Game #16 Preview Suite
Even with four days off, there’s hardly any time to pivot from the end of the greatest coaching career the Hawks have ever seen to the era of Jeremy Colliton, whatever it might be. Maybe you shouldn’t look to bury your news on Election Day, hmmm? Another discussion for another time.
The Hawks may still be in a state of shock, but the schedule kicks into gear again tomorrow night and it doesn’t let up after that. The Hawks won’t have more than two days off in a row until Christmas, and only two days off in a row twice in that span. It’s 24 games in 45 days, and at the end of it the Hawks will have established that they can in fact be in the playoffs or it will be over and thoroughly so.
So there isn’t a lot of time to implement whatever changes the Hawks and Colliton want (and we can only pray these are the same, though they have to be). So what can Colliton do?
Up the speed: The roster isn’t going to change, so this isn’t going to become a good defensive team anytime soon. The biggest change I think we’ll see with the Hawks is them getting up the ice as fast as possible. Help the defense by not playing it as much. The Quenneville Breakout (TM) will be consigned to the trash. I think you’ll see Hawks d-men putting the puck off the glass or chipping it over the opposing d-men or attempting stretch passes far more. And that’s with two Hawks forwards bursting out of the zone instead of one. One waiting along the half-boards to either squeeze it out along the boards or hit a moving center in the middle of the ice is something you won’t see a lot of. Get the puck into space, let your fast forwards skate onto it, and try and score on the rush. Get into the offensive zone before teams can get into shooting lanes.
Even if you don’t score, you can cause chaos off the ensuing rebounds and loose pucks that further prevent teams from collapsing into their slot and keeping everything to the outside. This will lessen the responsibility on the d-men who don’t have to worry about options and tough passes on the breakout and can just get pucks to space instead of sticks. It might not help them much actually defending, but the idea is that the puck will spend more time in dangerous spots on the other side of the ice.
Back pressure: The hope is that this new, faster style of attack will lead the Hawks to losing the puck less and less around the blue lines. This has been a huge problem, because over the past season and a month now you’re awfully familiar with teams getting to use the neutral zone as a launchpad with no Hawks forwards in the picture and 3-on-2s all day steaming into the Hawks’ zone like a Mongolian horde. Or they turn it over at their own line, with forwards caught heading into the neutral zone, and it looks like the last scene in “Inside Out” when the “Girl” alarm goes off in the boy’s head (this is also what happens in my head when confronted by a girl)e.
The Hawks defense can’t really step up beyond their blue line if there aren’t forwards supplying the back pressure to crash those puck-carriers into the rocks. This was a Q staple, and something the Hawks need to find a way back to. They can’t do that when they’re turning it over from the opposing circles and above. If they play faster into the offensive zone, get more space, and force teams to start their forays forward from deeper, they can. Again, this will relieve some pressure on a blue line that really isn’t up to it.
Load up the first PP unit, fuck the rest: This seems so simplistic. Your first power play unit is Patrick Kane, with three right-handed shots staring at him from across the ice. Whether that’s Seabrook or Jokiharju at the blue line, no one fucking cares. Top Cat at the other circle, because he also has the ability to send that pass back to Kane for the same results. Schmaltz in the middle of the box. Toews bouncing between the slot and behind the goal line. This gives Kane all sorts of options and forces the PK into making decisions and leaving something open. Leave them out there for 90 seconds at least each opportunity. You don’t have enough for two killer power play units anyway, so give the first one all the chance in the world.
Oh, and take that “Push ‘Em Back” entry and push it back into your ass. Thank you.
Put Schmaltz at center: Welp, already boned this.
Seriously, if the Hawks’ intention here is to go plaid all the time, then it’s hard to know how Artem Anisimov can fit into that. That said, the Saad-Kampf-Fortin line has a ton of speed and defensive know-how, and if the idea is to get them into space more and more that could be fun. So for the first few games, I guess it’s worth seeing.
