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Night Songs – Round 1 Day 11: Oh Bob…You Came And You Turned Into A Turkey…

By Sam Fels 1681 0

One blue team showed some zest in staying alive. Another very much did not. So as they said in The Tick, “Well that’s about it for the blue guy.”

Bruins 1 – Leafs 3 (Tied 3-3)

I really want to believe that the Bruins are just doing this to torture torture THE NATION even more than simply paddling this team in four or five games would have done. Because it’s looking an awful lot like 2013 again. The Bruins even threw a 4-1 comeback at them in Game 5 only to fall short.

And yet…and yet, I can’t help but notice every time I look up, Charlie McAvoy–the supposed engine of this Bruins resurgence–is doing a might fine impression of a wavy-arm inflatable balloon man anytime the Leafs enter the zone against him. Can’t help but notice Tuukka Rask, who’s been utterly awful in games the Bruins can end a series, hasn’t looked very good. I can’t help but notice that when the line of Pastrnak-Bergeron-Marchand doesn’t score, the Bruins don’t score all that much, even though everyone told me that they were definitely not a one line team all season.

Still, last night the Bruins were pretty much all over the Leafs most of the game, and Freddie Andersen did that thing where he gets his team just close enough to have a crushing defeat. That’s the most likely outcome still here, especially if the Leafs repeat this thing where they’re getting barely 35% of the attempts. Bergeron’s line running over Plekanec’s time and time again assuredly is going to work out in the black and yellow’s favor sooner rather than later. Though I guess that sooner had better be next game.

Capitals 6 – Jackets 3 (Caps win 4-2)

Given how quickly hockey media loves to quickly and usually unfairly criticize Russian players, it’s kind of amazing they haven’t gotten to this yet: Sergei Bobrovsky sucks in the playoffs. His career save-percentage is .891 in 24 games played. Granted, three of those came against the Penguins and two of them were in series where Columbus was seriously overmatched. You could forgive that a little, though saving an overmatched team is what Bob does for 82 games a year.

But this Jackets team was not overmatched by the Capitals. They may not be as good, but it was pretty close. And in the other net was an untested rookie or a veteran having a very shaky season. And the latter was miles better than Bob. The Caps basically have a top line and Oshie and Backstrom, and yet they scored 22 goals in six games against Bob. On 221 shots, which makes for a .900. His SV% at evens was .925, which is fine, and it was expected to be .919, so he did ok there. but he just fell apart on the kill with a .826. And the Jackets were not giving up great chances there.

It’s not like Columbus is going to make a change in net, but this should be an issue next year when you think they’re going to really want to do something other than be the chorus girls for the show before shuffling offstage again.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Philadelphia Flyers

By Sam Fels 1974 0

It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. And now, to the routine of Western PA…

If I were to ask you to sketch out what a Philadelphia Flyers crash-out would look like, you almost certainly would have presented something that looked a lot like yesterday afternoon. Even if the Flyers haven’t done this as much recently as their reputation suggests, you would know exactly what it looks like.

They would take a lead in the second period. They would be running all over the place trying to hit everything that moves, including their captain boiling over. Their crowd would be in a frenzy. They would be on the cusp of a real breakthrough by sheer fury. And then their superior opponent would inhale deeply and say, “Ok, enough of this bullshit.” Then there would be defensive breakdowns everywhere. They would treat the puck like it was covered in space herpes. Their goalie would have an existential crisis and have to stay in because the one on the bench is an existential crisis. They would give up an avalanche of goals in like four minutes, and then it would be over. Their still-Super-Bowl-drunk fans would hurl whatever garbage was hurl-able onto the ice, as the only garbage they couldn’t throw was themselves. But they’ll figure that out one day. It was ever thus.

It wouldn’t be complete without Flyers fans conspiracy/inferiority complex shining through, which I guess is what happens when your city is wedged between a bunch of other cities people would rather go to and your weather level switches from winter to sweat. By the time October rolls around, Flyers fans will have convinced you that the trip on Sean Couturier leading to Guentzel’s goal was a crime on the level of various Kennedy assassinations, even though Couturier looked like he was trying to moonsault a ghost and probably was having trouble standing up anyway thanks to his own teammate shredding his knee in practice. Something about Philadelphia and practice.

