Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Nicholas Castellanos

By Sam Fels 1673 0

And now the big debate. It’s actually a couple rolled into one. Is Nicholas Castellanos the player he showed for the two months he was a Cub? Is he what came before that? Is he what the final numbers on 2019 with both Detroit and Chicago say? Somewhere in-between? And then you add to those questions whether he should be re-signed or not. It’s a lot to figure out, and that’s before getting into the Cubs’ figment budget questions that they’ve made real.

2019 Stats (DET & CHI)

151 games  664 PAs

.289/.337/.525

27 HR  73 RBI

6.2 BB%  21.5 K%

121 wRC+  .357 wOBA  .883 OPS

-12.6 Defensive Runs Saved   2.8 WAR

Tell Me A Story: You could say that Castellanos was THE story for the Cubs last year, at least on the positive side. He came in at the trade deadline and immediately started hitting, and never really stopped. He inarguably brought a jolt to the Cubs, and they were a team that definitely could have used it. Castellanos was certainly more explosive than either Almora or whoever else he actually replaced in the lineup by pushing Heyward to center.

If you were to only look at his numbers with the Cubs in the last two months, he looks like an MVP candidate. .321/.356/.646 for an OPS of 1.002 and an OPS+ of 151. As Castellanos himself pointed out, the more friendly environs of Wrigley made a difference in his home run production, as he hit 16 in the season’s final two months after hitting only 11 in the first four in Detroit. And half of them came at home, so over a full season that projects out to over 40 homers and near 50 for a season. Of course, Castellanos isn’t going to ever match the 32% HR/FB rate he had in August as a Cub. But even the 14% he had in September was higher than anything he did in Detroit last season, and above his career rate.

What Castellanos did do, regardless of where he was playing, is hit the ball damn hard. He had a hard-contact rate over 40% every month of the season, which the Cubs simply don’t have a lot of. Only he and Schwarber eclipsed that mark for the whole year. For comparison’s sake, the Dodgers had nine guys who did. The Astros seven. Maybe the problem isn’t the amount of contact, fellas?

And that’s just about the story with Nic At Nite. There wasn’t that much of a change from the Tigers to the Cubs. He mashed fastballs and sinkers there, and he did so here, and with a slice more luck and a smaller park, the numbers swelled. He’s a good hitter who got hot and he will almost certainly remain a good hitter.

A key aspect to the Castellanos debate is his defense. It was better in ’19 than it was in ’18, and there isn’t nearly as much ground to cover in Wrigley as there is in Comerica, even if you have to deal with the sun and wind and Ryker from Highland Park throwing beers at you. But it still wasn’t good, The optimistic will tell you it was only his second season playing there and the improvement from ’18 to ’19 will only continue. The pessimistic will tell you he looks awkward as fuck out there, his routes are Dali-esque, has next to no range, and he just doesn’t have a feel for it out there and probably belongs in left. Which probably means the truth is somewhere in the middle as always.

Contract: Free Agent

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Oh if it were only so simple. Yes, with no budget constraints-perceived or real or self-imposed or necessary–you’d re-sign Castellanos and have him and Schwarber in the corners to mash and you’d find a better solution in center to cover for their defense and maybe provide some offense and consign Heyward to the 4th outfielder role he’s been hurtling toward for four seasons. But life isn’t that simple.

These days, it’s impossible to know what Castellanos can make on the free agent market. A couple years ago, you’d be sure it was over $20M a year for five years at least. Now three years for between $51M-$54M seems the more likely, and even then who knows what the collusion owners will dictate.

But even at that $17M figure, it’s a tough squeeze for the Cubs. Even with just their arbitration raises as projected, the Cubs end up near $180M in payroll. And that’s if they don’t get to extend anyone with a bigger figure. And it could be more than that. That might leave somewhere between $35M-$40M to play with. But if you and Castellanos half of that, is $17M-$20M enough to get the extra starter and bullpen arm or two the Cubs need more desperately? It could be but would be a tight squeeze.

On the other side, having Castellanos on the team most certainly can’t hurt and if he’s anything close to the August-September guy, $17M is a bargain. If a third season sees his defense improve…maybe you can get away with it? Can you live with Heyward for a full season in center? Doubtful. Would you trade Schwarber? That’s production you’d have to find again and probably pay premium, either through money or trade, to do so. Isn’t that running in place?

