Everything Else

Let’s Laugh At The Dallas Stars, While Also Saving Brandon Saad

By Sam Fels 2978 0

For the entire length of our existence, a valuable trait has been schadenfreude. We haven’t always needed it, but when we have the Canucks, or Blues, or Detroit, or Canucks again, then the Blues again, have always provided a hearty laugh. We’ve had other targets, but no matter how bad things get for the Hawks or how laughable they are for others, we can redirect that to someone else and have a good chuckle and go on about our day with a bounce in our step.

So let’s spend some time chortling at the existence of the Dallas Stars.

They’ve been in our crosshairs for a few years now. Mostly because for about three or four offseasons, there’s a legion of hockey writers who can’t wait to declare them and GM Jim Nill “winners of the offseason.” It’s like clockwork. One trade, or one signing, and suddenly there’s a puddle around hockey media members as they race to to be the first to decree, “THIS TIME THE STARS GOT IT RIGHT! CAN’T WAIT FOR SOME TEXAS BBQ IN JUNE!” Mostly, I’m guessing, because deep down all Canadian hockey writers are shit-kickers who just want an excuse to break out the cowboy hat and boots they keep in the closet and are desperate to wear outside of one week in Calgary.

Five seasons later, and just one playoff series win, and here they are, likely to not even get a chance to win a playoff series. But how could that happen when they hired noted genius Ken Hitchcock? Certainly the planets must be totally out of line for such a thing to happen! He was the final piece! Everyone said so! Because the Stars did an exhaustive coaching search, y’see, and they oh so creatively came up with, “Hey what about that guy who won here that one time like 15 years ago?”

So how did it end up here, five points out with five games to play even after last night’s OT win over the Flyera? Well, you probably have to start with the goaltending, which has put up a combined .902 SV% in March. That’s not going to win you a lot, as you probably know around here.

And really, who could have seen Ben Bishop’s .911 last year, his .905 in March of last season, and that Tampa was so fond of him they couldn’t wait to shove the job to Andrei Vasilevskiy at the first opening to do so, and conclude that maybe Bishop didn’t have it anymore? Certainly not Jim Nill! And look, the guy who spent three years fucking over the Stars by ignoring the goaltending situation has fucked it over by actually paying attention to it! It just gets better!

Like all Hitchcock teams, the Stars definitely keep it tight in their own end but are hardly expansive in the other. While they’re second best in terms of expected goals per 60 against, they’re 16th in expected goals for. That’s a team with one of the best top lines in the league and hardly bereft of talent farther down the lineup with Spezza (though old), Faksa, Janmark, Shore, and a couple others. At least that’s what they’ve told us season upon season now. And yet past the top line there isn’t a forward with more than 40 points. Hmmmm…who’s the GM who drafted and/or keeps this young talent they keep bleating about that keeps getting them beat, I wonder?

So as always with Hitch’s teams, keeping it so close means your goalie had better match your defensive leanings, and probably be better. Just like Jay Gallon in St. Louis, when the bottom drops out on that there is no answer. Because they’re certainly not filling it enough to counteract some wonky goaltending. At least Lindy Ruff managed that once.

Boy, I can’t wait to see how Nill wins this offseason.

-As we nearer the end, and the broadcast keeps shitting on Brandon Saad because he seems like the easy target (or Adam Burish threatens to fight him, which I’m sure would end with Saad turning Burish’s face into silly putty), I have this really uneasy feeling the Hawks will trade him and get to use “cap relief” as the reason to keep anyone from looking at it with any measure of scrutiny.

Let me just share this with you. When it comes to individual even-strength scoring chances per 60 minutes, Brandon Saad is 12th among forwards. 13th on that list? CONNOR FUCKING MCDAVID. Brandon Saad, himself, is getting slightly more chances per 60 minutes than the best player on the planet. When it comes to high-danger chances per 60 minutes, Saad ranks 10th among all forwards. 9th on the list? TAYLOR FUCKING HALL. A very likely Hart finalist is only slightly outdoing Brandon Saad when it comes to getting really good chances.

Now, it would be folly to suggest that “finish” is purely luck. It is not, but it’s too simple to say, “He’s not scoring enough,” when we can dig deeper and see why he might not be scoring enough. As we’ve said all season, Saad’s shooting percentage has bottomed out, Even a return to last year’s 11.4%, instead of this year’s 7.9, would see Saad with 25 goals right now. And assuming the power play could ever get the toad out of its ass it might be closer to 30.

