Baseball

Use Me For Your Kingdom’s Cause

By Adam Hess 1282 0

If the early signing of Yasmani Grandal gave you a perhaps unrealistic amount of naive faith that things might be changing for the White Sox when it comes to the free agent market, Zack Wheeler signing in Philadelphia may have brought you crashing back to earth. If you feel as though you match this description, you are not alone. Despite my very best efforts, even after the Grandal signing, to not get my hopes and expectations up for the White Sox this offseason to avoid crushing disappointment like I felt in late February after the Machado ordeal, I started to truly believe the Sox were going to sign Wheeler, both because of my own naiveté and because of some info I was being relayed by folks I know with more connections than I have (which is zero).

The irony of my disappointment with the Sox losing on Wheeler  is that when I saw the contract he signed he signed in Philly was for 5 years and $118-million, my initial reaction was that I was very fine with the White Sox not giving him that kind of money. Then it came out that the Sox actually offered Wheeler more than what he took in the city of Brotherly Love, and he took John Middleton‘s money over Jerry Reinsdorf’s because his fiance is from Jersey. Poor guy.

We can argue until we are blue in the face about what Wheeler’s value is, and after two strong seasons in a row and being worth 4+ fWAR in each of those years before hitting FA at 29, it’s hard to argue that he isn’t worth the money he got, but the injury history and lack of a track record before these last two years was reason enough to be a little gunshy with him. I’m not personally convinced he is a $24M pitcher, let alone the $25M guy the Sox apparently valued him at (Bob Nightengale, who is Kenny William’s media mouthpiece, reported the Sox offered Wheeler 5/$125M), but my opinion is worth jack and shit in this regard. For what it’s worth, FanGraph’s “player value” projections have Wheelers 2018 and 2019 being worth more than $30M each, but I also don’t trust that teams use the same kind of $/WAR valuations that FG does across the board.

In the end, it’s hard to be mad at the White Sox for not getting Wheeler here. They offered him a full million-plus more per year than he accepted, it just wasn’t enough to convince him to pick money over the happiness of his fiance. But based on some of the reports that came out after the fact, like the one from Jon Heyman below, I am a bit suspicious as to whether or not the Sox ever had a real chance.

Obviously we can’t know for sure if my suspicion is true, and I can only go off aforementioned reports and “info” I’ve gotten, but it feels to me like the Sox got used here. For weeks, most of the reports regarding Wheeler tied him to the Sox, Twins, Reds, and/or Rangers, none of which are east coast teams. Then all of the sudden Wednesday morning the Phillies are involved, then not long after that the Rangers aren’t, and then a few hours later Wheeler signs in Philly and we’re told it’s because of his girl and because he preferred east coast. If the Sox offer was indeed 5-years for $125M and he ended up taking less in Philly because it’s closer to where he wanted to be, that feels an awful lot like the Sox were just an ends to a means. “Look, Phillies, I want to come there, but I can get a lot more money in Chicago.” Acceptable offer from preferred location roles in, job done.

Basically what I am getting at here is that, despite White Sox Twitter’s best efforts to turn the White Sox offering a free agent the most money he was offered into a bad thing, because some of these motherfuckers are miserable just to be miserable, the Sox did all they could. Wheeler just viewed them as a backup option if more preferred destinations didn’t get involved with good offers.

Now, if you want to place blame on the Sox for anything in this situation, it has to be that last part. Being a backup option for top tier free agents is clearly not ideal, but it’s a bed the Sox put themselves in. While it’s tough to accept as a fan, the Sox clearly have something of a bad reputation in the market place, and it’s not as if they haven’t earned it. Even with signing Yasmani Grandal to a franchise record contract, they still have a lot more to prove both the free agents and their own fans when it comes to playing in this market, because that record deal was still just $73M, which is relatively routine in today’s MLB. Now sure, the Sox offered Machado $250M and Wheeler $125M, but until those offers go from hypothetical to actual pen on paper, there isn’t a great deal of solace that the team can expect folks to take in them, and it’d be a bit naive of the Sox to assume that players should want to come here just because they’re offering fair market money.

