Hockey

Game #22 – Lightning vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1331 0

Pat Maroon – A fine fourth liner, and yet he’ll get to wear the label of “the final ingredient” because he happened to be on the Blues last year and from St. Louis. Oh sure, he scored the goal that beat the Stars, a team that took the Blues to seven games even though they couldn’t actually score. And after their first round debacle, the Lightning felt they were missing something, which actually was a goalie who didn’t spend all four games sneezing bending himself into a pretzel but they thought was some goof on the fourth line. What happens if the Bolts go out early again? Does Maroon lose his magic?

Cedric Paquette – Remember when this dingleberry couldn’t wait to suck up all the press about how he was the ultimate pest in Game 3 of the ’15 Final because he had one good game? Yeah, well, Toews ate his heart the rest of the series and the Lightning scored two more goals. Never heard from him again.

Kirk ShattenKevin – Because the Hawks could have had him for the same song the Bolts got him, and they needed his mobility more than Tampa did. But that would take actual vision, and not clogging up your blue line with multi-year deals for the likes of Olli Maatta.

Hockey

Game #22 – Lightning vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1138 0

Lightning

Notes: Kucherov suffered a concussion on Tuesday against St. Louis (go figure), so he’s out tonight which shifts Stamkos to the top line wing and Johnson back to center…The Hawks will get a look at the backup tonight in McElhinney…Jan Rutta might replace Schenn in the lineup on the third pairing, which…Yeehah!…Hedman has eight points in his last five games…Point hasn’t scored in November…

Hawks

Notes: Shaw is a gametime decision. If he doesn’t go the Hawks will dress seven d-men, which has been just short of a disaster every time they’ve tried it, and also causes mass bitching from Seabrook and Keith…Toews has strung three good games together, and if Point is left to Kampf he might get an easier matchup tonight…Dach finished the last game with Kane and DeBrincat, see if they go back to that if things aren’t clicking again…

Hockey

Your Real NHL Awards A Quarter Of The Way Through

By Sam Fels 1696 0

I like to do this at the watermarks of the season. If you’re new, and some of you shockingly are, I take an analytic look where I can on where the major hardware should go, but sometimes won’t, at this point in the season. For the most part, it sticks to where you think it would go anyway, but sometimes it diverges. Anyway, to it…

Hart Trophy – Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl Split It

This would certainly drive the hockey world mad, and you’ll have more than enough saying that Draisaitl’s stats and success are merely based on playing with McDavid. And I could probably accept that, and if they just wanted to hand it to McDavid I wouldn’t complain. McDavid is almost certainly going to wind up like Mike Trout, where he wins three or four of these and then when he retires we realize he probably should have won eight or nine and there was no good reason he didn’t.

Either way, the Oilers suck to high heaven and yet are comfortably in first in the Pacific because of these two. They are both leading the NHL in scoring at 44 and 43 points. No one else on their team has more than 17. Along with their linemate James Neal, they have 43 goals. The rest of the team has 33. If you were to go totally rudimentary on this, the rest of the team is getting slightly beyond one goal per game. These two are accounting for over two.

Norris Trophy – John Carlson

Believe me, this seemed way too obvious for me but it’s hard to make a case for anyone else. And he’s already going to win it, given the buzz his point total at this point has generated. When you’re a defenseman and you’re on pace for 124 points, people tend to take notice.

So I looked for a metric way to get beyond Carlson, but he’s ahead of the team-rate in Coris and expected goals. The argument that will be brought out by someone is that he doesn’t play great defense. But the Caps are scoring 50% more goals when he’s on the ice than they give up, and the whole point of the fucking sport is to score more goals than the other team. Carlson is helping the Caps do that more than anyone.

You could make a small case for Dougie Hamilton, as his possession numbers are better. But beyond that, his argument would be the same one for Carlson. Kris Letang has actually been magnificent for the strangely dominant-at-evens Penguins, but as always he’s been ouchy and isn’t scoring enough.

