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Game #73 – Blues vs. Hawks Q&A: Our Pantsless, Toothless, Charmless Cousins Down I-55

By Sam Fels March 18, 2018 1768 0

Let’s not say anything more about Brad Lee (@GTBradLee) of St. Louis Game Time than we have to.

Oh hey look, your team sucks too. What happened there? We haven’t seen you in a while so we kind of lost track.

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version. The Blues were one of the best teams in the NHL in October and November. Then early in December Jaden Schwartz took a shot off his boot in Detroit. Fucking figures. Broken foot, missed significant time. The Blues had basically become a one-line team with him, Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko. Without little Schwartzy, the forward lines became a patchwork quilt of crap. At the same time, Jake Allen forgot how to make saves. Starter Hutton pushed him for playing time and Allen responded by allowing a shit ton of goals. The story line for the middle of the season became, “Thank god the Blues got off to such a good start so they are still safely in playoff position.” Then when Schwartz came back, they still couldn’t score. The team basically believed they were still the squad from the first two months. Every night they came out and played the same exact game and it didn’t work. It took fans booing and giving Allen sarcastic cheers for making an easy save after allowing four or five for the players to basically speak up and say, “We suck.” There’s been a little resurgence in the last 10 days or so, sparked by a return of the forecheck. Alex Steen and Kyle Brodziak (a pending UFA who chose to leave a Mike Yeo team before and remains unsigned even though he’s been one of the most consistent guys on the team all season) have become a nice little wrecking crew dragging Patrik Berglund’s useless ass down the ice. Allen has been forced to play better while Hutton recovers from a puck to the back of the head injury in practice. Bu there are 12 games left including tonight and they’re three points back of the Stars with a game in hand, but the Ducks are still ahead of them and the Flames right behind. It’s going to be a close call. Thankfully the schedule has some easy games on the schedule, including three with Chicago.

So this has to be it for this Jay Gallon bullshit, right?

I want to agree. I want to say he needs to find a quality realtor. I want to say the Blues front office believes he needs a change of scenery. But the guy is in the first year of a four-year contract extension for a $4.3 million a year cap hit. They signed him to the deal soon after trading Brian Elliott in 2016. It didn’t take effect until this season. They tried to make him the starter multiple times as career backup Elliott continued to outplay him. And now career backup Hutton has done the same. At every turn, the Blues have chosen to stick with Allen. And he’s shown he does not have the capacity to be a steady, reliable and consistent NHL goaltender. His positioning is bad, his focus worse. Watch tonight how many times the Hawks try to go short side. There’s a really good reason, it’s soft as Charmin. There were bullshit rumors that Montreal was interested in him, but it was a companion piece to a bullshit rumor that the Blues wanted Carey Price’s $10 million a year cap hit starting next season. Anyway, there’s a Finnish kid who looks like he’s the real deal named Ville Husso. He probably won’t start tonight after Allen got the OT win last night in St. Louis, but he’s only been trusted to wear stylish hats on the bench while Hutton has been hurt. By the way, Hutton is a free agent and probably has earned a nice little contract for a team who needs a stopgap guy while youngsters mature. So Allen, when he probably returns next fall, will probably have to fight off Husso for playing time. So yeah, expect Husso to get starts next season.

Doug Armstrong is gonna get canned for all this, no?

He has been the general manager since 2010. His team got to the Western Conference Final and two wins from playing for that big shiny silver thing. That was in the 2016 playoffs. Last year they got outplayed by the Wild and still won in the first round. They got rolled by the Predators in the second. This year they will be lucky to make the playoffs. These two step-back seasons coincided with the final two years in Armstrong’s contract. This season, he signed a four-year extension. With and option for a fifth! Let’s cover a few quick highlights. Thought Ryan Miller was the option when his career numbers were slightly worse than Elliott’s. Didn’t end well. Gave Jay Bouwmeester (Jabe O’Meester?) a five-year, more than $5 million a year contract extension for his early to mid 30s after he played about a million games in a row. He’s out six months with a hip injury. He gave Steve Ott $2 million a year for a couple years. He extended Berglund and Sobotka just 12 months ago and then was heavily rumored to be trying to move their embarrassing contracts at the deadline. He passed on a new contract for David Backes saying it was too much money for a player his age. And then a few months later gave an identical deal to Steen, who has underwhelmed to say the least. He protected Ryan Reaves and let David Perron go to Vegas in the expansion draft. Perron has set career numbers in assists and points. Here’s the biggest issue. The Blues have spent close to the cap every year since the current ownership group took over in January 2013 coming out of the last mini lockout. So that’s trying to win now, right? But in recent seasons he hasn’t tried to add in season, especially at the deadline. They’ve traded Kevin Shattenkirk and Paul Stastny at the last two deadlines. And he has refused to trade one of four highly regarded prospects saying he wants to protect the team’s future. In other words, he’s trying to win now. And build for the future. But he hasn’t committed fully to either. When you try to use all strategies, you don’t actually have a strategy. And as the Blues have imploded since early December, we have four or five years more to look forward to. Still shorter than the Seabrook contract length, though.

