Game #44 Preview Suite
Notes: Caligula makes his debut tonight, which for some reason necessitated the demotion of Dylan Sikura, who despite not scoring had been productive. It also give Top Cat even less to work with, as Perlini just doesn’t have the creativity that Sikura at least flashed…Ward starts tonight, with Delia going tomorrow at home vs. Calgary…Jokiharju should return tomorrow, ending our Forsling nightmare…
Notes: A brief apology, Corsica.ca wasn’t working so the individual metrics are still from last month. The line stats are updated…Since returning from injury last month, Murray is 7-0-0 with a .959. He shut out the Jets last time out…Sid has 23 points in 17 games since December 1st…Letang has 12 points in his last nine games…
Game #44 Preview Suite
First Screen Viewing
Jets vs Penguins – 6pm
I didn’t know this, and maybe it’s because I’m getting old and less observant, but the Penguins have ripped off nine of 10 since the embarrassing fate of losing to the Hawks by multiple goals in December. It’s left them on the shoulder of the Caps atop the Metro, and probably started talk of another run in May. Casey DeSmith, piece of garbage that he is, has stabilized the crease. The Jets are the Jets, who with their games in hand have a gap on the Predators. It’s two of the aristocracy.
Second Screen Viewing
Capitals vs. Stars – 7pm
The Stars are trying to round into gear after their CEO ridiculously called out their best players, and they’ve let the Avalanche sink below them in the Central. Alex Ovechkin keeps scoring, Braden Holtby keeps stopping pucks, so even if the Caps metrics never measure up they’re just going to be around.
Other Games
Predators vs. Red Wings – 6:30
Blue Jackets vs. Hurricanes – 6:30
Rangers vs. Avalanche – 8pm
Devils vs. Coyotes – 8pm
Golden Knights vs. Ducks – 9pm
Despite last night’s loss, or tie but goes down as a loss in a gimmick, the Hawks over the last 11 games have gone 6-3-2. That’s a pretty decent record, there are some decent teams in that stretch they’ve played, and had they been at that pace all season would work out to a 104-point pace. Were they to maintain it the rest of the year they’d end up with 87 points. Not nearly enough for the playoffs, not anywhere near the top of the lottery, but probably allows them just enough wiggle room to turn their palms up at the season-closing presser to say if just a couple things more had gone right or Crawford not gotten hurt or something to say they’re on the right path. And hell, maybe in some way if you squint real hard that wouldn’t be entirely wrong, depending on how players like Collin Delia, Henri Jokiharju, Connor Murphy, Carl Dahlstrom, Dylan Sikura, Dylan Strome, and one or two others close out the season and portend to the future.
But because results can get so weird in hockey and not really be connected to anything, we’re more interested in process around here. So in the last 11 games, is the Hawks process any better?
Starting on the day the Hawks beat the Penguins at home, they are 15th in points percentage. But they’re 27th in Corsi-percentage, at an unsightly 45.1% They’re 28th in scoring-chance percentage at an even more homely 44.3%. Salvation in high-danger chances? You best believe that’s a nope: 29th at 39.9%.
Worrying more is that all of these numbers are significantly worse than the Hawks’ season-long marks, which means whatever changes Coach Cool Youth Pastor is trying to make haven’t had an effect, or they have and made things worse than they were. That’s not where the Hawks are supposed to be, especially because he’s actually gotten a small, minuscule even, infusion of talent that Quenneville didn’t get in the form of Murphy, Dahlstrom, and Sikura (who’s been pretty good but keeps getting benched).
What the Hawks are getting over the last three weeks is luck and goaltending. Their PDO has risen over 1.000, to 1.021, and that’s mostly due to an even-strength save-percentage of .935 the last 11, which is ninth in the league, as opposed to their season-long .917. That’s a difference of six goals at just even-strength in 11 games, and you can imagine what kind of effect on results and points those six goals would have had, depending on where they were placed.
Has anything gotten better? Well, yes, a very little. A crimp you can barely hang onto. They’re giving up a touch less attempts and shots per 60, so that’s nice. But they’re taking less as well. They’re also giving up about the same amount of scoring chances per hour but are creating less. So that’s not optimal either.
