Game #11 Preview Suite
I doubt John Tortorella was as angry about the state of things after his team torched the St. Louis Blues last night, but here he was at the morning skate yesterday:
John Tortorella on the state of the NHL: “It’s like a big hug fest….
It frustrates the shit out of me quite honestly.” pic.twitter.com/RUjtb0lRs9— Robert Söderlind (@HockeyWebCast) October 26, 2018
Now, if you’ve been here for any length of time, you know I’m a tree-hugging socialist that does only what St. Vincent and Shirley Manson tell me to do and have pissed myself at the outset of every confrontation I’ve ever had (this isn’t entirely untrue, but due to inebriation rather than fear). So you probably expect me to once again lambast one of our favorite targets, no matter how much he loves dogs (or was right about Ryan Johansen and Brandon Saad).
Hockey being hockey, this is a complaint we’re hearing now about five years or more after we’ve heard it in other sports. I remember complaints like this in all the other major sports, and it usually starts out criticizing those not from these shores. Hell, you remember Bruce Boudreau getting salty about Alex Ovechkin laughing it up with fellow Russian players on the other team that had just steamrolled the Capitals that night. In baseball, it was the Latin players who were too chummy. Then basketball and and football followed suit with players being nice to each other on and off the court (fuck, Isiah and Magic were kissing each other in the 80s!).
And the reasons for this in hockey are pretty much the same as they were in the other sports. With the continued growth of player movement, a lot of these guys have already played together before. If they haven’t, they might have the same agent and work out together in the summer instead of retreating to whatever farm or factory older players used to work at to grunt, sweat, and stew for months while staring at a picture of some drunken punter who was the third center on Montreal before getting on the ice again. Specialization at younger ages plays a role, as a lot of these guys were probably at the same hockey camps as kids and developmental systems. They’ve played on youth national and older national teams together. There’s just more familiarity.
At the top level, the shit-disturbers have been moved out for players that can actually play. Your third line is less and less diligent checkers and pests. They’re moved to the fourth or off the roster completely, in favor of guys who can still skate and score. Look at the third lines of teams that are contenders this year. Just a brief snippet: When Nylander signs, Toronto will have Kapanen-Kadri-Lindholm (maybe Kadri is a bad example). Winnipeg has Copp-Lowry-Tanev, and has/could feature Roslovic and Perreault. Joonas Donskoi and Kevin Labanc are on the third line in San Jose. Basically, a lot of the guys whose main job it was to raise the temperature are being phased out. We’ve heard this all before in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. Bill Laimbeer wouldn’t get anywhere near an NBA court today. The “Baseball Police” are heavily mocked.
And yet, on some level, I see what Torts is getting at. And on that level, I’m with him in that I miss it, too. One of the appeals of hockey, as I’ve written here and other places before, when I got into it was the feeling of danger you got when walking into an arena. It’s what you tried to channel when you watched it on TV. You didn’t know what you might see, both on the ice and in the stands. It was fast and furious and what made it special was that utter art could be created out of utter mayhem.
Missing it doesn’t mean longing for it to be back, though. The feeling of danger in the stands washed away long ago, as every arena has a more homogenized and stale feel with game presentations almost exactly the same and everything catered to the glitterati and aristocracy. It’s not as fun, but that doesn’t mean I long to be thrown up on again by Tony from Oswego or have bags of piss tossed around (this was more a soccer thing but you wouldn’t have put it past the creatures of the Old Stadium either). And as we all agree, I certainly don’t miss standing in two inches of what I could only hope was water in the bathroom.
As far as the product on the ice, it’s different but that doesn’t mean it’s worse. It’s way better, actually. Take this from Torts’s own team last night:
Ok, maybe I take more joy in this than most because it was the P.A.T. on the Blues, but look at that pass! And that’s to Seth Jones, a 6-4 d-man who skates like the goddamn wind and effortlessly puts this away. 10 years ago everyone would complain that Jones didn’t “play to his size,” or something equally ridiculous and his game would have mutated. Isn’t this way better?
And this kind of thing is happening every night, especially this season. We can bemoan that hockey isn’t nearly as vitriol-filled as it was, but it doesn’t have time to be. Go on, try and be physical with Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid or a dozen or more other players. You can’t catch them to do so. You can send your knuckle-draggers out there if you want, and you’ll get slaughtered every night.
It’s a different product, but it’s a better one. We’ve heard all these complaints in the NFL too, and some of the roughing the passer rules now are laughable. But no one’s complaining when their QB is racking up 400 yards again (please do this soon, Mitch). And finally there are more than like, four decent quarterbacks. It’s just a more watchable product.