Only an organization and institution this rockheaded could just wave away their dumber version of Rocksteady and Bebop d-man, Radko Gudas, handicapping their #1 center in practice because “THEY’RE SO TOUGH.” This is a place that wears it as a badge of honor that they get their sandwiches out of a fucking gas station. You’d think the Flyers would know that running around and grabbing your sac for a whole game eventually is going to leave your defense and your goalie exposed, and yet they dive headlong into it every time. In Philadelphia it’s always 1976.

Lots of people will tell you Cold Ones have a bright future ahead of them. And they do, if you think being the Maple Leafs is a bright future. They could be loaded at forward in two years, but have exactly one d-man worth a shit in Ivan Provorov, assuming Gudas hasn’t broken  his will to live by passing him another hand grenade when he’s already covered. If this series proved anything it’s that Ghost Bear is just a cooler name for Marc-Andre Bergeron (stick tap to Anthrax for that one).

And the Flyers will continue to have a Gudas on their roster, because it’s what they do. Fuck, you can totally see Roman Polak ending up here when he’s finally forced out of the loving arms of Mike Babcock. If we can get Gudas and Polak on the same pairing we actually would have Rocksteady and Bebop on an NHL team.

And when it all goes belly up again because wearing orange turns every goalie into an actual traffic cone, there will be Claude Giroux yapping and running around like a frat boy on a coke binge, without actually scoring any goals that might help his team get anywhere. In his last 19 playoff games Giroux has three goals. But man, he sure got all of Carl Hagelin eight seconds after the puck was gone, didn’t he? And in the end, isn’t that the real truth? The answer, is no. Giroux joins the unfathomably long list of ultra talented Flyers that the city and fans turned into a slobbering dingus with granite for brains and then hands when it matters most.

So long to the Flyers, who definitely are the Flyers more than anyone has ever been anything else. It’s reassuring in a way, the dedication to their character. If the NHL were a movie they would be the scenery chewers. They live in this role and always have, and always will. And it’s always good comedy.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Minnesota Wild

By Sam Fels 1792 0

It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. Now, a rite of spring…

Actually, that picture should probably portray Zach Parise as Death, because today he turned a new trick by expanding on getting his coaches fired by getting his GM fired, and a big reason is the contract Parise signed. Good stuff, that.

Whereas there was joy in kicking dirt all over the bloated corpses of the Ducks and Kings, sending the Wild out with a quiet word is really just a reflex of the spring. About the only thing they provided was quality #BoudreauFace during these playoffs, as it quickly became obvious to him and everyone else his team was just ridiculously overmatched. If any player turned around on the bench and saw the expression of their coach it would have been an upset if they hopped over the boards ever again.

But this is what you sign up for when you have Boudreau behind the bench. Since he left the Capitals, his Ducks and Wild teams have these great seasons that take place almost entirely in the dark. You check the standings every few weeks and your reaction is always, “Huh, how’d they get there?” Because you wouldn’t ever choose to watch them. And then you go on about your life only to repeat the process a few weeks later. Then, when the playoffs start and you really pay attention, you really wonder how they hell they finished where they did, at least you do for the six minutes the Wild are around in the playoffs.

Once again, Devan Dubnyk was the second-best goalie in a series, just as he was in ’15, and ’16, and last year. And you have to hand it to him, because he’s been the second-best goalie in a series to a wild variety of other goalies, from one of the league’s best (Crawford) to genuinely terrible goalies (Niemi and Lehtonen) to absolute basketcases (Jake Allen) and now a young one in his first playoff series (Hellebuyck). He is wonderful talent enhancement.

It was another year of writers marveling at what a defensive wizard Mikko Koivu is in the dregs of February, and then watching him get turned into dog food in the playoffs. A 41% Corsi for the series, reminding us once again he’s a million years old and the Wild have yet to produce a center that’s really any better than him. The State of Hockey is one of paralysis. If Beckett had been around now he would have written a sequel to Godot about the Wild and waiting for anything or anyone of consequence to happen.

It’s really hard to stress just how much the Wild, a 100-point team somehow, got their ass handed to them in five games. No player achieved a positive possession rating over five games, and this was to a franchise that had never won a playoff series before. This might not even count, considering the cannon fodder the Wild were. It’s like counting something in the Home Run Derby as your first major league hit.

