Hockey

Angry At Numbers – The First Month

By Sam Fels 1663 0

I guess it’s the first month. We’re through the first week of November now really and the season started in the first week of October, so let’s just go with that. Anyway, time for us to look at some numbers, and then beyond that to the meaning of the numbers, and then decide the numbers have no meaning.

60.3/2.66

That’s the Hawks Corsi-against per 60 minutes at even-strength, and their expected-goals-against per 60 this season. The first is the third-worst mark in the league. The second is the second-worst. And both are either worse or exactly the same as last season. I’m going to get more heavily into this when we record the podcast tonight (so tune in! promotion!), but clearly this is not what’s supposed to happen. The acquisitions of Calvin de Haan and Olli Maatta were specifically to keep this from happening. And it hasn’t happened. There are reasons for this, and again, podcast tonight we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of it. But this isn’t the sign of a team moving forward. And this isn’t a team adapting to a new style again, because as we all know at this point…MAGIC TRAINING CAMP. This is just who they are, which is a team that essentially never has the puck and is giving up not just a lot of attempts but a lot of good ones as well.

Now, these numbers will calm down shortly because October hockey is very open while everyone establishes position and then it calms down when everyone gets bored. But still, fresh out of camp this is not what anyone thought we would see, at least inside the building.

52.8/2.15

And these are the “for” numbers in the same category, which are both down from last year. And again, this is October when things are more open and offense should be easier to find. You can find all sorts of mitigating factors here, but I would pin this on Jonathan Toews being a ghost most of the season, mismatched lines every game, and the lack of any puck-moving d-men now that Erik Gustafsson isn’t sort of pretending to be one anymore (more on him in a second). We accepted long ago that the Hawks wouldn’t be good defensively, but we thought it might be ok, or at least entertaining, because they would create a lot, too. But they don’t. They’re a middling offense in these terms. And I guess we’re starting to see that last year’s offense was more the product of individual brilliance from Kane, Top Cat, and Toews, than anything structural. Which we already kind of knew but tried to be in denial about. Well, Toews and DeBrincat haven’t been at that level, and here’s what you get.

+4.3/+3.95

Those are Duncan Keith’s relative marks in Corsi-percentage and expected-goals percentage, which are miles above what he’s been the past four seasons. The first mark would be the best of his career in fact, though a large part of that is due to the Hawks being a so much worse even-strength and possession team now. It’s hard to be that far above the mark when your team is at 55%-58% as the Hawks were once upon a time. Same with the xG% as well.

Still, Keith has done this with a variety of partners as we’ve seen, and it was fair to question if he still could or if he still even wanted to.

The problem is that Keith is averaging more than a minute at even-strength more of time than he has since 2012 (!) and overall is averaging more than two minutes per game than last year. Yes, we all know about Keith’s freakish physical endurance but he’s still 36. This can’t really continue.

46.1/41.7

This is where I really get frustrated with the analytic community. There was some cry from them when Jeremy Colliton scratched Erik Gustafsson in Los Angeles. Garbage like this:

The above numbers are Erik Gustaffson’s CF% and xG% this year, which are terrible. And yes, if you were to blend them with all 82 games from last year, his numbers would still look good compared to the rest of the defense. Because that was 82 games of sample and this was 11. And yet anyone who has actually watched Gus this year knows he’s looked a lot like that campsite after the Pikers leave in Snatch.

Secondly, you have to take all of these numbers with a grain of salt, because hockey analytics has yet to weight these things with zone starts. Or they haven’t in a way I’ve seen, and feel free to show me on Twitter. Gustafsson started 60% of his shifts in the offensive zone last year. Same as this year. It’s actually harder to give up more chances and attempts against that way, because of the distance you’d have to travel.

Sure, winning faceoffs and the type of forechecking forwards who are there play into it as well, but the numbers on Gus don’t tell the whole story. Watching him, you know he doesn’t get you from one zone to the other, at least the right way. He’s too slow. He’s a decent passer, but rarely can open the space up for himself to do that. His skill, at least from dim memory, is making things happen when you’re already in the offensive zone. And that has value, but it’s not the same as being a puck-mover.

