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Friday Foofaraw: Champions League Final Preview

By Sam Fels 1648 0

If you’re new to these parts, once summer hits we use Friday afternoons as an experiment lab to mix various chemicals and hopefully don’t lose our eyebrows in the process. What that means in layman terms is we write about whatever the fuck we want on summer Friday afternoons.

And another set of information. If you’re following me on Twitter tomorrow and it feels like I’m speaking in tongues, it’s because it’s Champions League Final day and my beloved Liverpool F.C. are participating for the first time in 11 years and trying to win it for the first time in 13. And if I have to explain it further, and now I’m getting tired, the Champions League Final is basically club soccer’s Super Bowl every year. Except it’s on a Saturday which makes way more sense. It used to be on a Wednesday, and boy did you have to jump through some hoops to make that work.

Now that we’ve set the table, what my dear Reds will find there is Real Madrid. Even if you have spent your life with your fingers in your ears and abhor proper football while you polish your gun and wipe the giardiniera from your chin, you’ve heard of Real Madrid. Either the biggest club in the world or the 2nd, but given the difference in money between them and Barcelona, they really are the biggest.

But you should hate them for more than just that. Having a lot of money is fine, being popular is fine, but Madrid are the conservatives favorite. They’ve amassed the most expensive squad around, or it was when it was assembled, and they’ve never been any fun to watch. They’re ruthless, they’re efficient, but there’s hardly any joy to it. Barcelona are still mostly homegrown (though less and less now) and whatever you’re feeling about them they did completely change they way the sport is played. They’re inventors, creators. Madrid are just a conglomerate. They just swallow up anything in their way through sheer cash and force, without ever generating any affection in the process. All that matters is the end result, and to be fair to them the end result is almost always good.

They’re still led by the name you know, Christiano Ronaldo, who at best has become soccer James Harden and at worst is probably a rapist. He barely moves now, certainly wouldn’t be able to find his own half if you put all the hair-care product in it, and yet he still scores all the fucking time. I mean, check this shit out.

It’s not just him, obviously. This midfield, while about as mobile these days as a Chicago construction site on your block, is as talented and dynamic as you’ll find through Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, and Casemiro. Sergio Ramos is one of the best defenders in the world somehow, as he always looks like he’s about a fraction of a second from kicking the ball into the top corner of his own net while simultaneously getting sent off. Raphael Varane isn’t far behind. And what make them tick is their actual homegrown players in Isco or Asencso or Vasquez, who do all the work that the glitterati think is beneath them.

As for Liverpool, they’re basically cocaine. The highs can be ridiculous and lift you to places you didn’t think possible, and the crashes can be just as insane. There’s no more lethal frontline than Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino, and Sadio Mane. And given that they have had two weeks off and are rested, you’ll basically see all three of these guys and the three midfielders behind them running all over the place trying to create turnovers as high as possible to then get the ball up the field as soon as possible to score. What the Penguins and Knights do on ice Liverpool do on grass. Get the ball, get it forward, pound it home before anyone has any idea what happened.

While they’ve been defensively far more solid in the second half of the year than the first, this is still a team that can give up six goals over two legs in a semifinal AND WIN! There’s no way they’re pitching a shutout tomorrow, and there’s no way they won’t score either. Nothing’s easy in Liverpool’s world.

It’s all on how Madrid plays this. If they try and play their usual, controlled, measured, dull-ass style and stroke the ball around while checking their watch, Liverpool are likely to tear into them and cause a ruckus just as both Juventus and Munich did. Except Liverpool have better finishing than those teams. If Madrid sink back, let Liverpool have the ball, and try and spring on the counter when Pool get sucked too far forward, then I’m going to be bathing in sad beers instead of happy beers. Ronaldo and Bale and Isco and whoever fucking else in space against our defense is basically the Pit of Despair.

It’s unlikely to be boring. Enjoy it. I won’t either way.

-I’d be remiss and insulting to current/former personalities on this blog if I didn’t mention that the English Championship Playoff Final takes place before the CL Final tomorrow, between Fulham and Cieslak’s Aston Villa. It’s called the richest match in the world, and it is. The winner will see something like a $200m windfall from joining the Premier League for just a season.

And that’s how it works. This is the second division in England, and the top two teams automatically are promoted to the Premier League next season (the bottom three in the Premier League sink to the Championship the next season). 3rd-6th go into a playoff, and this is the showpiece. Given how much is on the line, these games are suffocatingly tense and usually hard to watch. But you can’t look away either. So pour one out for Slak, it’s going to be a rough day for him too.

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You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Tampa Bay Lightning

By Sam Fels 2049 0

Saying goodbye to the Tampa Bay Lightning is a lot like saying goodbye to bread. Sure, they were necessary. Sure, they had flashes of being really good and noticeable. And yet it felt like everything went on around them. It’s like they were the dining room table at one of their coach’s key parties/12-hour orgies. It’s going to be used as a prop at times, it’s going to have important tools placed on it, but it’s not really where the focus is going to be.

Before the season, it was generally agreed the Lightning were the best team in the league. And really, they were. Somehow they were able to overcome the fact that Dan Girardi turned into amassed lizards like five years ago, Anton Stralman has looked like confused villain #3 in any Bond film since last season, and Braydon Coburn still has windburn from the 2010 Final. They blended kids and rookies into their already stacked lineup seamlessly, the way Jon Cooper blends peanut butter and candle wax seamlessly into his Thursday nights.

And yet pretty much from the first month on, everyone tried to find a different team to claim the favorite. We all wavered from Boston (hilarious) to Nashville to Winnipeg to Vegas to even saying fuck it the Penguins are just going to win again BECAUSE. The Lightning remained as steadfast as ever, they just couldn’t get anyone to care other than the retirees who populate the place and the extras from Magic Mike who no one told filming was over. They were the reserve prom date who had to wait for everyone else’s delusions of grandeur to pass.

As good as this team is, did it ever have any swagger? Or was that sucked up all by Cooper as he sauntered into a USF bar on a Tuesday? Did they ever look like they believed they could beat anyone and everyone? Was there ever an assuredness? It sure never seemed like it. There was no style or panache to it. It was just results. It was basically hockey Pearl Jam.

