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Burn The Pages Of Unwritten Memoirs – Draft Preview: Noah Dobson

By Sam Fels 1740 0

Moving back to looking at actual possible draftees tonight, it would seem if the Hawks want a mobile, offensively-inclined, mobile defenseman, they can have one. There’s plenty out there. And here’s another one, Noah Dobson from Acadie-Bathurst in the QMJHL.

The problem with players from the Q is the desire is to throw out their production with a wave and a dismissal of, “A drunken goat can rack up a point per game in that league. ” Also a drunken goat represents a couple of different sections of Quebec in Parliament. And it’s true, the Q is by far the highest scoring league of the three junior leagues. So Dobson racking up 69 points in 62 games is as impressive on the sheet as say Ty Smith’s total in the WHL, Smith’s are probably more hard-earned.

Still, Dobson has a lot of things that are going to make NHL teams’ eyes widen. One, he’s big. 6-3, 180 now and can probably fill out to near or at 200 pounds one day. And that doesn’t take away from his speed, because he’s probably the fastest d-man in the draft, non-Dahlin Division. As far as physical package goes, there are few more enticing than Dobson. And considering the different priorities of all the voices in the Hawks’ war room, he should have something for everyone.

Statistically, Dobson has some things that make you take notice and some that give you pause. 11 of his 17 goals and 29 of his 69 points were on the power play, where he has a boomstick of a one-timer, on par with Wahlstrom’s. And hey, power play points count the same. Secondly, Dobson bombed 4.2 shots per game at all strengths on net, which is basically insane for a d-man at any level. So he gets into the play and he makes things happen there. All good.

The concern with Dobson is while he did pile up points, he doesn’t have great vision or hands. He’s the guy who gets the puck to the guy who gets the puck to the guy, or people are cashing in on his rebounds. He also might not be able to weave out of traffic with only ok hands, though his speed might keep him out of traffic more than most.

There’s also concern about his defensive reactions and instincts, and the Hawks are big on closing gaps and stepping up. But you can be taught that, if the Hawks were patient. Though that’s not been a strong-suit for them either.

Still, the Q just doesn’t produce that many good d-men. In the past five years, of all the leading scorers on the blue line in the league the only one to have any sort of impact at the NHL level is Samuel Girard, and that’s really only as a trade piece in the Duchene/Turris deal. Going back all the way to 2010, the only d-men who scored a ton there who had any sort of time in The Show are Barbeiro, Beaulieu, and David Savard. Compare that with the leaderboard in the OHL just two years ago where Sergachev, Dunn and Chychrun have all made something at the top level.

Dobson figures to be around for the Hawks when they pick. He’s been slotted anywhere from 7th to the mid-teens, and really only if there’s a run on d-men would the Hawks feel pressured to take him. He checks a lot of boxes, but I’d worry about the path he’s taken to get here.

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It Ain’t Easy To Get To Heaven When You’re Going Down

By Sam Fels 2138 0

Perhaps it’s a good thing, at least for him, that Stan Bowman has become a master in saying nothing. Because if he were honest or forthcoming about the position he finds himself in, we all might understand just what a difficult spot he’s in at the moment.

Obviously, everything hinges on Corey Crawford, and there isn’t much Stan can do about that. But if he were to come out and say publicly they don’t have any idea when and if Crawford is going to play again, then whatever calls he’s making for even a backup goalie suddenly get a lot tougher. Whether that’s Darling, or maybe a call on Grubauer, or whatever other idea he might have, everyone is going to know that he’s looking for someone who can step in as a starter if need be, not just a backup.

But it runs deeper than that. A theme of Stan’s press conference yesterday was that he wasn’t going all-in on this season, wanting to build for as much down the road as this season. That hasn’t stopped us from pointing out that if the Hawks don’t massively rebound this year, the long-term isn’t going to matter for him because Stan’s not going to have a job, at least not here.

But there’s a two-pronged problem with that. One, even if Stan went all-in on this season, where does that leave him? What’s a successful season for the Hawks next year? Second round of the playoffs? When you’ve won three playoff games in three years that’s a pretty big step, but is it enough for McD and Rocky? A valiant defeat to Nashville or Winnipeg there? Because it’s unlikely there’s any amount of moves the Hawks can make this summer where you’d go into next season saying they’d be favored over either of those teams. The Hawks can overhaul Minnesota, St. Louis, Colorado and Dallas, but those two remain ahead of the rest of the pack.

