Hockey

You’re Inconsistent Because You’re Bad And Dual Prisms

By Sam Fels 1600 0

You hear a lot of this from bad teams. “We do it one night and not the next.” “When we do the things we’re supposed to we can play with anyone, but when we don’t we lose.”

“We just need to be more consistent.”

These are the kinds of quotes leaking to flooding out of the Hawks’ dressing room as the losses pile up. You got this from Saad, Lehner, and Kane last night. You’ll get it again after the Hawks are likely done getting brained by the Blues tomorrow. We can do it one night, so we just need to do it more often.

Here’s the thing. The Hawks are inconsistent because they’re bad. Not the other way around. Most bad teams are. It’s just how these things work.

Look, just about any NHL player is capable of playing a great game. A hat trick can come from anywhere on any given night. Hell, we’ve seen Michael Frolik dominate multiple playoff games. And that’s true with just about any sport. Anyone can go 3-for-4 one afternoon with a couple homers. I even saw Todd Hundley do it once. Some night, things come together and the 7th man goes for 21 points and 10 rebounds.

What separates the good players and great players from the rabble is that they can do it every night. That’s the baseline of their performance, a level they get to each and every night. Bad players peak there and then return to whatever it is they do and the abyss from which they emerged. That’s why they’re third and fourth liners.

You’ve seen Alex Nylander have a great game or two. And then he goes back to being Alex Nylander, which is someone waiting for the puck to get to him in space and then panicking when he gets it while he spills it into the corner. You’ve seen Erik Gustafsson at times genuinely look like an exciting d-man. And then he returns to turning the wrong way and having no defensive instincts whatsoever and being slow. I could go on.

The Hawks can sit around and wish for consistency, but they’re not going to get it with this roster. It’s not some mental deficiency. It’s not a matter of wanting to be consistent more often. They’re simply not good enough to be. Although I guess if your teammates are telling the press you’re just not good enough, that’s probably worse.

-It’s hard to know how to watch, or judge, or cover the rest of this season. It can get so depressing so quickly, especially of late. But seeing as how the Hawks have yet to tell us what the aims are or what they’re trying to do, we can only view it in the dual prisms they’ve given us. This is what I attempted to do last night.

Essentially, you have to watch the Hawks on two levels. One is their flaccid attempts to get back into the playoffs, which they’re abjectly failing. The goalies haven’t helped stop the slide, the vets they picked up either provide the character “Major Suckage” or are hurt. They don’t look to be moving toward anything.

The other is something of a redevelopment, or rebuild, take your pick. And that isn’t judged or hinging on the results. That’s what Adam Boqvist and Kirby Dach and still DeBrincat and Strome look like after a stretch. Are their games growing? Do they appear to be learning? Are they getting better? The first two are incomplete because they simply haven’t been around long enough and/or are being supplied with plugs to play with. Strome looks like his game has expanded a bit, as his skating is a little better and he’s being trusted in his own end a touch more (though with very mixed results).

Top Cat is a harder study, as for the first time he can’t buy a bucket. His attempts and scoring chances are down, though his individual expected goals is still on course. So is he contributing in other ways? So far the answers aren’t encouraging, as all his metrics are way down. But this is the first time we’ve seen his finishing not cure all, so he needs to be given room to breathe as well.

That’s just about the only way I can tell you to watch the Hawks these days, until they give you a clearer picture of what their map is. Assuming they have one.

Football

Week 15 – Bears vs. Packers Preview: Once More Unto The Breach…

By Sam Fels 1312 0

vs.

RECORDS: Bears 7-6   Packers 10-3

KICKOFF: 12 noon

TV: Fox 32

YA HEY DERE: Acme Packing Company

For the last three games of the season, hopefully, the Bears will find themselves in the odd situation of not having much to gain but everything to lose. At least until the end, that is, and if everything goes right. A win Sunday would only give them the chance to have everything to lose the following week against the Chiefs, and so on to Minnesota to end the season. Wins mean their minuscule playoff hopes are still alive. One loss and they’re gone and more serious questions follow. Good time to be heading up to the house of horrors then, huh?