If there were a Rod Langway Award–for best defensive defenseman–and he had been healthy, I could make a serious case for Connor Murphy here. No, seriously, I can. Murph has the second best relative Corsi-against rate in the league, and the second-best expected goals-against rate. While the Hawks remain The War Rig at the end of Fury Road defensively overall, they’re actually somewhat stout when Murphy is on the ice. No d-man has improved his team’s defense more than Murphy. It won’t get him any hardware, and it’ll probably only get him traded in the offseason as the Hawks continue to cower in fear of Seabrook and need to find room for Boqvist, Mitchell, et al, but everyone should know just how good Murphy has been.

Vezina – Robin Lehner

Fuck you, let’s go with the hometown vote. While Kuemper and Greiss have better SV%, they’re playing behind better defensive teams. So is every other goalie on the planet, essentially. Those two also have bigger differences when it comes to expected save percentages and expected goals and such, but Lehner has had to have great games while still giving up three or four to keep it from being 10. We know what Trotz systems do for goalies. We probably know what Colliton systems do for then too, and it ain’t the same. Lehner has had to perform miracles to keep the Hawks on the periphery of they playoff chase. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m handing anything to Darcy Goddamn Kuemper.

Calder – Cale Makar

This one isn’t even close. Makar is blowing away the rookie scoring race from the blue line, and he has a +7 relative xG%. While the Avs have gone without Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel ThreeYaksAndADog for a good portion of the season, they’re still hanging around the top of the conference with games in hand on everyone because of Makar and MacKinnon. He’s been everything as advertised, and is probably the best hope for a non-truly evil team to come out of the West this year.

Selke – J.T. Miller

Most voters would light themselves on fire before they give this award to a winger, which is why Marian Hossa doesn’t have the three he should, but if you dig deep on the metrics it’s pretty clear. Miller sits atop the rankings when it comes to attempts and expected goals against relative to his team, and in both cases it’s by some margin. Oh, and because morons care about this, he’s been taking Elias Pettersson‘s draws for the most part and is clipping in at a 59% win rate. So there.

Hockey

They Ask No Quarter

By Sam Fels 1573 0

Once again, and this was a mistake I made a ton in the past and shouldn’t have given my family’s proclivities, the Hawks are not at “the quarter pole.” That’s when there’s a quarter of the season left. Anyway, the Hawks played their 21st game last night, which crosses the 1/4th threshold. So let’s do a basic version of what you’ll see at times like this, and try and suss out what the fuck these Hawks are, hmmm?

Biggest Surprise

Duncan Keith – I know, it’s kind of ridiculous to categorize a surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer (and a genuine one at that, not some ridiculous Hockey Hall of Fame version of that) as a surprise. But Keith has been fading for at least the past two seasons previous to this, and you could argue it even started the season before that which became evident when the Nashville Predators turned him into a fine paste in the Hawks’ ever so brief appearance in those playoffs.

Keith had been openly prickly with his coach last year, and it was not outlandish to suggest he had just checked out and if you squinted you could see a path to him asking out and playing somewhere else (despite his denials of that late last season). Before this season, Keith’s current rep wasn’t all that much higher than Seabrook’s, if you were honest with yourself. It was thought that he could still have use as a second or third pairing player, but that would still leave the Hawks with a major gap at the top. And that would only be if he felt like it, no sure bet, and was willing to shape his game to compensate for his age.

Well, Keith has been better than that, for the most part. It hasn’t always been perfect, but there certainly have been a few games or more where he’s at least reminded of you of what he was, which is the best Hawks d-man there’s ever been. Not to say he’s been at that level, but it at least looked like that same guy who could once do that, where before it just seemed like an alien form. Especially with Connor Murphy, which hadn’t worked in the past, Keith was again stepping up beyond his blue line–and successfully–while playing the angles only he could see again. Of late, he’s actually been happy to play free safety for Erik Gustafsson, something he’s blanched at before.

Keith’s actual metrics mirror the team’s in the “horror show” category, but his relative marks are the highest they’ve been in three or four seasons. The Hawks are simply better when he’s on the ice, and that hasn’t been the case in a while.

