Hockey

Game #27 – Blues vs. Hawks Preview: A New World

By Sam Fels 2134 0

vs

RECORDS: Blues 17-5-6   Hawks 10-11-5

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

GOOD GOD DON’T GO THERE: St. Louis Gametime

Like any adversarial relationship, or really any relationship that goes for a long time, there are different phases to it. The Hawks and Blues have had theirs. They were scraping for bottom of the barrel rewards in the 80s together. They were playoff rivals in the early 90s, each with hopes of breaking through the post-Oilers scene (never did). Both were hapless background pieces to the Wings, either in the mid- or late 90s. Both have been unequipped batting practice for the other at times, for instance the Pronger-era Blues were far ahead of the Hawks and obviously what came before here not so long ago. Both have been mud people at the same time.

We thought we’d permanently left them behind this decade. That’s the arrogance that comes from multiple championships. But you can never leave something like this behind. It’s always there, even if you have to squint, and it’s always a reminder of what you truly are. It feels like getting hit with a large fish in the face when you realize that, but here we are. Last spring was a reminder that some things are always like this, no matter how it might look.

And now it’s reversed. The Blues are in the sunshine, seemingly clicking everywhere, seemingly have figured out when everyone had assumed they never could. That it would always be that way. And the Hawks are the ones with their shoes tied together, valuing all the wrong things with an inability to take any step forward. Oh sure, maybe it’s only been two seasons like this, instead of the seven or eight we enjoyed laughing at the unwashed down I-55. But it’s gone now, isn’t it? Oh yes, yes it is.

So the Blues will show up for the first time this season tonight, with their unfathomable champions pedigree and their first place standing now and the added arrogance not just of having done all that, but of having done it when no one ever thought they could. These aren’t the Blues you remember, and it’s likely they will never be again. We’ve lost something. They’ve gained something, and that is truly world-shattering. They’re 15 points ahead of the Hawks.

The Hawks are 15 points behind, five points out of a playoff spot, and one point ahead of the basement of the entire damn conference. Has anything moved forward? Does it feel like it will anytime soon? Aren’t the questions all the same as they were before? The lack of answers sure are. This is supposed to be them. It was them. And we figured it would be them forever. Because it felt like it would be, when it was and we weren’t. We had all the answers before there were questions. And then in a flash it reversed, and now we’re the laughingstock in the relationship. “Look at how far behind they are,” they crow, and rightly. The gap is bordering on a gorge.  Cruel world.

Anyway, on the ground, the Blues are in first but in some ways they’re a lot like the Hawks. They’re not a great possession team. They get great goaltending and they’re getting some fine finishing from more sources than the local outfit. They’re still pretty good defensively, in that they hold down attempts, shots, chances among the better teams in the league. They don’t create much, but with the way Jordan Binnington is playing they don’t have to. The more you suppress shots and attempts the more games come down to a moment or two. And when your goalie is better most nights, you’ll win most nights. When you allow chances and attempts to flow like and Elvin-conjured river, you make it more likely that results will match what the teams are. That’s how you get the Hawks, no matter how good the goalies are.

Of course, the Blues are here without their main sniper in Vladimir Tarasenko, who might not play again in the regular season. They’re also without Alex Steen, which doesn’t mean much these days, and Oskar Sundqvist, which is somewhere in the middle. In their absence, Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron, and Brayden Schenn have fucked off just like they did last spring that landed us in this mess. Alex OrangeJello seems intent on having a true free agent year, and Jayden Schwartz is actually healthy. Imagine what happens when Justin Faulk actually gets comfortable. Fuck this life.

Anyway, to the Hawks, who will be without Duncan Keith, Dylan Strome, and now Robin Lehner as well as Andrew Shaw tonight. Lehner has the flu, which is a strange code for telling his teammates they suck on the bench and being given a day or two to calm down, even though he’s right. Without Keith, and he really shouldn’t matter this much, the Hawks roll out an AHL defense behind Connor Murphy. And we already said Connor Murphy shouldn’t matter this much either. Oh, did we mention they’ll have to do the same against the best line in hockey Thursday? On the road? ONE GOAL.

Because of all of this, the Hawks will skate one player short due to cap constraints, with the recalling of Kevin Lankinen putting them up against it. Real tight ship, here. A cap team that’s one point above the West basement. Everything’s fine. They have a process. They know what they’re doing. Everything is on course.

