
Hurricanes

Notes: Dougie has a five-game point-streak heading into this one…Svechnikov has seven points in his last four games…Our Special Boy has 10 points in his last nine games…Mrazek has an .886 in November…

Notes: Lehner swings back in, and with no back-to-backs and the schedule a touch on the light side until after the holiday we’ll see if Colliton wants to keep the straight rotation going or ride the slightly hotter hand of Lehner until the back-to-back with Colorado….the Hawks have gotten away with Murphy on the third-pairing since his return, but tonight feels like the time when Gus will get exposed…Toews had two of his stronger games against the Preds and Sabres, which is good because he was basically abysmal against the Leafs and Knights. It’s gotta start soon…

I popped into the local last night to watch the rest of the Chiefs and Chargers. Neither is having a particularly standout season, and the Chiefs didn’t play all that well last night. But as the game wore on and they started to find their rhythm, and the ads and promos for what was to come in the next week or playoff chases to be sorted out, I had that thought that goes through every fan of a bad team’s head, “My team doesn’t even play the same sport as this.”
That’s probably the worst part, for me, about this disaster of a Bears season (which is strange, because we definitely have seen Bears teams much worse than this, and more than a smattering of them. Just given the expectations…). No sport like football makes you feel you support a second tier or irrelevant team. The other sports have so many games that pretty much every game gets shuffled into the background at some point. There are no important February games in the NHL and NBA. But in the NFL, there’s at least one every week.
There’s a clear split between “The Show” and “The Scenery.” When you’re in the first group, your games have the bigger fonts on the promos for next week’s slate. They’re at 3:25 or flexed. You get the video or graphic during the week. People randomly talk about your game who don’t even live here. There are ads for your team during regular TV programming. You’re the first one mentioned as Red Zone is warming up. Pretty much everything around is getting you ready to watch your team. By the tine it actually kicks off you’re about ready to put your head through a goddamn wall. You’re the show. Your team is important and matters. The week has led to this.
But when you’re this, and the Bears have been this far too often considering they’re the CHICAGO GODDAMN BEARS, you’re filler. You’re the game RedZone cuts to because it has to, generally with a joke or a jibe from the host. “The Bears are actually in the red zone!” You’re the smaller font. You get the shitty broadcast team who have to pretend to be happy to be there (not that I need more Tony Romo in my life). When your national TV appearances approach, everyone inside and out acts with a sense of dread or contrition for subjecting the masses to your team. You’re not even an appetizer., You’re basically the other people in the restaurant to give it ambience, to seem full. It’s the sporting fan version of, “I got a rock.”
And it spreads to watching those games in “The Show.” It doesn’t look the same. Why can’t our guys get that open? Why don’t they make that play? They’re running something consistently. The distance between the bad team you support and the good ones you merely watch in the NFL seems infinite at times, more so than anywhere else I think. It’s hard to even conceive how your team will ever get there. You watch the Chiefs or Packers slice through a defense on a drive where every play gains no less than eight yards, and then you turn to the Bears and see Mitch back up and desperately heave something out to the flat that gains -1 yards and you’re sure there is no path between the two.
Sure, the NBA had the Warriors there for a bit or players like Michael Jordan and LeBron that you can’t conceive of ever having on your team (strange that Bulls fans will feel that way now). But it’s not the same.
It’s more painful now, because the Bears were in “The Show” last season. For the first time in years, maybe since 2010, we got to feel that everything else was building to our game, our team. We were what the networks and coverage pivoted around. We had the big font. We were supposed to again.
And when you’re a bad football team, the only conversation around you is who will get fired and who will be moved on. Everything in the past is just relegated to steps to a mistake. It’s almost as if last year didn’t happen to the football world. An anomaly. A blip. A ghost in the machine. And we’re starting over.
We have the small font. We’re just filler. And it feels like it was ever thus.
It’s already happening, so perhaps it’s too late to steel ourselves against the oncoming backlash to the Hawks’ two-week stretch of competence, and even excellence at times. Every non-Hawks inclined observer is going to point out that over the past eight games the Hawks have shot 14.4% overall and gotten a save-percentage of .935 and when you get those you’ll probably win six or seven of eight, as the Hawks have. And that’s it’s not sustainable. Hell, did it myself. Rose alluded to it in her Sugar Pile today.