It looked like they might have captured it getting out of their division in the playoffs. But that should have been the first clue. That division. 17-5-2 against everyone who wasn’t the Bruins, which contained five teams that looked like something an untrained puppy left to its own devices for hours had gone through. Still, it should have been more.

And then the Caps showed up and said, “Hey wait a fucking minute, why is everyone out-thinking themselves here? Girardi and Coburn suck and we’re going to show everyone.” And they did. By Game 7 both looked like David Cross’ burn victim from Mr. Show. Sometimes it is as simple as it looks.

You know what might have helped? If Steven Stamkos could have managed an even-strength goal at any point in the last series, or more than one in the whole playoffs. Still, you have to say it goes nicely with his no goals in the ’15 Final at all. Quite the set. Hell of a Rick Nash impression you’ve got there, Stammer. Guess you weren’t alone. Nikita Kucherov couldn’t manage any either. So nice how you’re keeping each other company. #LinematesTilWeDie

They weren’t alone in Chateau Where The Fuck Were You? Victor Hedman spent all but one game against the Caps making love to a lawn mower, which didn’t exactly counteract the performance art for the blind that Girardi, Stralman, and Coburn were putting forth. The only d-man who looked like he wanted it was Mikhail Sergachev, and he could barely find 10 minutes per night while his coach was scrolling through Early2BedShop.com on his phone. I guess if you’re traded for Jonathan Drouin you can’t be surprised if they still treat you like Jonathan Drouin out of habit. You can’t expect a hockey coach to notice you’re a different guy.

But it’s ok, Steve Yzerman is a genius because he’s the first GM to figure out that Florida’s lack of an income tax could be like, an advantage? We’ll ignore he’s the reason that his blue line that was half-comprised by Tweedle Dumb, Tweedle Slow, and Tweedle Old was all his doing. And hey, they’re all back next year! Only J.T. Miller needs to be re-upped, just as soon as they can locate him with his other linemates after the conference final. They’re all up after that, which is good because Kucherov, Point, and Gourde are going to suck up the rest. Dance that dance, Stevie Y. Everyone will still love you. (And frankly, the fact that he could see taking the Detroit job was an utterly hopeless task alone makes him smarter than 80% of the GMs out there).

So so long, Tampa. No one has made being this good this meh since…well who knows, because all those teams are forgotten now. Much like the whole area. Miami at least has nightlife. Orlando has Disney. Jacksonville has crack. Tampa has…hang on I’ll get this. Probably not a good sign when the only movie that takes place there, the aforementioned Magic Mike, is all about how everyone wants to get the fuck out of there, huh?

 

 

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High On The Hog: Game Five Is Necessary

By Jon Fromi 1664 0

The Rockford IceHogs were able to extend their season a bit longer into the spring Thursday with a 3-2 overtime victory over the Texas Stars. The asterisk can be removed from Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. It is indeed necessary and will be at the BMO Harris Bank Center Friday night.

Safe to say that this will be brief. The season could end at any time for the piglets. Maybe I’m here Monday morning  crowing about a possible comeback to be completed in Texas. Maybe I’m starting to dig a hole to plant the 2017-18 campaign before beginning a season-in-review post. The way the last three games have gone, it could be either angle.

Game 4, like the previous two games in this series with the Stars, came down to extra hockey. Unlike Game 3’s scoreboard orgasm, goals were hard to come by Thursday. Rockford had to rally from a goal down in the third period and needed a good portion of the frame to come up with the equalizer. For the first time in this series, the Hogs were able to manufacture some scoring when it really counted.

Victor Ejdsell gave Rockford the lead 6:24 into the game when his attempt from the slot slipped through the pads of Stars goalie Mike McKenna. Texas tied the game via a two-man advantage in the 16th minute on a bad angle shot by Travis Morin. A late power play tally by Matt Mangene put the IceHogs down 2-1 with 25 seconds left in the second period.

Things looked a bit bleak for Rockford until Luke Johnson was able to re-direct a Cody Franson shot past McKenna with just under seven minutes to go in regulation. In overtime, Ejdsell scored from the right circle after Matthew Highmore gathered in a rebound of his own shot and found the open Swede.

IceHogs win. Cue “Chelsea Dagger”, raise the sticks and get set to try this winning thing again. Here are some additional thoughts on Game 4:

  •  First off, the biggest change in the Hogs lineup came in net, where Collin Delia had a seat and Jeff Glass, who hadn’t had a start in over a month, manned the pipes. Glass limited rebounds and stopped 28 of 30 shots.
  • If Glass had given up six goals in any game down the stretch and Delia followed it up with a solid win, you can darn well bet that Delia would be getting the next start. That’s why I can’t imagine that Jeremy Colliton changes his goalie for Game 5.
  • If Rockford continues to be overly aggressive for the sake of drawing oohs and ahs from the BMO faithful, the Texas power play is plenty good enough to end this series Friday.
  • The IceHogs had a plethora of opportunities in the first ten minutes of action Thursday. It resulted in just one goal on the scoreboard. Texas turned the tables late in the period and went in even despite being outplayed for a large stretch of the opening 20. Credit Rockford for staying on task after the air got taken out of a nice first period effort.
  • I might be the only one thinking this, but I don’t feel like Gustav Forsling is defending very well in this series.
  • 3291 showed up to watch Game 4; the Hogs were well-supported in two weeknight contests. How many folks attend a Friday night elimination game at the BMO? How about you?
  • In the third period, Stars D Andrew Bondarchuk took a puck in the mouth and left the game for stitches. A few moments after Bondarchuk was taken to the locker room and before action resumed, the referee reached down and picked up what I assume was Bondarchuk’s tooth. My quandary; how much extra effort would it have taken for the official to skate over and hand off that tooth to the Stars so they could try and reunite it with Bondarchuk?

The puck drops on Game 5 at seven bells. Follow me @JonFromi on twitter to see what the tone of Monday’s post will be.