Communication: As we said on the podcast, this seems to be the #1 thing the Hawks want to change. And it’s not surprising to hear that a host of young players were on edge because they didn’t know why they were in a certain spot in the lineup or out of it altogether. No longer will answers to the press of “We need more,” suffice. The Hawks clearly need to maximize Kahun, Schmaltz, Jokharju, Gustafsson (who’s on that young really), Forsling when he’s up, Kampf, and Sikura when he arrives (which I’m sure is shortly). Having them feel comfortable, appreciated, and with clear tasks only helps that.
If Colliton can do that and the Hawks still fall short, we’ll know exactly where the problems are (I mean we already do but you get it).
Whatever the Hawks say, it’s been an open secret to just about everyone in the league and those following the Hawks that Joel Qunneville and Stan Bowman didn’t see eye to eye. Everyone got past it because the Hawks were so successful. When that stopped, this is what you get. And their disagreements spilled everywhere. You didn’t have to have inside information to know this, because you could see how the team was deployed. I’m going to do this mostly from memory, but this is a rough outline of how things went that led to today.
2010-2011: There wasn’t much to be done here. The season before had gone so swimmingly, aside from Quenneville starting the season with John Madden as a Patrick Kane’s center. But that was Tallon’s signing, and it only last two or three games. So we move to this particular season, and after the roster was gutted due to the cap. And there wasn’t much Q could do when half or more of his team spend about seven minutes sober. Duncan Keith admitted he wasn’t totally focused during this season, and I guess if you wanted to you could pin it on Q to have run a tighter ship. But that would have been awfully tough.
If you want to look deeper, the immediate promotion of Nick Leddy to pair with Duncan Keith didn’t make a lot of sense. The acquisition of Michael Frolik was a tad confusing, as he was billed as a center, which came as news to him. Q tried him there but quickly moved him to wing, which is what he was and is. He bounced all over the lineup. Marcus Kruger came over at the end of the season, which is when “The Plan All Along” was born. This season went about as it should.
Oh wait, did I mention John Scott on the power play in the playoffs? Yeah, there was that.
2011-2012: This is where the real trouble starts. The year started with Q moving Patrick Kane to center. You could definitely argue that there were few other options, as this was when Patrick Sharp basically decided he didn’t want to play center anymore, Dave Bolland wasn’t cut out for it, and anyone else they tried was pants. This was the offseason that Stan brought it Andrew Brunette, Steve Montador, and Jamal Mayers. Montador started as a scratch and on the wing. Eventually Toews got hurt and Sharp and Kane basically had to play center, and it was better than you remember. Montador was never a fit and then had his devastating head injuries, which had fatal consequences. Andrew Shaw came up in the middle of the year. Niklas Hjalmarsson was a disaster. Johnny Oduya came in midseason, but he wasn’t much better, especially in the playoffs.
You’ll also recall it was in the spring of this season that Stan sent Barry Smith into practice and onto the staff to fix a dysfunctional power play (sounds familiar) which did not go over well. Nor should it, because this was as clear a nads-cutting as you can get.
It was the summer following this season that Q nearly either was fired and went to Montreal or just left for Montreal. The Hawks were bounced for the second straight year in the 1st round. In exit interviews, the players made it clear to Bowman that they wanted Mike Kitchen out, because they thought he was A. an idiot (he is) B. a mole for Q (possibly) or C. both. Stan wanted to fire Kitchen, but Q was going to take the fall for his guy. Eventually, McDonough came down and made it clear what the lines o the authority where. He hired the GM, the GM hired the coach, the coach hired his assistants. In a “fuck you” to the players, Q fired their guy Mike Haviland and replaced him with his guy, a for-certain moron Jamie Kompon.
2013: And these problems could have really fissured if every single Hawk didn’t have a career year in the lockout season-in-a-can. But they did. The only mark you could find was it taking Daniel Carcillo to blow his knee out again to get Brandon Saad into the lineup, but once he was there he never came out.