In some ways, it was kind of perfect that the Hawks played the Sabres last night, as you’ll recall that the Sabres won 10 in a row last year about this time of year, and far too many people used it as evidence that the Sabres were BACK or RELEVANT. And they most certainly were not either of those.
One difference is that seven of those 10 wins the Sabres managed were in overtime or a shootout. Only one of the Hawks’ streak here is in extra time, and that was the win in Anaheim. Regulation wins are a little more indicative, though obviously don’t tell a whole story.
And it’s always a worry when a team has to binge wins simply to get into the playoff discussion, not even in the playoff picture or at the top of any division. Because no matter what the process is or what has happened, the Hawks are not going to win six of eight games the rest of the season. Sitting one point out of the last playoff spot with multiple games in hand on Cal and Gary and Vegas is a nice place to be, considering where it started. But also the Knights and Flames are almost certainly better teams than the Hawks, and when the Men of Four Feathers fall off this pace the fear is that the pack will again move away from them.
Hawks critics, or even neutral observers, will quickly point out that the Hawks have the second best PDO in the league for the season, at 1.032 at even-strength (they drop to third at all-strengths, so not much difference). The other teams around them in that category are all near or at the top of their divisions. Colorado, the Islanders, the Bruins, and the Canadiens. You kind of have to be lucky to be good in the NHL.
The thing is, the Hawks are built to be lucky.
“Lucky” meaning that they’re built to have a PDO over 100. 100 has always been considered the neutral number, or the “right” one (quick primer if you’re lost: PDO is your save-percentage and shooting-percentage added together. It’s generally thought these things “normalize” at 100, much like BABIP in baseball at .300). If you stay above that for any stretch, most tend to think there’s air in your results and you’ll come back to Earth eventually, and vice versa.
Yeah, here’s the thing though, or one of them. If you look at save-percentages for goalies for the five seasons previous and this one, the Hawks have two of the top six in Lehner and Crawford (min. 200 appearances). Not only do the Hawks have a very good tandem, they actually have one of the best in recent memory, considering the pedigree.
So if you look at the Hawks’ overall save-percentage of .923…Crawford’s career SV% is .918, and .919 if you throw out last year’s injury-filled mess. Lehner’s career mark is also .919, so one has to ask how far the Hawks are really going to drop off that current .923 team save-percentage they have right now. At evens, Crow’s career mark is .926 and Lehner’s .923. So yeah, maybe they can’t quite keep up this current .940, but it’s also unlikely they’re coming off it that much either. That said, given the amount of shots they’re giving up a drop of 10 points, which would still leave a sterling .930, would be a big problem and result in a tsunami of goals against.
The Hawks are also top-10 in shooting percentage at evens, at 9.2%. That would be a high-water mark for them for the past five seasons or so, as they’ve never been above 8.9%. And maybe there are a couple outliers here. Kirby Dach is probably not going to score on a quarter of his shots going forward, as he currently is. We have no idea on Dominik Kubalik and his 10% mark. Nylander and his 11% mark? Don’t know either.
There are some the other way. We know that Debrincat is a much better finisher than his current 9.5% mark shows. Toews is currently running five points under his career mark as well. Others seem to be right around their mark. So again, 9.2% for the season is maybe a little swollen, but it’s also not outlandish. Five teams finished with a SH% over 9.0 last year, so it’s hardly unheard of. Of course, they were the Caps, Lightning, Leafs, Flames, and Sharks, teams you think of as having far more firepower than the Hawks currently do.
If the Hawks indeed had a plan this summer, and you’ll never convince us they did, this was it. The team might have faults and systemic rot, but at the ends of the ice where the things that happen that determine results, the Hawks would be better than average. Maybe much more so. They would get great goaltending and they would have finish, and they’d do their best to figure out the in-between, though they would almost certainly not come close in process.