Everything Else

Bury My Heart At Michal Kempny

By Sam Fels 2646 0

It’s something of a spring tradition, at least it is when your team doesn’t go anywhere or misses the dance altogether. There’s always a player or two or six who make it to the Final and some of those even win it (funny how that works). And you sit there and curse the brainpower of your local/favorite organization, and are convinced if only they saw the world they way you saw it, there’d be a never-ending parade. Often, this involves a player you didn’t even like when they sported the colors you prefer, and what you often do is lament that your coaching staff doesn’t know how to get the best or even good out of said player.

The case of Michal Kempny is a little more tasty than that.

Most players don’t get a 180 from one Edward Olczyk. And yet that’s what we had last night, as Eddie lauded Kempny’s performance in Game 7 and throughout the playoffs, and remarked he was more comfortable in Washington because he knew “one mistake wouldn’t mean getting benched.” That certainly wasn’t the theme in the booth when Kempny was here, and Eddie wasn’t alone as pretty much everyone covering the Hawks leapt to point out his foibles when the coach was basically throwing him under the bus. And the mistakes weren’t always there.

There is more to unpack here than the untrained eye might guess. And we’ll get to all of it. But let’s not bury the lede.

Michal Kempny’s resurgence, or I guess simply “surgence,” with the Capitals would raise the curtain or lid on what was and might still be a dysfunctional system between the Hawks front office and behind their bench. While we try and guess or claim we know what goes on, it’s probably safe to conclude the Hawks always try and reach a consensus. They have many voices in there, Bowman and Quenneville are the two biggest, but MacIassac and Maciver get heard as well (Irish much?), as well as Kelley, the elder Bowman (even if he’s what they’re moving Sue over at the Field to display), Stewart, Hallin, et al.

Still, Kempny was a player that Bowman clearly wanted, given that he signed him twice, and their European scouting recommended. As as we’ve said in previous posts, the Hawks’ European scouting is probably the strongest of the three areas (pro and amateur the others). They had clear plans for Kempny.

And yet he could never win any affection, or barely attention, from Quenneville. We rarely saw him in anything more than a third-pairing role, even though this was a blue line that’s been screaming for mobility for two seasons. He even played with a snarl in his own end that Q supposedly loves. Kempny only played more than 18 minutes with the Hawks five times this season, and he exceeded that six times with the Caps in just a quarter of the season, basically. In these playoffs he’s exceeded 20 minutes five times, with only one of those being an overtime game. It is clear that Barry Trotz is not a moron, so what does he see that Q couldn’t.. or more to the point, wouldn’t?

We had written at many points last year how Kempny’s pairing with Seabrook, despite all logic, actually worked. The dude carried a 58% share with Michal Rozsvial for fuck’s sake! He clearly had use.

And yet he was another player that the front office, whoever were his fans and whoever weren’t, had to toss overboard because they knew simply the coach would never give him a chance. And because of that, they had to know he wouldn’t re-sign here and had to cash in whatever they could. Most players the Hawks have lost over the years were due to cap considerations, but their coach’s use and view of them always played a part. And for the most part, the Hawks have gotten it right. Kempny now, Teuvo this season are generally the exception of who’s gone on to be successful. And we’ve written this article before.

It’s the sideswipe from Olczyk that makes this more interesting, however. It’s not something we’ve ever heard, and there’s been no bigger water-carrier for the organization and how it sees its players than those in the booth. From protecting Marcus Kruger in his rookie year to the over-the-top criticisms of Teuvo to the shielding of Seabrook this year, to his one-man band that basically handed Duncan Keith his second Norris with the Leddy-bashing thrown in, this list could go on. Where Eddie was getting his info is up for endless debate, but clearly this one didn’t come from the coach. Does Eddie perceive a less secure Q, one that he doesn’t have to cozy up to quite as much now? Does he just disagree with his methods more than he did?

If I can put my tin foil hat on–the sun is out after all–I’m curious what Eddie is getting at. Sometimes I wonder if Eddie hasn’t looked at Q’s job with envy, and wouldn’t mind positioning himself in line should it finally become open. But that seems far-fetched, though he’s stated his desire to try coaching again. Perhaps he just became frustrated, like a lot of us, at the handling of the lineup on a nightly basis and couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe he’s just like a lot of fans who want to criticize after a season gone wrong, even if it involves players he himself criticized when they were hear and now the winds have shifted. I don’t really know.

What we can do is be wary of how things are going to go from here. Because the Hawks aren’t going to get older, and they’ve said as much, as far as how they want to develop the team under the aging core. Sure, they may make a splash or two in free agency this summer, but the fortunes of this team are still greatly dependent on Schmaltz, Top Cat, Sikura, Ejdsell, Duclair, Hinostroza, Saad, Murphy, or at least whoever among them sticks, to go along with other kids through the system and signed out of Europe (Ian Mitchell and Jokiharju would be the two names at the top of that list). And at the very least, Eddie is pointing at a disconnect in how the front office and scouting wants players developed, and how they’re actually getting used and developed.

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Night Songs – There Isn’t A Record Of Anything Until There Is

By Sam Fels 2117 0

It’s probably harder to compare to other eras, but it feels like across all sports we’ve seen the breaking down of a lot of “truths” the past 15 years or so. “Truths” in that teams that would never win or couldn’t get past a certain point have done so. I suppose it starts with the Red Sox in 2004. Then the White Sox…wait, that never happened. Sorry. But then the Colts, who it was thought would never break through (PUKE). Phillies. Saints. Hawks. LeBron. Giants. Bruins. Kings. Seahawks, though they didn’t really have the tradition. Royals. Cleveland in any way. The small matter of a plucky baseball team on the Northside. Eagles.

Not that that list is completely correct. The Royals had won somewhat close to that before, but you get it. And now the Capitals are going to play for the Cup. It’s not a total, out-in-the-wilderness story, because if you really rack your memory files you may recall that the Caps were in the Final in ’98. You don’t remember anything about that series, because it lasted just two games and then afterwards the Caps became the first team to surrender, such was their outsized deficit in every category to Scum. I think Peter Bondra was on that team? I know it didn’t matter, and the Caps basically were stand-ins and and extras for the rest of the league until Alex Ovechkin showed up. The only other memory I, and probably every other hockey fan my age, have of the Caps before Ovie was Dale Hunter poleaxing Pierre Turgeon ten seconds after Turgeon scored to essentially send the Caps out of the playoffs in 1993.