What the Hawks have done is massively improve the power play, and that can be at partially credited to our very fashionable and hip coach. They’ve piled in nine PP goals in the last 11, where they’d only managed 11 in the 32 games before that. So that helps, and power play goals do count, despite what some would tell you. Somehow though, the penalty kill has gotten worse, giving up a goal per game in this streak while “only” giving up 23 in 32 games before that.
So while it’s been more enjoyable, in some ways, to watch the Hawks win a few games for a change, there’s nothing about it that suggests it’s sustainable or indicative of a brighter future. In the words of Homer Simpson, “It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.” Or more to the point, Collin Delia made a bunch of damn saves and Cam Ward didn’t puke on himself the whole time.
That could be better.
First Screen Viewing
Flames vs. Bruins – 6pm
The surprise package of the West, the Calgary Flames, continue an Eastern swing by stopping in to Boston to face the clearly indestructible Bruins. By all rights the Bruins should be buried by the injuries they’ve had, but David Pastrnak, David Krejci, and their goaltending have somehow kept them afloat. The Sharks and Knights are rounding into gear, seemingly, so the Flames are going to have to maintain their start throughout the rest of the season if they don’t want to go through both of them in the playoffs.
Second Screen Viewing
Wrestle Kingdom – 2am
The rest of the games blow tonight. So if you want a hilarious Twitter follow and you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, watch a bunch of freaks like me stay up all night to watch Japanese wrestling. It’s their Wrestlemania at the Tokyo Dome, and we’ll all be losing our shit in the middle of the night while we frighten our neighbors. Enjoy the psychosis.
Other Games
Wild vs. Maple Leafs – 1pm
Panthers vs. Sabres – 6pm
Hurricanes vs. Flyers – 6pm
Canucks vs. Canadiens – 6:30
Capitals vs. Blues – 7pm
Lightning vs Kings – 9:30
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 15-21-6 Islanders 21-13-4
PUCK DROP: 6:30
TV: NBCSN Chicago locally, NBCSN elsewhere
FUTURE ISLANDS IS A TERRIBLE BAND: Lighthouse Hockey
The Hawks are back on Long Island for the first time in four seasons, as while waiting for their new arena the New York Islanders are trying to make it up to their fans who never took to Brooklyn because they didn’t want to stay in New York after work for one extra second, unless it was the three times a year they bother Rangers fans at MSG. Or Brooklyners never took to the team because Jay-Z’s playhouse sucks for hockey. Or because those stuck on the Island didn’t want to come into the city for fear of meeting a minority. Whatever the reason, the Isles are splitting their home schedule between Brooklyn and the revamped Nassau Coliseum (where they come to see ’em), and the Hawks get the latter trip tonight.
What they’ll find is one of the bigger surprises in the league. The Isles were supposed to be left for dead after they made up for John Tavares‘s departure by hiring Toronto’s decrepit GM and letting him pick up Toronto’s trash. While they did poach a Stanley Cup winning coach in something of a coup, this roster was supposed to be in the first step of a rebuild. It hasn’t quite worked out that way.
But don’t fool yourself. Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz haven’t found some magic formula in their metamucil and oatmeal to turn a roster full of whatsits into a fine oiled machine. What they have is two goalies playing bonkers and some luck. The Isles have the third-best SV% at evens in the league, and the third-best PDO at a kind of unsustainable 103.5 (hey, remember The Blaze?). The Isles are not a good possession or defensive team, they’re just getting two guys stopping just about everything
For Thomas Greiss, it’s not a huge surprise as he’s put up more than competent split-seasons before with the Islanders. He was simply woeful last year, ceded the job to Jaroslav Halak, but has rebounded this season. Robin Lehner, who is nominally the starter at the moment, has done this before as well, with some excellent cameos in Ottawa and Buffalo. Because neither is being asked to shoulder the load alone, and it has benefitted both of them. And they are the reason that the Islanders are one point out of a playoff spot no one saw coming.