Yes, Torts, sometimes I sit back and reminisce about the actual fear I felt when walking into 1800 W. Madison for a Wings-Hawks game, because I didn’t know if the chaos would happen on the ice or in the row in front of me. Or even Hawks-Canucks games between 2009-2012. I miss actual emotion, too. Which is a reason I watch the Premier League, and if that doesn’t square up for you I can’t help you. But that’s also hard to generate in October. I’m fairly sure there’s a decent amount in April, still.
But that doesn’t mean I want to back there. Maybe some things are best left in the past.
vs. 
RECORDS: Rangers 3-5-1 Hawks 5-2-2
PUCK DROP: 7:30
TV: NBCSN Chicago
I WAS TALKIN’ TO MY FRIEND BOB SAKAMANO: Blueshirt Banter
The Hawks tour through the b-sides of the league this week continues with the visit of the very much rebuilding New York Rangers. Whatever problems the Hawks have, it’s easy to forget about them with the schedule put forth through the next stretch. Which could be a problem, as the Hawks and their braintrust could be deluded into thinking they don’t have to make systemic changes when you get to beat the remedial class in a spelling contest. They’ll need all the buffer zone they can get from the .500 mark, because we know that a crash toward it could come at any moment down the road.
We’ll start with the Rangers. Somehow, the big-spending, drama-filled, directionless, loud mess owned by James Dolan–no, not that team, the other one–finally convinced itself and its fans (which is the harder task I’ll leave to you) that it was time to be prudent, tear it down, and start again. No longer are the Rangers trying to plug gaps with expensive and bad veterans and making splashes for the sake of making splashes like a five-year old in a bathtub (a comparison Dolan has had levied at him by many others than me). No longer was it about chasing back-page covers on the Daily News or Post, which is a big concern for most New York sports teams (and a big reason most of them suck to high heaven). The Rangers are going to build a team the right way, given the salary cap and such.
Still, if the Rangers’ goal was to bottom out, there’s still just a touch too many good players here to get down around where you’d think the Senators (meaning the Avalanche) or Wings or Islanders could get to. They’re making a fist of it, as they currently are last in the Metro Division. And really, it’s kind of about watching the clock to see when and who the Rangers jettison this year in the pursuit of more prospects to go with their already impressive haul. All or any of Chris Kreider, Captain Stairwell (Kevin Hayes), Mats Zuccarello, Adam McQuaid (there’s always a market for an idiot d-man who’s regarded as rugged), possibly Kevin Shattenkirk (or Kirk Shattenkevin), could be headed for the door before March hits.
There’s also a couple pieces they hope are part of the next great Rangers team (when was the last one? ’94? Don’t say ’14. That was the same, boring-ass Rangers team that they’d been rolling out for 10 years) already here if Filip Chytil and Brett Howden. They were part of trades for Ryan McDonagh and Rick Nash. So while they still haven’t completely torn down yet, the rebuild has already begun.
The biggest impediment to being simply awful is of course, Henrik Lundqvist. Yes, he’s just that handsome he can stop a tank, both figuratively and literally. Seriously though, he’s off to a great start which is not his usual modus operandi. He’s at .921, though the Rangers are pretty bad defensively so he’s having to stop a ton of chances.
The Rangers are kind of an odd team. They’re a bad possession team, in the bottom third in Corsi. But they’re just about break-even in xGF%, meaning that though they get less attempts by a decent margin, the ones they get are on par with the ones they give up. Which is hard to figure given that Brendan Smith, McQuaid, and Marc Staal are playing every night and all are generally facing the wrong way most times. Brendan Smith remains the worst player in the league in my mind, which is actually a good thing because we’ll always have Game 6 in ’13 to thank him for.
On the upside, Brady Skjei is basically skating top-pairing minutes, which the Rangers hope he’ll be doing for a decade. Neal Pionk is 23, and though he has a name that sounds like the sound you make when you step on a Lego (or get a bad handjob), he’s been promising so far. What you do with Shattenkirk is anyone’s guess. He’s not going to be around when the Rangers are good again, or at least he’ll be awfully old. Certainly expensive. But he does carry the puck up the ice, and that’s needed.
On the Hawks side, doesn’t appear to be any changes from Tuesday’s win. Crawford in net, Anisimov as a 2C to give me the urpies, and hopefully David Kampf replaces SuckBag Johnson in the lineup.
