Everything you need for tonight’s clash between the helpless and desperate.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 4-6-3 Sharks 4-10-1
PUCK DROP: 9pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
THE BUBBLE BURST: Just follow @ItWasThreeZero, but it’s a little blue
I bet you didn’t think that a month into the season, we’d be sitting here with the Hawks with more points than the Sharks. And yet, that’s where we are. It has all gone pear-shaped on the Teal, while this is pretty much what the Hawks are. Is this what the Sharks are? They’d better hope not, because they have a lot of money committed to not be.
There isn’t one clear reason that the Sharks are currently using circles of paper. They tried to solve their goaltending issues from last year, which were some of the worst on recent record, by simply hoping that Martin Jones would become what he had been the previous three years through simply kindness from the gods. That has not happened, as he and Aaron Dell have been just about as bad as they were last year. But this time around, that’s not the only problem.
While the Sharks are one of the better teams in the league in the amount of attempts they give up, they’re one of the worst in the types of chances they give up. Quite frankly, their defense is Cottonnelle-esque. You might not be down in their end all that much but when you are you can get to the prime areas easily and fire away.
On top of that, the Sharks just aren’t generating nearly as much as they were, both in terms of attempts and chances. Erik Karlsson isn’t the engine he was, either through age or injury or still trying to find him the right partner. And the Sharks’ depth has eroded. It wasn’t just the departure of Pavelski. Valuable seat-fillers like Joonas Donskoi and Gustav Nyquist also made for the exits, and the kids that have come into replace them just haven’t lived up yet. They’ve needed more from the likes of Marcus Sorensen and Melker Karlsson and they haven’t got it.
That doesn’t mean their vets are off the hook. Logan Couture has been woeful, Joe Thornton can only do so much, and their half-court shot of bringing Patrick Marleau back has only revealed that he might not have a pulse. If Evander Kane and Kevin LeBanc weren’t scoring, they’d probably already be done. On the back end, they’ve missed Justin Braun, which is probably akin to missing Connor Murphy. Good player, adds to your team, shouldn’t pivot around him. Marc-Eduoard Vlasic is doing a fine Seabrook impression these days and is on the third-pairing.
What they can do about it is questionable. They obviously need a goalie if they’re going to make anything of this season, but by the time they can identify one they can have they might already be toast. They’re all the way capped out, so how they’d cram in a veteran goalie and/or a forward or two is a mystery. They’d have to get Martin Jones off the roster as a starter, but the line of teams willing to pick up a goalie who now resides in a bucket and has to be put there via damp sponge isn’t all that long. They don’t have much else to shift.
This is a team built for now, and the now is passing them by. Look for a big move, even beyond firing coach Pete DeBoer, if this continues much longer.
To the Hawks. They were mostly ok against the Ducks, so you can probably look for the same lineup aside from Crawford swapping in for Lehner, The former had his first really good game against the Kings, and even still that saw him give up four goals. The Hawks will need to get both goalies going at top speed if they’re going to make a run, or just turn to Lehner full-time which is another headache they don’t need.
The Sharks are one of the few teams that can’t leave severe windburn on the Hawks. They used to be able to dominate them by just having the puck all the time, but they aren’t doing that either right now. Both teams let you get wherever you want in their defensive zone, so this one will have chances and likely goals. The only known threat from the Sharks right now is the Hertl-Kane axis, so if Jeremy Colliton wants to get cute he can keep changing on the fly to get Kampf out there against them. But that might be a bit adventurous for the first week in November.
It might not have been pretty, but if the Hawks can get this one that’s five points on this trip which is one below the max. And that would be good, even if a total mirage given the method. They need anything they can build on right now. And right now, the Sharks are a very fragile team that you can fill with head-goblins early in the game. Then again, the Sharks probably think the Hawks are the slump-buster they need. Catch the fever.
Over the summer, the Sharks made a pretty big call. Their usual M.O. has been to just strip their captain of the position when their season flamed out before they felt it should. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau both felt the sting of that particular whip, with the former taking over for the latter and then Joe Pavelski taking it from Jumbo Joe. And then everyone would pretend everything was fine, in true Canadian fashion.
This time around, the Sharks just let their captain toddle off somewhere else. In order to fit other salaries and make room for some more kids, the Sharks let Pavelski walk to Dallas, and bestowed the “C” onto Logan Couture. It has been an ill-fit, shall we say.