And the thing is, the Wild aren’t going to change. They can’t. They have to find the money to pay Dumba and Zucker, and that will be that. They won’t have any flexibility to do anything else, and they’ll roll out the exact same team next year that will amass around 100 points thanks to Gabby’s “Go get ’em, scouts!” system that sees them play really hard when no one cares. And we’ll get more and more articles of “Boudreau does it again! What a magician!”

And then April rolls around, they’ll face a good team that cares again and they’ll get walloped. We’ll get shots of Boudreau behind the bench, the definition of “out of answers,” and he’ll basically be the same shade as Grimace (and shape) by Game 4. His career playoff winning percentage is .478. But hey, he talks to the media and is kind of adorable, so let’s just ignore the fact that he’s almost certainly a moron.

There’s a lesson to the Wild. Constancy. Some teams just have to fill out the numbers, to perform the same cycle over and over to make the ones who change stand out. They’re the backup singers doing the same dance routine every night while Jagger is out front. They help hit the harmonies for the rest of the league, and then fade into the background when the important notes are sung. They are water carriers. Good things there’s a lot of it in Minnesota.

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Not Until You Eat The Peanuts Outta My…-FFUD’s Player Reviews: Brent Seabrook or Maybe He’s Not Earthquake?

By Sam Fels 1695 0

It’s been a while now that Brent Seabrook has been our main punching bag. He actually started this slide years ago, in the lockout season if you’ll recall. He redeemed himself with THAT goal, and then THAT OTHER goal, and was mostly fine in the playoffs, but he did not have a good season. We blamed it on the nature of the campaign and not playing during the lockout. He wasn’t really any better the following year, and the Kings tore him apart in the conference final, scoring roughly 64 rebound goals while Seabrook watched alongside the rest of us. He rebounded in the last championship campaign, and was pretty much a monster alongside Duncan Keith’s Conn Smythe journey.

And that’s basically where it peaked. Seabrook isn’t the first to lose their battle with Time, and he obviously won’t be the last. It was particularly ugly at times this year, and we and others certainly didn’t hesitate to call it out.

The thing was, it might not have been that bad?

Brent Seabrook

81 games, 7 goals, 19 assists, 26 points, -3, 38 PIM

51.4 CF%, -1.36 CF% rel, 49.0 xGF%, -0.65 xGF% rel, 55.8 Zone Start Ratio

The problems for Seabrook were myriad, but the main one seemed to be that the Hawks didn’t know where to slot him. His pairing with Duncan Keith, the foundation on which this whole thing was built for only about eight years, just didn’t work. Keith doesn’t have the quickness to cover for Seabrook’s mobility that disappeared somewhere in 2016. Seabrook couldn’t cover for a recalibrating Keith. Mostly, it was just ugly, and it’s why of the d-men Seabrook played with his pairing with Keith had the worst metrics (48.5 CF%).

But on the flip side, for the entire middle portion of the season his pairing with Connor Murphy did work. Murphy wasn’t nearly as adventurous as Keith, so he was in better position to cover. Murphy allowed Seabrook to still do some of his cowboy act, which has always been part of his game. Together, they pushed the play the right way (53.0 CF%, 56.5 SCF%).

The numbers with Erik Gustafsson aren’t as good overall as they were with Murphy, but they’re still on the plus-side of the ledger and we all saw how it ended the season. Now, at the end of a season when all is lost probably isn’t the best time to judge things, but Gustafsson’s “Three Musketeers In One” act kept Seabrook in a strictly support role, which is probably what he should be doing. Seabs can’t go cruising up the ice where he’ll never get back if Gustafsson is leading rushes himself. And we know Gustafsson isn’t getting back. It’s hard to say if this is a a solution in the future or just something a flawed team came up with in the death throes of a season everyone wanted over.

The problems are obvious. Seabrook can’t move, and even his passing–still top level–is nullified when he can’t even give himself the time and space to execute it. He still wants to be as aggressive as he was, but he simply can’t. The times when he realized that and played a more reserved game, it was actually ok. It just didn’t happen enough.

Outlook: Both Seabrook and the Hawks have to accept what he isn’t anymore and figure out what he should be. Seabrook hasn’t quite adjusted his game the way Keith was at least trying to at times, and he’s going to have to. Ideally, on a team that has any hope of doing anything, he’s your third-pairing rock. He can still be your triggerman on the second power play unit, assuming you have two real-ass QBs for each (the Hawks don’t have one at the moment). If you absolutely have to you can probably get away with Seabrook taking #4 minutes, but your first three had better be something special. That doesn’t look like happening. Seabrook is cut out for the glorified Sopel/Rozsival role of years past. It’s up to the Hawks to find enough to get him there, and it’s up to Seabrook to accept that.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 1 Day 9: When The Chips Are Down, They’ll Eat Each Other

By Sam Fels 1686 0

Let’s just dive right in because I want to get right to it.

