You’ve heard us complain constantly about the Hawks broadcasts, or NBCSN broadcasts. Whether it’s Foley’s wavering commitment to this team, or Eddie O’s catchphrases, or Pierre McGuire’s…Pierre McGuire, you know what we think after all these yeas. Well, we’re going to do something about it.
Tomorrow night, we’re going to do our own broadcast of the Rangers-Hawks game. We’ll be doing it through Hot Mic, and yes, we’ll be coming through your TV. It’s your worst nightmare! Or maybe ours? We’re not sure, but we’re going to find out!
We know you have questions. So do we. Don’t worry, everything is synced, so we won’t be on delay and neither will your signal. What are we going to do? We have no idea! We’re going to figure it out together. Basically, we think it’ll be somewhat like watching the game with us at the bar. Or peeking behind the curtain into our text thread during games. Does that mean we might end up talking about Soundgarden for most of the 2nd period? Probably!
Anyway, we think this has a chance to be really fun, and we hope you’ll give it a try with us. It’s free to download, it’s free to watch, so you’ve got nothing to lose but your sanity! And you’ve already lost that if you’re reading and following us anyway. If it works, it’s definitely something we would do more often with the entire cast here.
We’re pretty excited about it. We hope you will be too.
I guess I’ll give Stan some dap for appearing in public right before the deadline. Though at the intermission of the game in Calgary is an interesting choice, given the time restraints. But whatever, Stan took the time to talk, which he’s not good at, which means we have to dissect what he said, which we are. Let’s to it.
And I want to start with a question from Mark Lazerus:
Well, you were in pretty much the same situation last year, almost identical, where you’re on the outside but within striking distance. You wound up not really doing much of anything. Is that a strong possibility again this year, that you might just let these guys play it out?
And this is the crux of the whole thing, isn’t it? The Hawks didn’t do anything at the deadline last year, in one direction or the other. Now that’s not all of it, as they did pick up Drake Caggiula, who is at least useful, and Slater Koekkoek, who probably isn’t, well before the deadline. They also swapped Nick Schmaltz for Dylan Strome, which looked last year like a great move and this year looks no worse than break-even. But the Hawks didn’t pick a lane last year, they held on to Erik Gustafsson at the peak of his value. They didn’t add anything and mortgage any of their future in the process, which is good. But they didn’t fully commit to the following years either, which left them not doing anything all that effective in the summer, other than signing de Haan, and now he might have one arm forever.
Again, this year they have a choice, and while Gustafsson doesn’t have the value he did they have more pieces to play with in the form of Lehner and if they want to get really goofy, Strome. Maybe even Maatta. But it’s likely they’ll do nothing, and have less cap space next summer, which is pretty much going to leave them running in place again.
Of course. In the moment, that’s fun. But you pay the price down the road, and we’re kind of down that road now. It’s always that balance of the push and pull of the present and the future. Because you’d love to be able to go for it and not have it impact your team three or four years down the road. But that’s usually what happens, is the players or draft picks that you give away, you don’t feel it that next year or two years. It’s usually four years later when those players are in their early 20s and they should be helping you, but you don’t have them because they’re somewhere else.
It’s important to be fair to Stan here as well. Because this is right. The Hawks are paying the piper now for the picks they didn’t have and the prospects they had to give up. Phillip Danault would help. Teuvo Teravainen would help. Maybe one of the picks they surrendered in ’15 or ’16 would have been a contributor by now. This was the line Stan tried to walk back then, and it’s nearly impossible. He’s trying to get out of that now, which is also near impossible.
Probably not a couple games, no. I guess you look at from the trade deadline backwards to the All-Star break. That’s a pretty good chunk of games there. I think when we get to a week from now, next weekend, we’ll have a pretty good idea of how we’ve played. We haven’t been good the last few games, that’s true. But we’ve got a few more games before next weekend, four games. So I think we’ll add it up to the last five or six and we’ll see where we’re at. We certainly have to get some good fortune here over the next stretch. Otherwise, it’s going to be tough.
Now this is the big thing. We’ve dismissed the Hawks thought-train as they’ll use the efforts instead of the results this past week as a justification to do nothing. They’ll say they dominated Vancouver, which they did, and they got a couple bad calls in Edmonton, which they also did. They’ll point to the seemingly small-ish gap to the wildcard, even though it’s actually quite large. But every team that falls short has got a story. You still fell short. Admit what you are.