Biggest Disappointment/Question Mark

Jonathan Toews – This may not be the time to write this, because the past three games have been better from Toews. He managed CF% of 54, 64, and 63 the past three, which is far better than when he was getting his skull kicked in earlier in the year. We’re used to slow starts from Toews, last season aside, but he had looked particularly behind the play in the season’s first month or so.

Still, four goals and 11 points has him on pace for just 15 goals and 42 points, and and the 3% shooting-percentage at evens and 8% overall would suggest that he’s due some correction. But his individual attempts and chances are down to 2016 levels, which is when all this talk of decline started. And for the most part he’s been paired up with the Hawks most consistent forward in Brandon Saad.

It’s left a question as to how exactly the Hawks can, should, and will be able to use Toews going forward. He no longer is the center who can do everything, which is fine. He shouldn’t have to be at 32. But can he actually slide down the lineup to accommodate Kirby Dach and play more of a checking role? Is he up to that? Can he score enough from here on out to justify manning the top line?  What is he willing to do? He’s never been asked that, and the time may soon be coming. He can avoid that with a binge, but it hasn’t really looked like coming.

And if it doesn’t, there will be more ugly questions for a coach and front office that has done its best to duck them for as long as they can.

Biggest Storyline

The Seabrook Saga – It’s going to hang over the Hawks all season, and it didn’t have to. Perhaps the AHL’s more physical/neanderthal ways will keep Adam Boqvist from really lighting up the statsheet and causing more pressure on the Stan Bowman and Jeremy Colliton. They’ll never admit it, but somewhere within them they may be hoping for that. But as the Canes showed last night, the Hawks simply aren’t quick enough or anywhere near it to compete at the top of the NHL, and maybe not even the middle. Boqvist proved already he’s an NHL player, and can help them with they speed they lack.

This is only going to get worse as the season rolls on, and the Hawks can’t always count on injuries to help them shuffle the deck to keep avoiding the question. Well, maybe with Connor Murphy they can. Maybe they can start to pin it on Olli Maatta to keep avoiding the big decision. But his double scratching earlier in the year will not be the last time this rears its uncomfortable-looking head.

Team MVP

Robin Lehner – With Corey Crawford taking a couple weeks to find his rhythm, which much like Toews has usually been the case, the Hawks would have been utterly buried without Lehner. Even when they did lose, he kept them from truly morale-sapping results in Nashville and San Jose that might have turned things for the organization. There are seven or eight or even nine points on the board right now that he had a major hand in, and without even half of them the Hawks would be rooted to the bottom of the NHL standings. Crawford is joining him now, which has led to this streak of competence (or competent results), but it wouldn’t have mattered in the least without Lehner’s season-long efforts.

Dach Report

Solid B – We may look upon last night as some sort of turning point, as for the third period Dach replaced Dylan Strome with DeBrincat and Kane. That line produced both goals, and while I doubt that’s how they’ll start Thursday, you can bet this is a switch that Colliton will pull again.

Dach has been pretty well sheltered, as he should be, mostly playing on the third and fourth line 10-12 minutes and almost always starting in the offensive zone. Which is how he should be spoon-fed at his age, and the Hawks have the flexibility to do that. But that might be running out, thanks to Toews’s waywardness and Dach’s precociousness. He’s sixth in rookie scoring even though he’s played six to eight games less than everyone ahead of him, and has made a play or two every night that makes you take notice.

We’re not too far off from Dach having to play higher up the lineup, which is exciting and daunting. He’s already gotten less and less of his tendency to glide out of his game, and has not shied away from doing the work low and on the boards to make plays. He still can get a little lost in his own zone, but so can the whole team, and the Hawks have tried to keep him from being there at all as much as they can.

Now get him on the power play and stop with this Nylander nonsense on that unit.

Football

Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 11: Our Empire Of Dirt

By Sam Fels 1165 0

Ok, we’ve got all winter and spring to worry about the future, but with everyone talking about firing everyone…would you give Matt Nagy another year with a revamped offensive line?