Sure, Michal Handzus was over-promoted, but he actually did play pretty well that spring. Bickell had the playoff run that got him that contract. Whatever issues the coach and GM had were washed away in confetti.
2013-2014: Again, there are only little things here. Starting a tradition, a failing tradition mind, of bringing former players back, Kris Versteeg was re-acquired in November. Andrew Shaw and Handzus bounced between taking the #2 center role, because Brandon Pirri never grabbed it even though Stan made it clear he wanted him to. This was also the first season that Brent Seabrook was pretty damn bloated. It was the season that ended when Q tried to steal an overtime shift with Handzus, Bollig, and Versteeg on an offensive zone draw after an icing in overtime. You know the rest.
2014-2015: Brad Richards was signed to finally anchor the #2 center role that had been in darkness for years. But it took ten games or more to get him there because Q insisted on putting Shaw there. Everything went just about swimmingly until Patrick Kane got hurt and missed the last six weeks. Teuvo Teravainen was called up for good in his absence. He bounces between center and wing and various lines. Antoine Vermette was acquired, and he had the same fate. Kimmo Timonen was actually dead. This was the spring that Q scratched Teuvo and Vermette in Game 3 against Anaheim. They went on to score four of the biggest goals the rest of the way to win a Cup.
2015-2016: It was basically over after this. Brandon Saad was traded because he got expensive and the coach was never sold, and this was the height of Q getting personnel say. Johnny Oduya left and proceeded to age 80 years. Kane and Panarin dragged the Hawks to a playoff spot but Toews was starting his decline and the defense never found anyone to replace Oduya. It was the full TVR Experience. Fleischmann and Weise were acquired at the deadline at the cost of Phillip Danault, and both were scratches before the season was out. Hawks bounced in first round.
2016-2017: Hawks finish first but are gassed by the time the playoffs roll around and a terrible matchup with Nashville. Defense is still thin and slowing, and Oduya’s reacquisition didn’t come close to helping with that. Hjalmarsson can’t keep up with the Preds. Toews is still nowhere and is eaten alive by Ryan Johansen (you’ll be shocked to hear Johansen was playing for a contract then). Schmaltz, Hartman, Forsling, and other kids can’t seem to find a home in the lineup.
And of course this led to the trade of Hjalmarsson right from under Q’s nose, as well as Panarin. This was the organization giving control back to Bowman, which is where the trail to today basically really gets going.
It was always going to end like this. It shouldn’t have ended like this.
You knew from the summer on it was going to be some kind of American Gladiator obstacle (or do I say Titan Games now?) for Joel Quenneville to finish this season. The Hawks hadn’t won a playoff game in two years, which in some ways is eons in this hockey world and also how the Hawks see themselves. There had to be a turnaround and quickly.
For that turnaround, Corey Crawford had to return and not be rusty at all from jump street (hasn’t happened). Every young kid on the roster would have to take at least a step forward, if not a leap (incomplete there). Every veteran would have to rediscover some kind of form from three to four to five years ago (Toews yes, Saad sorta, Keith no, Seabrook whatever). And they would have to do that for 82 games. Well, we’re at Game #15 and you know how it’s gone.
Better yet, let my compadre Matt McClure sum it up best:
It is possible to believe the two opposing ideas that it was probably long past time to move on from Quenneville and also that Quenneville got sandbagged by his GM and deserved a better ending.
— Matt McClure (@Matt_McClure_) November 6, 2018
It is kind of clear that Q never quite adjusted to what the NHL and how his roster fit into that had become. And we can debate whether or not the Hawks tried to change how the defend in their own zone this season, though with how bewildered Keith has looked at times there obviously have been changes. But the game’s speed no longer allows for the intricate exits the Hawks perfected when they were the league’s leading light. Even if it did, the Hawks don’t have the players with the precision to pull it off. And yet for most of the past two seasons, that’s what they’ve been trying to do. You see the results.