This is not a “WATCH THE GAME, NERDS” decree, but it becomes rather obvious when you’re not watching the games at all. Yes, their arguments would be that 11 games this year shouldn’t outweigh the 82 from last year because one suggests more what the player Gustafsson is. But how many games does a coach need to wait before officially confirming his player is playing like horseshit? 15? 20? To me, Gus was that bad and his scratching totally justified.

We can blend our stats and our eyes, people.

Hockey

Game #14 – You’re So Very Ordinary, You’re So Very Lame. Tastes Like Whiskey On Your Lips And Earthworms Rule Your Brain – Hawks 2, Sharks 4

By John Pullega 2090 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

When you pine for Marc Crawford to release you from the genital vise that is Blackhawks hockey, it’s safe to say the goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain. Fire everyone.

– Going into this game, the Sharks were the worst team in the West. They had lost five in a row. Martin Jones had a sub .900 save percentage. Through the first two periods, the Hawks managed eight (8) shots on goal. They had a 29+ CF%. McClure summed it up best:

The Hawks managed 14 shot ATTEMPTS against the team with the third worst overall goaltending in the league solely because DeBoer has strangled their transition. That’s a competent coach masking deficiencies against someone he knows will not have a strategy to counter. –@Matt_McClure_

Once again, Jeremy Colliton has shown that when the going gets tough, he gets his ass paddled red. Only this time, he doesn’t have the cover of saying, “Well, it was the Predators.” This was the worst team in the West completely annihilating whatever it is that Jeremy Colliton thinks is a strategy.

The Hawks gathered just three of eight points on this road swing. Fine, the Predators are good. But they also played the Kings, a team that should be relegated and is now officially the worst in the West; the Ducks without John Gibson; and the Sharks, the former worst team in the West before tonight. And they managed just three points. Embarrassing and unacceptable for a win-now team.

– Robin Lehner at least kept it close for as long as he could again. The first two goals were hardly his fault. On the first, a bad bounce off Maatta’s skate led the puck directly to Timo Meier, who ricocheted a shot off Patrick Marleau’s skate. There’s not a ton Seabrook could have done to prevent that, aside from beating Marleau to the inside and keeping him entirely out of the crease, but if you’re counting on that, you might be Staniel Bowman or Jeremy Colliton, and if so, please resign.

On the second, an unfortunate bounce over Adam Boqvist’s stick at the blue line gave Evander “The Other Huge Piece of Shit” Kane a shorthanded breakaway.

Lehner probably could have had the third goal, but given everything he’s had to put up with over the last week, I’m not going to rag on him too much. Can you imagine this team without him right now?

– The Sharks crushed the Hawks in any sort of transition they tried to make. It’s remarkable that the Hawks are both too slow and too lithe to dump and chase, but boy did they ever try. This is the Colliton offensive system. For fuck’s sake, this team finished in the top 10 in goals scored last year. Without the happenstance two-goal wet dream the Hawks managed to fart out at the end of this farce, Colliton is facing down a shutout against Martin motherfucking Jones.

Perhaps worst of all his Colliton’s stringent adherence to the drop pass on the PP. In the second period, with a defender draped all over him, Adam Boqvist tried a drop pass at neutral ice. He was actively looking for someone behind him, which indicates that this was drawn up. Rather than giving your 18-year-old, fast, dynamic D-man a chance to shove the puck up an equally slow team’s asshole, Colliton wants his team to do drop passes. How progressive and forward thinking of this fucking wiener.

– Did you know that Andrew Shaw leads the team in hits, and that matters about as much as how long your foreskin is? If Colliton is still somehow the coach for this team on Thursday, you better bet your ass he’s going to be on the top line, because he happened to be on the Toews–Saad line for the Hawks’s first goal. Super glad he’s back to contribute exactly dick to whatever this year is supposed to be.