So say you do all that, but in the process you lose…oh I don’t know, Jokiharju and/or Sikura and maybe one or two others in pursuit of the defenseman and forward you need and more, without giving up anything major on the NHL roster. Where are you for ’19-’20? Is it likely with “THE CORE” another year older that you can improve without a pipeline of kids aiding them? Would you have to keep being active in free agency after you’ve used all the powder in your system? Would you have just put off your firing one season? Any free agent you sign is likely to skew older as well. Justin Faulk is a good age, but he’s not turning it around on his own.

Secondly, Stan might be gun-shy on any “win now” moves, considering how his coach has handled them in the recent past. Go back all the way to the Vermette trade. It took until Game 4 of the conference final before Q bought into Vermette, who cost a pretty penny. The following season, Stan brought in Ladd, Weise, and Fleischmann. The latter two were discarded essentially by the time the playoffs rolled around, and Ladd didn’t have much to offer. Those trades cost picks and Phillip Danault, and man would Danault look nice about now.

Connor Murphy was a move for now and later, and spent most of the season having his coach shit on him like he was Roman Reigns (WRESTLING REFERENCE). Alex DeBrincat, certainly one for the future but definitely a help now, spent way too much of the season on a third line and on the right side.

So if you’re Stan, are you truly confident any big move you make is going to be deployed properly? Because if they aren’t, then you have to fire the coach in the middle of the season. Does Stan draw enough water to do that? Who’s more important to the higher-ups, Stan or Q? Does he already know he doesn’t? Do we know? Does Stan have a Plan B in case he does get to make that move? Would Jeremy Colliton be ready? And as a GM if you pull the trigger on a coaching change, your neck is now exposed. If it doesn’t turn things around, you and the coach you hired are out on your ass come the summer.

It seems Stan knows that whatever moves he makes specifically for next season, he can’t completely lose what’s after that, even if he’s not around for it. Because this roster is going to need to be augmented, fed, freshened by kids through the system each of the next two, three, four years to maintain and eventually replace THE CORE.

With Tavares looking likely to stay put, the one-and-done answer in free agency isn’t there. Anything else is subject to usage, which hasn’t always gone Stan’s way. We’ve said it wouldn’t make sense to fire a GM and not a coach midseason, because an interim GM can’t change much midseason. But not everything with the Hawks management has made sense, despite what their success says. They apparently gave the reins fully to Stan last summer, and then they missed the playoffs. Is he still as trusted? Or are Q and his allies getting their influence back?

We’ll know soon enough.

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Stan Bowman Meets The Media, Staring Contest Ensues

By Sam Fels 2174 0

Though I’m not sure you can have a staring contest via conference call, if anyone could it would be Stan Bowman.

We know that Bowman hates talking to the media, and even if he did it the only thing he’s good at is saying nothing. His update on a Marian Hossa injury years ago of, “Well he’s on schedule, but there’s no timetable,” being pretty much the perfect example of what we get when Bowman gets a microphone in his face. At best, he’s a master at saying exactly nothing. It was more of it today.

So we’ll get to the top of it, which is that the situation on Corey Crawford is exactly the same. Or more to the point, ain’t nobody sayin’ shit. There’s no update, and if there’s a key quote it’s, “We have no reason to believe that Corey won’t be ready for training camp.”

It’s interesting wording there, because there’s also no reason to believe he will be either. He hasn’t been on the ice, no one’s talked to him, and the Hawks can’t tell us where he is. At least not until the convention they can’t. And at this point it sounds like they’re going to dump this on Crow himself, which is how that phrase plays out.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Hawks have made a face at someone recovering from a head injury, if indeed that is what’s going on here. Jeremy Morin’s career stalled out here partly because the Hawks thought he took too long to come back from a head injury, and thus he wanted to fight everyone when he came back. They started whispering that Dave Bolland was taking too long to come back from a concussion as well, though we all later found out Bolland didn’t have a brain to bruise.

But of course, it might not be just a head injury, as those are the whispers that keep popping up more and more with all this idleness. Which, and we’re just speculating because it’s all we can do, if it is the recovery is entirely up to Crawford. You can’t put a timeframe on something that isn’t a physical injury, one would think, if that’s what we’re dealing with. And again, the “we have no reason to believe” kind of absolves the Hawks of doing anything, not that anyone thinks they’ve done anything wrong here.