Couture has been the biggest example of how the old and not-all-that-quick Sharks have struggled to recover from their long playoff run last year. Whereas last season you could argue they were only undone by the league’s worst goaltending, because the rest of their measurements were some of the league’s best. If they’d even had representative goaltending, they probably walk out of the Western Conference last year. And we’ll never forgive them for not doing so and saddling us with this cloud of despair.
The question-existence-entirely goaltending is still there, but the dominant process has gone away with it. The Sharks don’t have the puck nearly as much as they did, they aren’t creating as much as they did, they give up a whole lot more than they did, and Couture is at the center of it.
Couture has been crossed by some fiendish PDO treachery. He’s shooting below 7% at evens and 3% overall. But he’s also not getting to the spots he used to that would drive that shooting-percentage up dramatically to career norms. His shots per 60 are down a third at evens, his attempts down a quarter, and his individual expected-goals are half of what they were last year. Throw in the power play time and things look better, and that 3% number will go up. But the Sharks need serious help at evens and he’s not providing it.
His possession numbers stink, too. Couture has always been something of a high-event player, but he mostly kept those events to the other end even if he was on the ice for a decent amount of attempts and chances against. You live with decent amount against when a player gets a ton for. Well, the second part hasn’t happened this season, and now Couture is just a player who’s on the ice for a lot of chances against. Not good.
How much of this is due to the absence of Pavelski? Couture has seen him replaced with Patrick Marleau for the most part, who just might be clinically dead. Timo Meier is still the main running buddy, as he was with Pavelski and Couture last year. So if only on that limited evidence, Pavelski has been a big miss (and while Pavelski’s individual numbers in Dallas are down, his overall possession numbers are still very good).
So far this year, Couture has only found success with Tomas Hertl, but the Sharks would be bunching up their two biggest threats that way as well as weakening themselves down the middle, which has almost always been their strength. Joe Thornton isn’t taking on #2 center assignments at age 93. Quite simply, the Sharks aren’t as deep as they once were and they don’t have enough wingers to go around.
Perhaps as the year progresses, a couple of their kids can step up like Lean Bergmann or Dylan Gambrell. But it seems like an awfully big ask for neophytes to immediately take roles for what’s supposed to be a Cup contender. The Sharks might have to swing another trade, which will only kneecap their future even further.
The Sharks were always a bit up against it given their collective age. They don’t have one core piece under 30, other than Meier and Hertl. The kids haven’t caught up. But they couldn’t have expected it to catch up this quickly, and neither could Couture. But yet, here they are.
Evander Kane – As always. But it’s a conspiracy against him, don’t ya know?
Erik Karlsson’s Effect On The Media – Should you be completely bereft of something to do, watch a Sharks game through the opposing broadcast. Because it won’t be much more than 5-10 minutes before the color analyst or studio one gets in a shot at Karlsson’s defensive play or paycheck or both. The grumpy old men or wannabe grumpy old men that comprise hockey analysis still can’t seem to wrap their minds around that Karlsson has always been a different type, and overall still one of the best in the league because he keeps his team out of its own end. Yeah, he might not play a 2-on-1 well, but he also is almost never in one because of his skills. But anyone who makes a big check and isn’t a good ol’ Canadian boy is the enemy. If they really need fodder, they only need to look to…
Brent Burns: Maybe the most overrated player in the league. He racks up points, and then when he plays any team with a plan and skill he gets rolled over. The definition of a flat-track bully who avoids criticism because he’s Canadian and at least hints at having a personality. Which up there only means to not have all your teeth. Seriously, walking around like that makes you teflon to the hockey media.