It won’t take more than four minutes for Pat and Eddie to comment on the Blues “grit” and the forecheck the Hawks apparently want to emulate without realizing what they’re actually talking about. The Blues can get in your shirt because they’re actually really quick. It’s not just about dressing psychopaths, which used to be their M.O. They upgraded the speed, and with Pietrangelo, Faulk, Colton Burpo, they’re mobile enough on the blue line to not worry if their forwards occasionally get beat. They defense can just step up behind it. The Hawks d-men can’t. So you get what the Avs did to them, which is streak to an odd-man whenever they felt like it. And failing that, they could just wait for that moment when four Hawks were trying to find the Big Dipper in their own zone and tralalala their way down the slot. The Blues are no more stupid than the Avs are.

The season is almost certainly already toast, but it’s for sure going to be if the Hawks don’t ace December. They can rant and rave all they want about where the Blues were on New Year’s Day last year, but that team was built to contend and needed to fire a coach who was clearly a moron and everyone knew it to get where they were supposed to be (say there’s an idea). This might be where the Hawks are supposed to be. Starting the month off with the two Finalists isn’t exactly cherry. The rest of the slate isn’t either.

The difference between the two might not any clearer after tonight, or at the end of the month. You’ll just have to wait for the day when the relationship shifts again. It might be a long way off.

Hockey

Game #27 – Blues vs. Hawks Spotlight: Was Justin Faulk Really The One Who Got Away?

By Sam Fels 1360 0

We had pined for the Hawks to get Justin Faulk for years. There were always rumors that the Canes were going to move him before they had to sign him longer-term, which would have happened this upcoming summer. The summer of ’18 there were actually rumors the Hawks and Canes had talks, circling around Brandon Saad or Nick Schmaltz (whoops, huh?). The Hawks’ need for a quick, puck-moving d-man has only gotten larger. And yet Faulk went to what used to be their main rivals. Did the Hawks drop the ball on this one?

It’s gone ok for Faulk in St. Louis. He’s still getting the same amount of time with the Blues, and his zone-starts are just about the same. The actual metrics are down a bit, like his Corsi and expected goal percentage. But relative to the Blues, who have shitty overall metrics, he’s actually ahead of the game.

Which arrests the pattern Faulk had last year. He fell way behind the Canes’ rate on those things, which is probably what spurred them to finally trade him after years of rumors. He was some five points off, though to be fair to him the Canes were one of the most dominant overall even-strength teams. Someone was going to have to take the brunt of that.

Faulk had also fallen behind Dougie Hamilton and moved to the second pairing, and Brett Pesce and Jakob Slavin had been higher valued for a while. Investing heavily in what would be a second-pairing d-man for them probably didn’t make a ton of sense. What the fuck Joel Edmundson does for them is another question.

The Blues had no such compunction, trading for Faulk and immediately signing him to a six-year extension that will take him to 33 at the rate of $6.5M per. It’s the same was what Alex Pietrangelo makes now, who enters his free agency in the summer. Will the Blues give him more and pay him that until his mid or late 30’s? Maybe Faulk is insurance on that.

Overall he hasn’t been able to swing the Blues much, who don’t have the puck a lot but have leaned on their goalies heavily. They still limit attempts and shots well but don’t create much. Maybe as Faulk adapts he’ll help out with that.

Would he have made sense for the Hawks? With the impending free agency that’s harder to judge. The Hawks have already entrenched d-men, contract-wise, that’s going to make a real trick to get Adam Boqvist and Ian Mitchell on the roster. Even if you subtract de Haan, it’s still a jam with Seabrook, Keith, and Murphy around. However, must Faulk instead of Maatta and de Haan would have given the Hawks the mobility and skill they don’t have. Locking him in for a few years wouldn’t have been a bad idea either, as Mitchell and Boqvist won’t be able to do it themselves for a while.

It’s certainly frustrating for Hawks fans, who watched the always-fucked up Blues show the urgency the Hawks passed on two summers ago to get Bozak and O’Reilly and then win the Cup. And then take the d-man the Hawks had been after for a while and we still watch Gustafsson turn the wrong way, Maatta get beaten to the outside, or Seabrook shit his pants.

Nothing ever stays the same.

Hockey

Game #27 – Blues vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1395 0

Brad Marchand – What, you say? The Hawks play the Bruins on Friday, not tonight? Oh, our innocent friend. Don’t you see it’s Brad Marchand who changed everything? Don’t you see it’s his disappearance last June that let this unimaginable hell into reality? Had he not shriveled into nothingness, perhaps the Blues would still be the Blues, and not…whatever this curse is now. No longer the redheaded stepchild of the world, the Blues have legitimacy. And who wanted that? No one. Absolutely no one. It’s changed forever. It’s not coming back. And that lays at the feet of that rat-nosed phony. Don’t you forget it.