It was thought earlier in the year that when these two teams met at Lambeau Sunday, one team would be skating on top of the division while the other would be at best floundering around the wildcard picture. We just got the teams reversed. Because of course we did.

I would love to tell you the Packers are frauds, and most teams in the NFL are. But they have beaten the Vikings, whatever that means, and the Cowboys on the road, whatever that means, and the Chiefs on the road, whatever that means, and their only loss against what you’d call a “real” team is getting utterly clocked by the Niners in Santa Clara. We know what Kirk Cousins does against any team that retains oxygen intake, the Cowboys just showed you what they are, and Mahomes didn’t play against them. But still, that feels like I’m straining a bit to discredit the Pack. Which is an effort I’m happy to make, but at some point even I know it rings hollow.

And as long as Aaron Rodgers is around, you’re never safe. Especially the Bears, who blew a 20-point lead to him in the second half when he had one leg the last time they perused the grounds up there. As Brian pointed out yesterday, Rodgers is having an average season for him which is other-worldly for just about anyone else. He also has just two INTs on the season, so at the very worst for him he doesn’t give you anything. Most of the time he’s taking everything, too. Just wonderful. And as that piece showed, he loves to pick on the middle of the field where the Bears will be dressing two backup interior linebackers. Guess where he might focus?

The Packers will tell you there’s been a new focus on the running game, and Aaron Jones’s 12 TDs would suggest same. However, their yards per game total is only middle of the pack (ha ha), and a good portion of their impressive run totals/performances have been a case of bum-slaying. No one’s impressed when you run it up Washington’s giggy, really. They’ve been stuffed by more than a few opponents, and the Bears will be hoping to do it for a second time.

They’ll tell you they have a restored defense, but again, at least in yardage, there isn’t anything the defense does that well. And again, when faced with good teams, they’ve surrendered points. 37 to the Niners, 26 to the Chargers who definitely suck, 24 to a Mahomes-less Chiefs. Now the Bears are going to have to do more than have a couple hot weeks against basketcase teams to claim to be a good offense now, but there are points to be had.

Even though their two OLBs have combined for 21 sacks, they don’t get to the QB much more than at an average rate, though still probably a test for the still working-out-the-new-kinks Bears o-line.

However, what the Packers do in fact do well, and what’s kept their points allowed totals from matching the yardage they give up completely, is they take the ball away. Lead in fumbles, in the top five in INTs. They may bend and give up plays but they make enough plays to wash that away. This is probably where the game is won or lost for the Bears, and why it might be a good idea to stick to the ground as much as possible. If only to give Mitch easier reads in play-action, and get him moving which we know he likes. Which keeps him from having to make more tough reads and throws than he’s capable of pulling off successfully.

Of course, there’s always Rodgers. There are days he just decides you lose, and there’s not much you can do about it. The return of Akiem Hicks will have everyone buoyed, but who knows exactly what and how much he can provide after 10 weeks on the shelf. Certainly not the amount of snaps you’d be used to and almost certainly not the dominant force you came to love. But it’s hard to imagine he’ll suck either, and if he gives more of a rotation on the line and keeps everyone fresher, so much the better, Kwiatkoski and Pierre-Louis will need all the help they can get.

The Bears have been able to overcome one or two Mitch mistakes the past couple weeks, but that’s one thing against the Lions or Cowboys. It’s kind of a different thing here. That doesn’t mean Mitch has to be perfect, but he likely has to be as good or better than he was against the Cowboys, which is not really a level he’s been able to stick at or exceed. Maybe now’s the time?

Hopefully the dynamic running attack we saw last Thursday sticks around, through both Trubisky and David Montgomery, instead of the RPO’s into Cody Whitehair’s retreating ass we’ve seen most of the season. Again, the widens Trubes’s margin for error.