Saad could simply repeat this season, process-wise, have his SH% spike to 13 or 14% because he got to see a couple more hungover goalies than this season, and be a 30-35-goal guy and then we’d get all these “redemption” stories.

Trading Saad when his value would be at its lowest, unless a monster return, would be monumentally stupid. Remember this when the Hawks now invariably do so.

Everything Else

No, Actually It’s Embarrassing

By Sam Fels 9667 0

I know, I know. We’ve been labeled as the Eeyore of Chicago sports blogs, or hockey blogs, or just the world in general. It’s something I’m sensitive to and try to change as best I can. Then again, when we try and point out the good points of this Hawks season or why things might not be as bad as they seem, we get called fucking idiots then, too. Maybe you just can’t win. But this has stuck in my craw, wherever that is, all season.

The Vegas Golden Knights are an embarrassment to the National Hockey League, and the NHL would be wise to look at it that way.

Not the Knights themselves. More power to them. They rolled sevens with just about every pick they made, had a coach who knew exactly how to maximize what he had, and took advantage of just an awful division. They’ve certainly established themselves in a new market that wasn’t a guarantee to work, and their success probably buys them more years of stability than they would have had otherwise. That’s all fine and good.

No, their success is an indictment of the league as a whole.

Because you shouldn’t be able to literally make a team up and then have it be competitive at first asking, even with everything going right. As Barry Petchesky pointed out on Deadspin today, the Knights are the first franchise in any of the four major pro sports to have a winning season in their first season. It’s not supposed to happen. Yes, sure, it makes for a unique, underdog story. But what does it say about the league as a whole? It says your product is so fucking watered down by a salary cap freezing for a few years and you have enough dumb GMs around torpedoing their own teams that really you only need a couple guys to shoot the lights out for a season and some goaltending and not only are you competitive, you’re a division winner. What a fucking gauntlet this league is!

Think about it. You’ve seen Erik Haula for years. You know he’s not a 30-goal scorer. He’s a good player, and one we hated seeing because he killed the Hawks. But this isn’t him. They had Dale Tallon have an utter brain bubble in trying to erase what the GM before did because they were stupid NERDS with their spreadsheets and book-learnin’! So he just gave the Knights two of their leading scorers, and more to the point two OF THE PANTHERS LEADING SCORERS. The Oilers should have been making this division tougher on the Knights, and yet Peter Chiarelli has spent a few years sticking the club’s tongue into whatever electrical socket he could find. The Flames stalled out.

And that’s really all it takes. The Knights success means that almost every team is so unremarkable other than three or four that you can just roll the dice and win. You don’t need great players. You don’t need a revolutionary system or tactics. You just need a couple things to go your way, and it won’t hurt if every team that visits you is still actively drunk because hockey players are so rock stupid they’d never heard of what goes on in Vegas until the night before a game. The Knights stuck to having speed, which isn’t a hard concept but one that a lot of teams still can’t figure out, and play to it. Get up and down as quickly as you can. It’s not rocket science, because it’s what the Penguins have been doing for two years. And yet teams watch the Knights skate past them on a nightly basis and treat them like they imported something from space. Quick, let’s give Guy Fucking Boucher another job!

We’ve joked about it a lot, or I have but it’s Slak’s joke, that the only league that has this happen is MLS. And MLS is a joke. Their single-entity system ensures that no team every really stands out except for the destination spots of LA, NY, and Seattle I guess. This why Atlanta United can slide in with one or two signings and be a playoff team, because they don’t have to beat much. It’s why the Fire, a clueless and indifferent organization if there ever was one, can sign one guy in Schweinsteiger and have a forward score with every shot for a couple months and secure a playoff spot while being pretty putrid for the other four months of the season.

And hey, weird things happen in other sports too, I get it. There was that year the Cardinals hit like .310 all season with men on base. The NFL is basically whoever gets hurt the least plays the Patriots in the Super Bowl. I understand that.

But parity isn’t good. It’s not how this is supposed to work. You may point to the NFL but that has so many other factors it’s not a fair comparison. And you may hate the Patriots, but they’re box office. And they’re bigger box office when playing the Steelers, because people know the Steelers are also almost always good.