These days, it’s not really about that. It’s get it out and get it up, and have your d-men follow in behind. Unless they can do it all themselves like the pack in Nashville or San Jose can. The Hawks don’t have that. But they’re trying neither. The last three years have seen teams with blue lines led by Nate Schmidt or Brian Dumoulin or Matt Niskanen play for Cups. You can take your lack of depth back there out of the equation if you play it right.
That doesn’t mean if the Hawks emulated what the Penguins or Knights did in style they’d be good now. What was clear is that what the Hawks are doing doesn’t work and they have to try anything else. Q isn’t about trying anything else. And really, why would he? His ways have gotten him just a fair amount of silverware. He might tweak things here or there, but massive changes aren’t his bag. They never needed to be.
It’s deeper than that. The Hawks are way too easy to get through the neutral zone on, and with the speed and exuberance they have at forward, that shouldn’t be. The power play we could go over, and yes the Hawks won in the past without one, but this team needs one and the coaches have never had an answer for it. It’s why there’s a new personnel grouping every opportunity. They’ve been throwing shit at a wall for years.
There’s more. Don’t think the treatment of players like Michal Kempny doesn’t factor into this. There’s no way it didn’t absolutely enrage Stan to see what Kempny became in DC and there being utterly no excuse for him to not be used here. Connor Murphy’s early treatment might also fall into this category. Scratching Nick Schmaltz after being stuck on a line with two bozos for a run of games could fall here as well. Do we want to go through the TVR Experience again?
They won’t say it, but you could see where the veterans might need a new voice as well. The constant line shuffling the past couple years seemed to only generate eye-rolls from Toews and Kane and the like, at least on the ice. Seabrook’s determination to be in the best shape over the past few years wouldn’t suggest locked-in focus, would it?
That doesn’t mean Q is all to blame, or even close. I’ve become a house-clearing guy (not the Ed McMahon thing, you ninny) for a while now. To me, the extension of Jan Rutta and signing of Brandon Manning at all are fireable offenses on their own. But reasonably, there’s only so much you can do with this roster. There are maybe four NHL d-men on this team. One is 19. One is a fading legend. One is Seabrook, and the other is Erik Gustafsson, who in reality is a #6 on any team worth a shit. That changes when Murphy is healthy, but no one seems to know when that will be or what that will even look like with a back injury in tow. Ask Dave Bolland how that tends to go, and he wasn’t 6-5.
There are what, seven NHL forwards? Toews, Kane, Saad, Top Cat, Schmaltz, Anisimov (barely)…Kampf? We can say Kahun based on what we’ve seen, but there’s a long way to go before that’s official. Again, there wasn’t much to work with.
What I won’t do is what the Kings and their fans claimed after John Stevens got axed, and that the problem was the team was lifeless or the like. The Hawks never did look like they didn’t care, at least most of the time. They just looked like they were running a playbook from another era of the NHL, which basically they were.
Jeremy Colliton has a near-impossible job as well, and I can’t even begin to think what the bar for success the Hawks have in mind for him. He’s going to have to sell what he wants and quickly to Keith (who is older than Colliton), Seabrook, Crawford, Kane, and Toews, and you can’t find a more accomplished group of veterans anywhere in the league (outside of Pittsburgh, and there’s only three of them). If they’re not on board, you’re pretty much fucked. He has to get a raft of young players to play above themselves to make anything of this season, having never done so in the NHL. He’s only been in the AHL a year-plus.
Still, this is a team that could do with just something different. You could see the boredom and familiarity with their play at times the past few years. I imagine Dylan Sikura is up soon, and when he is, it’s not like the forwards are slow. Get Schmaltz back to center, get up the ice and let’s just go.
It was obvious where this season was heading. This was the one trigger to pull to try and head it off somewhere else. After what Joel Quenneville accomplished here, he clearly deserved a better ending. But coaches, in any sport, almost never get those. Down the road, in a few years, he’ll get his banner night here. And the ending will be forgotten.
