Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks Spotlight: Greece Lightning

By Sam Fels 1228

When news broke on deadline day that Andreas Athanasiou had finally been traded from Detroit, our hearts sank a little. We had dreamed of Athanasiou on Madison, if only for the localized Cheap Trick jokes. In earnest, Athanasiou is the kind of player the Hawks paid lip service to trying to get and find and develop a couple years ago, but never did. The Hawks aren’t fast enough, they only acquire or produce players that aren’t fast enough, and Athanasiou is the kind of speed they need to find more of. We especially were hurt by the seemingly light price-tag that Athanasiou cost the Oilers. Sam Gagner is merely a collection of organs now, and two second-rounders is not nothing but it’s hardly a chest full of gold either. Especially as the Oilers picks will be in the back half of the round, at least this year.

And because it happened in Detroit last year, which is now hockey’s tree-falling-in-the-forest, most don’t remember that Athanasiou went for 30 goals and 54 points last year while mostly playing with the charred ends of Frans Nielsen and Luke Glendening. How could he only be worth two seconds and a youth-coach-in-waiting?

It also seemed curious that Ken Holland is the one who came in for Athanasiou, as it felt like he was leading the charge of under-appreciation for him. It was Holland who stonewalled the player as a restricted free agent in 2017, nearly sending him to Europe and not signing him until three weeks into that season. But then it was Holland who didn’t make that mistake twice, handing him the contract he has now that expires after this season immediately. Maybe Holland has come around.

Still, if you wanted to, you could make the argument that Athanasiou is a glorified Tony Salmaleinen. Because that 30-goal campaign looks a long way off this season.

Athanasiou has only put up 11 goals this term, though playing most of his time in Detroit with yet another cadaver in Valttieri Filppula didn’t help matters. But all of Athansiou’s metrics are way down. He shot 13% last year, but it is just 8.,7 so far this season. His career mark is 12.7%, so this could be unlucky.

But his individual expected goals are down. So are his attempts. So are his scoring chances. And shots. He used to pile up over nine shots per 60 minutes. This year it’s below eight. He’s scoring a touch below what he “should” be, according to his ixG, but hardly enough to consider him hard done by.

Even upon arrival in Edmonton, he wasn’t immediately put in the top six where one would assume he would go. He’s behind Tyler Ennis, for christ’s sake. He’s got a chance to make an impact in the playoffs for the first time, and maybe playing against third pairings will give him the chance to really open things up.

It might be his last chance at a raise. Athanasiou is still a restricted free agent after this year. But he can earn another bridge deal before heading to free agency. It’s clear Holland wants a clear look here in a new place.

Because it feels like Athanasiou should be more than this. That could be simply because his prime skill, his speed, is so easy to notice by anyone. It can look like he’s having more of an effect than he is. Still, at some point he’s going to get a look with Draisaitl or McDavid, for the first time with a prime center, and we’ll find out just what he could be. If Zack Kassian can pile up 15 goals riding shotgun, and he can’t move or think or talk, what could someone with these gifts do?

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1111 0

Mike Smith – For some reason, the Oilers seem intent on making Smith their unquestioned #1 goalie even though his numbers are worse than Koskinen’s. And what’s worse, with the Oilers looking locked-on for the playoffs, is he probably will play well once they arrive. Smith has only been to the playoffs twice, though that being such a low numbers is partially on him being less than stellar in the regular season, but has been excellent when there. It wasn’t his fault that the Flames got pulverized by Nathan MacKinnon last year. And you know what he did in 2012. Gonna piss the shit out of us.

Zack Kassian – Watch all the Wolves fans come down tonight to cheer their former hero. Just kidding, no Wolves fan ever gets over the fear of entering the city because people of color live here.

Andreas Athanasiou – Just because he’s someone we’ve wanted on the Hawks for a while and it hurts when Ken Holland is the one to make the jump.