We may bitch about what the Hawks did the past couple years, but in the end the Hawks were punished for developing and having too many good players. The Bickell and Seabrook contracts aren’t the gallstone they became if they didn’t cost the Hawks so many players they drafted. And the same happened to others. Which leaves a scorched landscape for a limited team like Vegas or whoever else to appear better than they are, or they or other teams to scrape up the talent that well-run organizations had to shed simply because. You don’t have to be that smart to get talent in the NHL, you just kind of have to stand still and let it fall to you.

The Knights themselves are a good story. What they tell us about the league though is that’s it’s shallow, stupid, uncreative, and bland. And I can’t see past it.

Everything Else

Game #77 – Sharks vs. Hawks Preview/Bullet Club Reunion: But Just A Glimpse

By Sam Fels 1980 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Sharks 43-23-9   Hawks 31-36-9

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

THEY CAN’T AFFORD IT EITHER: Fear The Fin

A friend of the program, one Kevin Kujawa–guitarist and singer for great local band of the past Mannequin Men– used to refer to the first game after the trade deadline as “New Toy Day.” Well, the Hawks didn’t get that this year as it was clearance sale time, but Hawks fans will get some of that this week as the Hawks show off what they hope will be a couple pieces that matter in the future.

The first one arrives tonight in Victor Ejdsell, probably referred to from here on out as “Eggshell.” He’s a big center, whom they’re probably already envisioning taking Anismov’s place so they can punt him to the nearest taker this summer that’s also on his list (YOU’RE ON OUR LIST. HE NAMED NAMES!). Ejdsell comes with plus-hands, so we’re told, though the Hawks are probably already telling him to get his ass to the front of the net which will kneecap his playmaking abilities we’re told he has a bit. Whatever, there will be plenty of time to worry about that next year. The big concern is whether or not he can skate enough to make any of it matter, or if he’s just a monolith the Hawks hope they can park at the other crease but which hurts you in every other aspect. He’d better be the former, otherwise the trade of a definitely useful Ryan Hartman is just simply running in place (because he was a first-round pick at #30, which seemingly everyone evaluating that trade forgot). The Hawks were after Ejdsell when he chose the Predators, and generally the European players they’ve been hot on tend to work out at least ok (Jan Rutta excluded and they’re going to give that one another go anyway).

The other one is Dylan Sikura, who will arrive Thursday. We’ll talk more about him then but he’ll be an interesting watch because he’s got a big chance to more than just ballast on the team next year, even if he’s in desperate need of a sandwich. Just a shame he couldn’t bring Adam Gaudette with him.

As for the rest of the story with the Hawks, there isn’t one really. Toews is still out, with some mystery injury that definitely isn’t either “tired of this shit” or “has been playing with something for months and can’t be bothered anymore but don’t think it’s a head injury” or “we’re actually trying to tank.” After Anton Forsberg looked decent against the Isles he’ll get the start again, but we know what it’s looked like when he’s tried to put two starts together. So JF Berube should probably be properly warmed and stretched, as Q pulls a goalie switch for the 46th time this season.

This game matters a little to the Sharks, though not that much. They’ve pretty much held off either the Kings or Ducks for the second spot in the Pacific, especially with the seven-game winning streak they’re currently on (you can do that?). They’re four up on the Ducks and have a game in hand, and six up on the Kings with a game in hand. So they’ll start the playoffs at home against either, and really they should beat either. But these are the Sharks, and without a healthy Thornton anything is possible for them. Pavelski has been great at center, and that should be enough to see off either of their California brethren. But again, the Sharks have found a way in the past to drive their car into a swimming pool.

After a hiccup around the turn of the year, Martin Jones has been excellent the past two months and the Sharks would enter either series with the better goalie, which is a leg up (sorry Jonathan Quick but we know what you are). While it doesn’t jump out at you, the Sharks are deeper than most teams even without Thornton. Pavelski and Evander “I’m The Other Fuckstick Named…” Kane have been quite the force on the top line, Couture and Hertl have dovetailed on the second line, and Tierney andLeBanc have been a surprise on the third. A Thornton return along with Joonas Donskoi (who’s only day-to-day) only adds to that. They’ll be deeper up front than either the Ducks or Kings, that’s for sure.