It was always going to end like this, because it almost always does.
Yes, it’s up to us to pick something good out of the ash and rubble of a five-game losing streak. And the losses in Western Canada were all particularly ugly in their own way. But sometimes your path chooses you. So on we fight!
The Dizzying Highs
Brandon Saad – It’s kind of perfect that Brandon Saad had maybe his best stretch of hockey in the past two years in the midst of an unsightly losing streak for the Hawks. That way he can still get dunked on by the masses for not making a difference. In reality, there’s not much he can do when the Hawks don’t have a bottom six or a defense. Saad was pretty much unplayable against the Canucks, and scored against the Flames in much the same way. When Saad basically just highlights a streak of the ice between the two nets and rarely deviates from either, he’s a force. So that’s nice. Nothing else is, but at least we’ve had that.
The Terrifying Lows
Brandon Manning – I mean, this is the obvious choice and might even seem like piling on. There’s also a lot of competition for this spot. But, responsible for at least two goals against in Vancouver, another one or two in Calgary, and the list could go on. He’ll be a major discussion point of the podcast tonight I can assure you. This may go down as the worst signing of Stan Bowman’s reign as GM, and yes I fully realize the enormity of that statement. It isn’t clear what it is Manning does, and whatever it is probably no longer has a place or fit in today’s game if it ever did. The Hawks can chalk this one up as an “L” now and make him a regular healthy-scratch when Forsling is up and Murphy is healthy. Both of those things may never happen though, in case you wanted to feel worse than you already did.
The Creamy Middles
Jonathan Toews – Two more goals, which has him on a 40-goal pace. No, he won’t get there, but the Hawks problems tend to extend to when he’s not on the ice. He’s at least bot the best relative-Corsi among the forwards, though some other metrics could use some work. Still, at least he’s not one of myriad problems to worry about again. For now.
First Screen Viewing
Bruins vs. Predators – 7pm
It must be “Final Preview Week” in Nashville, as the Preds face another supposed East contender. The Predators are the only team at the moment in the league with 10 wins, they just signed Pekka Rinne to an extension, so there could be so many meaningless banners this season. Still, everything is rosy in yellow. If that works. The Bruins have 16 points, and are still looking for something beyond their dominant top line. It was ever thus.
Second Screen Viewing
Lightning vs. Canadiens – 6pm
At some point soon, I guess I have to take the Habs seriously. I don’t want to. You don’t want to, no one really wants to. But they’re riding equal with the Bruins, whom they just whacked in Boston last week, and now get the division leaders at home. You’ve seen what the Lightning can do, what they will do, and there are no statement games in November but division games do matter. Or it’ll start the Montreal market correction, which we’re all here for.
Other Games
Oilers vs. Red Wings – 6pm
Devils vs. Islander – 6pm
Leafs vs. Penguins – 6pm
Stars vs. Capitals – 6pm
Wild vs. Blues – 7pm
Hurricanes vs. Knights – 9pm
Jackets vs. Kings – 9:30
Flyers vs. Sharks – 9:30
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 6-5-3 Flames 8-5-1
PUCK DROP: 9pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
BEING RELOCATED FOR OLYMPICS: Flamesnation.ca
For a Saturday night, especially right at the beginning of prime drinking time, you probably want a game between two teams that like to get up the ice and couldn’t stop a nosebleed on the other end (CAN’T WAIT!) on your television as party fodder. Well friendo, that’s what you’re going to get tonight at the Not Saddledome in Calgary. The Hawks and Flames are something of mirror images of each other: ultra-aggressive with both forwards and defense getting into the attack, and more than occasionally leaving the goalie to fend for himself with nothing much more than a toothbrush, paper clip, and a sense of whimsy.