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1088 0

Oilers

Notes: McDavid returned on Sunday, so the Hawks won’t get to dodge that bullet again. Then again, they got whacked by this outfit without him so…Yamamoto has been a point-per-game since called up around the new year, and that line has been a major problem for everyone…At some point they’ll pair Athanasiou and McDavid, and a d-man will pass out from trying to keep up…Smith’s been .917 since the turn of the year…

Hawks

Notes: Maatta wasn’t at the skate this morning but there’s been on word that he won’t play as of yet…Amazing what happens when Strome is moved back to center, no?…More garbage time points for Nylander. At least he’s got a specialty…Crow has the fifth-highest SV% at evens in the league…

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: WITNESS ME

By Sam Fels 1129 0

I’m one of the few who take Kyle Schwarber as a given. And even I think that feeling is fragile. Schwarber gave us a half-season of a dominant hitter. But it’s only a half-season. And it took us a while to get here. Which means it feels like it could easily slip back into the whiff-happy, Dave Kingman routine again. But this is what our large adult son has always been billed as, and the organization was so patient with him to get this, it feels like this has to be the time. Will it be?

Kyle Schwarber 2019

155 games, 610 PA

.250/.339/.531

.357 wOBA  120 wRC+

11.5 BB%  25.6 K%

-7.1 Defensive Runs

2.6 WAR

Overall, the numbers don’t look gargantuan. It’s the second half that has people staining their shorts, where The War Bear went .280/.366/.631 for a 151 wRC+. And that came about without a huge spike in BABIP, or an abnormal amount of fly-balls leaving the park, and what it did involve was making more contact. Schwarber’s walk-rate dropped in the second half by a couple percentage points, but his strikeouts went from 28.3% to 21.0%. And considering how hard Schwarber hits the ball, hardest on the team, the more balls he gets in play the better it’s going to be for everyone. So can he keep it up?

YES! YES! YES!: So in order to figure out if Schwarber figured something out and that 151 wRC+ is something he can do something like that over a full season (which is obviously patently ridiculous because that would make him a top-10 hitter in the league)?

One adjustment for 2019 was Schwarber being able to take fastballs up in the zone the other way and with authority. And he was able to make more contact on them:

And in the second half, Schwarber was able to make more contact on pitches just high in the zone and a little above, and as we said, more contact means more good things for Schwarber. And you. And me. And the world. So that feels like a permanent swing change.

Which means Schwarber is going to have to be on the lookout for breaking pitches now, Considering he slugged .561 on sliders in the second half last year, and hit .267 against curves, he might have already made that adjustment. Things will always change in baseball, and eventually Schwarber will be attacked in a different way, but he seems more equipped than he was before.

The final hurdle for Schwarber is to succeed in high-leverage situations, which has been something of a bugaboo. If you believe in that sort of things, which a lot of people don’t. Overall, Schwarber was average last year in them at a 96 wRC+, after putting up…deep breath…-64 in them in 2018. So you’d have to say that was an improvement, Captain Obvious. Likely to be batting fourth behind Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez, you’d have to guess he’s going to have a chance to take a run at 120 RBI here. Even being average as he was gets him near that.

Given the thinness of the lineup, Schwarber might have to hit against lefties a fair amount of the time. Which he did well in the second half, though he did strike out nearly a third of the time as well. The Cubs could go Happ-Almora-Souza on those days…but those aren’t days you’re going to want to watch much. If he does play against lefties, it’s sliders breaking away from him that he’s going to have to watch out for. He whiffed on over half of the ones he saw.

You’re a B+ Player: The amount of ABs Schwarber has with men on base and medium to high leverage gets to his head again, and suddenly those high fastballs aren’t something he does anything with but goes back to whiffing on. Or popping out softly. He begins to lean that way, and then suddenly the curves and sliders he was waiting for are being jumped at. Which means more grounders, as his success was partly based on getting more balls in the air. He gets worse in the field, and now that he doesn’t have many chances to throw guys out with his arm, he provides even more negative value. And then it will feel the Cubs have missed on the window to cash in on him at his highest value. That sound like a lot, doesn’t it?

Dragon Or Fickle?: I’m all in on Schwarber, making the top of the Cubs’ lineup as dangerous as you’d find in the National League (though a tad K-heavy). Something definitely clicked for Schwarbs, and at 27 now this is his time. Andrew Cieslak’s favorite Cub is going to be tearing down padding on. the outfield wall all season.

 

Hockey

What Is Dominik Kubalik?

By Sam Fels 2480 0

This isn’t some existential question, though I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m not sure everything isn’t one. Anyway, for the Hawks going forward, it’s important to identify what Dominik Kubalik is going forward, not only for what his next contract will be but for what the Hawks think they need to bolster the roster.