Bruins 3 – Toronto Red Sox 1 (BOS leads 3-1)

That’s what they’ve become. The Leafs are now the pre-2004 Red Sox. It’s not enough for them to lose because quite simply they’re not good enough and have been just a little strangely put together. Because the Red Sox rolled out some good, not great, teams from the late 90s to the early 2000s, ones that could make the playoffs, but ones that were never near good enough to beat the Yankees or even Cleveland.

No, it’s about how their fans and media demand to be center stage, so that they make sure everyone can see just how tortured they are and how make it clear just how much everyone hates them when really we just want them to shut up. Their coverage spikes because they’re the most followed team, and when they’re done (which is very soon) the story isn’t about who will win the Cup but about what will the Leafs do in the offseason. And they’re sure you care, and if you don’t they’ll make sure that you do, and if you still don’t then clearly there’s something wrong with you. It’s become where the league simply exists to be a platform for the Leafs. Everything is against them don’t you know, even when everything is for them.

Recall one of the thousands of cheap Family Guy cutaways about two guys writing on their laptops in a coffee shop. And more than concern with actually writing, they constantly check to make sure the other is watching them write so that it’s clear they are writers to the other. That’s Leafs fans, except it’s stabbing themselves in the chests figuratively (and I can only hope it stays figuratively). “Is everyone watching me cut my heart out? Because that’s what it’s like being a Leafs fan! Are you watching? See how I’m bleeding? Are you watching how hard this is. It’s so hard can’t you see?!”

Quite simply, the Leafs got goalie’d last night, nothing more nothing less. And it happens. It happens when your masked man is Freddie Andersen, who has years of evidence that he’s just not quite up to it when the lights are brightest that THE NATION just chose to ignore. Rask’s pedigree is so far beyond him it’s laughable. In pretty much every series, each team will have a game where they get goalie’d. It’s why sweeps are so rare. It’s getting beyond that which is the true test.

It didn’t stop their coach from calling out his star, who only put up a 65% share last night, and chumming the waters for his braindead fanbase. I can only hope Auston Matthews sees all this and decides this is bullshit he doesn’t need for his career and asks out. It’s what Leafs fans would deserve.

They’d all rather be watching the Marlies anyway.

Capitals 4 – Jackets 1 (Tied 2-2)

When playing a team as mentally fragile as the Capitals, and you have them down 2-0 and heading home, and after they’d blown leads in the first two games, you wouldn’t think you’d come out and be on the tame side in front of your own crowd that’s never seen you win a series. But then, you’re not John Tortorella. If the Jackets lose this series he should be canned before they even leave the arena, but I doubt that’ll happen.

While the Jackets don’t have the world’s greatest set of forwards, with a team this much on the mat you’d send out your stall to tear into what is still no a great Caps blue line. Trade chances with them if you have to, because once Ovechkin is off the ice what really scares you? Get the Caps down early, get your building into a frenzy, because we know Washington needs only the slightest push to decide they’ve had enough. But no, that’s not how Torts works when he’s focused on getting everyone to block shots.

Honestly, I hope the Caps win this series. They took enough shit in the first two games and a third straight pile-driver to the Penguins would be even more entertaining. Or finally getting over them would be too. Either way, it’s clear we don’t need Columbus around.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Anaheim Ducks

By Sam Fels 2112 0

It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. Today, perhaps our favorite target…

Here’s a stat for you: Four games, no goals, 25 shots.

That’s what Ryan Kesler, Corey Perry, and Ryan Getzlaf put up in their four-game surrender to the San Jose Sharks this past week. And that’s still what the Ducks forward group pivots around. It would seem their 2011-2013 Canucks cosplay is now complete, and we can look forward to the Ducks fading into Bolivia next year. Hey, Alain Vigneault is available!

And I get the impression that’s what they would prefer. We used to greatly enjoy the Ducks yearly capitulation in Game 7s at home, after leading 3-2. Then we marveled at it. Then we just accepted it as a rite of spring, right alongside canceled home games for the Cubs and Sox, summer beers hitting the shelves, and maybe one pothole in your zip code getting fixed.