David Perron – Were we ever to do a Hall of Fame for this kind of thing, Perron would be in the first class. An enraging asshole for his entire career, the world is off its axis as he was a main inspiration for last spring’s unfortunate series of events. Perron is still a coward, and when the Blues retire his number (and they will) or honor him in some way, he’ll be right there to punch the host while two linesmen hold him.

Justin Faulk – The Hawks got the wrong d-man from Carolina, and now we’re going to have to be reminded of that for the next half-decade.

Hockey

Game #27 – Blues vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1223 0

Blues

Notes: The Blues are beat up, missing four forwards who would be playing. They picked up Brouwer from whatever hay-pile he was staring at in BC, and that’s when you know it’s a problem…the Blues are throwing Jay Gallon at the Hawks, which gives you some idea of what they think the challenge will be here…that gremlin Perron has a seven-game point streak…Scenn is shooting over 20%, that won’t last…

Hawks

Notes: Nope, that’s not a mistake. The Hawks will go with 11 forwards and six d-men tonight, and this isn’t the end of “Leatherheads,” a movie only we saw and only because it was on late one night when we were too shitfaced to go straight to bed. Due to cap constraints the Hawks can’t call up another forward, so they’ll skate Kane 42 minutes and call in innovation…Andrew Shaw is probably hurt, but it would not be a bad idea to scratch his ass with the normal allotment of forwards because he’s been abject…that’s an AHL defense plus Connor Murphy…

Football

Three Things We Learned From Week 13 – The Worst Tree

By Sam Fels 1319 0

It’s Clear That Bill Belichick Does Everything

People just have to stop hiring from the Belichick coaching tree, because it’s a great way to back up your franchise into a universal depression. Maybe Bill O’Brien is the exception (although the next time the Texans do anything meaningful please call me), but we’ve seen enough of Romeo Crennel, Josh McDaniels, Charlie Weis and Matt Patricia on their own to know that they clearly never did anything in New England. At least we got one in the division though.

The Lions were actually around the playoff picture, and sometimes in it, before Matt Patricia the obese rapist showed up. And even the most beef-stuffed Bears fan who thinks the forward pass should be outlawed can tell you that Mitch Trubisky sucks to high heaven against zone coverage. Fuck, it’s what Belichick figured out about Jared Goff in three minutes, another system-produced QB who had to be told exactly where to throw the ball. Any kind of disguise, and neither can figure out where the ball should go and goes into convulsions that end with the ball in the other team’s hands.

But if you simply keep playing man, then everything is exactly as it looks and Mitch can actually pick-and-stick throws. Which he did pretty much all of Thursday afternoon, and the Lions are now basically the only team that Mitch has authored genuine, NFL adult drives against. On a short week when everything is supposed to be ragged, and the Bears defense kind of was, the Lions made Mitch look real. That’s not easy to do.

It’s obvious that Belichick plans everything, does everything, and then lets his assistants wear a headset and talk even though they’re probably not hooked up to anything. They get to play NFL Coordinator. They’re Gary Coleman talking to the president from his desk in that Christmas episode of the Simpsons. When McDaniels takes over the Pats after Belichick has four simultaneous strokes, they will immediately go 2-45. And then every Pats fan will be screaming for Trot Nixon to take over as coach. Just watch.

The Lions Are A Thanksgiving Tradition We Can All Enjoy

I’ve seen a lot of suggestion that the Lions should be removed from Turkey Day, and NBC getting a night game now is something of an admission that Detroit and Dallas shouldn’t be the only hosts. But there’s something about the Lions on that special Thursday that I wouldn’t want to lose.

Maybe it’s because they’ve always played in a stadium that gave off the feeling of a garage or airplane hangar. There’s always been something underground about either the Silverdome or now Ford Field. Like they whole place has been sequestered from society. It’s not always like that. You can tell the Superdome is in the middle of New Orleans just by watching a game there. But not in Detroit. It’s quiet and dark and weird. It’s a tradition we can’t figure out how to get rid of, so here it is from some holding pen we built. It doesn’t even feel part of the same country. Or world. It’s almost a lab experiment on some oil rig/ship in international waters.

And think about that time of day on the holiday. The game starts before any cooking or really anything is going on, or just about. So it’s a nice gathering point. And then after about five minutes of watching these dopes, you have no problem getting the day’s festivities started because you realize you’re not missing anything. Unless it’s your team playing the Lions, and then it’s just a nice boost to the day.

I think I’d be lost without it.