How they go about it is slightly different. The Flames have a pretty good blue-line, though one they decided to reduce a touch by moving out Dougie Hamilton for Noah Hanifin, and the latter has not impressed the Red Mile yet. The Hawks have a plus goalie who can, more often than not when healthy, stand up to the roving hordes that their defense and system wave through with not much more than a quizzical look. The Flames very much do not. The Flames though have a genuine top line and one of the more dominant lines in hockey behind it. The Hawks do not. Either way, what you’re left with is a good measure of fireworks.
We’ll start with Cal and Gary. They come in having won three in a row, the last being a barnburner where they had to overcome Mike Smith‘s ill-timed sneezes every time the Avs put a shot anywhere near him. They did that with five goals in the 3rd for a 6-5 win. And that’s been the story for the Flames so far. They either have to overcome what Smith and their defense combine to destroy, or they get the competent goaltending from David Rittich whom their coach pretends doesn’t exist. They can’t always do the former.
Bill Peters is having the same issues in Western Canada that he did on Tobacco Road. His system does create a lot of attempts for his team, and the puck spends the majority of the time, and a big majority at that, in the right end of the ice. But he has his defense so hopped up on goofballs to get up the ice and his forwards stretching that they leave a ton of space behind. D-men get stranded on breakouts, forwards don’t get back, or d-men get caught up ice. All this might sound very familiar to you, the Hawks follower. So once again, Peters has a goalie straining under the pressure, and Mike Smith at 36 is unlikely to rediscover any plate-spinning form.
What Peters does have that he didn’t in Carolina is genuine, top-line talent. All of Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, and Elias Lindholm (WHO WANTS TO WALK WITH ELIAS?) are averaging a point-per-game or more. Behind that is the 3M line, when Peters isn’t stringing up Michael Frolik for reasons no one can identify, which has been one of the most effective lines in hockey for years now. They get the toughest assignments, the toughest zone-starts, and yet they just punt the play up the ice all the time. They have also scored a bunch, as Matthew Tkachuk has 17 points, Frolik six goals. Peters clearly didn’t have this weaponry with the Canes.
The bottom-six isn’t a barren wasteland, though James Neal might wonder what he’s doing there after signing a free-agent deal presumably to run with Gaudreau and Monahan.
And the Flames should have a good blue line. Getting to play with Mark Giordano again has brought T.J. Brodie back from his kabuki interpretation of the Walking Dead he’s been performing for the past two seasons. Travis Hamonic hasn’t been the sand person he was last year, though he and Hanifin are always capable of a clanger. Two kids on the third-pairing, Juuso Valimaki (JUU! SO!) and Rasmus Andersson have really turned heads with some hammock shifts. But again, with Peters basically having everyone shotgun up the ice as if there was a giant “FREE BEER!” sign over the end-boards, they do get caught a lot on odd-mans and breakaways. The Hawks should have some chances.
And they’ll give away some, too. We know this. And if they leave the Flames’ top-six off the leash too much they’re coming home from Western Canada with nary a point. No word yet on lineup changes. One would have to assume Nick Schmaltz will get back in, where he can do everything he can to create chances for Alexandre Fortin and SuckBag Johnson and then watch them fire the puck off Harvey The Hound. Brandon Manning will probably draw back in but as you know it doesn’t matter for what on that third-pairing so EAT ARBY’S. Crow will get the start because he has to.
This one has 5-4 written all over it, but the Hawks can have serious hope that Crawford can outplay Smith, unless they take Smith’s puddle-making extravaganza from Thursday as a sign to pivot to Rittich. Crow will almost certainly see more chances against. But he has a better chance of standing up to them than the other two do. At least that’s the hope.
Game #15 Preview Suite
Any of you who have been around these parts for any length of time know that we rate coaches and GMs on a binary scale of Moron/Not A Moron. That’s kind of how backward the NHL is, that we can’t decipher anything more than that.