The Rangers are faster than the Ducks, but possibly less talented though more interested. Their coach David Quinn at least has them playing at pace, which Randy Carlyle won’t figure out from here until the sun swallows us all. We saw how the Hawks dealt with real speed against Tampa, though the Rangers aren’t there. Still, Kreider, Zibanejad, Fast, Zuccarello can be awfully annoying when they’re on song. This defense can be gotten to though, and if the Hawks are serious about making something of this season, getting points against the likes of the Rangers and Ducks and Oilers on Sunday is basically a must. You can handle getting your brains beaten in by the Tampas and Winnipegs of the word if you’re taking the points you should.
Game #10 Preview Suite
It’s hard to believe, but it’s only two seasons ago that the Rangers were a playoff team. In ’16-’17, the Rangers had 102 points, won a playoff round over the Canadiens, and were bounced by the Ottawa Senators. It feels like it happened in a different lifetime. Maybe because it was just another incarnation of the same, nondescript Rangers team they’d been rolling out for a decade, filled with small, quick forwards who just aren’t THAT good and Hank. Maybe it was because they beat one garbage team in the playoffs and then lost to another. Either way, it doesn’t feel like it was in recent memory.
Credit to Jeff Gorton. Because most teams would have seen a second-round trip as a platform to keep trying to go for it, make some signings or trades, and believe you’re right there. How many have done so? The Habs haven’t even gotten that far and they keep doing it. The Senators did the same, look where they are. We could keep going.
Gorton wasn’t fooled. He had an aging team that had maxed out that was looking at a slow, painful death. Last season didn’t start out well, and that’s all the proof he needed. It’s kind of amazing how he got this past James Dolan, who has watched his basketball team limp around like incomplete roadkill for the better part of 20 years now. Then again, Dolan doesn’t give a shit about the Rangers, so you can do just about anything as the Rangers GM. Still, MSG just completed a complete renovation and you’d think ownership wouldn’t exactly be comfortable with a couple seasons of meaningless product. And yet here we are.
Gorton has done what he can so far. Rick Nash, that playoff dynamo that teams were lusting after at the deadline for reasons they’ll be recounting at the bar in five years when they’re explaining their firing, turned into Ryan Lindgren and a first-round pick as well as a couple pieces. Ryan McDonagh, the biggest bauble Gorton had to flog, turned into two prospects (Libor Hajek and Howden), another 1st round pick for this past draft, and at least a useful player in Vlad Namestnikov. Those two trades along replenished a pretty empty pipeline.
Where Gorton goes from here is a question. Clearly they want to get into Jack Hughes range, but probably have enough players and Henrik Lundqvist from getting that close. Chris Kreider is a player a lot of teams would want at the deadline. Fuck, look what Nash netted and Kreider actually bothers to breathe in the playoffs, and his value is at its peak with another year on his deal after this one. But he’s only 27 and still quite effective, and could be part of the next good Rangers team. Kevin Shattenkirk is signed for another two years at $6.6M and is 29. Right-handed, puck-movers are basically caviar at the deadline. Could he get someone to bite?
Kevin Hayes is in the last year of his contract, and you can always sell some drunk GM on a big player who can at least make a fist of it at center (and be quite drunk himself. All hail Captain Stairwell!). Mats Zucarello also will be a free agent and is 31. He can score. Everyone needs scoring, just like everyone hates birds.
At this point, if you’ve started rebuilding there’s no reason to half-ass it. That’s what their roommate in MSG have been doing, and they’re a national joke. Not that any hockey team could be a national joke, but you get the idea. They’re even timed well, because the Penguins and Capitals won’t be able to do this forever and the Jackets are about to lose their two best players. Three years from now the field could be open for the Rangers.
Good thing Dolan doesn’t care about hockey, huh?
Game #10 Preview Suite
Beth Machlan writes in more places than we can possibly list. Follow her @bethmachlan and find out for yourself.
It’s obviously going to be a long year on Broadway for the Rangers who are in the first full season of a total rebuild. Who are what are you watching on a nightly basis to make you feel good about the future?
Frankly, we’re watching David Quinn. For one: he coaches. You can hear him screaming through the broadcast. He’s used more timeouts in the last four weeks than Vigneault did in his whole time here. This is new For Rangers fans, who are used to AV, who was Sphinx-like in his silence, if Sphinxes were stupid and wasted the careers of two Hall of Fame goaltenders. Quinn tells the players what’s expected of them, and he tells the press what he’s doing. It’s a whole new world. He also apparently takes the babies, Chytil and Howden, out to breakfast on game days. THANKS DAD!