Because, thanks to the supernova genius of the past offseason, the Hawks don’t have a lot of wiggle room. We’ve been over and over what the Hawks can, and really have to, do to open up cap space. Even with today’s announcement from scratch-muppet Bill Daly that next year’s cap will be between $84-$88M (which means $84M), the Hawks don’t have much to work with. If they’re really planning on having Andrew Shaw and Brent Seabrook return to this team next year, at best they could have $15M to play with and that’s with a buyout of Olli Maatta. They can’t buy out Zack Smith until he’s medically cleared, and who knows when that would be. And this the Hawks, so they might not even be considering buying out Maatta, which means only $12M in space. And that would be pretty much gobbled up by Kubalik, Strome, and the two goalies they’ll need to bring in (even if one of those is a kid from the system).

So yeah, nailing the Kubalik contract is just about paramount.

The Hawks catch something of a break with Kubalik’s birthday being in August, as he won’t hit unrestricted free agency for three years instead of two. You can bet whatever contract comes next will be for three years for that exact reason, and it would behooved the Hawks to keep it there. Coming off a possible 35-goal season, buying out unrestricted free agent years could get expensive, unless Kubalik and his agent are just the nicest people in the world.

So let’s try and figure out what Kubalik is on the ice before we try and diagnose what he is going to get paid off of it. First off, he’s almost certainly not a 35-goal scorer consistently. He was a point-per-game in Switzerland, and did score one in every two there, but that didn’t project to what the Hawks have gotten so far.

As we’ve noted, Kubalik is shooting 19.1%, which just isn’t sustainable. The highest career-mark this century is Alex Tanguay’s 18.3. Currently, Draisaitl has the highest current career mark at 16.9%. Maybe Kubalik can keep it around there, but we don’t know that yet.

At the moment, Kubalik is leading the league in goals/60 at even-strength. Right behind him is Alex Ovechkin. Auston Matthews is fourth. David Pastrnak is fifth. This isn’t to say Kubalik is these guys, just the rarified air he’s keeping. Kubalik is currently doubling his expected goals per 60, which none of the other top-five are. All except Pastrnak have a higher expected goals per 60, and Pasta has the same rate.

Kubalik leads the league in difference between his actual goal-rate and his expected one, tied with Andre Burakovsky. You might say that talented shooters/finishers outshoot their expected rates all the time, and that’s what makes them special players, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Just not at this level of doing so. Currently Alex Ovechkin has a difference in those marks of 0.72, which is still someway lower than Kubalik’s 0.88, and by far the highest difference of his career. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more gifted finisher than Ovie.

If you look at simply Kubalik’s expected number of 0.86/60, that ranks him 29th, again even with Pastrnak and Aho and William Nylander, all encouraging names to be around to be sure. And Kubalik produced that while spending a good portion of the first half of the season on the bottom six and such. Toews may be his most common teammate, but the next forward on that list is David Kampf. Tells you a lot.

Kubalik’s attempts per game rank him 39th among forwards, which isn’t bad but doesn’t really make him a volume shooter. So he’s more of his find-his-spots guy, which is fine.

The worrying thing for the Hawks is that everyone around Kubalik’s ixG/60 makes some coin, like Aho or Stastny or Atkinson or Marchessault or Stone. What the Hawks will be harping on pretty hard you’d have to think is track record.

What’s kind of weird is that Kubalik has an outside shot at putting together the second-most goals for a rookie in the past 10 years. Matthews’s 40 is not going to happen, but Laine’s 36 could happen with just another heater for two or three weeks. He’s going to top Panarin’s 30 from 2016, which helped get him a $7M contract that the Hawks were too terrified to actually pay him and traded him before it kicked in. You can bet Kubalik’s agent is going to have this in mind.

Panarin shot 16% that year, a mark he didn’t match until this campaign in New York. Laine shot over 17% his first two years but hasn’t come close to that since. This is probably what the Hawks have in mind. Laine signed a two-year bridge deal coming out of his entry-level for $6.7M, and you can argue whether or not he’s been worth it or not.

Jonathan Marchessault on that list makes for an interesting comp, because both he and Kubalik feel like solid 25-30 goal-scorers. Marchessault signed his deal at 28, which marks him out from Laine, Nylander, Pastrnak who signed their current deals at younger ages than Kubalik will be this summer. The projection for them would be that they would get better, whereas the Knights were signing what Marchessault was and will be. He’s at $5M per year, which you’d have to say is a bargain, especially as he was UFA aged. The Hawks are probably pegging (not like that) this season as the absolute height of what Kubalik can be.