That reputation they have as a cheap organization, mostly among fans, is evident every time they miss on a free agent they clearly wanted. As the reports came out about the Sox offer to Wheeler being more, it was met with various reactions of “of course they’re saying this” or my personal favorite “no one works harder to tell you they just missed than the Sox.” And while being speculative of those reports and/or mocking the Sox for working so hard to to get said reports out there quickly is very fair, I again find it hard to blame the Sox for doing so. If they don’t work to make sure that people know they actually made a fair offer to Wheeler, and one that was actually more than he took, then the hive-mind, assume-the-worst reaction from baseball fans and Sox fans especially would run rampant. Until they shake the reputation, they do admittedly have to run this kind of damage control.

The baseball world writ large seems to recognize that the Sox have the a young core in place that could be the makings of something special. But in the same sense as the contract offers only being significant once they come to fruition, this solid young core may have to deliver a bit more in terms of overall team results before it can serve as the kind of team that other players look at and want to be a part of for reasons other than money. Yasmani Grandal saying he likes what the team is building toward when he signed may help that out a bit, but it clearly has not accomplished it to any extent Rick Hahn and company would hope for. Until the Sox can find someone to take their 9-digit contract offers and/or put an actually competitive team on the field when they mean to, their earned reputation will proceed them.

Hockey

High On The Hog: Keep It Rollin’

By Jon Fromi 1178 0

The Rockford IceHogs, the Blackhawks affiliate in the American Hockey League, hope to continue their strong play into the month of December. The piglets got the month started right with a 4-2 win over Manitoba Tuesday. Another big Central Division weekend looms for the IceHogs. Friday sees Rockford in Grand Rapids. The first meeting of the season with Western Conference-leading Milwaukee is Saturday.

 

Roster Activity

On Tuesday, D Dennis Gilbert was recalled to the Blackhawks. Rockford has seven defenseman on its current roster. However, Philip Holm has been out the last couple of games and Lucas Carlsson took a puck in the face late in Tuesday’s game with the Moose. No one has been brought up from Indy this week, so I’d guess one or both players should be ready to play.

 

Weekday Recap

Tuesday, December 3-Rockford 4, Manitoba 2

Rockford won its third straight game behind a strong performance from goalie Collin Delia, who posted a 37-save performance in his first action since November 3.

The Hogs drew cord on the power play 4:15 into the contest. The play was set up with a long pass by Delia to Dylan Sikura. Sikura maneuvered to the high slot and drew three defenders before sliding the puck to MacKenzie Entwistle. The rookie forward went forehand-backhand on Manitoba goalie Mikhail Berdin, striking through the five-hole to put Rockford up 1-0.

The Moose quickly responded with a Seth Griffith goal. However, the piglets regained the lead on a point blast by Joni Tuulola. Tyler Sikura picked up the apple with some deft stick work along the half boards and the IceHogs held a 2-1 advantage at the 8:53 mark.

Manitoba came back with a power play goal by Skylar McKenzie 14:48 into the first. Delia, who was having trouble securing the puck at times, made a nice pair of saves late in the period to send the teams to intermission even at two goals.

Both teams had a couple of power play chances in the second period. Brandon Hagel had recently come out of the penalty box for hooking when Matthew Highmore slid a pass his way in front of the Rockford net. Hagel did the rest, streaking past the Moose defense to buzz the goal mouth and backhand the puck into the Manitoba cage. The IceHogs led 3-2 at the 16:48 mark and held that advantage as the teams skated to the second intermission.

Delia held off the charging Moose in the third period. The Hogs goalie stopped twelve shots, including an outstanding pad save on a back door attempt midway through the period. Nick Moutrey added an empty net goal with 32 seconds remaining in regulation to put a topper on the win.