On the plus side here, I don’t think there are any wrong answers. You can sign Castellanos and just say you’re going to bash the shit out of the ball and hope that’s enough to outrun your at-best subpar outfield defense. Or you can let him walk, use that money for the pitching you don’t have, and mitigate not having that offensive production. And maybe with a smart trade you can get some of it back anyway.

Looking at it though, Castellanos hits the ball awfully hard. The Cubs don’t. They’ll have to answer that somehow.

Baseball

All The Boys In The Band Know How To Get Down – 2019 White Sox Player Reviews: Reynaldo Lopez

By Sam Fels 1064 0

As AJ said yesterday, the hopeful and wandering eyes (ewww) of Sox fans are going to turn from Lucas Gioilito to Reynaldo Lopez next year. Is Lopez a candidate for such a turnaround? Let’s get in up to the wrist.

2019 Stats

33 starts  184 innings

10-15

5.38 ERA  5.04 FIP

8.27 K/9   3.18 BB/9  1.46 WHIP

35% GB-rate  69.2 LOB%  14.0% HR/FB

119 ERA-  2.3 WAR

Tell Me A Story: It was something of a strange year for Lopez, as in a lot of ways he had the same exact year as he did in 2018. And in some ways better, except without any of the results or numbers that would agree with that. He struck out slightly more hitters than he did in ’18, he walked slightly less hitters. He got ever so slightly more ground-balls, and considering what the baseball was his hard-contact against was essentially the same. And yet his ERA jumped nearly a run and a half and his FIP almost half a run. What’s going on here?

Some of this is luck. Lopez gave up more homers simply because more of them floated out of the park, which happened to just about everyone this season (at least not named Gerrit Cole). Whereas his fly ball-to-homer ratio previously was under 10%, it rose to over 14% this year. But Lopez didn’t give up hardly any more flies than he did previously, nor was the contact on them any more lively than before. They just ended up in places in various parks that were homers where they didn’t before, which is essentially just kind of random. Lopez wasn’t helped either by a dip in his left-on-base percentage, which is just sequencing. His 69% mark is three to four points below league average, and could just rebound simply because next year. More solo homers instead of them with men on would improve his ERA and such, without him actually doing anything differently.

Still, that’s not all of it. Lopez’s stuff suggests he should strike out more hitters than less than one per inning. And yet he doesn’t. Lopez’s fastball velocity ranked in the top-10 of all starters this year. The guy behind him was Max Scherzer. The guys ahead of him were Marquez, Alcantara, Castillo, Buehler, Wheeler, deGrom, Cole, and Thor. Almost everyone of them have much bigger K numbers than Lopez, and if not that than better success. Why so?

The easy answer is that they have better offspeed and breaking pitches, but that’s only partially true. The thing with Lopez’s fastball is though it’s one of the hardest around, it doesn’t get the whiffs you might think:

With Lopez’s velocity, you want him living at the top and above the zone. But all the other pitchers mentioned get whiff-per-swing rates in those six spots in the 30% range or 40%. Some even 50%, which Lopez has only in one spot and is probably more due to a weird spike than any skill. Maybe hitters just see Lopez’s fastball better than those others’. Maybe he needs some more deception in his delivery, but considering he’s throwing 95-97 regularly he should be blowing that pitch by hitters more often. And he’s not. And that’s a bigger problem because it’s still the pitch he goes to most often when ahead and with two strikes.

Lopez has good breaking stuff, but they don’t seem to come out of the same plane as his fastball. He mostly keeps his fastball up int he zone or above, but his slider breaks from the middle or low in the zone and out. Hitters can pretty much suss out when it’s not up it’s not a fastball, though they still offer and whiff at a decent amount of them. Though hardly a heroic amount. When pitching to lefties, his change still comes out of a lower plane as well. Perhaps using his curve more, which does come out of his hand looking higher in the zone, is the key. Or given how hard he throws, not being afraid to use the middle of the zone more often on the edges, and then the slider and change will look a little different. Clearly the tools are there.

Contract: Team control, arbitration eligible in 2021.