But I don’t know that they’ll do that. For an adventurous front office, or at least one with an actual vision, this past week would be the justification they would need. They’re not as good as the Jets. They’re not as good as the Predators. That right there is more than enough to prove they won’t make the playoffs. They might not be as good as the Flames. I think they’re as good as the Oilers or the Canucks, maybe even better, but the standings are the standings. They’re not making the playoffs, which means the aim has to be doing everything they can to make the playoffs next year. That process has to start now.
Maybe Stan feels the same way, but we’ve seen nothing to indicate that.
There’s no perfect answer for that, how do you make everybody happy. I don’t know if you can.
I’ve got to look at a broader spectrum, try to get ourselves to be in a position so that we are on top of the league. That’s where we want to get to because, like you said earlier, that’s when it’s most fun, when you’re on top and trying to add pieces to make you the best team in the league. We want to get back to that. We know what that’s like. We’ve got to get back to that.
This is where it starts to feel like Stan does get it, at least a bit. He knows he can’t keep the vets happy and build this team for the future at the same time. But he knows the latter is probably more important than the former, and both will meet up in the middle if he can accomplish it.
The part that’s hard to figure out is that last year, the Hawks made it clear they would keep the vets apprised and informed of what they were trying to do. Which they should. Kane, Toews, Seabrook, Keith, and Crawford have earned that. And they have earned the right to say if they’re on board or not.
The problem is the Hawks have also told us, “there’s no plan, there’s a process.” So what did they tell them, exactly? Was it they would go all out this season? Well, that didn’t work, so how do the vets feel now? It would mean there would have to be a new map, as it were. Why would they believe in a second map after the first didn’t work at all? Or did they tell them it was going to take multiple years after already missing the playoffs for multiple years? But it’s never sounded like that from anyone. So where do they go?
I think Jeremy’s done a fantastic job. I really do. I know the results aren’t where we want them to be, and he would say the same thing. We get frustrated when we don’t win games. But I look at the way our team’s playing, in particular the last couple months. I think the beginning of the year, the hardest part was trying to instill some new habits in our players. We spent a lot of time trying to ingrain habits and they don’t form overnight. So I think early on in the season, you saw guys that were trying to do the right thing, but there was a little bit too much thinking going on.
And then we get some Stan horeshit, and a primo version of it. First off, you can’t say your coach is doing a remarkable job and then in the next sentence say the results aren’t there. They don’t square up.They’re almost in direct opposition to each other, in fact. That only works for a truly rebuilding team rife with youngsters and you’re just trying to develop them. The Hawks have aggressively told us they are not that.
And we’re still going with “instilling new habits.” It’s fucking February of the second year. First it was hard to do in the regular season last year. Then it was all-we-need-in-magic-training camp. Now it’s still going on. How much longer do you think we’re going to believe this? Maybe the players suck, or the players know the coach’s system sucks and they won’t play it. Maybe it’s both. But Colliton has been in charge more than long enough to “instill” whatever it is they’re looking for. Fuck, it was enough last February. You can’t keep moving the goalposts to justify what looks increasingly like a bad hire.
And the Hawks still play like shit, in that they give up far too many shots and chances and lose guys in their zone all the damn time. If this is what makes Stan happy, then everyone has to go. Perhaps the most sobering paragraph actually comes from Scott Powers today, in an article looking at the Hawks’ cap problems to come:
The next question is obviously whether the Blackhawks would be better with this roster than they are this season. That’s hard to say. They’re probably banking on the young players taking that next step, Seabrook coming back improved, de Haan finding that same level again, Shaw contributing and the veterans at least maintaining their performance.
We already did that once. And it led to this. I don’t mean to over-binge on Anton Chigurh memes but they seem to fit…
Jonathan Toews – We haven’t really taken a step back to marvel (get it?) at what Toews has done this year. And maybe because if we do we’ll just get depressed that another stellar effort from the captain–and we need to remind everyone this is the second season he’s done this after being dismissed as finished–is going to go to waste. He piled up five points this week in four games, and since his slow October he’s put up 42 points in 45 games. That would be a 77-point pace over a full season, which would be the second-highest mark of his career (though in the Season In A Can he was over a point per game). Toews has led from the front, and his metrics have also slowly improved throughout the season. And somehow he remains under the radar a bit. Maybe it’s because we just take him for granted. But it’s Keith who is nominated as the one who could leave or be traded, even though he’s been clear he isn’t going anywhere. It’s Kane who takes the headlines and most of the marketing drive. And yet do we doubt if Toews asked out tomorrow there wouldn’t be a host of teams trying to acquire him, despite his contract? It’s just as much of a given that Toews will be here for life as it is for Kane. And even though we’re pretty sure Toews knows his coach and possibly GM don’t have any idea what they’re doing, he’s still trying to hold the ship together. It’s what he does. It may be one of those things where we think we appreciate what we have here, and but won’t really until it’s not here anymore.