Hawks
Notes: Morning skate on the West Coast came after we put this together, but Kane spent most of his time with Strome and Top Cat on Sunday so we’d expect a repeat…Carpenter and Kampf should be together and form a hybrid 4th/checking line, with Dach getting better linemates than this. But the Hawks don’t have enough wingers to go around, so we’ll just live with it for now and hope Andrew Shaw changes brains with someone…Keith seems to be sacrificing himself for Boqvist so far, which is an upset. Watch him get over to Boqvist’s corner to get the retrievals and stay within himself. See how long it lasts…
Sharks
Notes: Something is rotten here, as the Sharks are getting run over most nights…Vlasic has been an utter disaster this year so far and has firmly earned this third-pairing standing. Maybe he really is just younger Seabrook…Marleau’s only two goals came against the Hawks a month ago…Couture also seems to be slowing down in his 30s, and is a big reason why this team isn’t popping like last year…
We know that the Cubs need an upgrade in the rotation. We know that they know this. We also know that they’re probably just going to fill it by promoting Tyler Chatwood to it while claiming poor as Tom Ricketts lights another cigar with a $100 before having a money fight with his brother. Or they’ll dive around a money tank like Scrooge McDuck. Whatever. That doesn’t mean we can’t hope or that it’s all a slow-play. Which I thought last winter and all I got was this stupid rock. Anyway, if you’re going to upgrade the rotation, a Cy finalist seems like a pretty good idea, no?
Why A Spoon, Sire?: Well this one’s as obvious as Thor was yesterday, and that’s because Ryu is really good. Unless a 2.32 ERA and 3.08 FIP aren’t your thing, in which case you’re just baseball stupid. It’s ok, a lot of people in this town are! Including some who run both baseball teams! Being stupid doesn’t preclude you from your dreams, this is America after all!
Anyway, Ryu actually saw a drop in his strikeouts this year, but also cut his walks to almost nothing, which meant he was still carrying damn near a 7-to-1 K/BB ratio, which plays just about anywhere. Ryu was also able to up his grounders to a rate not seen since his rookie year, which he did by upping the use of his change-up at the expense of a cutter. That change produced a 53% ground-ball rate. Ryu found a way to get more downward tilt on that change, which made it a real weapon. And change-ups are something you can keep going for a while.
Ryu’s sinker also produced an obscene amount of gopher-killers, but isn’t something he goes to as much. Still, it might be something he uses more of as he gets more into his 30s. Ryu never threw all that hard, but his four-seamer is barely above 90 now so he’s had to get a little more creative.
Ryu had a bit of luck last year, with only a .278 BABIP. But the Dodgers had an excellent defense simply everywhere, and he would enjoy at least the same level of infield play in Chicago. If he keeps his grounder-heavy ways, that should play out just about the same here.
Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): The first problem with committing to Ryu is health. He missed all of 2015 and 2016 aside from one start, and only made 15 starts last year. Even this year he only made the post 29 times, and he’s only cracked 30 starts once, which was his rookie year and now six seasons ago. If you have him in your rotation, you have to have backup plans. Which was fine for the Dodgers who had about eight or nine starters either on their roster or in the holster at AAA. The Cubs really only have Chatwood right now and maybe Alec Mills, and I would need a fair amount of Pepto if they had to rely on Mills for more than a spot start or two.
Second, Ryu is 32, so you’d have to conclude he’s probably been as good as he’s ever going to be and you’d be paying for the downside of his career. As a pitcher who doesn’t rely on strikeouts, you’d be a little more comfortable with him as he ages, but the margin for error with him is also that much smaller.
Third, coming off that season might delude a couple teams into paying more than they should, which we will get to directly…
Some Silver? Little Gold?: The other way this might break is that because of his injury history and his age, combined with the frugalness/analysis/collusion of teams in the free agent market these days, Ryu’s price-tag and years he gets might not be all that high. Remember, Dallas Keuchel had a Cy Young in his closet, some of the same profile as Ryu, and was younger and he waited until June to sign. The idea that any team is going to give Ryu much more than three years is probably a little far-fetched.
MLBTR has Ryu getting three years and $54M, and $17M-$18M for a #2 or maybe #3 starter is hardly the worst idea in the world (the Cubs will be paying a combined $30M for their #4 and #5 mind). If the Cubs would still be interested in Cole Hamels for one year at $12M give or take, would taking on the better, younger pitcher for an extra two years for another $5M or $6M really be so outlandish?
Could It Happen?: Unlikely. Ryu is probably going to have a lot of suitors that will drive the price and years north of where you’d want to go. But if the market slow-plays again, or outright just ignores pitchers over 30, then the Cubs could lurk here and get a pretty nice deal. Again, you wouldn’t want to go more than three years, but that is basically where the Cubs have the clock set anyway. With Lester and Q almost certainly phasing out after this year, you could slide Ryu down the rotation if you felt like you needed to and with only a two-year commitment left you’d have space for more. Especially if Alzolay by some miracle proves ready for the rotation in 2021.