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Well this is obvious. Lopez will be part of the rotation next year and hopefully for a good long while after that. And seeing as how he’s put up over 180 innings his first two full seasons, his durability will be needed in a season where the Sox don’t know what they’ll get from Carlos Rodon or Michael Kopech in terms of innings. He’s clearly the next project in the Giolito mold, how they can unlock what is clearly a lot in that closet. Feels like a delivery tweak is coming for him too to give him more deception and to make sure that fastball gets on hitters instead of them seeing it the whole way. Lopez will be 26 next year, so there’s still time but there isn’t the oodles of time it might feel like. If they can boost him as they did Giolito next year, then the games might matter in August again.

Hockey

Press The Button On The Kids And Let’s Go

By Sam Fels 1681 0

Not that I think Connor Murphy‘s injury will turn out to be a Wally Pip moment, because nothing really ever is. But it does open a window for the Hawks to try and get started on their future. And their future wears #27, at least on the blue line.

I’m sure the Hawks won’t call up Adam Boqvist to take Murphy’s spot. They’ll call up Dennis Gilbert because he’s the loyal foot soldier, and they can play him 12 minutes a night without scrutiny to not do a hell of a lot on the third pairing for three weeks. We’ll get more of Fetch Koekkoek, because he’s the new Rundbland and Stan is going to prove he knows what he’s doing no matter how much closer it brings us to the first instance in history of a goalie breaking his stick over his own d-man’s head on the ice. I know this, you know this.

But last night, as encouraging as it was at times, once again showed the speed deficit the Hawks have when it comes to the best teams in the league. If they red-line and play as if their pubic hair was on fire, they can almost keep up. But you can’t do that for 82 games. You can’t play that hard and that desperate, because you’ll be puddles and goo by February. You need more baseline speed.

And that’s what Boqvist is. And the defense, as strange as it might sound, could absorb him right now. Whatever they do, the clear answer is to move Calvin de Haan up to play with Duncan Keith, as de Haan can mostly emulate the safety net Murphy provides (though without most of the mobility). At the moment, that leaves Seabrook and Maatta together, which is still getting crushed even if Maatta has been better than we thought, and Gustafsson and Fetch for shifts that will have all of us walking funny and carefully to the bathroom.

Maatta and de Haan have definitely stabilized a defense that really had no other direction to go, as well as the Murphy-Keith pairing you just lost. But all it is is just defending. The Hawks don’t get up the ice any better than they did. They still need help with that. The only candidate for that is Boqvist. They need transition.

Pair him with Maatta. Let Seabrook and Gustafsson be on the third pairing, which as ugly as it might sound is better than the alternative. Maatta’s form this season at least allows for the possibility that he can be the free safety for Boqvist’s flaming guitar solos (there’s some mixed metaphors for you). It’s what the Hawks need.

We know thanks to DeBrincat’s bridge contract that the Hawks have basically zeroed in on the next three-four seasons–the length of Daydream Nation’s collective contract. Boqvist’s is already running. No waiting around. Let’s go.

-Which also means keeping Kirby Dach around. Does that mean he’s ready? No, it doesn’t. But I also don’t need too much more than the two games we’ve seen to know that he’s beyond the WHL too. And seeing as how Rockford isn’t an option…

One thing Dach is going to have to do better is get his legs pumping. NHL forwards basically spring for their entire shifts, and so far Dach has gotten caught gliding a little too often. That doesn’t mean he’s a loaf, as it’s probably more to do with him calculating what’s going on around him and then reacting instead of those two things folding seamlessly into each other, which they will. He’s going to have to map things out while moving full speed.

Dach being a bigger guy, it’s always going to look like he’s playing at a slightly slower speed because he’ll cover ground that much easier. His style is just going to look languid even if it’s not. I don’t need his legs to look like Road Runner, but they do need to move a touch more.

Still, the hands and vision and instincts are obvious. And if the Hawks are patient, I can’t see how after 30-40 games he won’t look like he belongs. And 30 games in the NHL have to be more valuable than 60 games in the WHL beating up on children because he’s that much more talented. That won’t really get him to move at higher speeds. So keep him here and get moving on these next three seasons. Let’s go.

Baseball

Cubs Make The Obvious Choice That We Don’t Know Anything About

By Sam Fels 1622 0

It doesn’t fit for this front office to say they put on a show to justify making the choice they wanted to make the entire time anyway. Maybe they did, but while they don’t always get it right, I would be hard-pressed to ever accuse Theo Epstein’s regime of not being thorough. I don’t think there’s any move they’ve made where they were just tossing a football around the office, never even looked at a sheet or screen, and said, “Yeah sure whatever.”