It could not be a murkier situation, and maybe the Hawks are counting on everyone counting on it being cleared up at the Convention where Crawford is slated to appear. Except he could come out for his ovation at the opening ceremonies, and then basically not speak to the media from there on out and that would be very Hawks.

At this point, I’m not going to believe that Crawford is going to be at training camp on time, or even the regular season, until there’s reason to. If he were working out, you’d think they’d tell us. If he’s skated, you’d think they’d tell us. Or he has and had to stop. Really any conclusion you draw is not a good one, and we may find out more if the Hawks go out and get not just a credible backup but someone who might be a 1B.

-Other than that, Bowman’s call was a masterclass of being a mushmouth. They may move up in the draft, they may not. They like a lot of guys at #8. They’re trying to improve short-term and long-term. They may trade, they may not. They may sign guys, they may not. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear he was a GM.

With the rumblings of John Tavares staying put the odds of the Hawks making a huge splash went down, because there’s really only one or two other things to make a big splash with. John Carlson really doesn’t make that much sense for how expensive he’s going to be, and James van Riemsdyk probably does. Past that I can’t help you.

Sadly, Stan didn’t take the opportunity to completely rule out signing Slava Voynov, because if you’re an organization that has greatly welcomed and put up a statue of pieces of shit in your past, really why would you? He gave it the boilerplate “we can’t talk about anyone right now” instead of, “God no, I don’t want that fucking scumbag anywhere near the scumbag I already have” but then again no NHL GM has.

#EndHockey

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Burn The Pages Of Unwritten Memoirs – Draft Preview: Ty Smith

By Sam Fels 1548 0

Essentially, what we wrote here about Quinton Hughes at Michigan we could copy and paste for Smith out of the WHL. A tad undersized, but a dynamic offensive force from the blue line who exploded in his second year in the Western Hockey League.

After a 32-point season in his debut with Spokane, Smith went nuclear last year with 73 points in 69 games. That made him the second leading scorer as a d-man in the league, behind David Quenneville and ahead of one Henri Jokiharju. I suppose if I’m advocating having Jokiharju go straight to the NHL, then you could make the same case for Smith.

Smith doesn’t have the international experience that Jokiharju does, and hey, it’s a bitch being Canadian that way. Smith is also going to have to overcome the stigma of his size. He’s listed at 5-10 and 176, and that’s probably being generous. While the NHL is skewing smaller and faster, there are times when d-men have to be sturdy and strong and Smith is going to have to prove he can do so in those moments.

What Smith has that you can’t teach is being a plus-plus skater and instincts. Smith’s vision is already at a higher level than he plays according to scouting reports, and projects as a #1 power play QB in the not too distant future. He already has a great sense of when we can skate himself out of trouble, which is most times given his grace, and when he has to make a pass. He’s also not afraid to step up into the rush, or above his blue line to break up play quickly, which is a skill the Hawks prioritize heavily.

Unlike some others we’ve previewed, Smith is likely to be around when the Hawks pick. He’s been projected as low as #17 in some mock drafts and as high as #7 in others. The Hawks could conceivably drop down a few spots and get him and gobble up another pick if one team was desperate to move up. Again, the Hawks are basically short everywhere in the pipeline with only Jokiharju and Mitchell as d-men they’re counting on to make an impact at the NHL-level. Smith looks like he could be another.

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Burn The Pages Of Unwritten Memoirs – Draft Preview: Oliver Wahlstrom

By Sam Fels 1521 0

After two of the dream picks yesterday, we move to the likelier draftees for the Hawks. And even Oliver Wahlstrom might be a stretch. But some mock drafts have him getting to #8, and some even have him falling farther than that.

There are some who will tell you that Wahlstrom is the best offensive talent, or potential to be, in this draft. He might be the best American in the draft, ahead of Tkachuk and Hughes as well. There’s certainly a lot to work with here.

Wahlstrom was significantly the youngest player invited to last summer’s US Junior camp, which is what makes everyone take notice. Some will tell you he already has a professional-level shot, especially one-timer, which Wahlstrom himself has already boasted about. Whenever Wahlstrom gets to an NHL team he’ll already have a weapon that can contribute even if every other part of his game has to be brought along.  You could plug him on the left side of your power play and probably get 8-10 power play goals from jump street.