Probably another dream, but not total fantasy.
Hello there. Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be cycling through some realistic, and not so realistic offseason targets for the Cubs, either via trade or free agency. Today, we start with the not s0 realistic.
Now that the World Series is over, and as I’ve said already, I’m going to wake up every morning terrified that this is the day the Cubs do something truly stupid. Not that it’s ever been in the Theo DNA to reach for the truly outlandish, but it feels like the walls are closing in on the front office. There’s the pressure of its first truly disappointing season (again folks, they won 95 games in ’18 with half a Kris Bryant), the expectations of fans, and the demands of ownership both for a winner to fill the park and get eyeballs to Marquee while also squeezing the payroll. There seems to be a reckoning coming for the Cubs in two seasons when just about everyone who matters aside from Kyle Hendricks (and possibly Yu Darvish matters now?) are free agents and just how the Cubs will get out of that.
That’s a lot of pushing from opposing sides, which could leave an irrational pimple like me to pop. I’ve concluded that the Cubs will make a big trade, involving a name we all love, and that’s just how it’s going to be. My deepest fears are that it will be Kris Bryant, which I’ve already spent months outlining just how stupid that would be, and will spend many more weeks doing so even more.
But there’s going to be one. So my only hope is that it brings someone fun and good back. Which is why we’re kicking off with Noah Syndergaard.
Why could this happen? Because the he hates the Mets and they hate him. Any Met who ever bothers to point out that the Mets are run in a very Mets way generally ends up not-a-Met before too long. And Syndergaard nearly ended up not-a-Met-anymore at least year’s deadline. Also, Thor will be due his own windfall of cash in two seasons as well, and even though they’re a New York team the Mets seem to find a lot of ways to not pay people anymore. Call it PBSD (Post Bonilla Stress Disorder).
Now hey, maybe the hiring of Carlos Beltran signals a turn to rationality for the Mets. And maybe Blake Lively will leave Ryan Reynolds for me. This is the goddamn Mets we’re talking about. They’re always likely to do something stupid. In fact, they want to do something stupid.
Why A Spoon, Sire? Because it’s Thor! He’s 27, can throw a fastball through three live horses the long way if he wanted to, with a devastating slider and a very improved change-up. He’s got Cy stuff. And he’s under team control for two more years. So even if he’s projected to make $9.9M this year, considering what he can provide he’s the biggest bargain financially you’ll find. He’s been a four-WAR pitcher the past two seasons, with a FIP under four and a 2.80 one in ’18. In a season where everyone was giving up hard contact, Thor simply didn’t, with hard-contact rates under 30% in ’18 and ’19 and a line-drive rate under 20% this year. Quite simply, he can be a dominating presence, and you can’t have enough of those.
Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): The thing with Thor is that when you see the stuff, you’re sure he should have deGrom like numbers. And he kinda doesn’t? He’s always struck out a hitter per inning at least, but never gotten into the 11 or 12 per nine innings range where the citizens of Olympus live. And…well actually that’s it, because Thor has put up ERAs under 3.00 twice and another season of 3.03. While deGrom has stolen the headlines with his Cy Young and likely another one on the way, Thor would be the #1 on a lot of teams. It’s not his fault the Mets have been pretty much garbage since his rookie season or that they somehow stumbled into one of the few pitchers better than him on the same rotation.
The other knock on Thor is health, which is a valid concern. But he’s also coming off a season where he threw 197 innings, a career-high, and he’s basically made every start asked in three of his five seasons. With someone who throws this hard there’s always questions about durability. But hey, you can’t make a Molotov cocktail without lighting a fire here and there.
Some Silver? Little Gold?: Ah, here’s the problem. Syndergaard isn’t coming cheap. And we don’t mean in terms of money. The Mets probably know they have a golden ticket here, and sadly they’re not so stupid to miss what that means. So you’re not going to get him pried loose by giving up thrift store fodder.
So what could they use? Wilson Ramos wasn’t exactly terrible for them last year, but he’s going to be 33 next year and has fallen off some of his big years with the Nationals and his one year in Tampa. He’s got two years left on his deal, though the second is a team option and both are at $10M. They couldn’t really find anyone behind him.
So Willson Contreras would be an upgrade, considering he was the best hitting catcher in all of baseball last year in wRC+. He’s an offensive upgrade on everyone, whether you like it or not. He’s also five years younger than Ramos, with what at least appeared or could be argued was improving defense/framing. The Mets had a middling offense last year and could use the boost.