But I figured something out watching this team last night. They want to lose. They don’t want to be in Orange County any longer than they have to. Think about it. You can’t lose that many series from winning positions unless deep down somewhere inside of you that’s really what you want. There are no accidents, Freud. Which tells you just how bad the Oilers have to be because even with the Ducks actively trying to end their own season, the Oilers couldn’t walk through the very opened door.

Go back and look in their faces. They hate being Ducks. Because really, what’s the appeal? Oh sure, the sun and warmth? Would you really trade that to have to live in Anaheim? It’s San Diego without the whimsy. And San Diego is just Boston without the winter or unique architecture. And Boston SUCKS. And aside from the fish tacos and craft beer, San Diego sucks. So imagine being in a worse version all the time, and stuck in traffic. Choosing which mini mall you’ll shop at today. Cuisine that at its height features Del Taco. You play in a soulless building in front of perhaps the dumbest per capita fanbase in the league (as there are only like 19 Ducks fans). You have to wear a jersey that looks like something people thrown out of Tron wore. You play for  a coach who couldn’t make toast and makes anyone who completes two consecutive passes skate laps or drink canola oil. And he replaced a coach whose tactical plan consisted of a picture of The Little Engine That Could.  Nothing you ever do will matter. You claim a parking lot as your home. You’re second banana to a baseball team that hasn’t mattered in over a decade.

Thanks to a fluke championship where they also happened to lead the league in fights, the entire organization and fans think that if the Ducks aren’t fighting they’re losing. So everywhere you go some jackass in socks and sandals and a backwards and upside down visor is telling you to fight more when you can’t score. You’re always answering for Corey Perry’s and Ryan Kesler’s shit, even though they can’t play anymore. You’re watching Ryan Getzlaf barely enter the offensive zone for fear he might injure his check-endorsing hand. What’s the point?

Even Kesler doesn’t want to anymore. If you watched him enter any scrum last night you saw a guy doing what he thought he was supposed to from memory. The passion wasn’t there. He was just following a script. He wanted to go back home…the abandoned boathouse among the possums he calls his family. Whatever life-force he had has circled the drain round the 405 like the rest of the place.

It’s not that this team is old, though it is in spots. It’s not that it has holes in the roster, though it does. It’s that just that even being a Duck has robbed them of life. Whatever light they had has gone out. They don’t care anymore, and they won’t until the roster is completely turned over. And moved to Portland or Hamilton. Anaheim has robbed this team of any soul, to match the setting it plays in. This is a team that wants to fold in on itself. It wants to die. It wants to no longer exist.

So you’ve got your wish for another year, Ducks. But I’m sorry to say, for all of us, that you’ll have to do it all again in October. And it will be even more pointless than before. No one’s coming to put you out of your misery permanently. You’ll have to keep doing this, in the diseased prostate of California, forever. There is no escape.

 

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Not Until You Eat The Peanuts Outta My… -FFUD’s Player Reviews: Duncan Keith or Diminishing Flash

By Sam Fels 1858 0

Duncan Keith had a couple things going for him this year, in terms of not being the subject of the hairdryer treatment from fans and media alike that Seabrook, Saad, and Toews got. One, Seabrook soaked up most of it amongst the d-men, mostly because Seabrook’s contract was never a bargain which Keith’s has been for a decade now. Or was. Second, Keith has never been put center of the Hawks marketing blitz like Toews has, nor has he show much motivation to be so. While he was the most important skater for the Hawks for said decade, and he was, he’s never been covered or treated that way, even though his silverware cabinet eclipses that of any of his teammates and most players in the NHL (to review: three rings, two Norris Trophies, two gold medals, and a Conn Smythe, the only Hawk who actually got the Conn Smythe he deserved).

So even though Keith has clearly hit the back nine on his career, the knives for him aren’t nearly as sharp. And they probably shouldn’t be. Let’s dive in, folks:

Duncan Keith

82 games (first time he’s done that since 2011), 2 goals, 30 assists, 32 points, -29, 28 PIM

51.8 CF%, 0.73 CF% rel, 51.3 SCF%, 47.1 xGF%, -3.57 xGF% rel

So if I were to map out the numbers over the previous five years, you would see that yes, these are lower than what Keith used to do, but they’re not really that far off what he was doing in 2016-2017. That’s when he was mostly paired with Hjalmarsson, they were taking the hardest shifts in terms of opponents and zone starts, and both of them were starting to creak rather loudly.