Brian Schmitz: Would I give another year to figure himself out? No. I think he’s overmatched and as I’ve been saying – he’s been found out and hasn’t been able to counterpunch.

Will the Bears give him another year? 100%. He is Pace’s hire and the firing him would be an admittance of guilt. Similar to Shaheen still being a uniformed NFL player and Mitch starting games.

Wes French: I’m not sure I’m giving anyone another year right now, but before we even get to Nagy/Oline…where the hell is Ryan Pace? Nagy has been front and center through this whole thing, which might be more detriment at this point, but his GM hiding out this whole time is really starting to give me even worse feelings about all this. 

Nagy is looking a lot like his QB right now, continuing to do the same things over and over and not learning anything. 3rd and short was a disaster, again. They become the 2nd team to score only seven points while running at least 74 plays, and they have now gone 9 of 10 games under 300 yards of total offense. Nothing changes, but he expects different results. 

 Pagano has been here for 10 games and you can see tangible changes IN REAL TIME. Is his defense perfect? No. They still gave up another 4th quarter TD, but they also allowed just 37 rushing yards in the 2nd half after getting gashed for 73 in the first half. 

 Can any of you think of a time where Nagy made an adjustment that sustained any kind of success, week to week let alone in game? 

 Tony Martin: Y’all, this is the definition of “forgotten season” in the best case scenario for Pace, Nagy, and Mitch. Is it reactionary to just let Matt Nagy go at the end of the year? Something has gotta change, this window is open for what, two more years tops? 

 I was listening to something on the radio the other day about Lamar Jackson- the Ravens offense is specifically designed to maximize his talents and minimize his shortcomings, and in turn he has had time to develop aspects of his game while immediately being put in the best position to win as he is. They draft and sign players to compliment his skillset, and they scheme to his benefit specifically. 

 Can Matt Nagy gameplan like this? So far nothing I’ve seen would lead me to believe so, but I’d like to see if the plan is to either find a QB to fit in the system, or spend the offseason building their roster to Mitch’s strengths. 

 

It seems like every young player, on both sides of the ball, have just flattened out this year (with the possible exception of Allen Robinson, and that might just be health). Is that on Nagy or is that just who these guys are, which would put it on Pace?

 Tony: Could it be a combination of both? All these Bears players have limitations that were mitigated by gameplanning- putting them in a position to win. This year, it’s no surprise Tarik Cohen looks like shit when he’s running up the middle from the shotgun because the box is loaded. 

 Wes: I don’t think the players are the problem. Virtually the same group were the darlings of last season, and this year I think it’s a lack of confidence in the coach and the QB as the season has worn on. The defense might be a little of Pagano learning (slowly) how to best get the right players in the right roles in terms of pressure/coverage in the front 7. 

 On offense I put it squarely on Nagy being insane on account of trying the same shit week in and week out and expecting different results. Tony makes a great point about Baltimore/Jackson and designing a system that the QB can grow within while setting him up for the best possible results in the short term. The rub, though, might be that Trubisky is just THAT BAD and we’ve seen that he can’t even hit the easiest of plays or make the simplest of reads. I think it might be too far gone to be salvageable, considering this season is shot with the injuries to Trubs. 

 Expecting to be able to strip it down even further and hope for better next year would be foolish without at least bringing in some kind of veteran competition. Sure, you can point to the Oline a bit and that needs sorting, but the Oline isn’t constantly throwing to back shoulders regardless of that being the best spot. 

 Brian: It’s probably somewhere in the middle of each. Nagy isn’t putting a lot of guys in position to succeed, but at the same time, he has been given some bums that he’s trying to make real NFL players.

 Cohen, for instance, is a guy who we know can play. However, he needs to put in creative positions in order to succeed; and we have seen far less of this this season.

 Anthony Miller, on the other hand, may just be a guy who is all hype and is becoming a malcontent. This blame can be placed on Pace for falling in love with a guy and then talking about how much they love him.

Hockey

Game #21 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Preview: Throw A Molotov Cocktail And Have A Whole New Set Of Problems

By Sam Fels 1680 0

vs.