Ok, but there are more than a few promising kids here, right? Like, the Blues conceivably could turn this around next year…

Do yourself a favor and look up highlight videos of Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas. Have hard liquor nearby. They are destroying the OHL this season. Both played at the World Juniors for Canada. They have legit top-line talent. They are teenagers. There is still plenty of time for the Blues to fuck them up, trust me. With the last pick of the first round last June, the Blues used the first-round pick they got from Pittsburgh in the Reaves trade (WTF, indeed), and chose injured Russian Klim Kostin. He’s been one of the youngest guys in the AHL this year at San Antonio. He has all-world skill. Either scouts are xenophobic and dislike Russians, or he does have a little bit of a work ethic issue. And the other member of the Untouchable Four is Tage Thompson who will bring his bird legs to United Center tonight. He has size, reach, vision and velvety soft hands. He also weighs less than your sister, gets pushed off the puck by a light breeze and has more deer frozen in the headlights moments in NHL games than we can remember. He’s a work in progress. While all four of these guys are important, the subtraction of Stastny is more so. Can you believe his cap hit was $7 million? And if the Blues can convince Bouwmeester to be more like Marian Hossa and pretend to be injured all year (with a real hip injury instead of a make believe equipment allergy), they could put all of his $5.3 million cap hit on long term IR. That’s $12.3 million. Maybe they can find a taker for Car Gunnarsson and his almost $3 million and maybe John Tavares likes deep-fried ravioli and I know it’s a pipe dream, but you probably don’t want to envision Tarasenko and Tavares coming down the ice with the puck in Chicago for years to come, I’m just saying. Bottom line: Blues have legit prospects not far from impact status and potentially a difference-making amount of cap space to work with. Granted, we’re talking about the St. Louis Blues. We get that, trust me.

We kept asking our friends in Minnesota about this but they were never sure. Is Mike Yeo a Moron or Not A Moron?

I mentioned the Brodziak situation. He’s played well enough to warrant promotion to the third line. He knows his role and he has played it well and consistently all season. And yet it seems like he will test free agency for a second time after playing for Yeo. It’s not his fault Schwartz got hurt in December. It wasn’t his fault he has to play Sobotka, Berglund and Dmitrij Jaskin as the three forwards on his second power play unit, he has to play the guys put on his roster. And by the way, Tarasenko left the game Saturday night in the first period after a shot to the jaw. You’ll really be saying, “Who the fuck is that Blue?” if he’s not able to go tonight. I think he’s handled the goaltending debacle as well as possible. His lines sometimes make no sense. But again, the hand he’s dealt. Do I think he was the difference in winning a playoff round last year? Hell no. Do I think he could have prevented such a fall in the standings this season? Meh. You probably think the Blues are a bunch of assholes. They played that way much of January and February. Remember, Steen and Berglund and Pietrangelo have played for four head coaches for the Blues. Tuning out Ken Hitchcock and giving the new coach a momentary boost wasn’t just expected, it’s how they’ve operated their entire careers in St. Louis. That’s not on Yeo. And while saying you can’t blame him for shit going bad, it’s not like I can sit here and tell you he’s done anything to turn it around. The only thing that’s been noticeable has been his calm demeanor since he got here. And maybe that’s bad because these guys needed to get fired up several times and didn’t. Maybe they needed fire from the head coach, and they haven’t gotten it, at least in public. Hey Blackhawks, fire the mustache and we’ll put out a red carpet in St. Louis. It’ll be like “Quantum Leap.” The Blues could put right what once went wrong and makeup for firing Q when the team was resetting with an ownership change (not even the current owners) and turning over players across the entire organization. I know it’s not happening, he’s the new Ditka. But we know how that ended. Finally, fuck Patrick Kane, it’s fun watching Captain Serious be average and we will finally admit Corey Crawford is good. You’re welcome. Have fun at the draft lottery.