All of that suggests the Hawks are going to be up against it to get Kubalik in for under $5M a year, even with his restricted status. It’s also hard to find a comp for a player who comes from Europe and in his first year kicks ass and then is ready for a new deal. Panarin is about as close as you’d get and he had a second year before getting his deal. Anything under $5M per year should be considered a steal.

The Hawks do have all the leverage here, as it’s unlikely that someone is going to swoop in with an offer sheet north of $7M for a player with just one year in the NHL, and that’s the amount that would definitely make the Hawks pass. But then again, the Hawks have never used that leverage with anyone not named Marcus Kruger, and he didn’t seem to care.

And I’m not sure anything between $4.5M-$5.5M would ever be a bad deal for the Hawks. Given what his underlying numbers say, it’s easy to peg Kubalik as hovering around 25 goals, give or take, for the next few years. That’s about what they cost.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: He’s Still Galactus

By Sam Fels 1209 0

Other than Mookie Betts, it wasn’t just the Cubs’ winter that hinged on Kris Bryant. It felt like half of baseball or more was waiting to see where he’d go and what they’d do in response. Or every move that was made viewed through the prism of whether or not that would enlarge or shrink the market for him. And then nothing happened. I’d like to believe that Theo Epstein has been slow-playing his ownership the whole time, never intending to make a deal while guising it as just not finding one that’s appropriate. Because there isn’t one that’s appropriate. You can’t get equal value for a player like Bryant, and the Betts trade proves it. Unless your real goal is to just lower payroll, which was the Red Sox’s. And was pretty much the Cubs’. But thankfully, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, at least for a few months and probably a year. And maybe not at all.

So we have to endure the torture of having the third-best player in MLB since making his debut stuck on the team. The horror, the horror…

Kris Bryant 2019

147 games, 634 PA

.282/.382/.521

.379 wOBA  135 wRC+

11.7 BB%  22.9 K%

-4.1 Defensive Runs

4.8 fWAR

It’s funny, and don’t take this as me being anti-Javy because I’m the farthest thing from it. But all those people who had either reconciled a Bryant trade or were actively pushing for it–and they’re the same people who will tell you they’ve definitely heard of and seen the band you simply made up to mock them without them knowing it–will tell you last year clinched it because Bryant was hurt and not very good and Baez is the one the Cubs have to extend. And that 4.8 WAR mark is one Baez has surpassed…once. And it was Bryant’s second-worst season out of five. I don’t think people pay enough attention.

Bryant definitely was carrying something for the second half of the season, and still put up numbers that most players would cut off their mom’s pinky for. It’s not even a baseline for him. IT COULD NOT BE ANY SIMPLER, LUANNE.

August was the rough one, where clearly something went off physically, as Bryant’s hard-contact rate was only 25% and his line-drive rate just 12%. But on the spotted times he could actually get out there in September, be bashed the ever-loving shit out of the ball to the tune of a 52% hard-contact rate, 34% line-drive rate, and a 145 wRC+. So the idea that he was somehow part of the Cubs collapse when he was healthy is fucking laughable.

YES! YES! YES!: Bryant just needs to stay healthy, or at least have his medical staff properly diagnose when something is wrong and in a timely fashion. It felt like the past two years Bryant has just soldiered on through things they couldn’t identify, and it didn’t help matters much. When healthy, you don’t need to look much farther than last season’s first four months, when he had 21 homers, and was slashing .291/.394/.541, and that’s with carrying a rough first five weeks of the season due to a .263 BABIP, 80 points below his career average.

So for the optimum outcome, Kris Bryant just needs to be Kris Bryant. There isn’t some combination of events that have to come together for him to succeed. There isn’t something he needs to work on or adjust to. He just needs to be healthy and breathing. The only quibble, if you have to have one, is his defensive metrics have slipped since 2016. Now maybe you attribute this to him being 6-5 and simply not as mobile as he ages, and that could very well be true. Having knee problems wasn’t ideal, either. It’s worth keeping an eye on, but he seems too good of an athlete to just be a bad defender now. It’s been two years under water when it comes to Defensive Runs, so it’s not quite a trend yet but another year of it would make it so.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: The opposite of above, where health is again an issue and he’s merely really good instead of a team-carrier, and all that will do to those who really liked that band where the dude plays a theremin with a cat (hat tip Kyle Kinane) is lower his value in a trade with only one year of control left and you can have the bucket of sink scum and pigeon shit the BoSox got for Betts. Yippee.