The Terrifying Lows
Alex DeBrincat – Yeah, it seems piling on. And he did finally break his slump in Calgary. But that didn’t change the fact that he’s got two points in his last eight games. He’s got five even-strength goals. He was terrible in the first game in Winnipeg, and he wasn’t much better last night. It’s clearly getting to him, as he’s fumbling the puck every which way. What would Strome’s numbers look like if Top Cat was having a normal season? Would he still be shunted out to a wing where he doesn’t belong?
The sobering thing here is that if Top Cat were shooting merely his career norm of 14%, he’d have 24 goals. Or 10 more than he’s got now. What would those 10 goals mean to the Hawks in the standings? It’s probably three-to-four more points. That would have them right on the cusp. And the unfortunate thing for DeBrincat, as this is all mostly just bad luck, is the Hawks will use that fact as a crutch to justify inaction either this week at the deadline or over the summer. They’ll say that if only Top Cat goes back to normal, everything will be fine. And that’s far too much to put on him.
The Creamy Middles
Corey Crawford – The past six weeks have seen Crow put up a .925 while seeing about 31 shots per game. He hasn’t given up more than three in any game. Meanwhile, Robin Lehner in that time has put up a .905 seeing 33 shots per game. Since Nov. 1st, Crow’s SV% is .916. Lehner’s is .917. But please, keep telling me how it’s Lehner that simply must be re-signed for significantly more money than Crow will probably require for a shorter period of time for a team that needs a lot more than goaltending. I want to hear all about it.
In the brilliant scheduling genius of the NHL, the Hawks will spend a second consecutive Sunday in Winnipeg, after having to bus in from Calgary last night because y’know, there’s no airport in Winnipeg. Once again, as they’ve seemingly done a dozen times this season and a dozen times last season, after last night’s win the Hawks have a chance to keep their season afloat with a win tonight.
It’s getting tiresome of course. We know what this team is, and what they probably need to do, but the longer they stay in the race the more justification they’ll have to kind of just float there, without making aggressive moves to bolster next year which should be the real goal here. A win would see the Hawks be within one point of the Jets, and four points within the Coyotes in the last spot with two games in hand. There’s a light week ahead with just two games at home against the Rangers and Predators, before what looks to be a killer roadtrip to close out February.
And we know how this goes. The Hawks probably can’t string together enough losses to fall out of it, due to both their own individual brilliance at the top of the roster and the Western Conference’s inability to not become a Cluseau-esque waiter. Which means three wins in a row are always around the corner to keep them right on the cusp, and then three losses right behind that to look over the edge of the precipice without going over. So it goes.
In the week since the Hawks were last here, the Jets biffed home games against the Rangers and Sharks, and deservedly so. Which somehow got Paul Maurice a contract-extension. This team has hated Maurice for two seasons at least, continues to be one of the worst defensive teams in the league and a good portion of that is because they simply don’t care to be anything else. But when they actually can be bothered, as they were for the last 40 minutes last week, they can still blow just about any team out of the building. Much like the Hawks, you can bet on them to keep yo-yoing between getting into the playoffs and ending their season without making a decision either way.
The Jets are still injured, with Lowry and Perreault still out and Letestu and Little long time casualties. That’s eroded something of their depth, which has led them to lean heavily on the top six and Andrew Copp and Jack Roslovic. There’s been some talk of shifting Blay Kweeler back to wing and Copp to 2C, and they’ll try both looks tonight you can be sure. They tore the Hawks asunder last week either way.
It’s been a pretty horrific roadie for the Hawks, and winning tonight will at least give them cover for not doing much at the trade deadline. They can argue they were robbed in Vancouver and lucky in Calgary somewhat, though eight goals is eight goals. They can say they split with the Jets, which is about what you’d expect from two games in a week against the same opponent. So the only blip, in their minds, will be losing to EdMo without McDavid. It’s the lowest hurdle to clear, but it’ll be enough for them.