You know the story on the blue line. Marc-Eduoard “This Is What Seabrook Was Supposed To Be” Vlasic and Justin Braun are the human shield for Brent Burns on the second pairing, and he simply runs wild. Again, a unique weapon to have. And Brenden Dillon and Dylan “Fine And” DeMelo on the third pairing aren’t really a disaster. Again, sneaky depth.

Even with all that, it’s hard to know if the Sharks are that good. Their special teams for sure are, and that’s gotten them a long way. But this is one of the more boring Sharks teams we can remember, who play in a terrible division and when you watch them nothing really jumps out. Then again, that’s the exact kind of team that comes alive in the playoffs when things get choppier. Secondly, in that division there’s no one who’s going to turn up the pace on them that they can’t handle, which is what Edmonton did last year and the Penguins the year before. You could see if they ran into a misplaced Colorado team in the second round where that could be a problem, but that’s one line and specifically one guy. Vegas, if it somehow shambles its way out of the first round even without Fleury, will see it all pop against the vastly more experienced Sharks. Really, this team merely has to stand still to get to a conference final, where it probably will be laced by Nashville or Winnipeg, assuming there’s anything left of either of those teams after they’re done bludgeoning each other in the second round.

Let’s have fun with our new toys these last two weeks. It’s all we got.

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Game #77 – Sharks vs Hawks Spotlight: The Actual Straw

By Sam Fels 1654 0

While we’ve highlighted in the past how unique Brent Burns is, he has some of the same issues that Duncan Keith did when he won his second Norris in 2014 (not that it stopped Eddie Olczyk’s campaign for him coming to its triumphant conclusion). Burns is perhaps the most offensively dominant d-man in a long time, and no blue-liner has ever created as many shots and attempts for himself. But Burns partly gets to do that because Marc-Eduoard Vlasic does the heavy lifting for him.

Over the past five seasons, 171 d-men have played at least 3,000 minutes at even strength. Only 20 of them have had worse zone starts than Vlasic. Only three have faced harder competition over the past five years than Vlasic. And yet only one d-men the past five seasons has a better expected goals-percentage than Vlasic, and that’s Jared Spurgeon in Minnesota. With all that, Burns has had a platform to simply run over second and third lines as a Shark. One wonders if he’d be able to do that with the zone starts and competition that Vlasic has taken on for him. We’ll probably never find out.

Vlasic has been the most important Shark, without any of the pub, for years now. It was his injury that turned the series against the Kings in 2014, where they blew a 3-0 lead. Had Vlasic been healthy, they probably find the win they need and that Sharks team could have gone a long way. Much like Keith here in Chicago, when Vlasic has been good, the Sharks have been good and vice versa.

Sadly, he’s probably headed for the Seabrook treatment soon.

Vlasic has a contract extension that starts next year, which sees his cap hit go from $4.2 million per year, one of the biggest bargains in the league, to $7 million per year until 2023-2024. Vlasic will be 31 next year, and while he hasn’t shown his age yet you know that’s coming. IT also comes with a full no-trade. Considering the age of Thornton, Pavelski, and Couture, when the Sharks window closes you can be sure some are going to look at this contract It’s just the nature of the beast.

There are already signs of age. When it comes to Corsi, his relative ratings have dropped to below the team rate the past two seasons, a first for “Pickels.” So has his relative expected goals percentage, which doesn’t give you too much hope for the next six years which he’s signed for. Thee are more shots-against him per 60 than there ever have been, as well as goals-against and expected goals-against. Luckily, while Vlasic has been facing heavier quicksand Burns has been still able to shoot the lights out.

The Sharks don’t have any retired numbers, and you’d figure that Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton will be the first. #44 should join them one day, as they haven’t had a better d-man, or at least as long as Vlasic has been around. That doesn’t mean the end won’t be bumpy.

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Game #77 – Sharks vs. Hawks Q&A: Our Silicon Valley Reject

By Sam Fels 1697 0

@ItWasThreeZero always answers our questions about the Sharks. We’d really like to think he has something better to do, but we and he know that he doesn’t. 

Ignoring the fact that he’s a raging dickbag, what’s it been like on the ice having Evander Kane?

Kane’s off-ice history of sexual assault makes him an impossible player to cheer for but the on-ice results speak for themselves. With 7 goals and 12 points in 12 games, Kane has been the jolt of offense the Sharks expected when they traded for him and then some. They’d been looking for a Patrick Marleau replacement since the longest-tenured Shark signed in Toronto and at least on the ice they have one in Kane, another big fast winger who can score, kill penalties and fit in on just about any line.