Here’s the scary part of Keith’s numbers this year, though. It’s with a huge uptick in offensive zone starts. This year Keith’s Zone Start Rating–the measure offensive zone starts against total starts–was 59.2. Last year it was 52.3. So even with start many more shifts in the offensive zone, Keith wasn’t really pushing the play at all. That’s a problem.

Another problem was finding someone to play with Keith. At this point in his career, Keith needs someone to do some of the work for him. He can’t be the ultimate defensive guy and squeeze the play up the ice as he had done in the past, with either Seabrook or Hjalmarsson basically being the “Break Glass In Case Of…” guy behind him. Most of his time was spent with Jordan Oesterle, who we know is basically a faint suggestion of anything. Oesterle is basically the blank slate you get when you Create-a-Player, before you earn any points to improve him. Even though they went back to it at the end of the season. Brent Seabrook simply isn’t up to it anymore. The pairing with Connor Murphy just didn’t quite work, which had to have been the blueprint before the season started. Then again, they only got about 10 games together, so it’s probably worth trying again next year.

A lot was made of Keith’s lonely two goals (one of which kept the Blues out of the playoffs so that should count for like 10, if not 100). What’s kind of funny is that Keith got more attempts per game, more shots on goal per game, and more xG per game than in his previous seasons. He just shot an utterly unfathomable and really quite comedic 1% overall. Even for a d-man that’s…I mean I think the adjectives are beyond me. Farcical would be a good place to start. Seuessian might be another. Some of that has to be a result of starting in the offensive zone more than ever before.

The thing is Keith has never been a great offensive d-man. And that sounds strange for a two-time Norris winner and has a few 50+ point seasons to his name. But Keith’s offense, as we’ve said repeatedly, springs from his defense. He’s not Karlsson. He’s not Subban. He’s not Hedman. He would stop rushes against at his own blue line or before, get the puck up to the forwards ASAP and then join the rush. He would be the late-man or rack up secondary assists. He’s not really, nor has never been, a playmaker.

So next year you can look for his point totals to go up simply because HOCKEY. But that doesn’t mean the Hawks can count on him to be a top-pairing puck-mover ever again. He’s not going to be. To go with the numbers, you could see that the plays Keith used to make, and the ones you wouldn’t necessarily teach, he couldn’t quite get to anymore. He couldn’t step up outside his blue line as consistently anymore because he could get beat to the outside. He couldn’t chase outside the circles in his own zone because more and more forwards could get around him. He couldn’t fly out to the corners in the same way because he wouldn’t get there in time or he’d get beat back to the net.

That’s not to write off Keith at all. His instincts are still upper echelon. What he needs is to find a way to shrink his game, and to do that the Hawks are going to have to find him a partner who allows him to. It has to be someone mobile, because you want someone who can cover for Keith and not the other way around. It has to be someone who can get up the ice the way Keith used to, and it has to be stressed to Duncs that he’s just not that guy anymore. Murphy in theory can do the first part but not really the second. Gustafsson is too wonky in his own end to do the first part. If Jokiharju were two years older, he has the skillset to be that guy. But he’s not going to be ready for that. Forsling has the Gustafsson problem. The answer is going to have to come from outside the organization. I just don’t know what that answer is, and know it most likely will be very expensive in terms of either money, chips in a trade, or both.

But then…all of Karlsson, OEL, and Faulk are probably going to be out there in the trade market…I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.

Everything Else

Night Songs – Round 1 Day 8: California Is Burning

By Sam Fels 1898 0

Let’s all shed a tear for SoCal hockey. Because they love being called “SoCal.” Anyway, now that that’s over…

Penguins 5 – Flyers 0 (PIT leads 3-1)

Only in hockey would it basically go under the radar that the Flyers rock-person defenseman Radko Gudas…

Injured their #1 center in practice! Sure, they’re all calling it an accident but there was video of it and it sure didn’t look all that accidental. Gudas, who thinks toothpaste comes out of the tube via magic, who can’t do anything but put other players in danger, kneecapped his own team’s chances in practice! We’re talkin’ bout practice! Imagine if like…fuck I don’t even know what to compare it to…Tristan Thompson tripping LeBron James? Ok, Sean Couturier isn’t LeBron on ice or anything close.