So I don’t think the two interviews for David Ross were just for the sake of doing it because they gave Joe Espada two interviews. I don’t think they were just making it seem like they were doing their due diligence while they actually just got drunk with Ross and made fun of ESPN personalities (which probably did happen in addition, to be fair). My guess would be they put Ross through a pretty heavy ringer to be comfortable giving him the manager’s job.

Does the familiarity help? Sure, of course. But that goes both ways. The only thing I’m sure of with the Cubs’ manager search is they wanted a guy who will run the team in the same vision they have for it as they put it together. That doesn’t mean they’ll be calling down to the dugout during the game and telling Ross or whoever else they might have hired what to do. But when they put together this team this winter, whatever and however that’s going to be, anyone would have a clear idea of how they want the pieces moved on the board. Whether that vision is correct or not…well, that’s what a baseball season is for.

So yeah, they probably want their bullpen used more creatively than 7th- and 8th-inning guy, and then closer. Especially as it’s likely to have at least two guys–Alzolay and Chatwood–who can be used for multiple innings. They probably want that in close games, not just mop-up situations or when there’s no other option. They want a different environment for younger players, as this one kind of stalled out for some (assuming they can actually play). They probably don’t want Albert Almora leading off ever again. They want things to definitely be tighter than they were this year.

But for anyone to say, “Oh Ross will do this or that. Or he’ll bring this or that to the clubhouse…” We don’t have any idea. He doesn’t have any idea. Neither does Theo. We can guess and they might have a stronger inkling thanks to the interviews and their relationship with him, but no one knows.

Sure, he doesn’t have any experience. But he also spent his entire career as a backup catcher, which means he spent most of his career watching from the dugout, seeing how things play out. And if he thought he wanted to be a manager at any point, which he obviously did, it was probably in that context at some point long ago.

Yes, he has a relationship with some of the players, and all of the core. Maybe that means he holds them accountable better. Maybe it means he thinks he’s still their buddy. Maybe it means he knows exactly how to get through to them and immediately get on board and bring the rest of the team with them. We don’t know, and probably won’t until July.

Maybe he sets a harsher tone. He was a great clubhouse leader as a player. I mean, everyone says so. Except that all of those things that made him so are things we never saw. We take their word for it. The volume of it makes it probably true, but how does that play as a boss? He acted as something of a conduit from the manager to the players in both Boston and Chicago, so he’s not unfamiliar. But I’m not going to take him yelling at Anthony Rizzo one time in spring training as a basis for how he’ll run an entire team for an entire season and more.

But the tangible stuff? We don’t have any idea. Can he get players to change their approach at times? A few hitting coaches have failed at it now, so why will Ross be any different? He could. He might not. We don’t know. Can Ross make Quintana discover a new pitch or new way of delivering one of the ones he has to find more success? Maybe? Who knows?

Ross will probably look like a good manager if he gets a starter to slot either right below or right in the middle of Kyle Hendricks and Yu Darvish and definitely above Q and Jon Lester, along with two more bullpen arms. I bet he looks pretty smart then. Oh, and Ian Happ hits out of center and Nico Hoerner is ready to take over at second by no later than Memorial Day.

All we can say for sure is that in those interviews, the outline or vision Ross had for how this team should look and be deployed lined up with what the front office sees. But we don’t know what that vision is, they’re not going to tell us. We’ll find out during the season.

My fear is that Ross’s name and esteem amongst Cubs fans and media is part of the appeal, in that he’ll buy some breathing room and time for the rest of the organization in case they have plans they know we won’t like. That’s probably some of the appeal, but not all.

But in the end, we don’t know. We’ll fill this vacuum of nothing with our thoughts and opinions and most of all our guesses because there’s nothing else to do and you can’t leave a vacuum a vacuum, duh. But you don’t know. I don’t know. They don’t know.

And by the time we do know, it could be too late. Or it could be perfect. It could be anything. That can be exciting. That can be daunting. Again, anything.

Football

Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 7: Darker Than A Black Steer’s Tookus…

By Sam Fels 1152 0

Our Bears crew bands together to try and pick through whatever the hell that was on Sunday. 

So…um…is that a definitive statement on who the Bears are and who they will be?

Wes French (@WFrenchman): Bleh. What a disappointing, disastrous game for the home team.