We’ve always categorized Bill Peters as Not A Moron. His Carolina teams always had some of the best possession numbers in the league for years. And they did it without really any top-line talent, though with one of the best blue lines in the league. That’s really all we had to go on, that and whether the teams actually won or not. Though that’s not always a clean indicator, because as we well know there are plenty of morons who end up with good teams (is that you peaking out from the back, Randy Carlyle?) Hell, Darryl Sutter ended up with two Cups and mere months later his players wanted to knife him in the back and leave him out in the loading dock.
And yet the Hurricanes never really came close to a playoff spot. And the reason they never did is their goalies always sucked. Like hardcore. Last year, they had the second-worst SV% at even-strength. Same story the year before. It was much better the year before that, as they were third-worst. And on it goes.
And it spanned numerous goalies. It was Cam Ward and Scott Darling last year. The previous season Eddie Lack joined in on the fun of turning into a cartoon elephant in net (which you’d think would be quite effective, except for the cartoon part). Two years before that it was Anton Khudobin who kept acting like he misplaced his wallet in the crease. All of Khudobin, Lack, and Darling came to Carolina with a solid rep as backups from previous organizations. Perhaps the GM Ron Francis missed on all of them. Perhaps Peters had no other options. But how many goalies does he get?
It hasn’t started out much better in Calgary. Mike Smith is continually facing the wrong way or waving at butterflies that don’t exist in net so far this year. David Rittich has looked good, but he only has four starts on the year, and yet Peters keeps sending Smith out there. He claims it’s the defense that’s letting Smith down, and yet .871 SV% is an .871 SV%.
Maybe Smith is just too old. Maybe there are too many miles. But this is the fifth goalie in the past five years that ends up staring at the lights at the end of most games. The fault lies not in our stars…
So there must be something in the system, right? Something we can trace? Ah ha. We may be on to something there.
Though Calgary has some great Corsi-percentages, they’re 26th in expected goals-against. Carolina last year was ninth in the latter category, but 22nd in the season before that. In ’15-’16 they were 26th. We now have a foothold.
It’s the problem the Hawks have. They might gather more attempts. But the chances they give up are far better than the ones they get. And that’s because the defense is so active, required to help create offense, that the goalies are left to fend for themselves. You can see where the Hawks need it, given how short they are at forward. But are the Flames? They have one of the best top-sixes around. Sure, the bottom-six could use some help, but it’s not an abyss. Why is the defense running all over the place?
Maybe Rittich can save them. Maybe he’ll be the one that stands up against the mudslide that’s seemingly always headed toward Peters’s team’s net. If he’s not, we’ll almost certainly have an answer on what the problem is.
Game #15 Preview Suite
Some creatures fascinate science in how they came into being. And then some are viewed with the feeling, “Some questions are best left unanswered.” That’s the category @BookOfLoob falls into. Don’t ask, just let be.
What has new coach Bill Peters changed from Glengarry Glen Gulutzan last year? And why should it work better than it did in Carolina?
Outside of the team being able to do anything on the power play, effective players being frequently scratched for reasons like “shrug” and “felt like it”, goaltending ruining any chance of anyone ever dying happy, and being constantly reminded by his presence in the lineup that Garnet Hathaway is in fact a real person, everything is different.
It was nice to see Peters shed the mantra of “Old Ass Idiot Hockey Man” by actually making expensive, shitty Michael Stone ride the pine in favor of both Jusso Valimaki and Rasmus Andersson (who is perfect), and the team is generating so much sustained pressure offensively that Mike Smith really has to try hard to lose the game for them.
Which he is absolutely doing.
How’s that Dougie Hamilton trade working out?
You invited me to do this just to ask me that question knowing it would make me cry. Rest assured I will get you for this. (We feel it’s important that Floob express his emotions. -ED)
The short answer so far is “Mixed Results.”