If we need to go deeper than that, Bryant struggled a bit on fastballs high in the zone last year. And if that continues he does become an easier out, though it was clearly something he had adjusted his stance and swing this spring to deal with:

It wasn’t that much better before August 1st either, so it’s tricky to blame it on his knee problem. You don’t want Bryant having to cheat to get up to high fastballs, because of what that leads to. One would expect this is the first area opposing pitchers go to this season.

Dragon Or Fickle?: I would like to tell you that after a winter of trade rumors and the grievance and listening to some experts try and disparage what he’s meant to this team and city, Bryant would be leading the Fuck You World Tour. But he’s just not that guy. When he says he’s over it and it generally doesn’t bother him, you tend to believe it. That doesn’t mean this isn’t an ultra-competitive guy, you’d have to be to get to where he’s gotten, but he’s different.

I would simply expect a Kris Bryant season, but a healthy one. Which means there will be a month or two where he simply carries this team and keeps them in the race by himself if not on top. I would expect him to beat the projections and top a 5-WAR season, and maybe with a little luck get himself into the MVP discussion again. It’s his standard, and not enough appreciate that.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Preview: You Were Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off

By Sam Fels 1307 0

vs.

RECORDS: Ducks 26-31-8   Hawks 29-28-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

MUSKETEERS? ON GUARD?: Anaheim Calling

Whenever the Hawks were mapping out a road back to the playoffs–be it before the season, or in the depths of the fall, or when they looked barely competent around the new year and trying to place a final charge–they must have looked at March and thought this was where it would happen. Because looking at this month’s slate, even in their current state the Hawks could pile up some points here.

It starts tonight with the Ducks, who blow. The Wings are on Friday, and they blow. The Sharks and Sentators at home next week. They blow chunks, too. Minnesota in a home-and-home and then Buffalo, and both of those teams blow a fair amount as well. The Kings and Canadiens at the end of the month, and yep, there’s some definite blowage there as well. That’s nine games that you’d expect the Hawks to win, no matter their makeup. Which means if  the Hawks were to goof a couple of results out of the Oilers, Blues, Caps, Penguins, or Stars…they could have 86 or 88 points, or even more at denouement of the season.

Except that probably only worsens their draft position. And makes you wonder what if. And that’s if you think the Hawks will take all 18 points from the games they should. Which they won’t. There’ll be no shelter here.

Either way, it kicks off tonight with the visit of the Ducks, who have backed up all season themselves after backing up all last season and have never really recovered since a playoff loss to the Predators in 2017. Boy, that sounds familiar. The Ducks might still be in Step 1 of turning from the Getzlaf-Perry generation to the next that will be led by…well, they don’t really know who yet and that’s the problem.

Getzlaf is still here of course, but his can’t-be-bothered, I’ll-float-out-here style has now aged into a I-can’t-get-there-if-I-wanted-to-but-still-don’t morass. Getz is headed for his lowest point-total since 2012 or worse, and he’s still the #1 center around these parts. What kids he’s turning the torch over to, I can’t tell you. The Ducks seemed to have missed a generation, just like the Hawks have. Rickard Rakell is 27 soon. Jakob Silfverberg is 29. Adam Henrique is 30. Cam Fowler is 28. Josh Manson too. That’s not really anyone in their prime or approaching it who’s ready to be the centerpiece of this team. When your important players are either over 30 or under 24, you get this.

The younger ducklings (so clever) like Sam Steel or Max Jones or Max Comtois (Larry Horse say Ducks too Max-y) or Jacob Larsson haven’t seized the greater opportunities. There’s still time of course, but Ducks observers would probably like to see a little more flash and less talk. The Ducks have taken on a couple projects in the hopes of finding plutonium by accident like Danton Heinen or Sonny Milano or Christian Djoos. Something’s got to work soon, right?

There’s still a few kids who haven’t even gotten a full go yet, and that’s where the hope lies. But this being a Bob Murray team, they’re going to struggle to find room for them thanks to contracts like Ryan Kesler’s if he doesn’t want to retire, or Erik Gudbranson’s, or David Backes’s for one more year. It’s a project in Anaheim, that’s for sure. The hockey team matches the area around it. There’s a lot of trash just lying around with nothing to stand out from the background.