If there’s one thing about these fucking games, as miserable as they are they are really boring. This one has a lot riding on it, and there’s probably nothing more the slobs in the hunting gear would enjoy more than ending the Bears season after starting it on the rocks in September. If the Bears get it, well, it could very well work out the Packers will have wished they put them down when they had the chance.

Bear Down.

Hockey

Game #32 – Hawks 2, Coyotes 5: Darker Than A Black Steer’s Tookus On A Moonless Prairie Night

By Sam Fels 1808 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

As has been the way under Jeremy Colliton, whenever the Hawks get entangled with a team they’re supposedly tussling with for a playoff spot, they scream at their shoes. The Knights are much better than the Hawks, but they have a wildcard spot the Hawks claim they want. They crushed the Hawks. The Yotes are likely to be in or near the wildcard spots. They have now beaten the Hawks twice in a week, and pretty much ran them over tonight. Continuing theme.

It’s obvious the Hawks cannot handle the absences of Duncan Keith and Calvin de Haan. Without them, they have exactly one guy who plays defense at an NHL level. That’s Connor Murphy. Clearly he can’t do it all himself. They will continue to get shredded until those two return, and no team should ever depend on those two players so much.

I guess the best way to view the Hawks from here on out is both in a redevelopment fashion and a win-now one. Since we don’t know which path the Hawks have chosen, and they very well may not have chosen either, it’s kind of our only choice.

So…

Rebuild Phase

-An up and down night for Adam Boqvist. Dominant possession-wise, which is why he’s here. But an iffy pinch led to the first Coyotes goal, though Gustafsson could have had a better angle and Lehner could have made a save. He and Gilbert were split for Keller’s breakaway, and I don’t know how playing either with the other is going to help one of them at all. But this is how you learn.

-Um…Kirby Dach looked threatening at times, and the training wheels of playing him on the fourth line have to come off now, because the Hawks need goals.

-Strome had a power play goal. That’s nice.

The Rest

-It’s hard to figure out what is Jeremy Colliton’s fault and what isn’t. But you’ll notice when a Hawks puck-carrier is under any pressure, be it on the blue lines or along the boards, do the other Hawks come close to give him an option or do they fade behind opponents just hoping the puck will find them in space? You’ll see it’s the latter more often than not. That’s cheating. That’s playing for yourself. And that speaks to a team with no structure. The Hawks are trying to manufacture transition by having their forwards cheat out of the zone instead of just being fast out of it. That’s a good deal on the coach, and the lack of talent too. It’s all a problem.

-The give-a-shit meter was on absolute zero for Kane tonight, which isn’t surprising and understandable. It was kind of a piss poor effort on the Schmaltz goal, and he seemed to be taking the easy option most of the time. I don’t expect Kane to be on high alert for all 82, but just know the Hawks will never create enough when he’s not.

-Erik Gustafsson is simply awful.

-The power play only scores when DeBrincat move the puck quickly, either to the net or to the open man, or if Kane makes his James Harden routine work. The latter is not a tactic they should be using. Kane needs to be a threat for a one-timer coming from the other way than the teams cheating to DeBrincat. Until that happens, you’ll get this choppiness.

-Any team, especially when they’re ahead, that is well coached enough to follow the plan of simply standing up at their blue line has the Hawks buffaloed. If the Hawks have to dump the puck in, they’re simply not fast enough nor have the players who can win the puck back consistently. The ones who can are all on one line, and Toews isn’t quick enough anymore to get there. They also don’t have enough creativity to break through that kind of defense, which is why Boqvist’s possession numbers are among the best on the team tonight because he’s the only one who can.

-Did I mention that Gustafsson is awful?

-The season very well could be over by the weekend. Maybe it’ll force the Hawks into real decisions.