We’ve always been process guys, not results guys solely. And the process still kind of blows. The Hawks are giving up three more shots per 60 at evens than anyone else, which is the same difference between the second-worst team (Rangers) and the 10th-worst (Leafs). Their expected-goals against is second-worst. Even over these two weeks, their expected goals against has only improved to eight-worst.
But given the saves and finish, the Hawks probably don’t need to “win” the attempts and chances battles, because they’ll get more goals with what they get than most, and they’ll get more saves than most. Those scales can slide a little in the wrong direction. It’s just a question of how much.
These Hawks were built to ride the wave longer than most. Even if it proves to not be enough.
Our Coach/QB Axis Of Confusion – This probably should be one. And it’s basically all we’ve talked about for the whole season, but where else do you start?
I don’t know that Sean McVay is any more of a genius or idiot than Matt Nagy. Something tells me they’re of the same cloth, and the Rams season is likely to spin out of control after this anyway. And I’m fairly sure Jared Goff sucks too. But I guess that means they’re both working with the same thing.
Which made last night’s developments all the more infuriating. Because it looked like McVay had an actual plan, even if it was conservative as all fuck. They were going to run the ball, run it some more, and keep running it, if only to keep it out of Goff’s hands as much as possible. And McVay probably knew that the Bears would shift to that 6+1 front to stymie the run, which they did. And yet he remained patient.
He could do that because Nagy’s offense never got away from the Rams or forced him to have to chase the game, but McVay also knew that when the game was on the line, he could take all that had come before and react off of that to get the one touchdown he would need to win the game. So with the Bears in that same front, the Rams finally went to play-action and suddenly Goff has some pretty simple open and easy throws to make. And it didn’t even matter that his best was called back to an illegal formation. How open was that? And then they went down the field anyway.
When has Matt Nagy ever had a consistent plan like that? When has he ever just said, “We’re gonna do this until they make an adjustment, and then we’ll counter that?” Or has it all been “We’re gonna do everything on every drive?” You know the answer. So do I.
We see the Bears do something that tends to work–I-formation, no-huddle, rolling Mitch out–but it never lasts more than a drive or two. The Bears don’t wait around for the move to stop it. They just assume it’s coming and try to change before it does. But they always end up changing back to something that doesn’t work (hi there, option play on 3rd-and-1 with a possibly injured QB!).
It’s a metaphor I go back to far too much, but watching Matt Nagy I’m reminded of how Chuck Klosterman described how Axl Rose writes songs:
But Rose is the complete opposite. He takes the path of most resistance. Sometimes it seems like Axl believes every single Guns N’ Roses song needs to employ every single thing that Guns N’ Roses has the capacity to do—there needs to be a soft part, a hard part, a falsetto stretch, some piano plinking, some R&B; bullshit, a little Judas Priest, subhuman sound effects, a few Robert Plant yowls, dolphin squeaks, wind, overt sentimentality, and a caustic modernization of the blues.
Matt Nagy’s offense has to do everything, even when it clearly has neither the QB or the offensive line to do so. The Bears need simple. One thing, then a counter. They need basically Tim Duncan’s early career post-game. McVay was content to do that last night. Nagy never has been. And this is what you get.
The other thing is McVay revamped his offensive line that had been leaky all year. I don’t know if that’s available to the Bears given the talent level, and they sort of tried that with flipping Daniels and Whitehair back between guard and center. But it’s definitely not a plus in Nagy’s category either.
It’s Ok Mitch, A Lot Of Careers Come To An End In LA – I have to imagine 75% of being a quarterback sucks, unless you’re one of like the five good ones in the world. You’re the only player, in any sport that I can think of actually, that has to have your own press conference after every game and during the week. You know your whole team is looking at you from the moment you show up. No matter how good your focus is, you have to be somewhat aware that an entire fanbase/city is basically judging your entire self-worth on how you play, even if things within your own team are working against you.
I don’t think Mitch got a lot of help last night. The receivers had a few killer drops. His o-line still sucks, though they held up mostly ok last night even with that Mad Titan Aaron Donald around. His coach won’t accentuate the things we think he does well. He may be hurt. The overarching issues aren’t his fault either. He didn’t trade up to draft himself. He didn’t choose to be taken ahead of Mahomes or Watson, something he can do nothing about and that he’ll never live down. His skills are his skills. His coach’s and GM’s inability to read those correctly aren’t really his fault either.