The point is that in Philly, this is just the price of doing business. Flyers fans don’t seem to care, because they either think their players are supposed to do Medieval Times for real in practice or that the Flyers are just such a ridiculous entity that of course their d-man who sets the sport back a decade is going to injure their #1 center because FLYERA. What a team. What a city. Maybe they’re still drunk from the Iggles (maybe?!).

Anyway, the Flyers are done and the Penguins are more fun anyway.

Lightning 3 – Devils 1 (TB Diddler’s lead 3-1)

This series is still taking place in the dark, but if you missed it they did try and kill each other last night. Nikita Kucherov probably should get whacked for a game for his hit on Sami Vatanen, which if you missed, and the Devils spent the rest of the night trying to exact a pound of flesh. Which really isn’t their strength. And the Lightning just skipped off with the space. This will end soon, which is fine because the Devils aren’t supposed to really be here in the arc of their development anyway. At least Taylor Hall got the spotlight.

Predators 3 – Avalanche 2 (NSH leads 3-1)

Just outclassed. Filip Forsberg can probably do this himself, even if it never feels like the Preds have hit anywhere near top gear. They did enough in the first two periods to demonstrate what a mismatch this is, considering what the Avs are and what they’re missing. The Avs did mount a furious comeback but when you’re there that’s rarely going to work. Let’s get to what we’ve all been waiting for.

Ducks 1 – Sharks 2 (Sharks sweep)

I’ll have more on this in the Ducks eulogy later today, but safe to say no one’s going to miss the Ducks. Even the Ducks. The Sharks are just an efficient team built to win a round or two but then job for one of the powers out of the Central. Then again, you can see them giving the Preds or Jets a real problem simply from memory because they’ve done this so much. It’s a very good blue line that’s fully healthy, Jones is playing really well, and if Thornton returns and THEY KEEP PAVELSKI AT CENTER WHAT’S SO HARD ABOUT THIS then they’ve got real depth. It feels like it’s very Sharks-depth though, where it’s just enough to break their fans’ hearts again. But that’s their way.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The LA Kings

By Sam Fels 2037 0

It used to be tradition that playoff exits were complimented by eulogies on Puck Daddy. But with Wysh off in the Connecticut hinterlands and those who remain at Yahoo! being a bunch of Canadian giblets who take things far too seriously (and Lambert being angry and definitely not a Bruins fan), we don’t need them to do what we do best. So fuck it. We’ll eulogize all 15 teams that will eventually fall. And we take unique pleasure in getting to do the Kings first. 

Leave it to the Kings to play quite simply the most unwatchable series since the Lockout of  ’04-’05. There are snuff films that have been lighter fare than their four-game outhouse-cleaning loss to the Knights. If they’d offered this as a prop bet it would have been easy money. While they locked Darryl Sutter out of the dressing room multiple times and eventually kicked his muppet-gone-wrong face out because he made them play a style that would have broken Noriega, when the chips were down John Stevens went back to the only thing the Kings know. Dump, crash, rumble, back up, repeat. Except it didn’t work, and the Kings three goals in the whole series pretty much attest to that. But what three goals they were!

What’s infuriating about the Kings is you can find no better example of a team not learning a lesson from its own methods. Better than the Oilers or Flames or even Hawks. While the Kings were able to belch/fart/ralph their way to a Cup in ’12 thanks to a sweetheart draw and Quick’s .946, they won again in 2014 by beating the Hawks at their own game. They were fast. They were creative. They were lethal. They had Kopitar, Gaborik, Carter, Toffoli, Pearson, Williams shotgunning all over the place. Doughty, Muzzin, Martinez, Voynov (blech) were pushing the play from the back to a ridiculous pace. Nothing has ever come close to the sheer madness and coke-binge hockey (maybe literally) that was the ’14 West Final. The Kings got it, and did it better than anyone to win their second in three years.

And then they went back to their covered-in-dung ways, while the rest of the league went about trying to replicate what they had just done. Such brilliant moves as trading for Milan Lucic and/or Dion Phaneuf or Vincent Lecavalier or bringing back Rob Scuderi. It was like Homer telling the car designers “I need an immobile asshole here, here, and here!” The result has been one playoff win since. One.