Lines (Starters in italics)

John Quenneville-Tyler Sikura (C)-Matthew Highmore

Dylan Sikura-Phillipp Kurashev-Tim Soderlund

Brandon Hagel-Jacob Nilsson (A)-MacKenzie Entwistle

Nick Moutrey-Reese Johnson-Joseph Cramarossa

Joni Tuulola-Adam Boqvist

Lucas Carlsson-Dennis Gilbert (A)

Nicolas Beaudin-Ian McCoshen

Collin Delia

Matt Tomkins

Power Play (1-4)

Boqvist-Quenneville-Hagel-Nilsson-Kurashev

Carlsson-Beaudin-Sikura-Entwistle-Soderlund

Penalty Kill (Moose were 1-5)

Forwards-T. Sikura-Soderlund-Nilsson-Entwistle-Moutrey-Cramarossa

Defense-Gilbert-McCoshen-Tuulola-Beaudin

 

Previewing The Weekend

Friday night, Rockford is in Grand Rapids. The Griffins have lost six straight, including a 3-1 loss to the Hogs at the BMO last Saturday.

Saturday night is the IceHogs first look at the Milwaukee Admirals. It’s also the team’s annual Teddy Bear Toss Night. The Ads had a 13-game win streak snapped by Texas on Monday night but still lead the Central Division with a 17-4-1-2 mark.

Admirals center Yakov Trenin is second in the AHL with 14 goals this season. Daniel Carr (11 G, 10 A) was a 30-goal scorer with the Wolves last year but has been out of the Milwaukee lineup for a couple of weeks. The Admirals are bolstered by the scoring of Cole Schneider (6 G, 14 A), Colin Blackwell (6 G, 13 A) as well as defensemen Alexandre Carrier (3 G, 13 A) and Matt Donovan (1 G, 13 A). Former IceHogs forward Laurent Dauphin (5 G, 5 A) will also be facing off against Rockford.

It’s been a true tandem in goal for Milwaukee. Veterans Connor Ingram and Troy Grosenick have split the workload and together boast a 2.36 goals against average and a .921 save percentage. The Admirals are the stingiest defensive team in the AHL despite giving up over 31 shots a game, so the goalies are getting it done big time.

I would speculate that the Hogs will be facing Grosenick Saturday, as Ingram will likely play Friday when Milwaukee hosts Iowa. Regardless, getting pucks in the Ads net could prove challenging.

Follow me on twitter @JonFromi for updates on the IceHogs throughout the season.

 

 

 

 

Everything Else

Bears Week 14 Recap – Runnin’ Runnin’ and Runnin’ Runnin’

By Wes French 1406 0

Matt Nagy finally did it. They finally let Mitchell Trubisky run around and do what he loves, and guess what? It was all a  Borat voice GREAT SUCCESS as the Bears win their third straight to go over .500 for the first time in 10 weeks with a 31-24 victory.

Mitch ran for 64 yards (season high) and a touchdown to go along with a 23/31 line and 244 yards through the air with 3 more TDs in what feels like his best performance in a long, long time. David Montgomery added 86 yards on the ground, Allen Robinson accounted for 48 yards and two scores and the Tight End combo of Jesper Horsted and J.P. Holtz combined for a line of 7/92 to round everything out. Horsted and Holtz represent big time positives from a position that’s been a massive disappointment this season, if not the last few years. That impact was felt in the successful run game as well, with the tandem’s ability to seal off the edges and get to the second level.

The Cowboys started things off with a the longest TD drive of the NFL season in terms of time and plays, a 17 play, 8:57 minute drive that resulted in an Ezekiel Elliott touchdown run and a 7-0 Dallas lead. A Trubisky INT at the goalline would give Dallas the ball back before the end of the first quarter, but from there the Bears would reel off 2 straight points and Dallas would not convert a third down until late in the fourth quarter.

Dallas would make things appear interesting with a few late TDs of their own, but the game was pretty well decided after a Trubisky TD pass to Allen Robinson to open the second half, capping an 11 play, 84 yard drive to put Chicago up 24-7 with Dallas reeling. A David Montgomery fumble (a play that arguably could/should’ve been stopped for progress, but whatever) late in the third quarter would help Dallas keep hope alive, but it would prove too little too late as Trubs led a three play, 60 yards TD capped by his rushing TD to ice the game.