But since Ovie debuted, and ever since he basically became the game’s greatest scorer–and that’s what he is, given the environment and style of the game today–the questions have followed of when he will win a Cup. The skepticism started before he’d ever played a game, given his nationality and given the leanings of hockey media. They only got louder when it took Sidney Crosby, with whom he has been and will be forever linked through no doing of his own other than playing in the same conference, only took three seasons to get to a Final and four to win it. Being that he wasn’t born on these shores, and being that most of hockey media has never had the patience to mask its xenophobia with much more than a Kleenex,  the questions and commentary quickly gained a sharp edge.

And Ovechkin and the Caps kept running into the same wall. Well, two walls. Either it was the second round or it was the Rangers. The latter doesn’t make any sense, because the Rangers have never been remarkable in any way other than their goalie. The former did, because it was usually Crosby waiting. But Crosby had Malkin. And Crosby had a goalie playing out of his mind, be it Fleury or Murray. Ovie had Backstrom, but something always went wrong, and it was never Ovie. Oh sure, he took the blame. And he never shied from it, because that’s what you do when you’re the face of a team for over a decade. You could tell it hurt him. You could tell he cared, perhaps too much, which frustrated the amassed writers as it robbed them of a favorite cudgel that they used to beat players from the other side of the Atlantic. How could our beloved trophy mean as much to “dem ferners?!” But it was obvious it did to Ovie. So they had to find other things. So did his coaches and team. He didn’t backcheck. He only cared about scoring. He didn’t work hard enough. Bruce Boudreau, Dale Hunter and Adam Oates tried to cover their own incompetence by throwing Ovechkin under the bus, and given they were “good hockey men” it must be true, right? Perhaps Trotz’s greatest move upon arriving was just letting Ovechkin be Ovechkin and not prepare him as a human shield when things went wrong. Strange how Trotz and Ovie are now where those three coaches have never and will never be, mostly because Hunter really likes yelling at children.

After the last two years, when the Caps were probably the best team in the league and absolutely no one thought they would beat the Penguins and then promptly didn’t, you’d be forgiven for thinking it would never happen. They had their best bullets, they missed, and you know the lesson when you come at the king.

You could write all those things about Barry Trotz as well, who is also here for the first time. He’d never been this far either, and was discarded from a team that thought he couldn’t ever get them there. While it hasn’t always been the most pleasing on the eye, Trotz has coached the hell out of this team. They’re not as good as the Lightning. They might not be as good as the Penguins, whatever the standings might have said. Maybe they are. And they’ve roundly beaten both at times. Sure, maybe they got bounces in Game 7, but they earned their spot there by beating the shit out of the Bolts in Games 1, 2, and 6. They also did so in Game 4, and didn’t get the luck. The Caps have trapped at times. They’ve attacked weak points furiously at others. They’ve done everything, and Trotz has gotten this team to buy into whatever he’s asked that night. This is his masterpiece.

And here they are. They’ve broken through, with one more step to go. Should they get four more wins, there won’t be too many teams that will remain “cursed,” as bullshit as that term is. Ill-starred maybe. The Canucks for sure, who have lost two Game 7s in the Final without ever winning. I guess the Leafs, their fans do talk about it on occasion. The Blues, though there’s nothing epic so much has comedic about their history. But the Sharks haven’t been around long enough. Neither have the Panthers. Or the Jackets. No one cares about the Senators enough, and same thing. The Flyers would like to tell you it’s them, but it isn’t really.

The list is dwindling. And that’s the thing about sports. As Barry Petcheskey pointed out on Deadspin today, “the story is always being written.” Whatever narrative is current among your team, it’s not forever. Even if it takes 108 years, in some cases. The Caps were that team. Now they may not be. Some times hockey just bends that way. Sometimes sports bends that way. 1000 monkeys and 1000 typewriters and such.

Go get it, Alex. You’ve more than earned it.

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See, This Is The Kind Of Thing We’re Always Yelling About

By Sam Fels 2145 0

It wouldn’t be a good idea to use the New York Islanders as a barometer for what common thinking is in the NHL. Jon Ledecky and Scott Malkin are… well, we don’t really know but I’m going to go ahead and guess they’re not going to be mentioned with Socrates or Plato or Vecini. They got their new stadium, and good for them, because the Isles need it. They’ve kept around Garth Snow for too long, and making a change is probably a good idea.

But hiring Lou Lamoriello is the kind of dinosaur thinking and Old Boys Club that keeps this league squarely in its own ass, and why things like the Vegas Golden Knights can happen.

Ol’ Lou is a Hall of Famer, and rightly so. He built something of a dynasty in New Jersey, even if it was the last place anyone wanted one and it was the last team you’d ever want to watch. And maybe, yeah, they set the sport back a decade or six with the neutral zone trap. But hey, it worked, it won, no one was really doing it, and the NHL was flat-footed in figuring out how to stop it, or even figuring out it needed to stop it. Except the Red Wings kind of did it with Scotty Bowman and the left-wing lock but we’ll leave that for another time. The Devils perfected it, and Lou brought through guys like Brodeur, Stevens, Elias, Daneyo, Gomez, Sykora, Niedermayer, et al.

Here’s the thing with Lou, though. Aside from that goofy Final appearance in 2012 that really doesn’t make any sense other than the entire Eastern Conference went for shawarma or something, four of the last five Devils teams missed the playoffs, and only one of them came anywhere close. The previous three before that went out in the first round. So for over a decade, Lou’s Devils teams made it out of the first round three times. They missed the playoffs four times. This isn’t exactly a glittering record as the game sped up and got more open.