Friends, you’ve probably been frustrated at some point watching some moron you work with get a promotion you were sure you were more qualified for, or even just a promotion you know they had no business getting. Or perhaps you just watch things in society and wonder how someone you’re sure can’t tie their shoes can end up with so much more money than you. For instance, Jim Crane clearly has a whistling sound working between his ears, and yet he’s rich enough to own a MLB team.
Maybe hockey isn’t for us if that’s how we feel.
Paul Maurice earned another contract extension this week. That’s the same coach who in six years at the helm has won two playoff series, both in the same year. That’s with perhaps the best top six in the league, one of the deepest forward corps around, and before this year at least a serviceable defense. Oh, and two of the past three seasons he’s gotten near Vezina-level goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck.
And that’s still been the case this year, and the Jest are still outside the playoff places. Sure, the defense has been stripped of Dustin Byfuglien and Jacob Trouba, but losing the former shouldn’t hurt your defensive structure much if at all. And the Jets remain one of the worst defensive teams in the league, in terms of the shots, attempts, and chances they give up.
But if you watch the Jets, it’s not just lack of talent. They just don’t care. Some night, their lack of effort in their own zone is so noticeable it’s laughable. The Jets are one of the worst metrics teams in the league. Even with that defense, given the wealth of talent at forward, they shouldn’t be drowning in attempts and chances against on a nightly basis.
And this has been going on for a bit. The Jets tried to get Maurice fired during their playoff series lost to the Blues last year. They blew assignments, they lacked desire, they played selfishly at times. They didn’t want to be there, most of all. And yet Maurice wasn’t fired. He wasn’t fired in the middle of this year when they haven’t been in the playoff spots all season. And now he’s installed for more years. How?
Maurice and GM Kevin Chevldayoff let Patrik Laine force their hand in the lineup and play on the top line, which used to be Blake Wheeler’s spot. They let Trouba stick around for multiple years when he made it clear he hated it there and hated Maurice until they had to trade him (and did get Neal Pionk out of it, but could they have gotten more previously?).
Chevyldayoff’s draft record is impressive enough, as a good portion of this team is his doing. Though the only player in the last three drafts to even make it to the NHL is Laine. He’s made trades for Paul Stastny and Kevin Hayes to bolster the team for what he hoped would be Cup chases. But it may be up now. The Jets have only just north of $7M in space for next year, and the only players signed are Hellebuyck, Morrissey, Pionk, Poolman, and the top six. If the Jets lose their forward depth, the sink could go even farther.
But is Maurice really the guy to guide these players? His pedigree is non existent. He has one Cup Final appearance in 22 years coaching in this league. He has two conference final appearances. That’s in 22 years. While the Jets no longer are one of the dumber teams in the league in terms of penalties, which used to be a Maurice staple, it’s still in their locker. And as you’ve seen against the Hawks, this is one of the biggest and fastest teams at forward in the league. But they so rarely play like it, which is how they’ve gotten tonked by the Hawks twice. Last Sunday, when they actually decided to play up to it, the Hawks couldn’t cope. Few teams could.
But this is the NHL. You get one job, you get 17 (unless you’re Mike Kitchen). And you get to keep coaching in a place you wore out your welcome in long ago.
Patrik Laine – All jokes about how he looks like he’d ask you three questions to let you cross his bridge, the Jets have bent over backwards for this guy in recent years and he’s pretty much just been a floater. They listened to him bitch incessantly last year about playing on the second line. So they handed him a new contract, shifted their captain back to center and Laine up to play on their top line. He’s given them a fine 30-goal pace season but also doesn’t impact the game in any other way. He is what everyone wanted to believe Alex Ovechkin was back in the day. His metrics are woeful. This guy stands around and waits to shoot and nothing else, and the Jets might want to consider what they could get for him in the trade market one day soon.
Kevin Chevyldayoff – Apparently two playoff series wins in team history is enough to re-sign your dumbass coach. Easier and easier to tell he used to work for the Hawks, huh?
Mark Scheifele – For someone 6-5 and built like a house he sure does end up on the ice a lot, doesn’t he?