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Game #73 – Blues vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Edmundson And What He Tells Us About The Blues

By Sam Fels March 18, 2018 1716 0

Assuming he’s on the call tonight, at some point Pierre McGuire will start gushing about Joel Edmundson. That’s because he’s big, and he played for two different teams in the WHL with the combined population of one castrated horse. Pierre will shorten his pants because he thinks that Edmundson intimidates forwards and closes down the ice. He’s wrong.

Here’s what you need to know about the Blues. They only have one d-man under 6-2, and that’s rookie Vincent Dunn, whom they assuredly will spend the summer trying to stretch on a rack while force-feeding him shitty St. Louis pizza to try and make him bigger. And this is one of the reasons the Blues won’t go anywhere while you’re alive.

The league is getting faster and lighter. The Preds don’t have any atom-smashers on their blue line, just six guys who are lightning quick. They’re leading the division after getting out of the conference last year. The Jets d-men are big, yes, but they can all really skate. Their size is secondary. The Lightning don’t come with size there either as they move away from their Sustr and Coburn era into the Sergachev-McDonagh one. The kid currently saving the Bruins, Charlie McAvoy, can’t get on every rollercoaster.

The Blues continue to employ a big and slow defense. And it’s costing them. Jabe O’Meester is dead. Alex OrangeJello has never dominated the #1 d-man they’ve needed because he can’t get around the ice quick enough. Parayko changes direction at the same rate as an ocean liner. Edmundson is slow and dumb, to complete the set.

As long as the Blues continue to choose this path, they’ll finish up the track in the West, as teams get faster and faster. When the Blues feel like competing, they’ll start moving guys like Edmundson out for more players like Dunn. We won’t sit on a hot stove waiting for it.

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Game #73 – Blues vs. Hawks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels March 18, 2018 1457 0

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Game #73 – Blues vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels March 18, 2018 1198 0

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Game #72 – The Blarney Stone Brings A Tear To Me Eye – Hawks 3, Sabres 5

By John Pullega March 17, 2018 1875 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

Kent O’Brockman once said that on St. Patrick’s Day, “Everyone is a little bit Irish, except of course for the gays and the Italians,” which is why you’re stuck with me for the wrap of this horseshit game. Let’s get to it and keep it brief, as there’s drinking to be done. To the bullets.

– When it mattered most, the Hawks dropped all of the corned beef they’d been cooking. After a ho-hum first, the Hawks looked more like the Hawks we’ve paid for in the past than the Hawks we’re currently paying for, posting a nice 69+ CF%. But the wheels came off in the third, as the Hawks got pantsed in possession by the (now second) worst team in the league, getting pasted for a 37+ CF% at evens. I assume that like many of us, they were looking forward to doing anything but subjecting themselves to Blackhawks hockey, and it showed.

– On his special day, our Large Irish Son had what could best be described as a mixed bag of a game. Murphy found himself on the third pairing with Oesterle and looked spry early, leading the Hawks with three shots on goal in the first. He also ended the game with a 65+ CF% and looked to be more aggressive on the rush, crashing and joining the play deep more often than I’ve ever seen.

But he also found himself on the ice for all three of Buffalo’s 5v5 goals. He was partially to blame for the Sabres’s first goal, as he overcommitted on Reinhart on the far boards. This, coupled with Patrick Sharp getting caught staring at whatever it is washed up wingers playing to a three-fourths-full stadium in Buffalo look at, gave Reinhart a gaping lane through the Royal Road to Ristolainen, who swept a pass past Jordan Oesterle and onto Pouliot’s backhand for a messy goal. The other two came off tips from Nicholas “Don’t Call Me Jean” Baptiste, so it’s hard to blame him for that. Still, we’ll have to watch going forward to see what it is Murphy might be. I will die on the “he’s the best D-man the Hawks have” hill, but there are some questions that I have regarding his awareness and positioning. Certainly not giving up hope, but there are questions.

– Highmore–Schmaltz–Vinnie was world beating for the first two periods. Granted, it’s against Buffalo, but the speed and vision they showed was encouraging. Each ended well above the team rate in possession and showed a decent amount of chemistry together. They all need to add some meat to their respective asses if they want to compete against better teams in terms of possession, but with Vinnie’s speed and shot, Schmaltz’s hands and vision, and a sort of snarl that Highmore has shown over the last two games, this is a line to watch going forward, assuming they stay together.