This is pretty awful and I’m not sure how it gets better. The offense has no idea what to do or how to do it. Adam Hoge said it pretty well in a post game rant last night: “To summarize…the Bears can’t run the ball, so they throw it, but the quarterback can’t hit wide open receivers and when he does, they drop the ball. And then when Nagy goes back to the running game, they fumble the ball.”
Compound that with a defense that can’t get off the field, and all those turnovers/three-and-outs setting up short fields and you have a very bad football team at the moment. You wonder how they even got to three wins, then remember that one came against a bottom franchise historically and another came via the walk-off FG. Even the Vikings win didn’t exactly show much in the way of a capable offense, and that was with Chase Daniel after Mitch’s injury. After leading the league in pressures/game with over 17 avg the first four weeks, the Bears have COMBINED for eight pressures total against the Raiders and Saints. Yikes.
I hate to say it but this isn’t even rock bottom. This could, and quite probably will, get worse. At least Allen Robinson looks fully healthy/amazing?
Brian Schmitz (@_BrianSchmitz):The blame, in order:

  1. Matt Nagy
  2. The Running Game
  3. Mitch
  4. Defense

 

I said it weeks ago, Nagy has been figured out, which happens in this league. But what is surprising is that he hasn’t yet counter-punched. He’s lost.

#2 above is really an extension of #1. To become a one-dimensional passing team with a bottom tier QB is just plain bad.

Trubisky threw for 251 yards and 2 TDs with no INTs – his best game of the year. What am I missing here? Besides the 4th quarter.

When your offense blows, and you are on the field again and again after three-and-outs, its not only physically exhausting, its mentally draining.

So, to answer your question. YES. This is both who they are and who they will be.

Tony Martin (@MrMartinBruh): I got fired this morning and even that was less painful than watching the Bears continue to shit the bed, because at least I had low expectations for that job. It’s just amazing to me how after growing up watching the offense struggle under notable chuds like Ron Turner, Mike Martz, Gary Crowton, John Shoop, Mike Tice, and Aaron Kromer, THIS is what might be the biggest disappointment. Hey Matt, I know you want to “BE YOU”, but maybe you can “BE A COACH THAT SETS HIS TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS”, or does that not matter because it won’t fit on your play card? I’ve never seen a team with so much talent look so incredibly lost.

I’m not one to make much of “they should’ve drafted such and such instead”, but Mitch is a mess. The mechanics aren’t there, and the play-calling doesn’t set him up for success. Matt Nagy insists on only using the run as a chance to get gadget touches for the receivers, since Mitch isn’t hitting them with any reliability save for Allen Robinson.
Wes: You can always count on the Bears to amplify the shit around and make it all the more demoralizing.

I gotta say, the talking points coming from Nagy are not making this seem like it’s going to change. He’s making the media out to be a problem/the problem, saying he’ll be telling his players to put the blinders on, don’t listen to the negativity, etc.

So the offense is a total mess/unbalanced/led by a kid that proves every week how little he can do…but can’t let that negativity creep in! This is starting to sound like a cult. I’m way out on Nagy/Mitch right now, and as someone that decided to just drink the kool-aid from the start of this ride, if I’m making the turn on them, they can’t have many supporters left at this point.
Tony: So, really my question is, what did Matt Nagy see in Mitch coming out of college? I know his pleas for Kansas City to draft Biscuit was a big selling point in his hiring process, so where’s the work and development he was going to instill? Mitch still has shit mechanics, admittedly partially due to an offensive line that is overmatched and a poor run/pass balance that lets edge rushers pin their ears back on every second and third down. The scary thing is he hasn’t improved. His footwork is terrible and he’d be overthrowing Manute Bol. What happened to the moving pockets, quick hitting passes that aren’t Allen Robinson curl routes, and the RB they traded up for?
Wes: Two carries. David Montgomery had one single carry per half. And he fumbled and then they never ran the ball again. I wish I was making that up.

Something else that’s starting to come up…Mitch averaged 30/yards a game last year, and that was with him pretty much not running after his injury and return. He has 21 yards ON THE SEASON this year. Maybe move the pocket, roll him out, let him run on some of these RPOs. He can’t hit an open receiver 15 yards away from a clean pocket but he can seemingly hit a streaking player 20 yards away while he himself is on the move. I don’t know man, the guy is more running back than QB, just lean on the strength unless you’re trading for a passer that can do it from the pocket.
Here’s my final thought:
If Mitch can’t make a decision on a play as simple as this, the Bears are utterly fucked.
The Bears are fucked.