Onwards…for some reason…

 

Baseball

How You Can Do Things Differently And Still End Up In The Same Place

By Sam Fels 1558 0

You have to give it to Anthony Rizzo’s agent. There’s no time like the present to add on to the Cubs’ miserly ways and paint your client as the sympathetic one. It’s working for everyone else, and the organization may never be a bigger villain than it is right now.

When I first heard the news about the Cubs shrugging off any extension talk at the moment for Rizzo, it made sense in my mind. Because the Anthony Rizzo debate in 2021-2022 has always been a dicey one from the time he signed that contract back in 2013. Right now he’s one of the best bargains in the league.

But when he comes up for free agency with everyone else he’ll be 32 and turn 33 the next season. These days, that’s very much when it’s thought that players start their career descent, if not a year before. He’s had regular back issues the past couple of seasons, which have kept him out an increasing number of games the past two seasons. While he’s a great defensive first baseman, it’s not considered a premium position (though defensive metrics haven’t really figured out how to grade the errors 1st basemen save their teammates, because if they did Derrek Lee would be considered the greatest defensive player of all time and could rightfully sue Aramis Ramirez for half of his career earnings with the Cubs). A wait-and-see approach on Rizzo for those reasons makes some sense.

And yet, for someone who has seriously considered turning in his Cubs fan card if they trade Kris Bryant so as to avoid having to extend him or lose him for nothing, and for much higher money than Rizzo would get, the reasons kind of aren’t all that different, right?

Bryant is two years younger, so any extension he gets when he becomes a free agent, here or elsewhere, will certainly extend into years where he’s just not the player he was. You’d be getting some years of his peak, in theory, which you wouldn’t with Rizzo, in theory. He has been even more injury plagued the past two years. The difference being that A) it certainly feels like he was mishandled by the Cubs medical staff at least last year and possibly both, and B) shoulder and knee problems, while worrying, don’t portend quite as much to a full structural breakdown as recurring back problems would. But again, they’re not something you’d completely disregard either.

Theo Epstein commented when asked that the two sides were just too far apart to keep talking, and clearly the Cubs have other things they need to get done this winter (or have convinced themselves they have to get done). It’s hard to fathom what Rizzo was asking for come 2022. You would have to think his team had something like Paul Goldschmidt’s or Joey Votto’s $25M a year in mind, given that Rizzo has been fairly compared with at least the former for pretty much his whole career. Rightfully so.

Still, the Reds have watched Votto completely lose his power ever since he started earning the big check, and the Cardinals must fear the same after they watched Goldy’s wRC+ drop 30 points last year. And he’s 32, the exact age Rizzo will be turning when his time to hit the market comes.

Of course, by that rationale, you wouldn’t sign any player past their 30th birthday, really. And maybe that’s the approach some teams want to take and just might. But you could do this all day. The Cubs definitely want to sign Javy Baez to an extension, and he’s he exact same age as Bryant. And how much athleticism can he lose as he ages before it affects what he brings to the table? You can do this with Schwarber and Contreras too, if you want.

And for right now, the Cubs don’t appear inclined to consider the intangibles with Rizzo, of which there are many. He’s entrenched in the city and community, is the unquestioned leader of this team and pretty much the face of it, and the affection between and he and the fans couldn’t really be much higher. We want to believe that factors into contract negotiations, because we simply can’t bear the thought of Rizzo wearing another jersey. It wouldn’t make any sense.

All those things applied to Brent Seabrook as well. How’d that go?

Again, to me you just pay Rizzo something reasonable, unless he completely falls off or is using a cane in the next two years. Because they have the money, and perhaps at age 32 he won’t really be seeking more than four or five years and even if he’s not the All-Star he is now it’s hard to imagine him every being a true detriment to the team.

But it’s trickier than it appears on the surface. Maybe it all is.