Speaking of which, Filip Chytil and Brett Howden are a lot of fun to watch, and they give us dreams of an actual future …
Chris Kreider is off to a hot start. it feels like trade rumors swirl about him every season, but is this the time he goes? He’s only got this year and next on his deal and is in the middle of his prime at 27…
I don’t see Kreider going. The Blueshirt Banter chat votes Hayes. Seriously, though, every season the NYR broadcast team announces that it’s Kreider’s year. He was great last season but then had that major surgery; he also has nights when he’s invisible, which is pretty impressive for a guy who’s 6’3” and 220. Still, I hope we keep him. He and Mika Zibanejad and whoever they stick on the RW — Zuccarello, earlier this week, with great results — are among our few consolations this season.
Neal Pionk seems to be turning some heads.
Right? Imagine how many he’d turn if he wasn’t stapled to Marc Staal.
Confirm what we’ve always claimed: Brendan Smith is the worst player in the league, right?
Did I mention Marc Staal?
Dude. Smith has made a hell of a comeback, really. He was a major casualty of AV’s coaching style — “I won’t tell you what I want, but I’ll bench you until you give it to me” — as well as who the hell knows what going on in his personal life — but it’s past now. He now looks like a second pair defenseman (for NYR, anyway) as opposed to just a pile of cash lit on fire. I also appreciate scrappiness that actually responds to circumstances on the ice as opposed to the fans’ “old timey” desires.
Are Rangers fans, a notoriously cantankerous bunch as any group of New Yorkers tend to be, really understanding of what’s happening here and how long it will take?
No. But then Hank announced that they’re playing to win, so who are we to judge?
Game #10 Preview Suite
There’s this idea that doesn’t really apply anymore, that teams that are rebuilding and full of kids need a bodyguard. That if you don’t have some hulking/drooling goober on your team, the players that will eventually comprise what you hope is your next winning team are going to be assaulted and mugged all over the ice, ruining their innocence and perception of the world and then they’ll dye their hair purple and write poetry while listening to A Place To Bury Strangers all damn day.
That’s just about the only reason we can figure Cody McLeod, who has struggle to spell “cat” his entire career, is here. Of course, these days the only players who would “run” at the Filip Chytils, Brett Howdens, and the future kids who will come up for air later this season or next are the Cody McLeods of the world. The game moves too fast for anyone who actually has a job to do to worry about making some statement on a kid’s face. Also, the league is getting younger, so really any kid in the lineup is going to be on the ice against players that are merely a couple years older than him.
The only idiots that these kids have to fear are fourth-line/third-pairing veterans who are barely hanging onto their careers by their fingernails and will do anything to get their coach to not notice they can’t move and they treat the puck like ebola. And there are just enough coaches that are impressed by putting a stick in someone’s ribs when they’re not looking, but they’re fading in numbers as well.
In fact, the NHL might even be a safer place for young players than the AHL, due to the speed the game keeps reaching at the top level. Meanwhile, the “A” is still kind of filled with dunderheads who not only could be out of the league, but soon Beer League might be their only hockey outlet. That’s a high level of desperation to do anything to continue to not have to go work in the real world. A good portion of the guys yelling at you at Johnny’s were these guys.
We can’t blame McLeod. He gets to keep earning an NHL salary, and there’s really nothing else he can do on the ice. He’s not turning into Esa Tikkanen anytime soon. Sort of a weird lesson for the kids, though.
Game #10 Preview Suite
This generally happens every October. As we know, the NHL season tends to be wacky and fun and Seussian in the first month as teams scramble to entrench themselves into their standings position. We know they pretty much have to because of how hard it is to make up ground late in the season, and the percentage of teams that are in the playoffs spots at Thanksgiving that stay there (just north 0f 75% as of last check). You can’t entrench by gaining one point. You need two. And you generally need to keep the other team from getting one. So teams actually go for it. If this is where you’d ask wouldn’t this be solved season-long if wins were worth three points you can just shove it because your logic has no place in the hockey world! Put your telescope away, Galileo! (He used one, right?)
So scoring is up so far. But is it simply that? Will teams pull back, combined with boredom, in December and beyond to give us the turgid, uninspiring morass we’ve come to know and…well, know? I’m not so sure.
The numbers are there. Teams are averaging 3.11 goals per game after 2.97 last year. Though this is just about the same jump we saw from two seasons ago to last, which was 2.77 to 2.97. Maybe it’s just the way things are going? That’s a bit simplistic, so let’s dive a little deeper.
There are four teams averaging over 35 shots per game, when no team managed it for the total of last year (topping the list are the Hurricanes who are averaging a simply bonkers 41 shots per game so far). However, only 22 teams are averaging over 30 shots per game, while 28 managed it last year. So the high-end, the more volatile selection, is higher. But overall there aren’t more shots being taken from last year. In fact, teams are averaging slightly less shots than last year, 31.3 to 31.8.