As for this current Devils team, the one that did make the playoffs and was actually something more than a torture device to get people to talk when you watched them, Lou’s fingerprints aren’t really present. Their core players are as follows:

Taylor Hall – traded for after Lou left

Nico Hischier – drafted after Lou

Kyle Palmieri – signed after Lou

Will Butcher – signed after Lou

Jesper Bratt – drafted by Lou

Miles Wood – drafted by Lou

Sami Vatanen – traded for after Lou

Pavel Zacha – drafted after Lou

Now, Cory Schneider was a Lou trade…except he’s been terrible for two seasons. Keith Kinkaid was a Lou draftee as well, though. But you can see where Ray Shero has basically spent three seasons trying to clear all the trash Lou left him.

So let’s move over to Toronto, where Lou was the GM or three seasons. He got a crack at two drafts, as he was hired after the ’15 draft and free agency period. And he took…Auston Matthews? I mean, hey, that’s great. But like, it’s not like he unearthed Matthews. This wasn’t a genius display of scouting. He had the top pick, Matthews was clearly the best player in that draft. So there you go. None of the other picks the past two seasons while under Lou’s stewardship have made it to the NHL, though to be fair it’s kind of a short view.

Here are some signings the Leafs made in Lou’s time:

Nikita Zaitsev – ok

Roman Polak, after trading him away once – a circus bear

Matt Martin – can’t count to four

Brian Boyle – fine, maybe? Basically a 4th line center and really a dime a dozen and despite being a good story he’s just kind of there with dumb and bad facial hair

Freddie Andersen – Been good, until you say the words “Game” and “7” and then he does Muppet arms while running away from you

Patrick Marleau – Ok, good, can’t argue with 27 goals. He might be three days older than water, but he provides something.

So what did Lou add to the Leafs’ core? Maybe Andersen? Seems like they’re already thinking about a new goalie when they want to win something serious. Zaitsev? Depth d-man, I’ll give you that one. And Marleau? Pretty much a complimentary scorer at this point.

So what about any of that screams you need him to not only turn around your team but also convince the best player in your organization in at least two decades to stay so you can speed up that turnaround? I mean, maybe name recognition is all that Tavares needs. Maybe he grew up turning off Devils games so he could so something he might actually enjoy, but has memories of them. Still, if Tavares is getting any decent advice, Lou’s hiring won’t mean shit.

There was a time when it would. It’s not now. And yet this kind of silliness keeps happening.

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High On The Hog: Against The Wall

By Jon Fromi 1626 0

The Rockford IceHogs are still alive in their Western Conference Final with Texas. Barely.

The Stars found a way to win yet again over a Rockford team that dominated large stretches of the contest. The IceHogs rallied with a late goal to send Game 3 to overtime Tuesday night. However, Rockford fell victim to another Curtis McKenzie game-winner five minutes into the extra session, losing 6-5.

The piglets find themselves down 3-0 in the series and have a day to regroup before Game 4 at the BMO Harris Bank Center on Thursday. Is it time to pack it in? Rockford has shown its characteristic stick-to-it-ive-ness throughout the series. Trouble is, the Stars have possessed just a bit more of whatever you want to call postseason resiliency.

(Maybe just call it postseason resiliency? Oh, that’s no fun.)

IceHogs coach Jeremy Colliton elected to make a couple of changes in what has been a very consistent lineup Tuesday. Henrik Samuelsson took the place of Anthony Louis on a forward line. Joni Tuulola drew in for Darren Raddysh on defense.

Bringing in a big body like Samuelsson didn’t hurt the Hogs, though it didn’t show up on the scoreboard. Tuulola seemed an odd choice, seeing as how he had two regular season games under his belt coming into Game 3. I would have figured Robin Norell, who was lauded for his defensive skills by the team whether he was on defense or skating on a forward line, would have been a candidate to get a start. However, Colliton likely wanted the big body Tuulola brought to the table.

If you told me before the game that Rockford would put up five goals, I would have felt pretty good about the IceHogs chances. Things didn’t work out to plan, though.

Tyler Sikura got the scoring started 4:43 into period one with an incredible individual effort. After receiving a pass from Chris DiDomenico in neutral ice, Sikura skated into the Texas zone. He fought through Matt Mangene and Dillon Heatherington before firing past a stunned Mike McKenna to give Rockford a 1-0 lead.

Texas got back to even ground by converting a 5-on-3 advantage, with McKenzie knocking in a rebound of Justin Dowling’s shot at the 7:13 mark. It would prove to be the only power play goal of the game, though the Hogs would score for the first of two times when up a man in Game 3.

The first came on a delayed penalty, with John Hayden lining up a shot from the slot that McKenna couldn’t handle. Carl Dahlstrom and Gustav Forsling assisted as the Hogs took a 2-1 advantage at 12:10 of the first period.

The Stars came back with two quick goals by Dowling and Sheldon Dries and led 3-2 at the intermission. Rockford was in need of a response and did so, dominating the second period.

Forsling sent a laser into the ropes just after a power play expired 6:17 into the second to tie the game at three. At the 12:21 mark, the Hogs had just completed killing a interference call on DiDomenico. Rockford’s playoff spark plug scooped up a loose puck in the corner of the Texas zone and skated behind the net to the right circle. DiDomenico found Matthew Highmore open at the left dot. Luke Johnson was knocking at McKenna’s back door and got a stick on the centering pass to put the IceHogs up 4-3.

The IceHogs were in need of some insurance to begin the third period. For the first ten minutes of action, it appeared that they were going to get it. Rockford camped out in the offensive zone and slammed away at McKenna. Despite a host of opportunities, the Hogs failed to build on their lead. It proved costly.

Dries would get his second goal of the night midway through the period. The rookie forward found a huge pocket at the left dot. Taking a feed from Reece Scarlett, Dries had the time and space to outmaneuver Hogs goalie Collin Delia at the left post to tie the game at the 10:54 mark.

With 5:30 left in the contest, McKenzie was walled up along the right half boards by Tuulola and Hayden. His pass attempt was blocked by Hayden’s stick and up in the air. Austin Fyten, playing in his first game in the AHL, grabbed the puck, settled it and powered it past Delia to give Texas a 5-4 lead.