Wahlstrom isn’t just a sniper, though that’s the main feature of his game. He’s got good enough hands and vision that some have suggested he can play center, but wing appears to be where he will star. He’s also not small at 6-1, but is more than an average skater. Other than Svechnikov, there might not a better offensive force in the draft.

What’s even more intriguing about Wahlstrom is what he might spend next year doing. He was slated to go to Harvard, but considering that no one ever leaves Harvard early he’s now slated to attend Boston College. Wahlstrom holds dual-citizenship in Sweden, and it might make the most sense for him to play in Sweden in a professional league for a year. But given BC’s prowess and rep for building talents to be ready for the NHL, that’s where you’d likely find him.

And Wahlstrom is only going to need a season either in Europe or college. He’s already got NHL-level skills in one area, which means any team would get production from the first year of an ELC without wasting it by having him do anything the AHL. For the Hawks, they are short on top six talent in their pipeline, now that DeBrincat and Schmaltz have become part of the NHL roster and important ones. Sikura and Ejdsell are basically what they have bubbling underneath the surface. So adding someone of Wahlstrom’s quality would immediately make him the best forward prospect they have.

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Burn The Pages Of Unwritten Memoirs – Draft Preview: Quinton Hughes

By Sam Fels 1541 0

We’ll continue our look at possible Hawks picks with another son of a former player, and one who probably isn’t going to make it to the Hawks at #8 but would be a boon if he did. And that’s Quinton Hughes from Michigan.

Whatever team takes him had better realize that what Hughes does is kind of the future of the position. Not that he’s going to revolutionize the game or anything, but as more and more teams replicate what has made the Penguins successful the past three years, the Knights successful this one, and a handful of others, no longer are teams going to be content with having just one or two mobile d-men and filling out the rest of the blue line with atom-smashers. That’s going to get you beat in this league. The first team that basically throws out five or six puck-movers is probably the next one to have sustained success. Your d-men have to get themselves out of trouble, they have to be good with the puck to dodge aggressive forecheckers, and they have to then get up in the play. As the game speeds up it’s going to be harder and harder to pass your way through trouble. And to do that teams might have to forgive undersized d-men.

Hughes fits the bill. He’s only 5-10, so if teams are going to count on him to clear the crease or wrestle with guys continuously down low, that’s not going to fly. What he is is extremely graceful already for his age, and racking up 29 points in 34 games for the Wolverines in his first year there is nothing to sneeze at. He’s a gifted passer as well, so he can spring breaks from his own end when his feet won’t get him there. He’s basically going to a be a high-end Jared Spurgeon, and if you follow analytics at all you know that Spurgeon is actually one of the more effective d-men in the game and moving the play the right way.

Some teams are going to be scared off by his size, and I fear that the Hawks are one of them. And they can use all the help on the blue line they can get, even if Hughes is a year or two away. What are the sure things for three years from now? Keith will not be? Jokiharju? Ian Mitchell? Gustafsson and Forsling are definite questions still. The pipeline doesn’t have much more, and Hughes would certainly add to that.

Yes, Hughes might have a rough adjustment period figuring out angles and plays to compensate for his size. He’ll probably need to bulk up a bit to at least be a solid frame. But hey, Duncan Keith in reality is no more than 5-10 or 5-11 and figured it out, and you can be hard to play against in the corners with quick and smart hands, which Hughes already has.

While there are some real moronic teams ahead of the Hawks, it’s hard to see the Red Wings at six skipping on him, given his connections to the state through going to Michigan and having lived there now for a couple years. But hey, a boy can dream.

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Burn The Pages Of Unwritten Memoirs – Draft Preview: The Dreaded Laramie

By Sam Fels 1832 0

While it wouldn’t be our first choice, the Hawks are certainly making all the noise they can that they’re going to keep the #8 pick. And hey, they just might and Stan Bowman’s drafting record is not bad, and he hasn’t ever had a pick this high to play with. The highest pick Bowman has had since 2011 was #18, twice, and he took Mark McNeill (whoops!) and Teuvo Teravainen the next year (I hurt myself today…to see if I still feel…). Stan has only had two other first round picks, as some have been dispatched for deadline trades and the like, and those were Nick Schmaltz (good!) and Henri Jokiharju last year (probably good?).

So let’s start looking at some names the Hawks might take with that pick, if they do indeed keep it. There’s no player there that’s going to help this team next season, at least it’s very unlikely. And we’ll kick it off with Keith Tkachuk’s latest garbage son to enter the draft, Brady Tkachuk.