Up front, Mathew Barzal and his missing ‘T” have taken the #1 center responsibility and ably so. He’s kept Josh Bailey scoring, which is a trick because pretty much everyone assumed Bailey was a Tavares-product. Anders Lee and Brock Nelson have anchored the second line, and new toy Josh Ho-Sang is running with them in an exciting vision of the future…assuming Nelson and Lee are both re-signed in the summer.
That’s about it though. Anthony Beauvillier has put up 11 goals, and Marcus Kruger East Casey Cizikas has spasmed 10, but this is not a team that scores a ton. They average just about the same amount of goals per game as the Hawks. Their margins are thin.
On the back end, their top-pairing of Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk has been woeful, and constantly bailed out by Lehner and Greiss. Leddy seems to have struggled all year with all the things Trotz has asked of him, and around here we know especially how fragile his confidence can be. The Isles are waiting for the young troika of Scott Pelech, Ryan Pulock, and Scott Mayfield (not as much) to grab the brass ring. And they have at various times and definitely not at others. It’s a work in progress back there, though the Isles are pretty middling in terms of shots and chances against in the league.
For the Hawks, one should expect Collin Delia to return to the net tonight after Cam Ward got his gold-watch ceremony in South Bend. Few other changes would be likely. No word on if Drake Caggiula will make his debut in red or not, but that might be the only one you see. There aren’t any other d-men right now. Unless you are about the usual Martinsen-Hayden flip, and you shouldn’t.
A little further on down the road, peeps…
Game #43 Preview Suite
We suppose you can’t blame the oh-so-hip owners of the New York Islanders, Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin, for being in something of a panic. After last season ended, there was no guarantee that franchise cornerstone John Tavares would stick around. There’s always something of a scratchy hold on the fanbase, who never took to the move to Brooklyn and the promise of moving some games back to Nassau wasn’t enough to reassure. The arena at Belmont Park is still years away. So if you squint, you could see where they wanted to make a splash, and hire someone with a name everyone knows.
The problem is that anyone who knows the name of Lou Lamoriello knows the game passed him by years ago.
While the Devils three Cups and nearly murdering the game as we know it are still lingering somewhere in the recesses of everyone’s mind, they’re yellowing and green with mold. The Devils last Cup was 15 years ago, and since then the only playoff series they’ve won were on each in ’06-’07 and ’07-’08, and then the barely sensical run to the Final in ’12. As the NHL sped up and became more and more about skill, the Devils were left behind. That Final team of ’12 was the only one of the last five Lamoriello iterations in New Jersey to even make the playoffs.
Worse yet, Lou’s drafting record, what he had built the bedrock of his Devils teams on, suddenly became salted earth. His last five drafts produced Damon Severson, Miles Wood, and Adam Larsson. And that’s basically it.
His record in Toronto is hardly better. Sure, he got to draft Auston Matthews, but you could find a lot of palookas or nitwits to not fuck up a consensus #1 pick. Mitch Marner was already there, and Matthews is the only player Lou drafted that has suited up for the Leafs. As far as what else Lou added to the Leafs, there’s Freddie Anderson and the yellow puddle he leaves around in the playoffs. There’s Matt Martin who makes everyone else feel better about their IQ. Nikita Zaitsev is fine. Patrick Marleau scores but is old and expensive and might make things tricky next summer when Marner and Matthews come calling for their money. And that’s it.
So what about that record suggests Lou is in any way prepared to lead a new era of the Islanders? His first moves of trading for Martin and signing Leo Komarov don’t exactly inspire confidence so much as roiled stomachs. Neither would Valtieri Filppula.
The Isles have hung around the playoff scene thanks to the goaltending of Robin Lehner and Thomas Greiss, the former brought in by Lou, to be fair. But what’s left here? A young defense that needs augmenting, and maybe one top line player in Mathew Barzal and that’s it.
Given Lou’s constant bitching about how much players make, it would be unlikely to see him go to the free agent market to solve some of Long Island’s problems. Or when it comes to their own free agents, and Barzal is going to be looking at Nylander money at least and Lou will almost certainly pass his own colon before giving it to him.
The game simply left Lou and his style behind. Maybe he can adapt, but given his nature you don’t see it. The Isles will have plenty money to spend in the summer, as all of Anders Lee, Brock Nelson, and Jordan Eberle will be out of contract. Someone’s got to get paid though.