Credit the resolve of the IceHogs, who pulled Delia from the crease with just under three minutes to go and tied the game with 50 seconds to play. DiDomenico and Johnson were able to cycle the puck out of the corner, sending it out to the point.

The pass was off the ice, but Cody Franson was able to catch the puck, set it down and send a low shot toward net. McKenna had a lot of traffic in front of him, allowing the shot to slide into the net and give Rockford new life.

The IceHogs would see their overtime fortunes turn sour for the second straight game via the stick of the Stars captain. McKenzie won control of a loose puck inside the blue line and skated to the top of the right circle. His centering pass to Dries caught the stick of a back checking Adam Clendening and over Delia’s blocker to close out Game 3.

A bit of controversy surrounded the game-winner. Hogs players argued that Texas had too many men on the ice for the goal. Lance Bouma looked like he thought he had cleared the zone and that McKenzie was offside. Regardless, the fate of Rockford was sealed. Colliton and Company are now in must-win mode…big time.

The audience at the BMO was once again impressive for a weeknight game. Nearly 3,000 showed up to wave red rally towels and boo the officials off of the ice following the finish of Game 3. A lot of those fans probably went home thinking that bad calls cost Rockford the game. I’m not sure I agree.

Texas has been a very difficult team to put away in the playoffs. The IceHogs had ample opportunity to do so in the third period and have had their chances in the other games as well. The Stars, as they have done all series, found a way to win, be it catching a airborne puck, cashing in on a fortunate rebound, or converting an odd-man rush off a defender’s blade.

Rockford was the better team for huge stretches of Game 3. But for a bounce here or there, they could be up 2-1 in the Western Conference Final. They are not, though. To win Game 4 on Thursday and prolong the series, the Hogs need to find a way to finish off the Stars.

 

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You Get What Anyone Gets: Saying Goodbye To The Winnipeg Jets

By Sam Fels 1915 0

The Canadian drought for a Cup goes longer. But the drought for Canadian cities with an airport had died in the first round anyway.

The Winnipeg Jets saved us from yet another flurry of stories and videos about how “NASHVILLE HAS SUCH A UNIQUE” atmosphere from Canadian writers who forgot the place existed from last spring. so we thank them for that. They also punched a variety of holes in the Pekka Rinne myth, and then watched the puck squirt through them for all the goals they would need. So we thank them for that, as well.

But in the end, they couldn’t save us from the new golden children, and we scorn them for that. And now that flurry from last spring will be replaced by a bunch of oh-so-clever headlines from pale-ass Toronto writers like, “Did You Know You Can Have Fun In Vegas?” or “Hey There’s Gambling Here!” or “Steve Simmons Gets His Ass Kicked In By Stripper.” Thank you very fucking much, Jets. We just can’t wait.

In all honesty, this has been a long time coming for the Jets, who should have been at this stage at least two years ago had they not kept trying to foist Ondrej Pavelec on the world in some elaborate prank/gaslighting to convince us all that we don’t exist. What’s that? Ondrej Pavelec? No, he’s totally real. I’m serious. He was their starter for years! Really? Yes, he probably works in a garage somewhere now smoking unfiltered cigarettes before a woman in white pants yells at him for five minutes. Oh, apparently he plays for the Rangers. Same thing.

Anyway, Pavelec or Michael “Hanging In There” Hutchinson always combined to torpedo this uber-talented Jets team year after year. They got some help from Paul Maurice of course, whose philosophy before this season was “MEAT!” The Jets routinely were the dumbest team in the league, and compounding that was they had one of the worst penalty-kills to go along with all those penalties they took as Pavelec looked like being attacked by bees in net while Dustin Byfuglien looked on with an expression on his face that said, “Can you get sick from combining Butterfingers and popcorn?”

Ah yes, Byguflien. Big Buff. DAT BIG BUCK GUY. Once again became the darling of hockey analysts everywhere because he banged in a few goals, pried multiple guys off a scrum who weren’t really doing anything anyway like he was a bouncer at a Harvard bar, and had a few guys try and check him and rebound off the creamy-nougey of his middle. You have to hand it to Buff, he’s excellent at PR because all of those things distract from the three to four times per game he would get caught ahead of the puck before it had even exited the Jets’ zone and he’d have to scramble back. Ha, Buff “scrambling.” There’s a term for you. Right up there with, “Roenick thoughts.”

Anyway, Maurice got away from that this year, as you can’t really ask any coach to take less than four fucking seasons to figure out that he has one of the most talented forward groups in recent vintage and should probably get them to play at evens and the power play as often as possible. It’s a lesson in patience, or dumb luck, as Maurice probably should have been fired two years ago but got to hang around long enough to try this experiment called, “sticking to hockey?” The pinnacle of coaching these days is basically not getting in the way when you have four lines full of skill and Jack Roslovic just waiting around.

And yet it wasn’t quite enough. Maybe it would have been if Patrik Laine’s 1000-yard stare and misplaced beard from the Amish grandmother in Kingpin had been anything more than a passenger for most of the playoffs. Hey Patrik, you’re allowed to do more than wait around for a one-timer. What is it about guys named Patrick? Laine could spend the summer under whatever bridge in Finland he lives going over film of various Knights knocking him off the puck, except there isn’t enough time before training camp.

The Jets might think they’ll be here every year, but the bills are coming due. Trouba, Connor, and Laine are all do extensions in the next year, and Trouba has already tried to escape once. And maybe Blake Wheeler wants to ply his trade somewhere that doesn’t require travel by tauntaun. Paul Stastny says he wants to say and that his family is all for it, proving that either Paul Stastny is drugging his family or literally anywhere is better than St. Louis even when you’re from there.

So this might have been the Jets chance. A first-year team in their way before a chance to play for the Cup. You can’t ask for more…and then Byfuglien skated right by it. Meanwhile, the “loudest building in the league” sounded like a Joni Mitchell soundcheck for the last 40 minutes. You guys want to chip in and maybe inspire? No? Ok cool, go whatever it is you do in Winnipeg for the summer then, which I assume is a whole lot of log-rolling and trying to hit each other with rocks. Oh, and reading Hawks fanfic about trading Toews back there, because that’s something our most unwashed dream about. And in the coming seasons we can get more video packages about the “rivalry” between the Jets and Oilers from the past, where all the old Jets talk about how much they hated the Oilers and Gretzky and Messier respond to questions about it with, “I’m sorry, who?”