Sure, the Mets could probably more use an upgrade in centerfield, but I don’t think Albert Almora is getting this deal done somehow.
Would Willson for Syndergaard be enough for the Mets? Probably not. But you wouldn’t have to throw in too much more than that, especially if you took Ramos back to split time with Caratini.
Could It Happen?:
But we can get to reality later.
That time again. Please don’t take this seriously. That’s not what you come here for.
We’re All Watching Matt Nagy’s Descent Into Madness
At some point later this season, I fully expect Matt Nagy to fall over on his back, and his eyeballs to be replaced by the rainbow spinning wheel of death and basically be frozen until the McCaskeys and Ryan Pace figure out how you actually reboot a human. Where’s the Command-Option-Escape button on a human (all you pervs out there can make a sex joke here)? There are just too many conflicting plans and feelings within Nagy for him to last like this much longer.
The Bears first play of the day was out of the I-formation, and was a decent enough gain of four yards. If you were to draw conclusions from one play–which would be folly with this outfit because you can’t draw conclusions from whole games–you would say that Nagy had learned from last week and this is what the team needed to run the ball and then hence open up the passing game through play-action.
That was the last time in the first half they did that.
Nagy is hellbent, and it’s getting beyond an Ahab-like fixation at this point, to succeed with the offense that he sees, and not what his offense can actually do. Not only that, it has to succeed with Mitch Trubisky being the quarterback Nagy thinks he can be, and not the one in front of him or the one we saw last year.
And yet at the same time, Nagy doesn’t trust Mitch to throw the ball beyond the line of scrimmage, or didn’t for the first half. So while he wants Mitch to be the QB in his mind to make the offense in his mind work, he won’t actually let him do any of that stuff on the field. It’s like he figures these two things will just be conjured somehow through hope.
And then for a brief period of time he’ll give up, go back to what’s worked the past two weeks, and it will work, and yet he can’t let go. That’s how you get Tarik Cohen trying to run the ball in on the goal line–or having your shortest player try and leap and extend into the endzone–instead of Montgomery on 2nd down. Thankfully Nagy’s brain snapped back the other way for 3rd down and Montgomery got in to make the game at least interesting for a half minute. It feels as if he’s fighting two or three different voices in his head, all wanting and seeing different things. And hey, we’ve all been there, I just paid $10 a pop for the chemicals that got me there.
There are just too many conflicting threads in Nagy’s head. What the offense should be but what it is, along with what he thinks Trubisky can be but actually is, and what he wants to do versus what he can actually do. The reason the Bears can’t find an identity, as they keep saying, is that their coach is seeing about four or five different realities at a time. It’s like Griffin from MIB III, which none of you saw.
This Defense Sure Likes To Talk…Tackle, Not So Much
In this town, favoritism will always bend toward the defense. That’s thanks to ’85 and that they’ll never go away, and even bending back to Butkus and Buffone. Fine, accepted that long ago. So even in the most desperate times, the defense’s failings will get pinned or shared with the offense until it’s obvious we can’t do that anymore.
So yes, while they don’t get any help from the offense, there’s no rule that says they have to let the opponents drive right down their throat on three of the first four drives of the game. Or when the offense does put up points and they are back in the game, to let the Eagles have an eight-minute drive to end it with four third-down conversions, including two screen passes that went over 10 yards.
I understand it’s long-standing Bears tradition that they can’t defend nor run a screen pass. From Ditka to Wanny to Jauron to Lovie and on, the Bears have never done either. The Hawks will never have a power play, the Bulls will never land a free agent worth a shit, the Sox will never draw, and the Bears will never be on the right side of a screen pass. These are universal Chicago sports truth.
But having it in such demonstrative fashion–where Montgomery drops what would have been a game-turning play and then those two–is a mound of salt in the wound.
Overall, the defense had a chance to win the game for the Bears, or put them in a spot to do so. Just like last week. And it got run over. And for too much of the game, the Eagles could do what they wanted and worst of all, the Bears defense didn’t look like it wanted to bother much. Eddie Jackson and HaHa shirked off a couple tackles they didn’t seem all that interested in making. They were in wrong gaps.