To the Hawks, it’s basically the same again as it was in Florida. Corey Crawford will start, and the rest of the lineup will remain the same. And really, why would you change anything at this point? How would you? It kind of picks itself.

Toews, Keith, Kane, and Crow have been sounding the bell about making a serious run this month, and they’ll probably be doing the same in the room. They have to. Players want to win, and there are wins here to be had. And hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Who knows what it would tell the front office though. Look, we’ve got to come up with some reason to electively watch the Hawks play teams like this, right?

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Dallas Eakins And The Curse Of The Marlies

By Sam Fels 1243 0

You won’t believe this, but everything being overblown and exaggerated just because it takes place in Toronto spreads beyond its NHL team. You probably knew that, because no Leafs fan every shuts the fuck up about what’s going on with the AHL’s Marlies. Remember when Mark Arcobello was all that was needed to get the Leafs from merely playoff attendant to Cup winner? The Rays don’t talk about their AAA team an eighth as much and that actually produces shit for the big club!

It’s like that every goddamn year with them, because everyone in T.O is under the delusion that everyone else cares about their entire system. He’s in Germany now, by the way. It was the same with Josh Leivo or T.J. Brennan or Carter Ashton or a host of others Leafs fans were convinced were NHL-worthy simply because they were in the Toronto system/area code who turned out to be tomato cans.

It’s apparently the same with with coaches. Except the Leafs have somehow exported that blurred vision of the world elsewhere.

Dallas Eakins is on his second job, and it’s hard to get a good read on what he is. The Ducks roster he has here is shit, John Gibson hasn’t played well, but it’s not like this team is overachieving or anything. Metrically, they’re about the same as the Hawks, and we know what a problem that is. But unlike the Hawks, there really isn’t a star on the roster besides Gibson, at least one that can stay healthy. Getzlaf is past it, Lindholm is just under that border, and the rest have flattered to deceive or are mere seat-fillers to plus seat-fillers.

But it wasn’t so long ago that you simply had to have Eakins as coach. He was the hot name because…he took the Marlies to the Calder Cup Final once? So it seems. Every second intermission on Hockey Night in Canada had some hockey wag breathlessly reporting that one of a dozen teams was all over Eakin’s ass. Most of the current crop of players that make the Leafs what they are now came after him, and/or skipped the Marlies altogether. Still, that was in the bloodstream, and the Oilers axed Ralph Kreuger to get Eakins even though the former had a surprising season with the dish-water talent that usually exists in EdMo. Well, Eakins won 36 of his 113 games in charge up there and was out on his ass in 18 months.

Of course, he’s not alone. Paul Maurice was able to parlay one season behind the Toronto bench to a job with the big club, which went exactly nowhere. He’s still getting work despite clearly demonstrating his head is filled with barf. Sheldon Keefe followed that same path as Maurice, just 15 years later or so, and he’s currently struggling to make the the playoffs with one of the more gifted sets of forwards in the league. Good stuff there. Clearly the Marlies are the start of a golden road. Or shower.

Eakins recovered to take a job with the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego, where he worked with some of the kids they hope will turn this ugly-ass ship around sometime soon. The Ducks and their fans have been bleating about Sam Steel and Max Jones and Max Comtois for a while now, without actual tangible results at the top level. Trevor Zegras was picked last draft and Isac Lundestrom came up for air briefly this season. Maybe they’ll be the ones who the Ducks got right.

Still, this is where Eakins is now, watching this dreck every night. Eakins did all right work with the Gulls for a couple seasons, taking them to the conference final last year with Steel, Jones, and others. But he never proved to be the genius that Toronto fans told everyone he was. Which is how things work around there all the time.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1089 0

Ryan Getzlaf – He’s the only shit-eater left now that Corey Perry and slinked off to Dallas to do pretty much nothing except elbow anyone who fell asleep for seven seconds to not see him coming. Getzlaf’s skills seems to have matched his attitude now, as he hasn’t given a shit in years and now he can’t just use his hands to get out of it. He’ll be 35 next season and in the last year of his contract, so this could be one of his last visits to the United Center. Which is fine, the fumigation costs after he leaves are absurd.

Erik Gudbranson – He’s hurt and won’t play tonight, but someone always seems to sign or trade for this cinderblock and he hasn’t been able to do anything since he came into the league. But if you’re big and hairy the NHL will always find a place for you for some reason.

Michael Del Zotto – There’s no coming back from publicly blowing it with a porn star, dude.