Tomas Hertl has 10 points in his last 11. We’ve sort of been waiting for him to replicate what he looked like as a rookie. Is this it or just another hot streak?

Hertl’s talent level is always on display but the trouble with him over the past few seasons has been finding linemates he can click with. During the Sharks’ 2016 run to the Cup Final, those were Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski but a need to spread out the offense more in Marleau’s absence has meant that’s a line Peter DeBoer hasn’t had the luxury of putting together very often this year. Over the past dozen games, Hertl has slotted in with Logan Couture and Mikkel Boedker on a very potent second line and it looks like he’s found linemates he’s comfortable playing with again.

Is Thornton going to play in the playoffs? What does it mean for his future as a Shark?

No one really seems to have any idea including Thornton himself. But given the fact he played in the majority of last year’s first round loss to Edmonton while both his knees were suspended in Jell-O, it’s going to take a lot to keep Thornton out of the lineup in late April regardless of whether that’s the most medically prudent move at this stage of the 38-year-old’s career. Even if he doesn’t return this season, there’s no indication Thornton intends to retire over the summer so I’m sure he’ll be brought back on a one-year deal with a more modest salary than this year’s $8 million.

How far can the Sharks go in the playoffs? The Pacific is something of a mess…

Their underlying numbers are still fairly middling but the Sharks have been generating a lot more offense in the 2018 calendar year even without Joe Thornton and Joonas Donskoi for much of that time, and despite a once 2nd-ranked power play falling apart. If Thornton and Donskoi can be healthy in time for the playoffs, there’s no reason the Sharks can’t advance to the conference final. They match up against their own division as well as any team in the league. Of course they’re still the Sharks so a first round choke job against the Kings isn’t out of the question either.

 

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Game #77 – Sharks vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Ruining a Good Thing

By Sam Fels 2528 0

The problem with the NHL changing jersey manufacturers all the time, along with many others, is that they can’t seem to resist the temptation to fuck with things that are already working. Look at the Hawks’ collars now if you need evidence of that.

The original Sharks jerseys are nearly perfect, and should have been the template from there on out:

Simple, traditional, perfectly harmonious. A kick-ass logo, a good color scheme, matching stripes on the elbows and waist. Shoulder patches that are different than the logo. Why stray from this at all?

But it’s never that simple is it?

Then came the black alternates, which the Sharks used far too often. Black alternates is the fart joke to jersey design. It’s the simplest choice. Anyone can go to it. It’s boring, it’s been done. And the fact that the Sharks wore them in the playoffs is assuredly the reason they never won anything. You can’t wear your thirds in the playoffs.

Then this abomination:

Where’s the silver go? What the hell is the orange doing in there? Why the number in front? This is a band that’s trying to do too much in a song when it just needs a verse and a chorus. The shoulder patches are the same damn thing as the logo. It’s repetitive. It’s too busy.

And now the Sharks have this. Tell us, is this a Sharks jersey or a Dolphins jersey?

Same damn thing. And still this stupid fucking number in front. How hard is this?

We can go down the list of jerseys the NHL couldn’t help fucking with. The Flames, the Islanders for too long, the Oilers now, whatever the Canucks are doing, and on it goes. What a shame.

 

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Game #76 – Hawks vs. Islanders Spotlight: He’s Got Everyone’s World, In His Hands

By Sam Fels 2536 0

There’s little point in talking about anyone else on the Islanders right now than John Tavares and whether he will stay on Long Island (whenever the Isles actually get there) or flea to much, much greener pastures this summer. In his hands he’ll hold the futures and presents of two franchises, with the power to change the dynamic of a division or conference as well.

Money isn’t going to be an issue. The Islanders certainly have to be prepared to throw $12 million or more a year at Tavares, whatever the limit is when the new cap is set. If the cap does reach $82 million as has been suggested  you could even chuck somewhere around $16 million per year at Tavares if you were so inclined. That might be a bit much, but Connor McDavid’s $12.5 million hit is probably the target, if not starting point. And just about everyone will offer that who’s going to chase Tavares. And it could be a crowded field.