The defense was frustrated on the opening drive, giving up swaths of yardage on the ground and unable to get off the field on third down, something they’re normally used to dealing with late in games. Pagano would tighten things up and make adjustments in the looks from his front seven, though, to stifle the Dallas offense of Dak Prescott and Elliott, and doing so mostly without Roquan Smith who left the game early during the second Dallas drive with a Pec injury.

If there was a negative for the Bears, it was injuries. Already without Prince Amukamara, Danny Trevathan and Akiem Hicks, the loss of Smith to what is likely a serious injury (you don’t get ruled out within minutes for a ‘minor’ pec injury) will make running the table in the final three games that much harder. Montgomery also went into the blue medical tent after a short carry with two and change left, again less than ideal. there was no immediate report on Montgomery, so we’ll all hold our breath until more news on Friday.

The Bears now have 10 days to heal up and game plan for Green Bay on the road. Things got closer than they needed to, but all in all a positive night that keeps the dream alive. Mitch was buzzing, Khalil Mack was alive (3 QB hits, 1 Sack, 1 TFL) and everyone went home happy…except for Jason Garrett, who might find himself without a job before he gets to the team plane.

BEAR DOWN

 

Hockey

Game #28: Hawks 3, Bruins 3 (Hawks win toilet seat toss): Breathing Deeply, Walking Backwards

By Adam Hess 1749 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

It was a weird night for the Blackhawks, who got out to a nice lead, managed to piss it away, and then still won* in overtime in spite of themselves. The Bears are also on, and let’s admit we all care about that more, so let’s hit the basics:

I HAD THE BEARS ON AT THE SAME TIME

– Strange first period for the Hawks, as they were really getting dominated until they scored two goals in quick fashion. First, Ryan Carpenter tallied his first goal as a Blackhawk on a shorthanded effort following a really nice takeaway and rush. We knew that Carpenter wasn’t anything special when the Hawks signed him, but he’s proven to be a worthwhile addition as a botton-six, penalty killing puck winner for this team, and has played both the pivot and wing. His play here was just great all around, as he forced the turnover in the defensive zone, took it up the ice before making a nice pass to Connor Murphy, and then filled the proper lane to get to the front of the net for Murphy’s rebound, which popped right to him.

Shortly there after, David Pastrnak (who is one ugly motherfucker, by the way) took a penalty, and the Hawks struck quickly. Dylan Strome had a nice screen out front and deflected an Erik Gustafsson shot right in front of the net, making a quick impact in his return from concussion protocol. Good to see from him. Those two goals came just 37 seconds apart.

– Those two quick goals on opposite special teams were the only real bright spot of that first period for the Hawks though, as they got shelled in shot attempts with a paltry 41.38 CF% at evens.

– Second period was better for the Hawks from a possession standpoint (53.33 CF%) but they were largely lucky to still be up in the game after giving the Bruins PP 4 total tries in the game in the first two period. Lehner stood on his head and the PK-ers made some nice plays, but it was pretty sloppy from the Hawks overall.

– Alex DeBrincat finally was able to break out of his shnide and found the back of the net for the first time in forever. That goal came #17seconds into the third period, and put the Hawks up 3-0. It did not go well from there.

– No doubt in large part to score effects, the Bruins ended up with a 62.16 CF% in the third period, and it ended up costing the Hawks in a big way. They ended up coughing up the lead, and while it’s easy to point out some bad plays from Gustafsson (which is beating a dead horse) or others, in reality it was just the Bruins getting some hockey justice for all of the domination earlier in the game. It also was the better team finally getting their payoff for being the better team.

– Jonathan Toews legitimately has ice water in his veins. The guy just has a knack for big goals in OT, especially on breakaways. I wonder if any goalies have nightmares about him coming at them alone in OT or on the shootout. I probably would.

– BEAR DOWN MY FRENTS.

Football

Week 14 – Cowboys vs. Bears Preview: See You at the Crossroads

By Wes French 1160 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cowboys (6-6)    Bears (6-6)

KICKOFF: 7:20 pm

TV: Fox 32

RADIO: WBBM 780

Welcome to survival Thursday at Soldier Field.