Hockey

Game #32 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Preview: Second Verse, Same As The First…

By Sam Fels 1576 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 12-13-6   Coyotes 18-11-4

PUCK DROP: 8pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

SOOOPER GENIUS: Five For Howling

The Hawks and Coyotes will do it again, just four days after they came together for an occasion that will be lost to the annals of time soon (hopefully). In the interim, they both got kicked around by Pacific Division opponents, the Hawks by the Knights and the Coyotes by the Flames.

So obviously not that much has changed since these two went to a shootout on Sunday. The one major storyline for the Hawks is what they’ll do without Calvin de Haan now as he joins Duncan Keith in the medical tent. de Haan wasn’t put on LTIR today, just normal injury reserve, so maybe it’s not the catastrophe it looked on Tuesday. Either way, he’s out for the next few.

On the surface, we know that it means. Assuming Olli Maatta has recovered from the West Nile he contracted in New Jersey, he’ll come back in, pair with Seabrook, while Gustafsson is with Murphy and the two kids are together for like nine minutes. What it should mean is pairing Adam Boqvist with Connor Murphy and see what you have. Because what do the Hawks have to lose? They’re bottom of the division, they’re one of if not the worst defensive team in the league, so let’s have some fun. Give Boqvist the best free safety you have and let him run. Yes, he had a bad turnover on Tuesday that led to a goal. It’s going to happen. He also hit a post, created two other chances, and helped set up the goal you got. Let him make mistakes, live with it, see if he gets better. We know the Erik Gustafsson road. We know the Slater Koekkoek road. We know exactly where it ends.

Other than that, it’s hard to give you reasons to get excited to watch. The forwards should stay the same, unless Matthew Highmore comes in for someone, possibly Sikura though he hasn’t done anything wrong in two games, really. And once again the Hawks will hope that the Coyotes don’t have a plan for the night, or won’t stick to it, because that’s generally the only way the Hawks win.

Luckily for the Hawks, the Yotes defense might be as big of a mess as theirs. Jason Demers joined Niklas Hjalmarsson the shelf, and they were all over the place against Calgary on Tuesday. They gave up goals to Zac Rinaldo and Milan Lucic, which in a world that was logical would lead to automatic relegation instantly. They gave up 24 shots in the first two periods, though did rally furiously for a 17-5 edge in that category in the 3rd after the Flames had checked out.

The Yotes certainly have been piling up the shots lately, with 48 against Calgary and 47 against the Hawks on Sunday. If they had finishing talent, they might have been pouring in the goals. But they don’t, so they’ve gotten two of four points and needed a shootout for those.

Same plan as Sunday. The Yotes are pretty quick up front, and gave the Hawks fits when they were diligent about forechecking and harassing the Hawks D into turnovers. When the Hawks try and freelance out of this or don’t really care about helping out, you get what you got on Tuesday or the last half of Sunday. If the Hawks are dedicated to moving the puck quickly and directly, they can create chances against a beleaguered Coyotes blue line.

If the Hawks can’t get points here, they’re staring dead straight at the season being over by Christmas. The Avs are up twice next week, as is a trip to The Peg after a home date with the Wild, who just zoomed past them in the standings. It’s very easy for all of that to go balls-up. Have to get you can while you can when you can. And more quotes from random sources that might inspire.

 

Hockey

Game #32 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Spotlight: Does Nick Schmaltz Mean Anything?

By Sam Fels 1572 0

The list is far too long, but it feels like Nick Schmaltz is the one first-rounder the Hawks chucked that no one kicks too much dust up about. His meaning is that he’s on the list, and how that list seems to be ever expanding.

Maybe it’s because Schmaltz’s big season as a Hawks was in a lost campaign. That was the year where Corey Crawford got hurt, the backups were simply awful, and the Hawks were severely up the track in the standings. So Schmaltz’s 50+ points were lost in the wash, and the most emotion anyone could kick up about it was, “Yeah, but who gives a shit?” Even having Patrick Kane take a shine to him wasn’t enough to save him.