2017-2018 with Boston University: 40 games, 8 goals, 23 assists, 31 points, 61 PIM

I don’t even know why we’d list other players this week, because if the Hawks keep the pick, and Tkachuk is there, they’re taking him. You know it, I know it, they know it. It’s so obvious it’s like the current humidity just sitting on your head. The Hawks have kind of been obsesses with the Tkachuk family for a while. Keith was the preferred return for Roenick once upon a time, after the Hawks half-heartedly tried to just sign him while Bill Wirtz was asleep. While Stan Bowman has seemingly tried to change the organization’s focus to speed and skill, this is still a front office that values “GRITHEARTSANDPAPERFAAAAAAARRRRT” and you know if “Tkachuk” is the last name, there’s plenty of that.

At first, Tkachuk’s numbers at BU don’t jump out. But we went straight to the man on the ground, one Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy, who watches more Boston area college hockey than anyone who has any dreams of happiness in life would. And he sent this along, which are Tkachuk’s peripherals of the BU games Ryan attended, something like 15-18 of their 40.

Pretty dominant stuff. Tkachuk did play with other high draft picks, as one tends to do on Comm Ave in Boston, in Shane Bowers and Patrick Harper. Later, he was on a line with Jordan Greenway, who finished the year in the Olympics and then the Minnesota Wild. But according to Lambert, all of those players did worse without Tkachuk.

The eight goals only are a concern, but Tkachuk shot 6% all season and it’s unlikely that’s where he is as a player. Also, given his size a lot of his shots should come from in close.

Where Tkachuk has looked particularly tasty is in the past two World Juniors, and we know the Hawks love them some Yanks. He racked up 16 points in 14 games total, and drove the Canadians especially nuts this past tournament in the outdoor game.

Tkachuk isn’t just yap and size. He has exceptional hands and while he’s not a burner, he’s shiftier in traffic than his size would indicate. He’s a gifted playmaker as well, so he might be an oversized DeBrincat, though without the same marksmanship.

All of it signals that Tkachuk has a very good chance of being gone by the time the Hawks are on the clock, and even if I’m skeptical of what they like and would accentuate in Tkachuk’s game he would be a borderline-steal at #8. Tkachuk could probably contribute to an NHL team now, but the general thought is he’s going to play one more year at BU. He probably does need to get a little faster at least to be a real weapon at the top level, and that will be the focus for him next season.

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Friday News Dump/Contract Signings

By Sam Fels 2171 0

Generally on Friday afternoon is when anyone that has bad news to announce will release it, figuring most will miss out as they’re on their way home for the weekend and media departments are depleted. The signings of John Hayden and Vinnie Hinostroza to contract extensions aren’t exactly that, as they’re not bad news, but still basically flying under the radar before the draft.

John Hayden signed a one-way deal for two years at $750K. I’m just going to go ahead and state that if John Hayden has any serious role to play on the Hawks in those two years, the Hawks will then suck. Hayden really is only a body, and not even a strong or powerful one. He was sent down to Rockford in the middle of the season so he could play with the puck more, which he wasn’t on a fourth line. He then proceeded to not play with the puck in the AHL. I’m fairly sure “John Hayden” is another way to say, “Jimmy Hayes” or “Kyle Baun,” but will reserve judgement. The one-way deal is somewhat intriguing, I guess, but the Hawks have kept one-way deals down in the minors before and I fully expect if things turn around for the Hawks, that’s where Hayden can expect to be until injuries hit.

As for Hinostroza, he signed for twice that for two years, $1.5 million a year. As most anyone knows, I’m bullish on Vinnie Smalls as his underlying numbers suggest something of a secret weapon. Ideally he’s driving play on a third line and creating multitudes of chances against bums, and we’ll see if the Hawks can get him there instead of needing him to moonlight on the top six. I feel there’s a poor man’s Sheary or Guentzel here though, if the Hawks could stop fixating on his size for five minutes and worry about getting him and his game-breaking speed in open ice more often. $1.5 million might seem like an utter steal soon.

Anyway, that’s about it for the day. We’ll be here next week doing full draft-preview and maybe even reaction to a trade or two, given how the past has gone.