Mitchell Trubisky looks to keep his Bears alive in the NFC race with a third straight improved performance and third straight victory to match, looking to take the team over .500 for the first time since the post-bye beating at the hands of the Saints. To do so the Bears will have to best a Dallas team headed in the opposite direction.

The Cowboys come to town after back to back losses against the AFC East, dropping consecutive games to New England and Buffalo to even their record at 6-6. It’s been a maddening season in Big D, with the ‘Boys see-sawing over and back down to the .500 mark all season. They’ve (mostly) handled the weak parts of their schedule, sporting a 6-1 record against teams .500 or worse, but are winless against any team with a winning record.

Jerrah has given Jason Garrett like four votes of confidence now and publicly stated the last two weeks he won’t make a coaching change in season, but if the Cowboys continue to slide and somehow piss away the easiest division in football he juuuuuust might break that promise. Dallas enters the final quarter of the season with a one game lead over the underachieving Eagles, but a Week 16 date in Philly looms.

Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott have done their part, along with Amari Cooper, making what they can out of an offense that features scant few weapons outside of those three. Jason Witten is back from his attempt at the booth that failed miserably, but his return is only slightly more encouraging than his time on MNF. the defense struggles to create turnovers, especially interceptions, so the opportunity is there for Mitch, Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller to keep the good times rolling through the air.

Rod Marenelli’s (Hey, we know him!) defense has left his young CB Jourdan Lewis out to dry in the slot with his scheme that relies predominantly on pressure from the front four. The Cowboys are 15th in the league with 32 sacks and generate a good rush and containment with their front seven, but it’s left Lewis to handle a lot of responsibility in the middle of the field and slot receivers are feasting, especially of late. Julian Edelman went for 8/93 and former Cowboy Cole Beasley torched his former club for 6/110/1 on Thanksgiving in his return. This all lines up very well for Miller to build on his 140 yard performance last week and continue his narrative turnaround.

While the Bears could see many opportunities to exploit of offense, the defense will again be without a number of big time contributors, namely Danny Trevathan, Akiem Hicks for one more week and the highly doubtful Prince Amukamara with a hamstring. The Bears have cover in the form of Kevin Toliver and Buster Skrine, but it’s still a big inactive for a defense that needs to be tough in a very important home tilt.

The X factor in all this might be a non-football factor: Trubs history in primetime games at home. Can you the young QB overcome his shaky performances in the spotlight at Soldier Field and keep the dream of an unlikely playoff berth alive? It’s only five games, but a TD/INT/QB rating comparison of 5/9/60 vs 44/25/86 in all other home games is a pretty sizeable contrast. Mitch has put a few encouraging performances together, but the Cowboys represent a much tougher solve than the Lions and Giants.

The defense will also have it’s hands full with Zeke Elliott, who will no doubt look to exploit a banged up Bears front seven both on the ground and through the air. Zeke hasn’t exactly been a force this year, especially in the rushing game, but he’s still dangerous enough to take a game over as evidenced by his two-TD performance on just 68 scrimmage yards in Week 11 against the Lions. Kyle Fuller should be on Cooper most of the game and he’ll be busy with an average of just under 10 targets a game to the former Alabama WR.

Prediction: Bears 29, Cowboys 27

 

Hockey

Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Preview: I’d Like To Fly But My Wings Have Been So Denied

By Sam Fels 2020 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 10-12-5   Bruins 20-3-5

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

FRUSTRATED WOMEN: Stanley Cup Of Chowder

So you’ve just been fustigated by the West’s leader at home. What’s the best follow-up to that? Why, one of the East’s best on the road of course! Where they haven’t actually lost a game all year! Where they’ve collected 28 of 32 points! Sounds fun, no? Who’s excited?