There was one play in the third quarter where Leonard Floyd chased down Carson Wentz from behind where all three linebackers just watched. Maybe they were worried about hitting the QB and getting flagged for breathing too had, but this was beyond the line of scrimmage. It looked more like they just left it to someone else.
And that’s scary.
There Are Like Three Good Football Announce Teams
When you find out who’s doing the Bears game on TV a couple days before, what team actually makes you say, “Oh, that’s good.” Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts? I don’t mind Buck and Aikman, but a lot of people hate both. Thom Brennaman spends anytime broadcasting Chicago sports with a can of gasoline and a Zippo. Michaels and Collinsworth are fine, except you can’t escape the fear of the Bears being embarrassed on national TV. Maybe Kenny Albert? Maybe Kevin Burkhardt? Except he sounds like he’s asleep for half the game, and maybe he is.
Dick Stockton doesn’t know where he is. He’s 117 years old and while he is something of an institution, if he were a dog they would have put him to sleep long ago before he got to the state where he falls into his own shit. Mark Schlereth is the king of “Football Analyst Holding A Football.” I’m fairly sure he was erect describing some pulling guard yesterday, on a play that didn’t go anywhere. Yesterday sounded like two drunk stockbrokers trying to do a Statler and Waldorf routine without actually ever having seen Statler and Waldorf.
It was brutal, and it doesn’t have to be that way. There have to be better announcers than what we’re being given, even if the Bears have fallen to the bottom of the heap. Please stop making watching the Bears worse than it already is.
The Dizzying Highs
Robin Lehner – This might be a touch weird to put a goalie who merely went 1-1 over the week here, and even the good “1” was an OT win against an unimpressive Ducks squad. But Lehner stopped 84 of 89 shots he saw in two games…let’s let that marinate for a moment…and had he not been at the top of his game the Hawks would have been on the ass end of an embarrassing result that would have had the whole league talking for a week. Even last night he held off a charge from the Ducks that could have resulted in the Hawks leaving SoCal with just one point instead of three.
Strange fact I learned yesterday, in the past four seasons Lehner has the third-best SV% of all goalies. Better than Vasilevskiy and right behind John Gibson. And that’s with a couple different teams, so he can’t be called a systems-goalie. He got that label by playing for Barry Trotz for a year, and the Hawks were able to use that as cover for a pretty good bargain, and getting better as their defense continue to turn every offense they see into the Bolivian army while Butch Lehner and Sundance Crawford reload in the corner of the building. The Hawks couldn’t be much worse off than they are, but they would firmly have their face in the toilet if it wasn’t for Lehner.
The Terrifying Lows
Andrew Shaw – We obviously had some trepidation when Shaw was reacquired, because it smacked of A. once again subpar pro scouting from the Hawks who again defaulted to “Hey I know that guy!” and B. wanting to cash in and sell tickets to the nostalgia crowd, even though they also say every ticket is also sold. Still, Shaw’s underlyings playing with Max Domi and Brendan Gallagher last year were good, and he has a skillset that the Hawks, in theory, could really use. Yes, signed for multiple years, but we could squint and see it if we ignored the name and number on the jersey.
Guess we know who was doing the real work in Montreal.
Shaw hasn’t been anything he was supposed to be–he hasn’t been a puck-winner, he hasn’t shown what used to be nifty hands around the net, and he hasn’t even really been an irritant to anyone except his own team and fans. The only thing that we recognize are the dumb, lazy, offensive zone penalties that seem to be cropping up because Shaw can’t keep the pace. He’s been a black hole, culminating in playing just seven minutes last night on the fourth line, where he managed a 30% Corsi and a 7(!) xGF%. Seven.
Clearly Coach Cool Youth Pastor has had it, and rightly so. But that’s ok, Shaw’s still signed for two more years to remind people of that time he bled from the face in Boston and played after getting knocked out cold, which is a totally healthy and responsible thing for a player to do and a team to let him do.
The Creamy Middles
Alex Nylander – Though it’s going to cost me a Greektown dinner in the spring, Nylander has been solid in California after being a horror-show in Tennessee. Though none of his teammates could escape that moniker either. Two assists in the two games, earning his way to play with the big boys, and one of the few Hawks who look like they can play at NHL speed. Getting better at making plays in traffic and not just needing space to do it. Now that we’re out of October and the grind starts to set in we’ll get a better idea, but solid production is needed from more wingers and he’s provided it.