Noah Hanifin, it turns out, is not that good, especially relative to what I believe is a Top-10 defenseman in the NHL in Dougie, but at least he’s not, and this is off the top of my head, Brent Seabrook. Everyone’s kinda hoping he can turn this around soon, and seeing as he’s 21 and it’s still early, he probably can, but underwhelming has been a word I’ve had pop into my head a lot whenever he’s on the ice thus far.
I will not make a museum joke. Much like most Calgary Flames, I’ve never been in one so I wouldn’t know where to start. (What about Amsterdam? -ED)
Elias Lindholm, however, I will walk with that guy forever.
Why does Peters hate Michael Frolik?
I don’t know, but give me two minutes with him and I’ll make him see the light.
There’s a weird thing going on with both Frolik and Austin Czarnik. Both are quality players. Both players have been scratched or benched frequently by Bill Peters. Both have last names that end with “ik”. But when either of them are in the lineup and getting a regular shift, they are on the ice with Mikael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk, who are heavily relied upon to play the toughest minutes every game, and both Frolik and Czarnik thrive on the 3M or MMA line, whichever it happens to be that game.
Essentially Peters trusts them entirely, or not at all. I don’t really care, he’s not Bob Hartley, so they aren’t benched in favor of Kevin Westgarth and Brian McGrattan at the same time
James Neal, on pace for 12 goals. So that’s going well.
Do you guys want James Neal? You still owe us for Brandon Bollig.
Would the Flames be a playoff team if David Rittich took over the starting goalie role?
The only goalie I trust less than Mike Smith is Cam Ward, and he died 16 years ago, so I never have to worry about seeing him in a Flames jersey. I made a joke earlier this season about everyone being afraid of Mike Smith’s save percentage, because .789
Everyone had a good laugh at that because there’s no way an NHL goaltender in this day and age would ever be that bad. Then he let in four goals on like three shots the other night against Colorado and for a good chunk of the game it was literally .789. Life is hell.
They say if you have a good team, you only need league average goaltending to make any noise. David Rittich is my hero and I am building him a house on top of Mike Smith’s car, but he hasn’t played enough for us to know if he’s a league average goalie yet.
But I think this team looks good enough to win a bunch of games if the goaltending is only kinda bad, so even if that’s the bar Rittich needs to clear, I’m willing to retire his number right now. Best goalie since Chris Osgood.
Game #15 Preview Suite
We won’t lie to you (we never do). Watching Mike Smith‘s total and rapid meltdown in Calgary of late has done us good. Everyone has to cling to whatever brings a smile in this current world, and every time Smith points at a defender when another 50-foot wombat confusedly gets past him we believe that there is good in this world.
No, the scars of 2012 do not heal so easily.
It’s not even Smith’s fault this year. Well, his terrible play and seeming need to blame it on everyone around him is. But Smith is what he is. He’s 36, he’ll turn 37 during the season, and he’s got a lot of miles on him. He was bad in the second half of last year, when his .888 in February and .880 in March torpedoed whatever playoff hopes the Flames had. No one wins the battle with time, and the Calgary front office should have known what they had in the ginger thespian in net.
It’s Bill Peters who keeps sending him out there, convinced that with the right defensive play, the Flames can somehow get away with having a goalie with hair in his ears. They have a perfectly good substitute in David Rittich, but no, the unwritten rules say you have to stick with the veteran until he actually turns to mulch. And Smith might before the season is out.
So Flames fans can get accustomed to Smith screaming at his d-men that they didn’t block some shot that is more of a question from the blue line. Or breaking his stick on a post after he gives up a third goal in 10 minutes. Or diving to the ice like a suicidal falcon when any forechecker comes within five feet. It should only be a little longer, but one wonders if those points won’t matter come April.
Maybe they worry Smith will be a dressing room distraction if he loses the starting job. He’s done it before, with Arizona only too happy to move him along and welcome the far sunnier Antti Raanta in. Either way, it’s excellent theater for us. And eventually, those ’12 wounds will heal.
Game #15 Preview Suite