– Before anyone adheres to the inevitable DEY BADDLED BACK FROM DA JAWS OF DEFEAT MY FRENTS narrative that Coach Gemstone will rely on to keep his job in his next press conference, keep in mind that the Sharks had given up five goals in each of three of their last four games. And that Martin Jones, again, had a sub .900 save percentage going into it. This isn’t battling back. This is exploiting a bad goaltender whose coach put them in the prevent defense. As any football fan can tell you, prevent defense prevents wins.

– Although Boqvist couldn’t catch Piece of Shit Kane II on the breakaway, he did manage to pull of a nice shimmy shot late in the third. The kid’s got wheels and a wicked wrister. He ought to be playing more time than all of Gus, Seabrook, and de Haan, who each had more TOI than him.

– Reminder that the Hawks could have traded Erik Gustafsson at any point during the off-season and didn’t.

– I would like to hear more of Patrick Sharp talking about “hard dumps” and “hard rims” during each intermission.

At the very least, Jeremy Colliton should be out on his ass by Christmas. His systems (if you can call them that, and I assure you I don’t, because I call them wet dogshit) don’t fit the personnel. Likewise, Bowman needs to be on his ass no later than the end of the year. He put this team together to win this year, and the best hope they have is winning the lottery.

Fire everyone. Start over.

Beer du Jour: Bulleit, Maker’s Mark, and High Life

Line of the Night: “They’re just skating all over the ice not getting much accomplished.” –Patrick Sharp

Football

Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 9: Ride The Spiral

By Sam Fels 1170 0

And farther down we go…is there anything to be gleaned by the brief spasm of competence in the second half? Or should all focus be on the Wannstedt Era like first half?

Brian Schmitz (@_BrianSchmitz): I really liked seeing Mitch move around, that seemed to make a difference and resembled 2018 Mitch, which was my favorite Mitch. I have no idea why, but I’m not convinced this team is done. I don’t like this team or organization so it’s not that I am being bias, I just think there is too much talent on defense for this team to roll over and die.

Wes French (@WFrenchman): The first half was worse than any Dowell Loggins era half in recorded history. Mitch had an expected completion percentage around 68%, but was actually only accurate on 47% of his throws. The defense has given up an average of 2.4 10+ play drives/gm after only giving them up at a 1.6/gm clip last year.

The offense can’t really move the ball, the defense can’t get off the field on third down. the couldn’t even field the final kickoff cleanly to give us what was sure to be a game ending sack or turnover from Mitch.  I am convinced this team is done. We saw nothing new, we heard the same excuses, we got the same results we’ve been getting all year. This team is not bad, but it’s poorly coached and the QB is regressing. The schedule only gets tougher from here, and this upcoming week against the Lions could be a masterclass in awful coaching.
Can’t wait.
The Bears actually had me thinking they might fuck around and come all the way back to claim the kind of win that can help turn an uneven season around. Then they stalled at midfield, punting the ball back to the Eagles with just under 9 minutes to play, pinning them at their own 11. What happened next was a lesson in how to grind a game to the end, as Philadelphia went SIXTEEN PLAYS and 69 yards while eating up all but 29 seconds of game time and kicking the FG that would put them on top with the 22-14 final.

That drive killed me. I hate the Bears.
What do we make of this defense? Yes, probably overworked, but had a chance the past couple weeks to make definitive stops and didn’t do it? Is it simply Hicks not being there or something more?
Brian: I still feel like they are one of the premiere units in the league; but the results are saying otherwise. The shitty part of this entire equation is that the secondary continues to improve and is playing at a very high level. Once Hicks returns, they will be as good as ever; but I’m just not sure it matters how great they are. Chuck Pagano is fine. He simply oversees the operation. Nothing he has or hasn’t done has effected the way this unit plays.
Tony Martin (@MrMartinBruh): They haven’t forced turnovers this year to the extent that gave the offense short fields and as a result gave them the lead with which they could take more risks which results in more turnovers. It’s a huge ugly cycle.
Wes: I’m not sure I’m ready to give Pagano a pass. A recurring thing is NOT being able to get off the field to either close out a game or get the ball back to have a chance to win or tie. The personnel seems fine, but the QB pressures have been down since week 2-3, starting with the London game. The same game where a bad penalty led to a 4th down conversion and ultimately the game winning TD for Oakland. Even the Week 2 win in Denver saw the defense unable to make a stop, setting up the dramatic walk-off FG.  Getting off the field to end the game has been a major problem all season, and that has to fall at someone’s feet…
Looking forward, they do have the Lions twice and the Giants in the next month. Any hope?
Wes: I don’t think it’s a matter of WHO they play. They should definitely beat both teams and come away with three wins, but is anyone really that optimistic after that first half we all just saw? Mitch is STILL routinely missing wide open throws from clean pockets. Maybe the defense can’t get off the field because they’re so gassed from playing 40 minutes a week. Nagy needs to take more responsibility, but at this point I’m finally handing in my Mitch hype team membership. I decided to jump in feet first after the pick was made because why the hell not, but this has been a disaster. Whatever they’re working on week to week, it’s not helping. He’s not a starting calibur QB in the NFL, and that right there has a lot to do with why this team is 3-5 and not 5-3 or 6-2.