It could have been more. It probably should have been. But hey, you’re Canadian. Only so much can be expected. As always, the real cities will take home the real baubles now.

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Night Songs – You’re Only Going To Get More Caps

By Sam Fels 1715 0

It was quite the viewing to have the Capitals on one screen last night and the Cleveland Cavaliers on another last night. Both played with a unique desperation and frenzy against teams that not only didn’t match it, they didn’t seem very interested in doing so either. As Ryan Callahan said, “They played like they had to win, we played like we had another chance.” You could put that quote on any Celtic and it would work as well.

The Caps were simply everywhere last night, in the kind of effort I’m not sure you can manage for more than a game or two. But the thing is, they don’t. They have to do it for one more…and then maybe like five or six more against Vegas. But they probably won’t come up against such a sloppy opponent again.

As furied as the Caps were skating in both directions, the Lighting were simply awful. They couldn’t complete two consecutive passes. As the Caps sank deeper and deeper, the Lightning kept trying to make plays at the offensive blue line, and the three times they ran into each other there is a pretty good symbol of how all that went. Victor Hedman went back into witness protection, they didn’t score on their power plays, and that seems to be the impetus for this Lightning team.

Still, I don’t know where this leads us for a Game 7. The Lightning are still the better team, and yet they’ve infrequently been intent on proving that this series. They were clubbed in the first two games, and then “did enough” in Games 3 and 5 while having Vasilevskiy bail them out in Game 4. At some point you’d think they wouldn’t be so flummoxed by Trotz’s defensive ways, and yet here we are.

Still, this is where the Bolts have been before. They beat the Rangers in a Game 7 at this stage in ’15. They lost to the Penguins in ’16 in the same situation. As strange as it sounds, the Bolts really have been part of the league’s aristocracy for a while now. Meanwhile, it feels like the Caps just set themselves up for a greater heartbreak. Unless you really believe these Caps, THE CAPS, are going to close out three straight series on the road. Just doesn’t seem to be their way. What does is finally breaking through to get just close enough to realize they’re just not quite good enough this time around, when their past two teams most certainly were (yes, those Caps teams would have gone on to win the whole thing if it wasn’t for Pittsburgh, I’m fairly sure).

There’s another thing I wanted to get to, a bugaboo of mine for years. These were the postgame comments of Brooks Orpik. The playing surface across the league have been something we’ve been calling attention to for a while. The one here in the United Center was routinely voted among the worst in the league, which didn’t make a lot of sense for a team that was on the vanguard of playing fast and skilled.

Obviously, there are a lot of challenges, given that almost all of these buildings are holding multiple events, not just sharing with a basketball team. It’s May, and especially on the East Coast humidity is going to be a problem. All understandable.

But it affects the quality of the game. The Lightning weren’t good, but they weren’t helped by a puck bouncing all over the place. Trotz and the Caps are right to use that and sag back, because it’s near impossible to pass your way through that when the ice is descending into slurpee. For a league that should be striving to be as pleasing to the eye as possible with passing and skating everywhere instead of guys just battling in the neutral zone like it’s No Man’s Land, this should be something they talk about.

But it isn’t, because whatever fixes are needed to keep all playing surfaces as clean as possible would cost money. So I’ll just shout at the rain some more.

Everything Else

What We Talk About When We Talk About Vegas

By Sam Fels 2669 0

I know. I’m the piss on everyone’s chips. This might start out like that, but I promise not all of this article is going to be that. Swear to God. Not even sure I totally believe it, but it’s the truth. Anyway, with Vegas winning the Western Conference yesterday, all the debate and arguments over what it means about the state of the league, the state of mind of some fans, and a bunch of other stuff that happens when something this unique takes place has basically exploded. Let’s sift through it.

There certainly are a lot of annoying aspects to the Knights, and I feel like I covered most of them here. But that post probably needs updating, and it also skipped a very large, perhaps most-annoying aspect that’s come along with them. This idea that the Knights’ run has somehow “healed” Vegas after the atrocity right before the season. That’s patently ridiculous, cheap, and manipulative, and a few other adjectives as well. This is always a safe-haven  sportswriters run for in times like this, either for easy heart-string pulling or they simply don’t have the capacity to deal with real-life disasters/horror in any real way.

I certainly don’t want to discount that those connected to those killed that night might have found some distraction in the Knights. If they could provide those people with any amount of time of levity, happiness, joy, then that is indeed a wonderful thing. But it’s not “healing.” Those deaths were senseless, and merely serve as a testament to our country’s demented priorities and broken political system.

You know what might “heal?” Meaningful gun control and mental health care expansion in the name of those who passed to assure something like that never happens again. That would mean those deaths weren’t empty or meaningless. A hockey team winning a few playoff rounds do not. And yet you constantly see this listed right next to Fleury’s .947 SV% as a reason the Knights are going to the Final. That’s abhorrent and wrong. It’s also too convenient. So does that mean the Panthers are moral failures because they didn’t make the playoffs after Parkland?  Or various other teams in various other locations of our sickeningly frequent other shootings and mass murder?

It’s a story, but it’s separate to the Knights success and should be treated as such. Yes, I have frequently written about the sports mattering and the connection to those we’ve lost. I wrote a whole book about it, in fact. But after the celebrations and the memories, those people are still gone, and the grieving and processing and healing–if such a thing is even possible–takes place within and away from arenas and stadiums. Secondly, while I wrote about the Cubs World Series win and what it meant to me because of my family, the Cubs were something we actively shared together for my entire life. The Knights didn’t exist before this, so there isn’t that connection for anyone there. Again, if any of those who survived or those connected to those who didn’t could find momentary distraction from the Knights, that’s great. But it’s not the overarching cure-all that every sportswriter is desperate to be, and all those who are desperate for it to be so we won’t talk about some real changes.