– Brandon Saad’s woes continued today. He shanked a few opportunities right in front of the net and was trounced in possession, posting a 42+ CF% for the game (-12.10 CF% Rel). Again, he’s not one I’m willing to give up on, but it’s frustrating to watch him struggle. It doesn’t help that his linemates couldn’t be bothered to give a shit for the first half of the game, but it’s not an excuse.

– I was four beers in by the end of the first period, but even I couldn’t believe that Alex DeBrincat was playing with Stonehand Tommy and Stonefoot Artie for this one. Alex DeBrincat isn’t a fucking third liner. I know that he hasn’t had much offensive luck over the last 10 or 12 games, but how does putting him on the ice with a guy who can’t move and a guy who can’t stick handle solve that? I guess it’s hard to figure out where to put him if you’re committed to 20–19–88, but with talent like his, it seems like you’d want to nurture it, not dampen it.

– I seem to get every J-F Berube start these days, and I always say some variation of, “He looked good for a guy who allowed more goals than good goalies allow.” I’ll say it again about today. The first goal was more on Murphy and Sharp than him, the second was on a fluke bounce on the PK, and the last two were off high-traffic tips. I’m not sure what else he can do, and I’m curious to see whether he’s the guy backing up Crow next year. I’d want to look at more tape, but he just seems more in control when he’s out there than Forsberg.

– Toews scored his 20^th goal today, which was off a big rebound from Every Fraternity Chapter’s President Chad Johnson. He’s been on a nice roll offensively lately, which is nice to see as the season winds down.

– Foley had all the energy and faith of a man who had just gotten pick pocketed at his church on Good Friday, which makes for interesting listening. Sort of like a high school football broadcast by a student whose crush rejected him for homecoming. But watching him froth over a picture of a Sabres’s fourth liner punching some other hockey player I can’t be bothered to look up in the face while stereotypical Irish music played in the background during a stoppage was the most hilarious thing about this game, hands down.

Just 10 more of these things to go. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all today, Happy St. Joseph’s Day to the rest of you for tomorrow. The end is mercifully near.

Beer du Jour: Guinness, because Italians don’t know how to make beer.

Line of the Night: “Let’s see how green his tongue is at about midnight tonight!” –Foley on Adam Burish

“Ehhhh. . .” –Konroyd’s response

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Game #72 – Hawks vs. Sabres Preview/Leather Tanning: Lonely Afternoon

By Sam Fels March 17, 2018 1744 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 30-33-8 Sabres 22-36-12

PUCK DROP: High Noon

TV: WGN, NHL Network outside the 606

FIGHTING ON ARRIVAL: Die By The Blade

I’ll start this one with a story about what this one feels like. Many years ago, I was sitting in an OTB with my father and Freddie The Beard, something of a Chicago pool room legend now. Both avid horseplayers, as was I. Arlington ran a race with four horses, apprentice jockeys, on the turf. Freddie, never one for subtlety, turned to Tribune Horse Racing columnist Dave Feldman (at the time probably something like 138 years old) who happened to be sitting in the same room, and yelled, “Hey Feldman! Use your connections to get us more of ‘dis! We like ‘dis! Four horse race with the apprentice jockeys…on the turf!”

That’s how I feel about this one. This is a game going on because the schedule says it has to. No one particularly wants to watch it (and I’d be surprised if more than a few didn’t want to play it), and yet here we are because this is where we are. Hawks-Sabres. Saturday afternoon. March 17th. This is what we chose.

Both of these teams have dreams of Rasmus Dahlin, though the Sabres’s is much more likely. They are marooned to the bottom of the NHL standings, and really only the Coyotes are keeping them company down there. It has been nothing short of a disaster in a season when they were supposed to start to at least maybe think about considering taking a step forward in their rebuild.

It’s hard to know where to start. The goaltending has sucked, as it will tend to do when leaning on Chad Johnson and Robin Lehner. The defense has sucked because it was based on Rasmus Ristolainen playing like a top pairing d-man and quite frankly he’s never nor will he ever be that, despite some early season flashes. It had Zach Bogosian and Justin Falk and Jake McCabe as well at times, so you can guess what kind of smell that created night after night. The forwards lacked punch, as Eichel and Okposo have missed time and there’s just not much else. Sam Reinhart is still finding his feet, and also trying to figure out which Reinhart he is. Benoit Pouliot and Jason Pominville are either old, simply plugs, or both. It is not an inspiring bunch.