The Kings are basically the obnoxious frat boy who did well in college with dumb sorority girls who didn’t know better (or were forced not to because all frat boys are rapists, SCIENCE FACT), but then met a wonderful girl right after and suddenly became a really good guy…until dumping her after reading Barfstool or a few months because she didn’t shotgun beers or something. And now they’re just the old guy at the same bar, not realizing it’s all over.

In the end, this is what Kings fans want, because it’ll give them more time to bitch about the individual awards their players won’t win. Not only do Kings fans feel aggrieved that Kopitar or Doughty won’t be taking home hardware, they’ll accuse everyone of lacking moral fiber who doesn’t think they should. I guess we shouldn’t expect anything else from a city that blows itself as hard as LA does about the industry they created and only they really care about. DiCaprio didn’t campaign as hard for “The Revenant” as these dinguses. Last week every writer east of the Mississippi received a tote bag marked “from TheRoyalHalf on behalf of Anze.” Next year everyone get ready for a “Trevor Lewis Should Win The Selke And If You Don’t Vote For Him You Killed Jesus” campaign.

The Hawks window may be over, but it didn’t slam nearly as hard as the Kings did. And no one in LA is going to miss them, because next year the Lakers might win 30 games. Also, Drew Doughty eats the homeless from Skid Row.

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Only After You Eat The Peanuts Outta My… -FFUD’s Player Reviews: The Rest Of The Goofuses And Nincompoops

By Sam Fels 1805 0

Because we have to, we’ll go through the rest of the goalies who suited up for the Hawks, but altogether because they really were a mishmash of goo that is indiscernible from the next. I’m not sure any of these guys are going to matter ever. Maybe one might. Let’s just get through this and go about our day as if none of this ever happened. It’s pretty much what the Hawks are doing.

Jeff G.L. Ass

15 apperances, .898 SV%, 3.36 GAA, .909 at even-strength, .870 on the PK

We get why Q went to Glass when he did. At the time, his team couldn’t play defense to save their lives (and that never really did change). Anton Forsberg hadn’t grabbed the job with either hand. It was a nice story, and maybe the team would somehow try a little harder or be more aware in their own end with this journeyman punter in the net. Otherwise they’d get embarrassed.

And the thing was, it kind of worked for a game or two. Glass’s rebound control was awful, his positioning not much better, but the team did sorta kinda fight to clear all those rebounds away (so many rebounds…). His first three starts saw a win in Edmonton, an OT loss in Calgary, and a win in New York (Rangers version). Of course, looking over the list of opponents there and things get a little clearer, don’t they? After beating the Jets two starts later (seriously, Jeff Glass got a win over the Jets), he wouldn’t get another win and the team wouldn’t locate a fuck to give again. And that was that.

Glass isn’t an NHL goalie, and isn’t going to become one at 32-33. No, he’s not Tim Thomas, and that might never happen again. I suppose it was worth a shot, and now back to whatever smoke filled backroom he came from.

JF Berube

13 appearances, .894 SV%, 3.78 GAA, .905 at evens, .846 on the kill

I think I’m gonna car-ralph reading more of these numbers. Anyway, Berube was brought in for training camp, which means the Hawks thought they might have something to at least look at here. And if you squinted, you could see something of an NHL goalie in Berube. He ended up more square to the shooter than Forsberg or Glass. His rebound control was better. The problem was it took him roughly the same amount of time to move side-to-side as you would age a prime cut of beef. So it doesn’t really matter if you’re square if the puck is already behind you. Berube is 26 so I suppose there’s time for him to establish a career as a backup, but he’s going to have to get way quicker if that’s ever going to happen. We’re almost done I swear.

Collin Delia

I’m only throwing him on here because it’s been a while since the Hawks had a goalie in their system a while and brought them through. You’ll recall Niemi was only in Rockford a year. Raanta was straight into the Hawks team. Darling only spent half of a season in Rockford, and not even that. Delia is only 23, will be 24 at the start of next year, and I have this feeling the Hawks are going to give him a lot of time and a lot of chances. Delia’s numbers in Rockford aren’t all the impressive, but then again Rockford isn’t all the impressive (take that in whatever context you want and it’ll still be correct). But he closed the season well, and if he has a strong playoff series or two (assuming he gets the starts) then he could come into camp with a shot at surprising or at least getting the starting job in RockVegas next year all to himself.