Despite Their Best Efforts, The Bears Almost Always Will Talk You Into It

Deep down, you knew you’d be here. As bad as the Bears looked for most of this season, as infuriating as the losses have been, you could never fully convince yourself you wouldn’t care come December. It’s funny, because before last year started, most of us would have accepted the Bears merely playing meaningful games in December, no matter how they turned out. They just got it reversed.

Maybe it’s the full week in between, when you have time to talk yourself into anything, twist the evidence however you want, before the actual game makes whatever statement that you can then twist to fit your own narrative the six days following that. But here we are, and here I am saying, “Well you can’t trust the Cowboys on the road in December, and then Hicks will be back and even though he won’t be full-strength he certainly helps and they should have beaten the Packers last time, and maybe they’re finally distilling the offense down to what Mitch can do somewhat well and really they’d only have to miracle a win against the Chiefs at home before needing only to club Kirk Cousins again to make the playoffs and that’s easy enough….”

But hey, it’s better than just running out the clock. Have you seen the Hawks and Bulls lately?

Hockey

Game #25 and #26 – Avalanche vs. Hawks Preview: Here Comes The Rabbit

By Sam Fels 1544 0

vs.

RECORDS: Avalanche 13-8-2*   Hawks 10-9-5

PUCK DROP(S): 3pm Friday, 8pm Saturday

TV: NBCSN Chicago for both

BUCKWHEATS: Mile High Hockey

*Wednesday’s game not included

The Hawks will try and help you shake off the tryptophan and dealing-with-family hangover this weekend with an old school home-and-home against the Avalanche. And with it, they may get a look at what might be the class of the division now, and certainly will be before too long. Seeing as how St. Louis is in Monday, the Hawks will definitely have some idea of just how far behind they are.

No team had more preseason buzz than the Avs. Nathan MacKinnon ascended to demigod status in last year’s playoffs, they finally got Mikko Rantanen signed, made a nifty trade with Toronto that brought them back a multi-faceted (though at times dunderheaded) Nazem Kadri, and most of all it is a full season of Cale Makar. And when the Avs have been fully healthy, it’s looked very boomstick. They started the season 8-1-1, scoring 40 goals in those 10 games.

But it’s been only 5-7-1 since, and a lot of that is injuries. Rantanen and Gabriel SapsuckerFrog have been out for a while now, though Dear Rat Boy could return this weekend. Depth pieces like Matt Calvert and Nikita Zadorov and Colin Wilson and others have missed time as well, thinning out what was a deeper team than before but not exactly deep either. Those are slowly returning, but they’ll have some ground to make up.

But the Avs can’t curse the gods for their fortunes totally, either. Their PDO is right behind the Hawks’, as they’ve gotten excellent work from their goalies at even-strength, with a .935 SV% overall, third in the league. But they’ve had real problems on the kill, where they have the fourth-worst save-percentage. And looking at their metrics while shorthanded, they’re only middle of the pack in the chances they give up while killing penalties, so their goalies just have to be better.

Clearly, the story with the Avs starts with Mac K and Makar. When they’re on the ice, and they’re on the ice together a lot, the Avs are nearly unplayable. It’s two of the two most dynamic forces in the league together, and yes Makar is already rocketing up to that status in just his rookie season. He’s going to walk with the Calder Trophy at this rate, averaging a point per game from the blue line and leading the rookie scoring race by seven points barely a quarter of the season in.

Still, the rest of the roster needs some tuning, and again when they get their full lineup this will help. Nazem Kadri has not been the possession and defensive monster he was in Toronto, mostly getting domed in possession. He’ll get help when Donskoi is allowed to slot down upon Rantanen’s return. They’re still waiting for a pop from Tyson Jost, and JT Compher hasn’t gotten to play the Hawks yet and pile up 17 goals. Rantanen and ThreeYaksAndADog’s return will definitely help with the depth scoring.

Another problem for the Avs is they’re just not a great possession team overall. While trading Barrie made sense given that he’s a year from free agency, it’s left Makar as basically the only true puck-mover from the back. It’s not Erik Johnson‘s game, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be Samuel Girard‘s (THE BIG DOG IS ALWAYS RIGHT) game either, thought there’s room for growth there. They could probably use another one back there to really challenge, as right now Girard and Johnson are deployed merely as fire fighters.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t a huge headache for the Hawks, who only managed one regulation win over the Avs last year and lost the two big games against them when the playoffs were actually something worth discussing. Still, this was one of the opponents the Hawks did play even in terms of shots and chances, just didn’t get the goaltending the Avs did from Grubauer or Varlamov. That shouldn’t be a problem this time around.