So we’ll start with the case for Tavares to stay. And you can throw that loyalty crap out the window. Players want to cash in and they want to win, and while Tavares may like his teammates and grown attached to whichever community the Isles are playing in this week, it’s just not going to be that big of a factor.

So what is? Well, the Islanders do have a new home locked up, at Belmont Park. This should be better received by their fans on the Island, as it’s still accessible by the same train that goes to Brooklyn but is still on the Island, which appears to be a big deal for them. The problem is it’s three seasons away, and in the meantime the Islanders appear poised to split their home games between Barclays Center and a refurbished, if not tiny, Nassau Coliseum (where they come to see ’em). This not ideal, but it might not be the headache you imagine. The Islanders’ practice facility is still in Nassau Co., and hence the players had to make the same trip in for games that their fans found to be such a headache. Cutting out half of those trips is probably something that the players will like. Still, it’s something of a vagabond team for three seasons, and that might not appeal at all.

As for the team, there’s hope. With a rise in the cap and a clearing out of some deadweight like Nikolai Kulemin, Calvin de Haan and his missing capital letter, Jaro Halak, maybe Thomas Hickey and maybe a trade of a veteran or two like Clusterfuck or Casey Cizikas, the Isles should have the room to sign Tavares and keep their young-ish core of him, Barzal, Bailey, Lee, Nelson, Beauvillier around.

Couple problems there None of them are defensemen and none of them are goalies. With the Islanders having a historically (and hilariously) bad defense this year, that’s an issue. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of help on the way either, as Josh Ho-Sang and Kiefer Bellows are also forwards. The Isles are going to have to solve this from the outside, and as we’ve discussed for the Hawks, the options are not very appetizing in the least.

So who will the Islanders compete against to be the apple of JT’s eyes? About half the league at least, you’d expect. The Canadiens desperately need a #1 center and a turnaround. But they’re getting old in a hurry, and Tavares might not want to put up with all the bullshit of playing in Montreal. Really, who does? While every Leafs fan is under the impression that every Ontario born NHL-er secretly wants to come home and play for the Leafs and have Steve Simmons insult their entire family, the Leafs won’t have the space and have their own players to re-sign. Tampa has been mentioned as Tavares is close with Steven Stamkos, and if they could find a way to make it work next season they have a ton of money coming off the books in the summer of 2019. Which is nice, because they’re going to have to give Kucherov $10 million or more then. They could have even more if they moved Tyler Johnson along, and he would be a touch superfluous with the arrival of Tavares. And clearly, that team would be a favorite for a while. We’ve talked about the Hawks, who should seriously think about it. Another team that should think about it is San Jose, in that they’re going to have to move on from Thornton at some point and Couture and Pavelski are up after next season. Fuck, the Avs need another center and have all the cap space in the world. The Panthers are making noise now and if they could slot Barkov in as a #2? The Hurricanes probably don’t have the budget but are screaming out for this.  The Blues seem to be clearing the decks for something. This list could go on forever.

It’s an awful lot of competition for New York, a team that can’t promise everything. The future is uncertain for them, and they’ll be bouncing between two arenas. Seems less and less likely the more you think about it, doesn’t it? If Tavares were to bolt, they have Barzal ready to step in as a #1 center and those forwards already mentioned. Still no defense or goalie but all the money earmarked for Tavares would be free. They might suck to high heaven next year when there’s no reasonable targets to spend it on, but hey look at the summer of 2019 and you have Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, Sergei Bobrovsky all possibly on the market. It rarely works out like that but you never know.

It might not be death for the Isles, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant recovery either.

 

 

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Game #76 – Hawks vs. Islanders Q&A: Dan Saraceni From Lighthouse Hockey

By Sam Fels 2357 0

Dan Saraceni is all things at LighthouseHockey.com. Follow him on Twitter @CultureOfLosing. 

The Isles downfall was a historically bad defense. If you had to portion it out, how much is the personnel on defense, the lack of confidence in either goalie, and Doug Weight’s system?