Because of that, and the moves at the deadline that saw Fuck Head Kane The Younger amongst others moved along, the Sabres are turning more and more over to the kids. Bailey, Baptiste, Eichel, Reinhart, Rodrigues, Guhle, and Ristolainen are all players that are under 25 that will kick into the lineup when healthy. The Sabres are going to find out what they have, because it’ll be good info and also will give them the best chance to end up with another Rasmus. You can never have too many Rasmuses (Rasmi?)

For today, both Eichel and Okposo look like they won’t make the bell coming off an ankle sprain and brown brain, respectively. Which means the outfit the Hawks will see today is decidedly punchless. Ryan O’Reilly is simply doing miraculous work as the only forward who’s been above water in his underlying numbers, and he also murders the Hawks. But he can only do so much. Then again, things seem to always go stupid at HSBC Arena. The Hawks never have it easy there.

For the Hawks, JF Berube will get his turn at the wheel after Forsberg’s wheel kept on turning in net on Thursday. And then we’ll cycle back through this again and again for another three weeks. We’re almost there, people. There really aren’t any other lineup changes to be made with Duclair injured. Q shuffled up the lines during practice yesterday and below the top one they’re a real piece of work. But who knows how long he’ll stick with them because that’s his thing.

Let’s just get through it.

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Game #72 – Hawks vs. Sabres Spotlight: Remember Jack Eichel?

By Sam Fels March 17, 2018 1668 0

Jack Eichel wouldn’t be the first to watch the aura of Buffalo simply sap any knowledge of his existence from the Earth. Really only Dominik Hasek has been able to make a name for himself there, and he had to flee to Detroit to actually win something. Did you know James Lofton actually played football instead of just talked about it? Remember Andre Reed? Of course you don’t 13,000 yards receiving before it was cool. We bet you think LeSean McCoy died after his days as an Eagle. Nope, He plays in Buffalo. We know, right?

Eichel has suffered because of some things out of his control. One, it’s hot his fault his main contemporary, Connor McDavid, has a Hart Trophy already, made the second round of the playoffs, and has turned various family size cans of tuna like Patrick Maroon or Milan Lucic into useful things for at least a little while. Eichel can’t help that the defense behind him has always been the remedial clown college. It’s not Eichel’s fault the goaltending has been at best up-and-down, and at times looked like a collection of newborn gorillas.

You may not know this, but Eichel’s career 0.84 PPG mark for his first three years at ages 19-21 ranks him comfortably along Tavares, Hall, Toews, and Kopitar at the same ages. And in all their cases aside from Toews basically, they were each playing with trash.

But that’s the thing with Eichel. He hasn’t exactly played with trash.

Last year he mostly skated with Sam Reinhart, who while still young is hardly inept. This year it was Evander Kane, and while we might want to see him come up close and personal with a flame-thrower he’s a talented player, and Jason Pominville, who admittedly at this point in his career is dust and bones. His rookie year saw him mostly with Kane as well. Again, these aren’t world-beaters, but they’re better than Maroon or Lucic.

And what’s a touch worrying is that these players don’t seem to get better with Eichel. Kane’s, before the trade, and Pominville’s metrics stay about the same whether they’re playing with Eichel or not. But Eichel’s go down measurably. It was the same last year.

What may be frustrating Sabres fans just a touch is that given his pedigree, it feels like there should be a touch more from him. Quite simply in the past ten years, no college freshman has come close to Eichel’s 71 points at BU, except for Kyle Connor at Michigan. Connor potted his 25th goals against the Hawks on Thursday, a total that Eichel has yet to see. Though given injuries, he probably would have. Again, he’s not been bad, but it’s fair to question if there shouldn’t be more. Also considering he’s already gotten a coach fired.

On the plus side, Eichel’s possession rates have improved every year relative to his team, though even that comes with the caveat that he’s had to have his zone starts really sheltered this year. He starts over 60% of his shifts in the offensive zone for a team that doesn’t get there very often. A true #1 should be able to start anywhere, you’d hope.

Eichel still promises the moon, and maybe given different winger who set him up more than he’s had he’ll truly take off. He’s definitely a shoot-first guy and hasn’t really had a playmaker with him. The Sabres aren’t going anywhere until that happens.

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