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Car Bomb’s Quest, Whichever Direction It Might Be

By Sam Fels 2250 0

Let’s pause from the offseason merry-go-round for a bit and talk about Dan Carcillo’s cause/drive/plea, whatever term is best. If you haven’t seen it, he posted a video to Twitter this week that’s worth the time:

At the top, it is clear that Carcillo is sincere, he is angry, he is still grieving, and he is concerned. He wants to see change and is willing to do the work and convincing to see it through. Overall, it should be highly commended.

Still, there’s a couple aspects where I feel Car Bomb is just a little off the path.

One, I’m not sure he’s attacking the right thing here. Clearly, the NHL and NHLPA have a lot of work to do. The NHL already has a lawsuit to deal with that almost assuredly will not go well for them, and the union could obviously do more to open the NHL up with information and actual, concerted plan for how to deal with head injuries. This half-in, half-out, quiet room if it’s a third-liner and it’s not the playoffs garbage clearly isn’t working.

And yet, the NHLPA works for the players, at least in theory. And it brings into question what the endgame for Carcillo and others is. Essentially, much like the NFL, it feels that the result should be that all players coming into the league, as well as parents and children just starting the game, know what the risks down the road are. You can’t remove head injuries from hockey. The game moves too fast and especially at the higher levels they guys are too big. There are obviously things the NHL, and NCAA and juniors and all the way down can do, and we’ll get to that. But you’re never going to remove risk from the game, just as you can’t in football.

Parents can make informed decisions, so can players as they get older. And the thing is, if given all the information and warned of what can be waiting when the playing career is over (and no matter how concussed you are, you can still be a GM of course), if a player has a chance at the NHL, I think we know what their choice is going to be. I think you’d find the same with football as well. Most, and maybe an overwhelming most, are going to still play and take the glory, money, fame, whatever else. And while that might not be the choice for us, it’s certainly one we can understand. Players want to keep playing, and while we may say they have to be protected from themselves, how many honestly would agree to that?

Really, it seems to be a debate of what we, the viewing public, can live with instead of what the players want, and yet it’s never framed that way. At this point, players in both the NHL and the NFL would have to have their head in the sand to not know what they’re risking, at least in some ways. Clearly there could be more done, but it no longer is a secret. And they’re still out there. More and more I hear people saying they can’t watch football because of what they now know it’s doing to the players. That could easily come to hockey, too. And that’s our choice. Pretty soon, everyone on the ice and in the stands is going to know exactly what’s going on, what’s at stake, and it’s up to them whether they want it in their lives or not.

Secondly, Carcillo only makes a passing mention of how he played the game, though finally acknowledging at long last that he did cause injuries to others. He fails to mention all the injuries he tried to cause, but baby steps to the elevator. We’ll get there.

And that doesn’t mean that Carcillo’s career and/or style should disqualify him from speaking out or leading this charge. In fact, he might be the right voice to do so. But only if he fully recognizes what he did on the ice, and is then speaking to those who are doing the same now (hi there, Tom Wilson, Brad Marchand, Ryan Reaves, I could go on…). I think we’ll all accept the occasional hit that goes bad or collisions. What the game has to rid itself of is deliberate attempts to injure, and more ex-players who did that speaking out would be a huge step in that. A sort of, “I was once like you and now look at what I have…” kind of thing.

Yes, the NHL needs a better head trauma protocol. But it also needs its players to want it. Players don’t want to leave the ice. They don’t want to get checked out. They jake their baseline tests to appear less hurt than they are when they have to take them again. And while Carcillo wants to lay all of the blame at the feet of the union and league, the “Warrior Mentality” is just as at fault. That players and fans either label those who want any attempt at a headshot out of the game weak or those that do are afraid of speaking up. Players don’t want teammates suspended for 20 games or more, which is what it will take and what Wilson or others should have already banked. Coaches and GMs need to stop employing and deploying players who do nothing else, forcing others to respond in kind.

The problems are there, and it’s a very good thing that Carcillo wants them addressed and now. But they’re more widespread than he either realizes or wants to admit.

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Jokiharju, Saad, And Figuring Out The Puzzle

By Sam Fels 2656 0

It feels like Stan Bowman is going to have another “June 23rd” in the coming week. That was the day last year when he went more aggressive than we’d seen before, some might say he went “a little funny in the head,” and shipped out Artemi Panarin and Niklas Hjalmarsson (hilariously not telling his coach) for Brandon Saad and Connor Murphy. We’ve already been down the road on whether these were good trades or not, so we don’t have to do that again right now.