That’s a good question. I’m not sure if I’ve thought about it in those terms. If you asked 10 different Islanders fans, you’d probably get 10 different answers but for me, I think it’s mostly on the coaching. The personnel isn’t great (playing the husk of Dennis Seidenberg, losing Calvin de Haan for half a season and Johnny Boychuk for a few months doesn’t help) and the goaltending was garbage particularly earlier in the year. So the majority of the blame really could go in any direction. But one of this team’s hallmarks is a steadfast refusal to acknowledge when something isn’t working. When they average 50 shots against for two months and Weight says that nothing’s wrong they just didn’t get a few bounces, you know something is seriously messed up. And when the goalies got better, the shots against remained ridiculous. The bottom two lines have been a clownshow in their own zone all season and no changes seemed to have been made until February, when everything was more or less over already. Weight’s still a rookie, as are Scott Gomez and Fred Brathwaite. But Luke Richardson and Kelly Buchberger have been around the bench for a while. I hoped they’d help Doug out, but it didn’t work that way. Instead, they kept banging their collective heads against a wall all season asking why they had a headache.

For those who might not know, could Brooklyn have worked as a home if the arena wasn’t specifically built for basketball? Or did the fanbase simply not want to commute? What will they do until the new building at Belmont Race Track is ready?

I think yes, had they built it with hockey in mind and had done the proper research into what Islanders fans like and want. The relationship got off on the wrong foot when it first became clear that the Barclays people didn’t give a rat’s ass about Islanders fans or what they want in a game experience. Normally, the rest of the world doesn’t give a rat’s ass, either, but these guys were counting on them for money and good PR. You’d think they’d know that people watch warmups from the glass and don’t want black uniforms. But little to no research seemed to have been done. The commute wouldn’t have been an issue if the arena was a welcoming place. It’s not, so just throw it on the pile. Will fans go to Belmont? If the team is still in the lottery every year, no. Nassau Coliseum is viewed with rose-colored glasses these days, but that place was empty for decades worth of games. So will Belmont unless people have a reason to come out.

One of our favorite sons Nick Leddy has put up 41 points, but is an unsightly -36. Plus-minus is generally a bullshit stat, but what do Isles fans make of it? What should Leddy be going forward, as in top pairing guy or more second-pairing bum-slayer?

I don’t think most Islanders fans even know what his plus/minus is, to be honest. Leddy has all the goods to be a 1D in the NHL except for that killer “fuck you” attitude. He knifes through whole teams, breaks into the zone by himself, catches everyone flatfooted and then… drop passes to no one. He leads the rush on the PP, gets just past the red line and… drop passes to a guy 20 feet behind him. He’s not a big hitter or grinder in his own zone that can wear guys down. Forty one points is great, but I can’t help but feel he should have more. Maybe Ryan Pulock, who’s made great strides this season, can be that guy. Among other things, I’ve given up hope this season of Leddy being the Islanders No. 1, even if I love watching him skate.

While some other kids have gotten more press like Barzal and the ones on defense, Anthony Beauvilier made the team last year at 19. He hasn’t quite stepped forward, but he has pedigree. Is there more to come?

Beauvillier and Barzal were really good together for a while this year, until Beauvillier hit a terrible slump (that got broken with a two-goal game against Tampa on Thursday). He could still 20 goals this year, which would be a cool thing for him. His underlyings haven’t always been great, but for a young guy with a good motor, quick hands, good shot and an ounce of hockey IQ, I feel like he’s on the right track. He’s also a little guy so me might need a little extra time, too. He probably should have spent last year back in junior and he did a few weeks in the AHL this season instead of starting there and moving up, but I’m not too mad about how he’s been so far.

It’s looking like Tavares is going to at least test the market and see what’s out there. With the money, if not years, being equal no matter who is offering it, will the Isles presentation of a future home, enough kids to promise a brighter future be enough? Can the Isles tell him they’ll be ready to win next year?

Oh boy. I have no idea what these guys say to each other behind closed doors, but it’s my only hope for retaining Tavares. To miss the playoffs in the last two seasons of this guy’s contract is absolutely unconscionable. The fact that the guys in charge haven’t already been fired is a testament to how little urgency was given to the situation. Just a lot of lip service and empty promises. If he stays, he’ll be well-paid for life, get to play with Barzal, Bailey and more of his buddies, get to disappear into the suburbs after games, probably get a statue and his number retired and generally be hailed as a price forever. What he won’t do is win jack shit as long as the current management is still in place. He has not once let anyone know what he’s been thinking this whole season because he seriously may not have thought about it yet. The time to start thinking about it begins two weeks from today. So we’ll know very shortly what his feelings are.

 

 

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