 

Hockey

Game #7 – Knights vs. Hawks Preview: No One Beats Vitas Gerulaitis Seven Times In A Row

By Sam Fels 1432 0

vs.

RECORDS: Knights 6-4-0   Hawks 2-3-1

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

I NEEDED SOMETHING TO CUT THE LIMES: Sinbin.Vegas

We’re staying on the theme of the day, aren’t we?

Let’s get it out of the way at the top. The Hawks have never beaten the Knights. They’ve only gotten a point off of them once in six tries. They’ve been outscored 30-17 in those games. If there’s any team that has spent the last two years illustrating how far behind the Hawks have fallen in team speed and style, it’s the Knights. Most of these contests, the Hawks haven’t been anywhere near them. If the Hawks want to show that they can actually compete in this conference, or have figured out how the game is played now and how they can live in it, tonight would be something of an indicator.

And they might not get a better chance. They have the Knights at home, and on the second of a back-to-back. The Knights got walloped in Philadelphia last night, though some of that was having Oscar Dansk in net and not Marc-Andre Fleury, whom the Hawks will get tonight. So yeah, whole “ANGRY TEAM” thing, but also a tired one. Which means they’ll only be faster than the Hawks by a factor of six instead of eight, or thereabouts.

Let’s start with the Hawks. Robin Lehner will take his turn in net, and seeing as how he had to Atlas the Hawks to two points against the Jackets, he’s probably more in shape for what will almost certainly be a 35+ save effort if the Hawks are going to get something out of this. No word on what the Hawks will do lineup-wise, though they might want to reconfigure their top six again and get Kirby Dach on a wing for this one. Unless they want him dealing with any of William Karlsson, Paul Stastny, or Cody Eakin, Which they definitely do not.

So far, they appear to be sticking with Sunday’s lineup, but look for changes as this game rolls along.

Right, to the Knights. At times they’ve looked utterly unstoppable this season, such as when they pulverized the Sharks twice to open the season or gave the Flames a colonoscopy for fun. They’ve also been well-beaten by the Preds and Flyers, and tied the Senators, so it’s been a bit goofy–as hockey tends to be.

They haven’t been quite the possession monster of years past, at last in terms of attempts. They don’t generate or prevent that many, middling in both categories. When it comes to actual chances though, they’re one of the better teams around, generating far more than they give up. So they’ll let you have the outside, but nothing in the middle and as soon as they block a shot they’re off to the races.

At the moment, it’s their second line that’s the real danger. Mark Stone is a supernova at this point, and taking Max Pacioretty and Paul Stastny along for the ride. Not that the Hawks have been able to do anything about Jonathan Marchessault, Reilly Smith, or Wild Bill in the past either.

Cody Glass and his eminently punchable, smirking rich kid face is the new hotness on the third line, and whenever Alex Tuch returns to flank Eakin on the other side this third line will be as dangerous as many top six units in the league. And that’s if they don’t move Glass to center, which is his natural spot.

At this point, the drill with the Knights is well-known. They have a profusion of speed at forward on all four lines, and their game is simply to get it up to them and up the ice as quickly as possible. One pass or one chip out into the neutral zone and they’re gone. When not doing that, they have no compunction about sending two forecheckers below the opposing goal line to free up the puck and get chances while the other team is scrambling.

The Hawks struggle, at least for one reason, against this team because they still try their intricate breakouts or exits, and it just won’t work. They also don’t have the foot-speed on defense to even give themselves enough time to inhale and bank one off the glass to get out of the zone. That’s the game against the Knights, is you have to get the puck past their forwards that constantly look like the Tasmanian Devil in that cloud he would create when really losing it. Once you do that you can get at this defense as the Flyers did last night. It’s not that good, but it’s well protected and not asked to do much more than clog the middle of their zone, and wing the puck in the general direction of their forwards.

The Hawks think they’re equipped to do this now. We’ll see.

Hockey

Game #7 – Knights vs. Hawks Spotlight: Man It Was A Stone Groove

By Sam Fels 1211 0

Upon trading for Mark Stone, the Golden Knights signed him to an eight-year extension worth $9.5M. It’s in the top-20 among cap hits in the league, except everyone above Stone have either major hardware, 90+ point seasons, or something similar (aside from Jack Eichel, who at least has youth on his side). It caused me to write this. Surely this was another excessive move from the Knights, who in just to seasons had capped themselves out and cost themselves a player like Gusev or Erik Haula or one or two others.