It’s not like you need a big dossier on how to get past the Avs. Contain the explosive device that is MacKinnon into no more than a controlled explosion, and you’re half the way there. On Friday, Colliton will be tempted to use Toews to do that, but it should be Kampf. If you can do that it’s not a great defensive team, you just have to get past their goalies, which was a challenge for the Hawks last year. But the power play scratched on Tuesday against the Stars, and the Avs have been pretty welcoming in that spot this year too. That would help.

Huge stretch here for the Hawks, as the next four are against some of the best the league has to offer. They can’t afford too many dry stretches from here on out, even if we’re not to December yet. And get used to the Avs, as the Hawks will be seeing them four times in the next month.

So get your post-Thanksgiving shit in early, this one has a chance to be fun.

Hockey

Game #25 and #26 – Avalanche vs. Hawks Spotlight: Here In Makar, I Feel Safest Of All

By Sam Fels 1261 0

There was an inkling last year when Cale Makar was simply toying with the strongest conference in college hockey as a sophomore that he night be something special for the Avalanche. 49 points in 41 games from the blue line for UMass is not a stat-line you see every day. It only got stronger when Makar suited up for the Avs in the playoffs and not only didn’t look out of place, but was taking shifts by the throat.

So yeah, you can probably just give him the Calder Trophy now.

Makar has amassed 25 points in his first 23 regular season NHL games, and might be the biggest reason the Avs have gone from lively upstarts to very much Western Conference favorites this season. Makar is also simply going upside the head of the competition metrically, as he’s carrying a +6.5 relative xG% rate over the rest of his Avs teammates.

The caveat, if you can call it that, is Makar has seen most of his time on the ice behind fellow tool of Galactus Nathan MacKinnon, who can puree most anyone facing him no matter whom he is on the ice with. But neither MacKinnon’s or Makar’s numbers sink terribly without the other.

Numbers probably don’t tell the whole story of Makar, as he might already be the best skater on a blue line anywhere in the league. He can simply be devastating, especially when in space and generating odd-man rushes with merely his feet. He can also do it with his passing when the lanes are bottled up. Basically, if you were curious what Paul Coffey might have looked like in the game today, this is it.

You’d think merely getting to the second round wasn’t enough to burn the first year of Makar’s entry-level deal last year, and that the Avs might come to rue that in two years. Probably not, and it’s once again due to the insane deal they got Nathan MacKinnon on that will pay him $6.5M for another three seasons after this one. So when it comes time to pay Makar, and at this pace it’ll be paying him a lot, they’ll still have two years of cheap Mac K, and their only other expensive deals are Rantanen and Erik Johnson (and not even that much in the latter case). Landeskog will need a new contract by then, but the Avs should easily be able to soak that up.

The scary thing for the Central Division is that with Makar only 21, Girard also 21, and Zadorov 24, the Avs blue line looks set for a while. Which is probably why they felt comfortable moving Tyson Barrie along a year before free agency. They’re probably even more comfortable with it seeing how things have gone in Toronto for him and the Leafs.

For now, Makar and MacKinnon on the ice together are a truly wondrous sight, at least for Avs fans. It’s pure terror for anyone facing them, and MacKinnon already proved last year that when he wants to, even in the playoffs, he can’t really be stopped. And now he’s got Makar behind him? Illegal, that should be.

We can only hope Adam Boqvist can emulate just some of this when he gets to the Hawks full-time, because it is how the game needs to be played now. Given how much speed most teams have at forward, you need Makar’s speed to make sure they’re not consistently getting in behind you. And you also need their dynamism to get through their forechecks. Sadly, you think that even if the Hawks were to get it right in the next couple years, MacKinnon and Makar are just always going to be in the way. Until they’re out of sight the other way, that is.

Hockey

Game #25 and #26 – Avalanche vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1208 0

J.T. Compher – Sometimes you’re not a prick, you just keep scoring against the Hawks even if you’re no damn good. Compher might be good, he might not be, but against the Hawks he’s some sort of HYDRA creation. Five games last year, four goals and five points. He hasn’t scored more against anyone else in his career than he did against the Hawks last season. He has two goals this year. He’ll probably double that total this weekend.

Nazem Kadri – Ah, here’s our prick. Maybe being out of the pressure cooker of Toronto will un-fuck his brain, but Kadri has helped torpedo a couple seasons with selfish and dirty hits that ended in suspensions. A wonderful checking center who can score, that is when his brain is turned on. But can’t help himself with being a dipshit, and the Avs can only hope that doesn’t rear its ugly head again at the absolute worst time.

Ian Cole – BAYBAY!