As far as overall attempts, there are five teams averaging over 65 attempts per 60 minutes at evens, and nine over 60. Last year, only five teams got over 60 per 60 (isn’t that neat?), and none over 65. So there are more teams attempting more shots, but that doesn’t mean that many are getting through. That would suggest there is more action, just not that much more important action.
Teams are getting faster and copying all the time, so you do see more teams trying to replicate what the Penguins, Knights, Predators have done over the past couple seasons. A couple teams have pivoted to more aggressive coaches. The Stars went from Ken Hitchcock to Jim Montgomery, and they’ve seen a slight uptick in both attempts and shots per game. Bill Peters went from Carolina to Calgary, but they’ve actually seen a downtick in both categories. His replacement in Raleigh, Rod Brind’Amour, certainly has not overseen a downtick. The Coyotes have changed their system, and Ottawa and Montreal at least have tweaked theirs.
The number that jumps out most so far though is that team SV% has dropped .912 to 908 this year. Some will attribute this to the new goalie pads, and that probably plays a role. Some will attribute it to some of the league’s better goalies getting off to slow starts, or not being around at all in the case of Corey Crawford or Roberto Luongo. Jonathan Quick has been abhorrent in LA, Cam Talbot is still stepping on his tongue in Edmonton, Marc-Andre Fleuy has been pretty woeful in Vegas (and really, who could have seen that coming?), Holtby terrible in DC as he was at the start of last year, Martin Jones has been bad, Sergei Bobrovsky worse, and Connor Hellebuyck has been mediocre (say it like Immortan Joe).
Still, they can’t all be off to slow starts, right? There must be something.
Combine that with how many teams simply whiffed on their goaltending decisions. Trusting Mike Smith in Calgary was always going to end in ennui. Jake Allen in St. Louis…well, you know what we’d write here. Did they really thing Carter Hutton would work in Buffalo? Jimmy Howard has been an anchor for a while, which is good for a team trying to bottom out like the Wings (wait, they’re doing what?). The decision to stick with Brian Elliot in Philly is why Gritty looks like that.
The amount of teams getting steady goaltending right now is pretty thin. The Rangers and Ducks are, and those teams both suck eggs. The Stars are getting good work from Ben Bishop. If you want to argue the Hawks now that Crow is back, I guess you can but we’ll need more than the three games Crow has gotten. Dubnynk is doing his normal thing, Kinkaid has been really good in New Jersey, and Varlamov has been a mutant in Colorado (not hard for him). Throw the Lightning, Predators, and Canucks on the list. Essentially, 10 teams are getting average goaltending at even-strength. One of them is Calgary that has Rittich making up for the toxic waste Mike Smith is leaving behind. Minnesota and Anaheim are getting incredible goaltending, but they’re also giving up the most shots in the game. So there are still goals to be had against them. Without their goaltending, the commissioner would have to step in and relegate them.
But that’s not all of it. Could it be the pressure and chances these goalies are asked to stand up against is higher? Yes, it appears that way. Currently, eight teams have an expected goals-against per 60 minutes over 2.8. Only one team did that last year, which was the Rangers. Still though, deeper you go it’s about the same. Nine teams had an xGA/60 last year over 2.5. This year that number is 11 (it always comes back to Nigel Tuffnel on this blog). A difference to be sure, but not huge.
There clearly isn’t one answer to this. Everyone hopes it sticks around, though.
First Screen Viewing
Sharks vs. Predators – 7pm
It’s always stupid to label anything a playoff preview in October, but these two teams would be awfully disappointed if it didn’t turn out that way. These are two of the three/four teams that matter in the West (depending on your view of Vegas), and this will be their first chance to size each other up. The Sharks don’t have the record that the Preds do, but they’ve been murdering pretty much everyone across from them but just haven’t gotten the luck. Martin Jones’s .907 SV% to start the season sure hasn’t helped, as well as seeing some goalies channel Merlin against them. The Preds have had no such problems, and thanks to Pekka Rinne’s injury, Juuse Saros is getting the net. Which is probably how it should have been anyway. He’s carrying consecutive shutouts into this one. This is truly the aristocracy.
Second Screen Viewing
Flames vs. Canadiens – 6:30
I’m fairly sure both of these teams blow. I’m fairly sure both are run by morons. But they’ve gotten off to decent enough starts to delude their drunken fanbases that they might not be either. Watch them throw their own feces at each other.
Other Games
Panthers vs. Rangers – 6pm
Coyotes vs. Blue Jackets – 6pm
Bruins vs. Senators – 6:30
Kings vs. Stars – 7:30
Penguins vs. Oilers – 8pm