Looks like a nailed another one.

Mark Stone has 12 points through the Knights first nine games, and what the Knights might have guesses is that getting out of Ottawa would boost his production and game. Stone only put up 11 points in his 18 games in Vegas last year with just five goals. But if you looked beneath the surface, you could see that if things came correct, Stone is going to bust out in serious fashion this season.

All of Stone’s metrics took off upon arrival in the desert and haven’t stopped this year. His individual shots per 60 minutes went from 6.15 in Ottawa to over 10 in Vegas. His individual expected goals from 0.65 to 0.9, and it’s over one this season. His attempts from 11.3 per 60 to 17.3 last year, and 14. 1 this year. Scoring chances or high-danger chances have both gone up nearly 50% at least.

The only reason Stone saw his production drop in Vegas last year is that he suffered from some wicked, fiendish S% treachery. He was shooting over 19% in Ottawa, and only managed 9.3% in Vegas. Well here comes the argument…we mean the correction, because he’s shooting over 20% so far this season. His career mark is 15%, so while he’s not this guy, you wouldn’t count on a huge drop-off fro the rest of the year.

So yeah, the 54 goals and 109 points he’s on pace for right now would probably be worth $9.5M, huh?

So while we want to make fun, it just might be the Knights are set up. The entire top six is locked in long -term here, which means it might not matter much what’s on the bottom six. Cody Eakin, Tomas Nosek and Ryan Reaves are all free agents next year, but those spots could be filled with kids or vets who only require $1M-$2M.

Sure, there’s some holes on defense. Holden and Merrill will be free agents, but as the Knights have already proven, their fates don’t really rest on the quality of their defense, John Merrill and Nick Holden are not going to sink any team with their departures, and if they do that team probably sucked anyway. Again, they could fill those spots with kids and probably be fine thanks to the top six and their style.

Perhaps George McPhee just deserves credit for identifying a player who was being somewhat wasted in a defensive system run by a coach who is a genius only in his own mind and thinking he would flourish in the way Vegas play. Hell, that’s what he did with his top line. It hasn’t spread to Max Pacioretty yet, but with the way Stone is playing, it might not be long now.

It also suggests we should just shut up.

Hockey

Game #7 – Knights vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Pugs, Mugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1243 0

Ryan Reaves – As if it could be anyone else. Perhaps the most annoying portion of the Knights, and it’s a crowded field, is the idea they love to spout that they somehow rehabilitated this guy. And not that his improved numbers have anything to do with playing with actually talented fourth liners like Tomas Nosek or William Carrier or Ryan Carpenter last year, as we’re finding out. And the more people react to Reaves’s shit, the more he revels in it and the more it multiplies. This guy is a herpe.

Cody Glass – If you were looking for a rookie to add to the Most Punchable Face Team, here’s you’re winner in a landslide. Take Matt Duchene’s rich-kid gape and multiply it by ten and you’ve got Glass.

All The Fans In The Stands Tonight – We wouldn’t have thought so, but it only took one season for the Knights to have some of the more obnoxious bandwagon fans on Earth. And we know they’re not all traveling from Vegas around the country. This is the Avs from ’99 all over again. Maybe a Tuesday night will keep them at bay a bit, but if you’re heading to the UC tonight you’ll see. These are the grown-up versions of the kid in your class who always wore a Niners Startup jacket.

Everything Else

Game #7 – Knights vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1080 0

Notes: Alex Tuch is technically allowed to come back tonight from being on LTIR, but there’s been no word on whether he will or not..Stone is shooting 20%, so he’ll come back to somewhere around Earth soon enough…They moved Stone to play with Eakin and Pirri last night and it was utter disaster so we’re expecting the normal look tonight…Pacioretty also dragged down the top line, leading us to believe they’ll go with what they have for most of the year…

Notes: Dach and Strome together is an odd fit, and that line doesn’t have a puck-winner. Which you have to have against this team, so look for some shuffling around mid-game…If Andrew Shaw takes another offensive zone penalty because he’s lazy and stupid send his ass to the fourth line for a game or two and let that marinate…You fear for Seabrook and Maatta tonight, they are not built for this at all…