Lou Lamoriello is a deserved Hall of Famer. And he did change the game with his teams in New Jersey, even if it was for the worse and made it nearly unwatchable. Banners fly forever. But his time is gone, and the Islanders seemingly will continue to be stuck in hockey purgatory, as they’ve been since the 80s, until they realize it.
Game #43 Preview Suite
Dan Saraceni is one-half of the editing team at LightHouseHockey.com. You can follow him on Twitter @CultureOfLosing.
After losing Tavares, the Isles are somehow hanging around a playoff spot in the East. How and why?
I’d like to just write, “TROTZ” but it’s a little more complex than that. Yes, having a coach who actually knows what he’s doing makes a big difference. And after three straight coaches getting their feet wet in the NHL (two with AHL experience, one just as an NHL assistant), having a guy show up with a defined game plan and a crew that’s worked for 20+ years and a Stanley Cup changes a lot of things. There’s way less headless chicken action going on out there and everyone seems to be on the same page regardless of skill level (or lack thereof). The goalies have also been lights out, which can be traced back to better defensive play and – again – coaches like Mitch Korn and Piero Greco that actually have a clue. Whether they actually make the playoffs is still up in the air, but playing like an actual NHL team and not beer league walk-ons has been fun so far.
Is Jordan Eberle playing himself into being actually affordable in the summer for the Isles? Or is he still going to do one?
Eberle is hurt right now, and Josh Ho-Sang has been more than holding his own in Eberle’s spot on the second line. I don’t know if we know why he’s been so unproductive this season, but it’s not really the way you want to go into a UFA year. Between him and the Islanders’ other UFAs (steady captain Anders Lee and the suddenly awakened Brock Nelson), Eberle is easily the odd man out and could be a rental for someone at the deadline. He’ll be coming off a $6 million a year contract from the Oilers, so I don’t know if he’ll come cheap to whoever signs him. If he somehow loves Long Island, maybe he’ll stay but it’s probably not happening.
What on Earth has happened to Nick Leddy? Only 11 points and his metrics smell worse than a skunk on a hot day.
This is from October by our LHH colleague Cary: https://www.
Does Lou Lamoriello really provide any hope for Islanders fans or is he the dinosaur we think he is?
Lou provides hope that the New York Islanders can be run like an actual, adult NHL franchise for the first time in a generation. Yes, he’s old as shit and his various rules are largely stupid (ask Dom!). But after years of out-of-the-box thinking, it’s been refreshing to see the Islanders think within the box for a change. Like hiring people to do jobs that most NHL teams have and making changes when stuff isn’t working. That might be a low bar to clear, but it’s something the Islanders haven’t been able to do in quite some time. Any GM is only as good as his last deal, but so far, having Lou looking over everyone’s shoulders has been good for the franchise.
Game #43 Preview Suite
Before the season, Jordan Eberle probably had every reason to be excited. After this campaign, he would be an unrestricted free agent for the first time. And while he’s never quite proven to be the top line talent he has flashed at various times, players who consistently put up 60+ points can expect to make $6 or $7 million or more. That’s what Eberle makes now, so he was probably dreaming of a raise on what will be his last big contract.
And in 35 games he’s not even averaging a half-point per game. Whoops!
We’ve always thought Eberle was something of a luxury player. If you had everything else in place or thereabouts, you could afford to have Eberle weaving his pretty patterns on your top six without requiring him to do much dirty work. Because he’s always been on a team that has never been close to having everything, he’s always disappointed just a touch. Even with all those points.
He seems the idealized Kris Versteeg, at least in Versteeg’s mind. Though Steeger never minded doing the defensive work and could be trusted with a specific assignment. You get more skill with Eberle and the ability to produce something out of nothing, but you don’t get the defensive side. So it leads one to wonder why anyone should give a shit.
Eberle has only been in the playoffs once, and while it’s never entirely fair to blame one player for that, especially a winger, Eberle has always been in a top six. So he’s supposed to be making a difference. And you can’t really argue he ever has. And with his big chance to convince teams otherwise that will have open checkbooks in July, he’s got seven goals.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Game #43 Preview Suite