RECORDS: Canes 12-7-1   Hawks 9-7-4

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

REMEMBER, NORTH CAROLINA GAVE US TRUBISKY: Canes Country

In the ashes of the Bears demise, some hope has risen about the Hawks. They’re playing well, or at least they’re getting results. They’ve taken some scalps off teams that either used to give them a ton of headaches (Knights, Preds) or have name recognition (Leafs). They’re scoring goals. However, this week is when we’ll see just how much the Hawks can handle opening up the throttle. The Canes start it off and are still one of the best possession teams in the league. The Lightning are scuffling but also have the biggest collection of scoring around and throat-fucked the Hawks twice last year. The Stars are the hottest team in the league. The past two weeks has seen the schedule cut the Hawks some favors, as all of the Knights, Leafs, Preds, and Sabres have been fighting it of late. Not so much here.

The Canes kick it off, rolling into town on the back of three straight wins, though two were in OT over the just-vanquished Sabres and the simply unfortunate Wild. Before that, the Canes had some ugly losses to the Senators, Rangers, Flyers, and Devils, which are not teams the Canes should be losing to. It’s a bad look. This will also be the end of a mini road trip for the Canes, so the Hawks might catch them already thinking about the flight home.

As always with the Canes, they are a dominant even-strength team. They rank first in team Corsi-percentage, third in expected-goals percentage. And this time around, they’re only having problems at one end of the ice turning all that into actual results. The Canes are 8th in the league at 3.45 goals per game, and have spread it around nicely with seven guys having four goals or more. Erik Haula on their third line has eight, to give you some idea. Their power play has actually been a threat too, ranking eighth in the league at the moment.

But as is the Canes’ way, they keep buying into illusions of a goaltender. They got a remarkable run from Petr Mrazek last season, doubled down, and now stand gobsmacked that he suddenly turned back into Petr Mrazek. He has an .886 in November. He’s not this bad, but he’s also probably not last year’s .914 either. He’s been all over the map in his career, so it’s hard to guess. James Reimer was brought in to at least stabilize the backup spot and provide something of a safety net if Mrazek went to the dogs again. That hasn’t really worked out yet and suddenly the fear that last year’s flop in  Florida portends to a career-downturn are real. The Canes aren’t really getting saves, but filling the net at the other end to make up for it while limiting attempts and chances against so their goalies can’t torpedo them completely.

Again, this feels like a real test for the Hawks’ rediscovered UP AND AT THEM ways. They’ve passed the other ones to be fair to them, with the help of some shoddy goaltending at the other end. They may get that tonight as well. But the Canes defense is probably the best in the league and among the most mobile. They won’t be fearing getting caught with forwards behind them, and can pinch more aggressively in the Hawks zone because they can recover. The speed the Canes have at forward as well should be an utter nightmare for the Hawks’ defense, who will have less escape routes.

But again, the Hawks don’t have to break even on attempts and chances. They have the better goalie who is playing better (Lehner), and they have higher quality finishers. Stay in the neighborhood, as the Hawks have been doing, and they can rack up some more points. On the flip side, the Canes have utterly destroyed the Hawks the last three times they’ve played, because they just play at a higher pace than the Hawks can manage.

We’ll see how far this new “style” goes tonight against a team that’s been doing it better and for years longer. Get the feeling this one will have some goals in it.

 

Hockey

Game #21 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Spotlight: Svechnikov And The Search For A Sniper

By Sam Fels 1255 0

If you’ve followed us for a few years, or really paid attention to any analytic-inclined coverage of the Canadian Disease, you’ll know that the Carolina Hurricanes have been something of a darling for a while. Only last year did the results on the ice match the metric-love (great Prince EP), as the Canes finally made the playoffs and then streaked to the conference final after that. Before, they weren’t even much of a nearly team, as they didn’t come close to the playoffs often and hadn’t actually made them since 2009. So the crusty portion of hockey coverage could always scoff at them, because at the end of the day, it is about where you finish and not really how you got there.