What’s clear is that Stan knows the temperature under his office chair is getting turned up, and Rocky Wirtz going “Kiss Of Death” after his flavorless Manhattan of a season in Crain’s made that abundantly clear, as well as John McDonough stomping around the Hawks offices like Dracula and Miranda Priestly’s lovechild.

So earlier in the week we talked about Justin Faulk, as that’s been the big rumor. Yesterday, the Sun-Times’s Mark Lazerus (closer than you know…love each other so…Mark Lazerus) put forth a rumor that Faulk might cost the Hawks one Brandon Saad. When reading that for all of us here, we cringe a bit, mostly because we love Saad and mostly because we feel that trading him after this season would A) be selling low and B) evidence that the Hawks don’t really have any sort of plan.

And yet, when you begin to think about it, this might make more sense. While Faulk didn’t have his best year last year, that kind of return for Saad certainly wouldn’t be selling low, per se. As previously stated, the Hawks don’t have a lot of pieces. While we dream about centering a deal around Artem Anisimov, fooling some GM with his goal totals and size for the far too many GMs who are still concerned about that sort of thing, it’s unlikely. The Hawks simply can’t lose Schmaltz, because they don’t have much depth down the middle. DeBrincat is almost certainly untouchable, given that he could very well be a 35-goal scorer if deployed properly. To give you some idea how valuable that is, there were only seven 35-goal scorers in the league this year. Dylan Sikura wouldn’t have much value, one would think. Below the main roster, it’s hard to see what else the Hawks can throw at a team. There’s no surefire prospect, though we’ll get to Jokiharju in a second.

Still, the loss of Saad makes the Hawks look awfully short at forward. You have….this?

– Toews – Hinostroza?

DeBrincat – Schmaltz – Kane

Sikura – Anisimov/Ejdsell – Duclair?

Jurco – Anisimov/Ejdsell – DUHHHHHH?

No offense, but I’m not going to make plans for that team in May. I guess this is the balance. Toss in David Kampf and an almost certainly returning Tommy Wingels (it’s a name, not a condition) and you’re still not inspired to write poetry about it. If the Hawks had another kid you were confident could step in to a top six role, you’d be more comfortable losing Saad, but he doesn’t exist yet.

You could argue the Hawks should just load the top line and let the rest fall where it may and have Top Cat, Toews, and Kane up there and just pray they jump into hyperspace, and maybe that’s the plan. I guess I can live with a second line of Sikura-Schmaltz-Hinostroza… I just won’t live comfortably. Or happily. Or healthily.

Which brings us around to Henri Jokiharju, who signed his entry-level deal yesterday. Now, normally, I would bet pretty good money the Hawks bring him to camp, throw him out in a couple preseason games, and then punt him back to Portland for his last year in the WHL. But this is not a normal time, and both Q and Stan might have to get outside their comfort zone here.

Yes, Jokiharju is only 19. But his numbers compare favorably with Mikhail Sergachev, who played a role on the best regular season team in the league. And Jokiharju did it in the WHL, which is a much tougher scoring environment than the OHL where Sergachev was. He also squares with Ivan Provorov, who has been the Flyers best d-man the past two years (and don’t give me any Ghost Bear bullshit).

Basically, what I’m saying is the Hawks are desperate, and it may come to toss Jokiharju in the deep end and leave with it. That doesn’t mean pairing him with Keith, but a heavily sheltered role with Murphy on his off-side or Dahlstrom or something I haven’t thought of and see where you are after 40 games. If he plays his way up the lineup, even better. But even at his tender age, he almost certainly can give you something in the same usage that Sergachev provided, assuming that Quenneville wouldn’t turn psychedelic purple at the thought of using a d-man who isn’t 20 yet. He did it before with Leddy…though we all know how that went at first.

While Stan might say something about “development,” he isn’t going to be here for the end of Jokiharju’s apprenticeship at lower levels if the Hawks don’t turn it around.

It would take quite the set of tires to pin that much on Jokiharju before he’s ever played professionally, but if the Hawks sold out on him in their minds they might consider cheaper additions on the blue line, like de Haan or Hickey from the Islanders or whatever they could fashion out of Anisimov (which is clearly Nurse from Edmonton because Peter Chiarelli would totally do that) and keep Saad around.

It’s not going to be boring.