Notes: With the exception of the goalie, same lineup. Kind of has to be with Zack Smith’s injury as they haven’t called anyone up to be an extra forward…Koekkoek and Maatta led the d-men last night in ES time, which is weird…despite having a rough night, Boqvist led the team in Corsi last night…the best line in terms of possession, and the only one above water, was Dach’s line, which is very encouraging…
Jets
Notes: The Jets lines could look like anything tonight. They’ve been playing with moving Wheeler back to wing and Copp up to 2C, which you could see a lot of tonight. They don’t stick with one throughout the game though, so you’ll see everything…Hellebuyck hasn’t been at his best but the Jets allowed the zombie Sharks to throw 35 shots at him on Friday night…Hawks launched a Connor hot-streak, as he has 10 points in his last six…
It’s hard to believe that Mikael Backlund is only 30 years old. While that’s old in hockey years, we were hearing Flames fans’ excitement about him all the way back during the 2008-2009 season, even before the Hawks put the Flames to the sword in the playoffs. He only played one game that year, and perhaps he never lived quite up to the hopes of being a 1st round pick and a prized prospect for a while. But he’s definitely the cult favorite of Flames Nation. He’s the Fugazi of Calgary, where you only love him if you really know what’s going on.
Most of that is down to the years where he, Michael Frolik, and Matthew Tkachuk formed one of the best lines in hockey. At least in terms of metrics it was. The 3M line started most of their shifts in the defensive zone, and ended most of them in the other end. They were one of the best possession lines in hockey, and the Flames asked them to do just about everything. And they did just about everything.
Starting last year though, Racist Ol’ Bill Peters soured on Frolik pretty quickly, and split that line up more often than you would think, i.e. at all. Lots of others moonlighted with Backlund and Tkachuk, but never quite captured the same magic. And Backlund’s metrics started to slide because of it.
It’s only gotten worse this year, and Backlund has often been used as a winger on the top line to help Sean Monahan and Johnny Gadreau keep the puck. But that’s not really what Backlund is, and it weakened the Flames down the middle as Elias Lindholm was tried as simply an offensive center than the Swiss Army Knife Backlund was and can still be. Recently, they’ve scrapped that and returned Backlund to the second center hole.
The numbers make it pretty clear that when Backlund is centering Tkachuk, things go well. When he’s on a wing with the others, they don’t, as his percentages drop. Seems pretty simple, but a lot of hockey coaches tend to outthink themselves.
The weird thing about Backlund is over the years he seems to do worse the more you start him in the offensive zone. It’s like if he doesn’t have ice to skate into he just backs up to find it. He’s more checking than scoring, though he’s consistently put up 40-50 points. Three years ago, he started just 35% of his shifts in the offensive zone and yet carried a 55% Corsi-share and 52% xG%. This year he’s starting 56% of his shifts in the offensive zone, and he’s below the team-rate in the analytics for the first time in a dog’s age.
Being the sole puck winner from a wing on the top line just doesn’t appear to suit him, and in recent games the Flames have returned Lindholm to that wing. They’ve won three of four with an aggregate score of 18-4 in those three wins. Seems pretty obvious the lineup needs to be tuned a certain way.
Either way, Backlund will remain the die-hard’s favorite, taking on the top lines of other teams and always getting the Flames out of it. At 30 and signed for a few more years could get sticky as he ages, as a $5.3M hit for a checking center seems a bit ambitious. Once Backlund’s scoring dries up there might be questions. But those are a long way off. Right now, he’s the Flames fans smallpox champion.
Zac Rinaldo – The Flames of late seem to get the idea that they need to play up-tempo and creatively. So what this collection of puss is doing in the lineup is anyone’s guess. This team certainly had enough of the asshat quotient with whichever Tkachuk is here and Lucic, but this really takes the cake. The cake made of birth-sauce, that is. Rinaldo is one of the bigger pieces of shit in recent vintage, and no one’s been able to explain how he helps. And yet he keeps finding work. In any other sport he would have been drummed out and playing from whichever league was formed by Vince McMahon.
Milan Lucic – Still wasting everyone’s time, except for those of us who like to do comedic writing.
Calgary City Council – You probably missed it, with Calgary all tucked away down there, but the city of Calgary is the latest to bend over for a sports owner and give him money for a new arena that the owner could easily afford himself. They’ll be coughing up over $225M, which they’ll never get back of course. And as we know, the promise of new jobs always seems temporary or never pans out. Maybe one day people will learn. But it wasn’t this day in Calgary.
vs. 