The Canes were actually the inverse of what we talked about yesterday with these Hawks. They were a football team that could really move the ball between the 20s. But hockey games are decided at what happens at the ends of the ice. And the Canes couldn’t get a save, and they couldn’t get goals consistently. In the past five seasons, the Canes have never had a team shooting-percentage over 7.3%, and have finished in the bottom-10 of that category every year. So even if they were generating a ton of shots, or certainly way more shots than they were giving up, who gives a fuck if you can’t get the puck to go in enough to make it count?

The Hurricanes entire history is filled with a lack of true goal-scorer. Since moving to Carolina, the Canes have three 40-goal seasons. That’s in over 20 seasons now, keep in mind. Two of them were from Eric Staal, and one was from Jeff O’Neill somehow. In that same span of time, though playing eight less seasons, Alex Ovechkin has nine. So it’s been something of an issue.

In recent years, especially since they set Eric Staal free, they haven’t really had a player to even threaten that kind of finish. Jeff Skinner got to 37 a few years ago, but as we stated on Sunday, Skinner specializes in scoring goals that don’t matter. Sebastien Aho proved to be the genuine top line talent they’d been missing since Staal the Elder got old, but he’s more of a playmaker than finisher. Even if his 30 goals certainly played well last year. We know our Finnish Baby Jesus is also in the playmaking, two-way winger type.

The hope is that’s where Andrei Svechnikov comes in.

Svechnikov is off to a flier this year, with nine goals in his teams first 20 games, which would put him on pace for 37 for the year, which would tie for fourth-highest in Carolina history. The question is if this is what Svechnikov is. He’s shooting 17%, which is way over the 10.6% he put up last year. But top tier finishers live in the 15%-17% range, so maybe this is what he is?

Perhaps what will make Canes observers a little tentative is that all his measures from last year are down, in terms of the chances and attempts he’s getting off. Most of his good work has come on the power play, where he already has four goals and is shooting 21% so far. His PP time has been boosted by a full minute per game, perhaps soaking up the time Justin Williams would have taken, and he’s firing off a ton more shots, even if they’re not resulting in that much of a bigger likelihood of scoring.

“Svech” was drafted second overall because the Canes think he can be the finisher they haven’t had, off of scoring 40 goals in 44 games in his one season in the OHL. He won’t turn 20 until the end of March, and the list of players to break 35 goals at age 19 in the past 20 years isn’t very long. In fact, no one’s on it. The best mark as a teenager was Skinner’s tally of 31 in 2011. The Canes are probably hoping for better long-term than that.

If the Canes plan on taking another step, and that’s if their goaltending holds up which looks pretty shaky, they’ll need to fire themselves past the Perfection Line in Boston or the bevy of scoring in Tampa or DC or maybe all of them. At some point the collective isn’t enough and you need stars to drag you over the line. The Canes hope that Aho and Svechnikov are their answer.

Hockey

Game #21 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Nitwits, Halfwits, And Dimwits

By Sam Fels 1378 0

Joel Edmundson – For the rest of his career, he’ll have that Stanley Cup sheen that blinds every GM and commentator to the fact that he sucks and is stupid. Edmundson has always been a rock that Blues fans worshipped because he hit Toews once, and he only fits in Carolina because they have so many other mobile d-men. But don’t you fret, this is still the same shit-for-brains you remember, leading the Canes in PIMs at the moment.

Dougie Hamilton’s Coverage – It’s not going to matter to far too many people that Hamilton leads the Canes in points, or is one of the better puck-moving d-men in the league and has been. No, all they’ll focus on, and you can bet Pat and Eddie will remark on it tonight at some point, was that he avoided one hit from Alex Ovechkin in the playoffs that led to a goal. Never mind the Canes won that series or the next one. They’ll do their best to make it seem like all of his teammates hate his guts for that one bailout while extolling the virtues of Edmundson. Bank on it.

Ryan Dzingel – And they may make time to mention how great of a signing Dzingel would have been because he’s from here and got Olczyk’s autograph once because his dad made him while he had no idea who Eddie was.