If Schmaltz’s trade angered anyone, it was because of the billing the organization gave him before last season, which really wasn’t fair. Stan Bowman made no secret of wanting to keep cap space open for an extension, even though Schmaltz had only had one productive season for a team that went nowhere. Rumors of trades for Justin Faulk were supposedly turned down because Schmaltz was the asking price, but who knows for sure?

It was clearly the kind of pressure that Schmaltz couldn’t live under, which wasn’t a terribly good sign either. He quickly played himself out of the center and to a wing under Joel Quenneville, and he wasn’t much of a wing. Eddie Olczyk even was quick to point out battles or hits that Schmaltz bailed out of, which was the rare off-message moment for him. With Q’s job on the line, with a hope of a return to the playoffs, and his own contract to play for, Schmaltz simply shrank from the challenge.

Schmaltz’s season ended prematurely with a knee injury, but Arizona saw enough to put his mind at ease after 17 games with a seven-year extension. They seem to be getting a bang for their $5.9M bucks with 22 points in 33 games so far. We’ll see if any of them matter come springtime.

For the Hawks, Schmaltz just represents their utter failure in the draft since Stan Bowman took over. That’s putting it harshly, has he has taken a number of good players. It’s just that none of them have been able to make an impact for the Hawks themselves, except for Teuvo and perhaps Boqvist and Dach now. It’s truly horrifying to see that David Pastrnak was taken after Schmaltz.

You probably know the list now, but Stan’s first-rounders and what they’ve done for the Hawks:

Kevin Hayes never signed.

Mark McNeil never played in the NHL.

Teuvo was an important cog in the last Cup winner, and then had to be a make-weight to get rid of Bryan Bickell.

Phillip Danault looked really useful for half a season, and then was swapped for Quenneville’s fetish for Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann, both of whom he hated after five minutes.

Ryan Hartman never became Andrew Shaw.

Schmaltz became Dylan Strome.

So even in all the trades, really all the Hawks got out of their best picks was a season and a half of Teuvo and Dylan Strome. You want to know why they are where they are, and there you go. If you expand it to all of Stan’s picks who have made a serious impact, it’s just Saad and Shaw. It’s not enough.

None of that is Schmaltz’s fault. Both the Coyotes and Hawks are happy with the Schmaltz-Strome swap. Everything that you draw for Schmaltz and his time and ending with the Hawks doesn’t really have much to do with the player himself.

Hockey

Game #32 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1223 0

The Glendale Grift – It’s hard to know what history will record as the biggest stadium swindle. You’d have to think the Marlins are the clubhouse leader, but the fact that there are so many contenders is sobering to the nth degree. Glendale might have the market on dumbest.

It’s hard to believe, after all the drama, that Gila River Arena (it’s seriously called that) is only 15 years old. Which makes the Coyotes bellyaching for a new one almost unconscionable. Or it would if we hadn’t become numb to this kind of thing. The idea that it would ever work should have been a bigger outrage, except it took place in Arizona where no one cared.

The Coyotes moved to Glendale, some 20 miles from downtown Phoenix and even farther from Scottsdale, because they get a shady deal on it. Glendale was happy to pay for it, or most of it, and no one seemed to notice that people aren’t going to travel that far to watch a team that had only been in town seven seasons and didn’t have much of a grounded fanbase. And it’s been ever thus.

Every new owner of the Coyotes, and we’ve lost count at this point, has barked about getting a new building in Phoenix or Scotttsdale, to be where people live and such. But what will happen to this white elephant when that happens? It’s fine to have a football stadium in the middle of nowhere, as Glendale was and still kind of is, because that’s only 8-10 trips a year and each one is an event. But your run of the mill hockey game on a Tuesday?

The NHL sure didn’t help, as they canceled two or three All-Star games that were supposed to be there that might have helped drum up interest or forced the team to stay at all, depending on your view. It’s all been a mess, and there’s no good answer to solve it.

Perhaps it’ll be burned down in the revolution. Or just randomly, because weird shit happens in Arizona.