But what I can’t get past, and really haven’t been able to all season, is the big plays he misses. That’s what keeps everyone from living with the mistakes. The miss to Anthony Miller is a touchdown. Miller would still be running. That would have put the Bears up 7-0 and really erased the worries over the kicker. He missed Braunecker on another that would have gone for 30-40 yards. There were two others where Robinson and Cohen had their men beat but he was going for back shoulder throws that were a good 5-10 yards behind them. The INT was just an awful throw.
You make those throws, or even most of them, and the Bears win. You can’t miss the big plays when they’re there, because they don’t come around that often, especially with this line. Fuck, two of them and the Bears probably win.
Maybe it’s confidence. Maybe a Mitch feeling himself hits those. Maybe. I don’t know that we’ve ever consistently seen it. And you can go back and find more. Gabriel in the Chargers game stands out. And maybe it’s harsh to say just three more throws and the Bears are 6-4 right now with at least a chance of something.
And maybe that’s how thin the line is that takes you from being a good QB to a bad one. But in a league built this much on parity, maybe all the lines are that thin. But at this point, it’s clear which side Mitch is on.
I Blame The Defense Because I’m Lashing Out – It’s hard to get past the Bears defense giving up a game-winning drive in pretty much every loss this year late. The only one that wasn’t was the Packers. They got bailed out in Denver.
But y’know, 17 points surrendered is enough to win. It should be. The defense is still good, and if those drives that lost the game came in the second or third quarter, we probably wouldn’t notice as much. And if you had an offense, those drives in the 4th would be in vain anyway.
Pagano even changed his plans last night. He went to that special front to thwart the running game that had been killing them earlier. Was he slow on the uptake on the final drive with the play-action? Maybe, and he had to know that was coming. But there’s only so much you can do.
Still, he hasn’t found a way to get Khalil Mack loose. Chris Collinsworth mentioned night how Wade Phillips was bringing extra heat if only to get Aaron Donald one-on-one. When has Pagano done that? Khalil Mack can’t go through a whole game without being noticed. And eventually, the excuses of being doubled or chipped, or having the running game go away from him, or being schemed outside more and more are tired. Make a play, or more to the point find a way so that he can put himself in position to do so. Just one sack last night would have made a huge difference somewhere in there.
But again, we do this because we’re simply tired of bitching about the offense and coach. They got the turnovers last night. They got the three-and-outs. An average NFL offense wins that game going away. It’s been that way all season.
Everything you need for tonight’s soiree against the Buffalo Hockey Club.
No point in looking anywhere else. This is where the main focus will be tonight.
It needs to be said at the top that the most likely scenario is that the Hawks long-term success will not hinge on the departure of Henri Jokharju, no matter how he does in Buffalo. At least the Hawks had better hope not. And yet you can’t help but ignore it’s another burned first round pick, assuming Alex Nylander continues to do a fearsome impression of “Memoirs Of An Invisible Man” as he has the past couple weeks.
It’s also one of the stranger sagas for a young player in the Hawks system.
What was so weird is that usually, Joel Quenneville would rather have Malort pudding than play young d-men. He was immediately enamored with Jokiharju last year. Now, that could have been out of desperation. Connor Murphy was hurt, not that Q would ever warm up to him, and the rest on display was trash. Jokiharju was at last mobile and had some skill. Remember, Q even flirted with trying to keep Boqvist around, such was his opinion of the Hawks blue line.
Jokiharju’s time in Chicago was up and down. He was up against it by starting his NHL career with Duncan Keith at perhaps his jumpiest and most disinterested, depending on the night. There were times he looked pretty calm, and others you didn’t really notice him, and others where he was getting buried. Pretty standard stuff for a teenage d-man.
