump sum signing bonuses at Tavares even when it probably wouldn’t have taken that much arm twisting to get him to want to play in his home town with the current roster. That’s not to say it’s not a brilliant contract, as the Leafs are one of maybe like 3 teams in the league that can possibly afford that much out of pocket and it’s tremendous leverage considering that money up front is always preferable for athletic contracts, but there’s no need to pretend like this is some small market coup as the masses did. The resultant flip side of that coin is that dynamic winger William Nylander is still an unsigned restricted free agent, and because most hockey fans are stupid and don’t realize that good players deserve to get paid, the line will likely be that he needs to take less money to keep this grouping together. Nylander still hasn’t reported to camp but he probably will, because nothing remotely interesting happens in these scenarios with the NHL’s boring ass GM’s. But even aside from Nylander, the Leafs have Auston Matthews to essentially be a co #1 center along with Tavares, which leaves the ever cantankerous and productive Nazem Kadri to take over the third/checking line assignment, where he will simply devour bums all season long. Mitch Marner‘s deft play making on the wing will make this top 6 arguably the best in the NHL, but there are still concerns here. For as much as everyone liked to talk shit, and deservedly so about Tyler Bozak‘s role in the Tronna offensive attack, he and the departed James Van Riemsdyk took a combined 98 points with them out the door to the Blues and Flyers respectively. John Tavares’ career high in point output is 86. So while this offense is certainly more dynamic, it might be running in place in terms of actual output, and preventing goals might be the bigger issue.

Defense: Now it gets fun. While Morgan Rielly (spell your name right dickhead) and Jake Gardiner are fine second pairing guys who can do a bit of everything alright, they’re not true #1 defensemen by any stretch of the imagination. Ron Hainsey is now 38 years old and will be asked to play more top 4 minutes. Nikita Zaitsev needs to take a leap beyond being a bum slaying third pairing puck mover, but despite him being only in his third year in the league, he’ll be 27 next month, so at this point he kind of is what he is. Connor Carrick and Travis Dermott don’t really do anything for anyone, so compared to a lot of other groupings even in this division, the Leafs blue line is found wanting.

Goaltending: And here it is, the great undoing. Freddy Andersen probably doesn’t deserve this level of preemptive blame or responsibility, but deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Last year Andersen was completely serviceably average with a .918 overall and a .921 at evens, and proceeded to implode in the playoffs with an .896 in the Leafs’ 7 games of the first round. It’s not the first time Freddy has shat himself in the post-season, as a lifetime ago he sported a .901 in a 7 game Western Conference Final loss to the locals in red and black. “Frederik Andersen” is simply Dutch for “Evgeni Nabakov”- just good enough to break his team’s heart. He’ll be backed up at least to begin with by LOCAL GUY Garrett Sparks, whose 17 games of NHL experience came three years ago when the Leafs were willfully in the toilet trying (and succeeding) to tank for Auston Matthews.

Outlook: It’s a goddamn shame that everything else about this team sucks shit and is wildly irritating, because the process by which this team has been built has been as textbook as anyone could ask for in the modern NHL, and their forward grouping will be healthy if electric. But for all the bouquets thrown his way, Mike Babcock still has his blind spots and will find a way to get tomato cans into the lineup and coach conservatively despite having a trapeze troupe up front. But that may end up serving the team well given the state of things on the back end and in net, which will likely ultimately lead them to a second round out at the latest as other, more balanced teams within their division, specifically Tampa, will find ways to tear through the gaping holes on that blue line.

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

By Matt McClure September 9, 2018 2268 0

It seems fitting that the Ottawa Senators’ preview would come on the NFL’s opening Sunday, where no one is likely to read this in favor of tabulating fantasy points. Because if anyone even in their own sport were paying attention, or if anyone other than the usual cast of weirdos in the mainstream media gave a fuck about the NHL, how truly terrible this organization has become top to bottom is downright astounding. And it’s going to get a whole fuckload worse before it gets better. Their assistant GM Randy Lee has been fired in the wake of sexual assault charges in Buffalo against a male teenaged hotel employee, their owner Eugene Melnyk is overtly trying to spend as little money as possible in a tank effort, but they can’t even do THAT right as their first round pick in the upcoming draft is going to go to Colorado as part of the Matt Duchene deal, and GM Pierre Dorion had the option at the draft to have it be this year’s instead. Oh, and not to mention that their all universe defenseman is in a walk year, and they had to get pennies on the dollar as the return for Mike Hoffman after his and Erik Karlsson‘s significant others were involved in off ice drama. Not to mention that if they were trying to get to the cap floor, they were absolute fools for not taking on Marian Hoassa’s dead $5+ mildo cap hit against $200K out of pocket, as his $1 million dollar now-illegal salary was 80% insured. It’s an absolute goat fuck on top of a (Canadian) Tire fire.

’17-’18: 28W-43L-11OT 67PTS 221GF 291GA 16.6%PP 76.1%PK 47.20%CF 7.75SH% .9082SV%

Forwards: The aforementioned Duchene is still here in the last year of his deal, as is the productive Mark Stone, and both could bring back a pretty serious yield at some point in the year if Dorion weren’t a complete fucking idiot. Bobby Ryan, aka Bobby Stephenson, son of an attempted murder, has got this year and 3 more left on his ridiculous contract at $7.25 per having failed to even crack 15 goals either of the last two seasons. Keith Tkachuk‘s other Garbage Son Brady was drafted way higher than he needed to be because Brady’s agent is Craig Oster, who is both Brady’s uncle (Keith’s brother in law), and Erik Karlsson’s agent, and will forego the rest of his time at BU to try to make the big club. Past that, the corpses of Marian Gaborik and Mikkel Boedkker are here now, which no one remembers, and Zach Smith (no, the other one) and something called J-G Pageau will still play meaningful minutes in Guy Boucher’s affront to the lord of a trapping system.

Defense: Look, Erik Karlsson is the best defenseman in the world, and will probably command $12-ish million a year, and this team is going nowhere fast. It is literally unfathomable that he has not been traded yet on the eve of training camps opening where his value can be maximized, as every game he wastes for the Senators is one he could be playing for a team that matters in the slightest. And once he’s gone, be it tomorrow, next month, the deadline, or in free agency, the group apart from him is truly dire. Cody Ceci, Chris Wideman, and Mark Borowiecki make up the rest of the top 4 here. Yeah, exactly.

Goaltending: Craig “Brett Saberhagen” Anderson has seemingly vacillated between completely solid and truly putrid seasons since he became a regular starter, and last year’s .898 overall and .902 at evens would suggest he’s due for at least a return to competence, but now at 37 that’s nowhere near a sure thing. If he’s at all solid, he could fetch a decent return even with another year left on his deal, but again, don’t count on Pierre Dorion to properly assess that. Mike Condon is slated to back him up in wholly unspectacular fashion.

Outlook: So grim it is utterly pointless, as this team can’t even tank in the hopes of landing Jack Hughes or whoever else is the consensus top pick by the time the draft comes. There is less than zero reason for this team to even exist right now, as they don’t have, and have never anywhere close to a zealous fanbase. A team that should include its team charter and be contracted when Erik Karlsson gets traded. And having lived through the dark ages here, it is not at all hyperbole to state that this team should be contracted. Its continued existence is a fate worse than death.

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