That doesn’t mean sports can’t affect things in the rest of the world. Didier Drogba stopped a civil war, for christ’s sake! Colin Kaepernick was able to keep a critically important issue in the public eye without even playing, while also exposing just how deep and cancerous racism is in our country. You may say you knew all along, but I guarantee there are plenty who didn’t realize how deep the problem went and had their eyes opened. They just don’t yell as loud as though who wanted Kap to just go away. It can be done, but it’s extraordinary circumstances like that.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the hockey aspect.

Admittedly, this is one of perspective. If the Hawks hadn’t won three Cups recently, I’d probably be livid right now. You get the frustration from some fanbases, but it’s misplaced. Just because your team has been moronically run for decades doesn’t mean everyone else’s has to be. Try and explain “mandatory suffering” to a Yankees fan. It doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, it seems unfair, but it’s not. Something is only “unfair” if you were promised a certain system or process. Sports is not that. You are not guaranteed a win, otherwise what would be the point? It just so happens hockey has a ton of teams that have been run by the stupid, drunk, bewildered or some combination thereof for far longer than any reasonable league should. And because of its lack of attention and/or its stone-resistance to any sort of change, it remains that way. Why are ex-players still getting GM jobs when every other sport has moved on to executive types for that job? Does anyone care Theo Epstein never played the game? The GM of the Warriors never played in the NBA, and that’s the best team of all-time (come at me).

That discussion also goes to age. A 25-year-old Patriots fan would know no suffering. A 40-year-old one would and could regale you with stories of sitting on a cold and uncomfortable bench in Foxboro watching Steve Grogan thrash about (I’ve been through this story). So that doesn’t hold up.

What I think it points at is just how stupid and backward this league is, at least to some people. And yet some of these decisions that landed players in Vegas aren’t as indefensible as it seems. Sure, Dale Tallon should be barred from ever working in the league again, and has basically proven that he got lucky with a few draft picks and was just conscious enough to not fuck up two top-three picks. We’ll circle back to this. Nate Schmidt was a third-pairing player in DC. And rightly so. William Karlsson had done nothing on two teams. The Ducks had three or four young defensemen ahead of Shea Theodore. The Penguins had a better, younger, cheaper goalie than Fleury. Alex Tuch wasn’t going to change the fortunes of the Wild anytime soon. James Neal’s departure sure didn’t hurt the Preds much.

And let’s face it, George McPhee isn’t a genius either. We know he’s not an idiot, he built that first wave of Ovie-era Caps teams. But he’s not redefining anything here. Everything just came up Milhouse.

The one thing to remember is above in this post. .947. That’s all you need to know. Without Fleury, the Jets might have swept this series. They certainly win both in Vegas. .947. He was .927 during the season. Again, that’s pretty much it, along with Karlsson’s 25% shooting-percentage. Look at the top-10 starters in SV% this year. All are on playoff teams.

What I think frustrates people is it is a testament to just how watered down the league is in terms of talent. All it takes to be a playoff team is a goalie playing well and two or three guys with a shooting spike. Which makes it seem random, which makes it seem pointless.

And yet…eight of the last nine Cups have been won by three teams. Now, of those eight Cups none of those teams that won had to play the same team twice in the Final. The Pens beat the Wings, Sharks, and Preds. The Hawks the Flyers, Bruins, and Lightning. The Kings the Devils and Rangers. So maybe it is random until it isn’t. I’m not sure what to make of it.

And yet we can’t have it both ways. The salary cap can’t handicap well-built teams while we also lament that no one knows how to build a team. Yet there doesn’t feel like any GM we can safely say knows what he’s doing completely. We’ve been over Tallon, and he constructed most of a team that won three in six. We could have the Stan Bowman argument all day. No one thinks Ken Holland is anywhere near a genius anymore when he can’t spend as much of Mr. I’s money as he wants. Jim Rutherford inherited a pretty great roster and stocked farm-system, and still gave up a 1st-round pick for Ryan Reaves. Lou Lamoriello had Roman Polak on the team. How deep do you want to go?

When it’s like this the answer is almost always in the middle. Yes, there are a lot of dumb GMs but they also have a near-impossible job thanks to the hard cap. And yet even that could be changing. There’s going to be a big bump this summer, bigger than previous seasons, and that could happen a couple more times before another lockout changes the landscape again.

What we can say is that goaltender is the definitive position in the four major sports right now, because of the flattening of talent-bases across the league. People claim quarterback, but he’s only on the field half to three-quarters of the time. Aaron Rodgers is the best I’ve ever seen (come at me), and he’s been to one Super Bowl because the Packers haven’t been able to figure out anything else around him and some bad/hilarious luck. It ain’t his fault. And goaltender will remain that until teams can amass and keep a level of talent overcome that. And even the Jets, who pretty much have, couldn’t do much with Fleury in this way. .947.

It doesn’t always work like this. Jonathan Quick dragged the Kings to a Final in ’12 but the next Kings team was really fast and really good. You can’t say a team has ridden a goalie only since until Fleury now. Murray was very good the past two years, but not other worldly. Crawford was really good in ’13 and when he straightened out in ’15, but he never carried a .940+. This happens every so often.

What we can hope for is that finally, hockey people will learn. Vegas is built on smaller, faster (and even they traded for Reaves). McPhee and Gallant saw the biggest obstacle to scoring was shot-blocking, and set their team to try and score before that could get set up. Gallant deserves praise for getting his team to skate as hard back as the do forward. But we’ve seen that before, too. Bruce Boudreau has made a career of doing that in the regular season, then acts shocked when teams match that effort in the playoffs. But Dubnyk, Andersen, or whichever goof in DC when he was there couldn’t bail him out the way Fleury has this year. This isn’t new.

Still, a league that eschews “harder to play against” for faster and better could be a better product. The Knights are fucking hard to play against and they don’t need Marchand or Wilson-esque bullshit to be so. They’re just always up your ass because they’re fast and work hard. And you can’t score on their goalie right now.

It’s an anomaly. It’s a strange one. It might never happen again. But there are lessons to be learned.