Call me jaded or whatever, but I just don’t believe this team is capable of doing enough well, on a consistent basis, to say “yea, the upcoming schedule puts them back into it.” They should’ve beaten Oak/LAC, and without those wins the games against Det/NYG can only get them to .500 before the final stretch of Dal/GB/KC/Min.
Brian: The Lions and Giants are looking at the Bears on the schedule and thinking they have a chance.
Baseball Everything Else

Burden In My Hand – White Sox Offseason Wishlist: Yasmani Grandal

By Andy Jonathan 1579 0

Now begins the season outside of the season, and potentially the most important one in the tenure of Rick Hahn’s career as general manager of the White Sox. With the team looking poised to possibly contend in 2020, Hahn must now shift gears. Trading away players like Chris Sale is easy. Everybody wants a Cy Young-caliber ace who strikes out 1.5 people per inning. Now Hahn has come full circle, as he was once the seller now he must be the buyer (Darth Vader quote goes here).

As with anything involving Jerry Reinsdorf and the Sox front office the first, last, and only question will be about money. Is he willing to spend it? The implication after the failed pursuit of Manny Machado was that THE MONEY WILL BE SPENT, most likely in ways that our mere fan-brains could not possibly understand. Now it’s time for them to live up to that bold declaration by rolling down the MLB equivalent of Rodeo Drive and making it rain.

What do the Sox really need? Well based on every metric that counts any type of offensive production, the Sox were the god awful-est at the DH position and any outfield spot where Eloy Jimenez is not currently standing, waving at his mom.

On top of that, other than Yoan Moncada and Zack Collins (who is an unfinished product in and of himself) the Sox are very light hitting from the left side of the plate. So who fits the bill?

Enter: Yasmani Grandal

Why Him?: Because he checks almost all the boxes above, and some that I didn’t even mention. Grandal is a switch hitting catcher who hit 17 dingers from the left side of the plate last year. He also tagged 11 of them from the right side, so it’s not a situation like Yoan has where all his pop comes from a single half of the plate. In addition to that, he’s an excellent pitch framer, 6th best overall in the league for any catcher who caught more than 1700 pitches. In the “Runs From Extra Strikes” category (which converts strikes to runs saved on a .125 run/strike basis, and includes park and pitcher adjustments according to Statcast) he’s the 3rd best in the league (the fact that Tyler Flowers has become one of the top framing catchers in the league will not be discussed here.) In addition, while he only had a DRS score of +1 last season, the previous 3 went +9, +17 and +13.

Despite James McCann‘s assistance with turning around the career of Lucas Giolito, he was dead last in framing last year which cost the White Sox 16 runs. Ask Reynaldo Lopez or Dylan Covey (if you can get through to him in his padded room where he mutters “sinker didn’t sink” to himself over and over) what they could’ve done with a few more strike calls going their way last season.

He also can play 1B and DH, which would result in a combo of Jose Abreu, Zack Collins and Grandal at DH at any point in the season which would instantly provide the best output at that position since before Adam Dunn shuffled off into the sunset. Yes, I am operating under the assumption that Jose will be back next season because duh. Did I mention he hits the shit out of the ball?