But make no mistake, Jokiharju’s handling last year had a lot to do with the Hawks terrified of handling Brent Seabrook the way he deserved, and still does. The Hawks sent Jokiharju to the World Juniors, even though he didn’t want to go, because Connor Murphy was returning and the numbers indicated someone had to go. That bought them a couple weeks. They ultimately decided to keep him in Rockford because shuffling Slater Koekkoek, Carl Dahlstrom, and Gustav Forsling was a lot easier than playing Jokiharju every game and figuring the rest out. It had nothing to do with what made the Hawks better or his development.
It’s also weird how quickly he faded in their eyes. Jokiharju wasn’t terrible with them last year, even if he didn’t flash. But he went from easily making an opening night roster to suddenly below Ian Mitchell in their eyes down the road? And in only a couple months?
Clearly, something went on behind the scenes. It wasn’t much of a secret that Jokiharju wasn’t pleased about going to the WJC, and no more enthralled with the idea of spending half the season in Rockford. And the Hawks have never had much patience with kids who don’t follow their instructions silently. Generally that’s a good rule, but you do want some ambition in your prospects as well.
Jokiharju was also a victim of the Hawks slapdash, not-thought-through summer where they acquired de Haan and Maatta, who both had multiple years on their contracts left. How are they going to fit Mitchell onto the roster next year, even without the Finn taking up a spot? It’s jammed.
And if Mitchell and maybe Beaudin/Krys end up being contributors or more, and Boqvists fulfills his promise, no one’s going to notice Jokiharju’s absence. That’s what the Hawks are betting. The Sabres are certainly happy to have him.
Still, the last 10 years, the Hawks first round picks have essentially gotten them a season and a half of Teuvo Teravainen and nothing in return, a decent center in Dylan Strome but certainly no sure thing, Nylander who might not even make it out of this season, whatever Ryan Hartman was, two months of Thomas Fleischmann, and Boqvist and Dach. One was also moved along for Antoine Vermette, which hey, that works. Another was for the second go around of Andrew Ladd, which didn’t.
Here’s just a sampling of players the Hawks might have gotten with those picks: Evgeny Kuznetsov, Rickard Rakell, Jared McCann. Not exactly a great list, other than Kuznetsov back in 2010. But certainly the ones thatt have been moved along coudl have gone for more, or you’d hope they would.
Which makes Jokiharju’s trade even stranger. Certainly his value couldn’t have been hurt by letting him rip up the AHL for half of a season, or coming up when Connor Murphy invariably got injured. Maybe it wouldn’t have been too much more than Alex Nylander, but what these first round picks have become is a big reason why the Hawks are only now just putting in place a second generation after the glorious first one in the One Goal Era. Danault and Teuvo certainly would have helped with that.
Oh well.
Jeff Skinner – It’s not a very ornery bunch along the Falls these days, so we’ll start with the leader of the “Yeah, But Who Gives A Shit?” brigade. Tamzarian here has 252 career goals in nine seasons plus this one, which means he’s averaged just a tick under 30 goals every season. And he’s scored over 30 four times. And not a single one of them has mattered. He’s never even sniffed a playoff team with Carolina or Buffalo. The Canes, not exactly bursting with finishers, punted him to Buffalo last year and suddenly were conference finalists. Certainly not all his fault, but certainly being categorized and world-class asshole is. At some point a 35-goal scorer has to matter, otherwise you’re just doing the scoring because someone has to score goals on a given night. Skinner might already be there.
Rasmus Ristolainen – Nothing to do with him, he just sucks. And he has sucked for a long time. And the only people who can’t seem to recognize that he sucks is the Buffalo front office. Even most other NHL front offices realizes he sucks, because the Sabres haven’t been able to find a trade partner. Usually you can fool someone. The Sabres can’t.
Vladimir Sobotka – Harkens back to the days when Blues fans would massively overrate a player because he had one good game against the Hawks once. We never thought we’d miss them.
Sabres

Notes: Eichel only had four goals last night, so Hawks might want to, y’know, keep an eye on him…Tage Thompson was called up last night after the game so he might replace Okposo on the fourth line, as Okposo got hurt again if you can believe it…Rasmus Dahlin got benched last night, but it’s unlikely he’ll come out of the lineup completely…Marcus Johansson has been hurt for a while, which is why Evan Rodrigues is the second center at the moment…

Hawks