Whether the Hawks like it or not, that’s the task they face. And they’ve brought their moms along with them to…Boston and Newark? What the fuck did their moms ever do to them? Don’t they go to Arizona and Vegas next week? That seems an oversight. Or were they afraid they wouldn’t be able to pry too many moms away from the craps table to go watch their sons trail in the Knights’ wake? We’ll discuss this another time. THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

Anyway, the Hawks wash up on Causeway St. to find everything pretty much humming for the Bruins, even with Patrice Bergeron missing the past few games. They have the league’s fourth and fifth-leading scorer in Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, and the Hawks didn’t seem to be able to do much about the third-leading scorer in Nathan MacKinnon last weekend. The Bs have two goalies in the Vezina discussion, as both Jaroslav Halak and Tuukka Rask have save-percentages north of .930. So if you’ve got one line that no one can stop, and a goalie every night no team can get past, what the fuck else do you need? The answer is not much, because the Bruins don’t have much beyond that and yet they’re 14 points up on what was thought to be the league’s toughest division. Some guys have all the luck.

Is there some air in the Bruins start so far? Maybe a little. They’re pretty middle of the pack in most metrics, and they certainly don’t create a host of chances and shots for themselves. They just have two guys burying them at ridiculous rates. They’re top-10 when it comes to allowing expected goals or scoring chances, which looks a lot better when Halak and Rask have combined for a .936 at evens. As you might expect, giving the Perfection Line a look with an extra man has led to pretty much instant death for any opponent, as the power play is clicking at 30.9%. That’s enough to get it done most nights right there.

And with this cushion in the Atlantic, the Bs don’t really have to fear a flattening out or market correction. 14 points even at this stage is a gargantuan lead, and unless both Halak’s and Rask’s head fall off and roll into the Charles, they’re not losing that. So they can look forward to at least the first two rounds with home ice. Their season is almost accomplished and we’re weeks away from Christmas.

In the big picture, you have to feel like the Bs need to find secondary scoring somewhere. Only Krejci below the top line has more than 20 points, and some of that is boosted by getting to play with Pastrnak in Bergeron’s absence. Then again, this was enough to push to the absolute limit last year, and it may just be no one ever figures out how to stop that line until Marchand decides to do it himself (which he always does). I wouldn’t trust any team that has Danton Heinen or Jake DeBrusk on the second line either, but they have 45 points and all I have is shit in my pants. So there.

The underlying cause to the Bruins is that they have three d-men who can really move the play in Charlie McAvoy (the mouth-breathing loser TM Fifth Feather), Torey Krug, and Matt Grzelcyk. The latter’s absence is last year’s Final was massive, and it deprived the Black and Gold from having a puck-mover on the ice at all times. Krug still has no idea what he’s doing defensively, but as he gets to play with Brandon Carlo most of the messes get cleaned up. The Bruins can play at pace.

Which is a problem for the Hawks, who can’t. Duncan Keith will miss both of these games, which means the Hawks are going to try and combat this unholy beast with five slow d-men and the moderate mobility of Connor Murphy. My eyes are bleeding too. Anyway, Dylan Strome sounds like he might make the bell, but Andrew Shaw and Drake Caggiula won’t.

I can’t sugarcoat this one for you. It has every chance of being ugly. The Hawks can try and leak out and maybe cherrypick their way to some odd-mans, but that will only leave them more exposed in their own zone. The Bruins aren’t a great possession team, but they have more than enough forwards who can hold the puck long enough and carry it low-to-high or the other way which always sends the Hawks into hysterics defensively. And even if you get out against the Bruins, you have one of two goalies who have been a wall to get past.

Stranger things have happened? That’s going to replace “One Goal” as the motto soon.

Hockey

Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Spotlight: Pastrnakamura

By Sam Fels 1351 0

These are the kinds of posts we like, even if it’s about the Bruins. Or Bruin, in this case. Because goals are fun. It’s the name of the game, after all. And lots of goals are lots of fun. Which means David Pastrnak is having the most fun of anyone, causing the most fun for others, and might do so at a rate never seen before. His linemate Brad Marchand might be a total fraud, but Pastrnak is the real deal, folks.

At the moment, Pastrnak has 25 goals in 28 games. After tonight’s 29th game for Boston against the Hawks, he should have at least 32. We’re kidding. We hope. Anyway, 25 goals in 28 games puts him on track for 73 goals this year, which would obviously be ridiculous. Only two players in the past twenty years have managed 60 goals. Alex Ovechkin’s 65 in ’07-’08 and Steven Stamkos’s 60 in ’11-’12. Ovechkin’s year is considered the greatest goal-scoring year by anyone ever when you adjust for the time or era of the NHL. And Ovie is the only one to get past 50 in the past five seasons aside from Leon Draisaitl’s 50 last season. Clearly, Pastrnak has a chance to do something we just haven’t seen and didn’t think we would.

Scoring is up a tick from last year so far, but the gap from 3.03 to 3.01 per team per game is small enough that it could be washed away as things tighten up over the season, as they tend to do. Pastrnak at this point is averaging 0.89 goals per game, or about 29% of his team’s goals per game. When Ovechkin put up 65, that was 0.79 goals per game while the average goals per team then was just 2.78 per game. Still, that totaled only 28.5% of his team’s goals per game, so if you go by that, Pastrnak is on a pace never seen.

For comparison’s sake, when Gretzky scored 92 goals (that actually happened and you really need to take a moment to think about it) in ’81-’82, teams were averaging 4.01 goals per game. So his per game average still only accounted for 28.6% of his team’s goals per game. So Pastrnak is ahead of that. By this measure, admittedly not exactly all that scientific, Brett Hull’s 86 in ’90-’91 is better, coming in at 30.3%. And Pastrnak isn’t too far off that pace, though he’s unlikely to get much past where he is already.

So the question would be can Pastrnak keep this up? The 22.5% shooting-percentage is awfully ambitious, and eight points above his career average. His SH% has climbed the past three seasons, but that was at a steady-rate, not at this six-point jump from last year to this. So he can easily stay above his 14.5% career-rate, but staying over having one-fifth of his shots go in is probably pushing it.

It’s probably even less likely when you get metric with it (it’s like getting giggy with it, we think). Pasta is generating the exact same individual expected-goals as he did last year, which suggests he’s getting the same amount and types of chances. However, he’s firing three more attempts per game at the net at evens, and as we know the more you fling rubber somewhere toward the net the more chances you get for something to go right. He is averaging one more shot on goal per game as well, and if you go by strictly scoring-chances (a little different than expected goals) he’s getting three more per game than last year, which is a massive jump. So maybe?

Pastrnak’s work on the power play has remained steady from last year and the past few, so any jump is probably going to have to come at evens. By the scoring chances, it is.

There are some factors out of his control. You would think if Patrice Bergeron were out an extended period of time, that would hurt his chances. Except that in his first game without Bergeron this year he lit up the Canadiens for a hat trick, and has tacked on two more goals in the four games since. Small samples and all that. He could get hurt himself.

Still, you get into this sort of thing to see things you hadn’t seen before, and Pastrnak taking a run at 70 goals would certainly qualify. There’s probably a cold snap coming, so we might as well enjoy the heat now. He’s going to light up the Hawks either way, so you decide how to interpret it for yourself.

Hockey

Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1254 0

Brad Marchand – As always. And really, these days we’ve thrown our hands up at his antics, because he can’t help himself. He’s going to score enough for everyone to find a way to justify it, so whatever. But it’s his el foldo against the Blues last spring that we’ll never forgive him for. He says he’ll never get over losing Game 7 at home. We won’t either, asshole. Maybe if you’d reported for duty you wouldn’t have this heartbreak to worry about. Or would you rather just go for a change when things get hard?

The Bias Against Tuukka Rask – Tuke Nuke’em is the leading candidate for the Vezina right now. And yet you’ll find plenty in the Boston media who want Jaro Halak made the starter. It’s been this way for years. If you think Crawford doesn’t get his due here, you should see this nonsense. But hey, it’s Boston, he’s not from Quincy, so is anyone else surprised?

David Backes – The one plus of last spring was Backes having to watch his former team celebrate while he was in the pressbox or trying to be a goon or something. There aren’t many contracts as bad as Seabrook’s around. There’s a kind of symbolism that this is one of them. Maybe more went on in that corner in St. Louis in 2014 than we thought.