Why Not Him? Age maybe? He’s entering his 30th year on the planet this season, so by the time his deal is up he will most likely be 35ish? I dunno, this signing makes far too much sense for the Sox to pull it off. Can’t wait for the news media to interview Kenny Williams at spring training in his Mercedes golf cart and have him tell us all if he took off his solid gold Oakley sunglasses you’d see just how shocked he was. /wanking motion

How Much Is This Free Resort Weekend? Ahhh to the meat of the problem for the Sox: he’s not going to work for free. Last offseason he shot down an offer from the Mets (always a wise plan) for four years, $60 million and settled on a one year “prove it” deal with the Brewers. He then proceeded to mash almost 30 home runs with 80 RBI and was worth 5.2 WAR.

I would guess the bidding would start around $22 million for at least four years, and that’s the base. Grandal bet on himself last season and put up when some others thought he was crazy. The Sox had interest in him last year, and with a majority of the stuff they need contained in one human being Rick Hahn needs to find a way to get this done. Offer him four years, $90 million with a team option for a 5th at $25 million/or a $3 million buyout. I would think that would be enough to seal this deal, because I want to see what Giolito and Lopez can do with all those extra strikes Grandal can frame for them. Not to mention the two starting pitchers Hahn should sign this offseason (don’t worry, they’re next).

Hockey

Game #14 – Hawks vs. Sharks Preview: What Are You Doing Down Here?

By Sam Fels 1468 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 4-6-3  Sharks 4-10-1

PUCK DROP: 9pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

THE BUBBLE BURST: Just follow @ItWasThreeZero, but it’s a little blue

I bet you didn’t think that a month into the season, we’d be sitting here with the Hawks with more points than the Sharks. And yet, that’s where we are. It has all gone pear-shaped on the Teal, while this is pretty much what the Hawks are. Is this what the Sharks are? They’d better hope not, because they have a lot of money committed to not be.

There isn’t one clear reason that the Sharks are currently using circles of paper. They tried to solve their goaltending issues from last year, which were some of the worst on recent record, by simply hoping that Martin Jones would become what he had been the previous three years through simply kindness from the gods. That has not happened, as he and Aaron Dell have been just about as bad as they were last year. But this time around, that’s not the only problem.

While the Sharks are one of the better teams in the league in the amount of attempts they give up, they’re one of the worst in the types of chances they give up. Quite frankly, their defense is Cottonnelle-esque. You might not be down in their end all that much but when you are you can get to the prime areas easily and fire away.

On top of that, the Sharks just aren’t generating nearly as much as they were, both in terms of attempts and chances. Erik Karlsson isn’t the engine he was, either through age or injury or still trying to find him the right partner. And the Sharks’ depth has eroded. It wasn’t just the departure of Pavelski. Valuable seat-fillers like Joonas Donskoi and Gustav Nyquist also made for the exits, and the kids that have come into replace them just haven’t lived up yet. They’ve needed more from the likes of Marcus Sorensen and Melker Karlsson and they haven’t got it.

That doesn’t mean their vets are off the hook. Logan Couture has been woeful, Joe Thornton can only do so much, and their half-court shot of bringing Patrick Marleau back has only revealed that he might not have a pulse. If Evander Kane and Kevin LeBanc weren’t scoring, they’d probably already be done. On the back end, they’ve missed Justin Braun, which is probably akin to missing Connor Murphy. Good player, adds to your team, shouldn’t pivot around him. Marc-Eduoard Vlasic is doing a fine Seabrook impression these days and is on the third-pairing.

What they can do about it is questionable. They obviously need a goalie if they’re going to make anything of this season, but by the time they can identify one they can have they might already be toast. They’re all the way capped out, so how they’d cram in a veteran goalie and/or a forward or two is a mystery. They’d have to get Martin Jones off the roster as a starter, but the line of teams willing to pick up a goalie who now resides in a bucket and has to be put there via damp sponge isn’t all that long. They don’t have much else to shift.

This is a team built for now, and the now is passing them by. Look for a big move, even beyond firing coach Pete DeBoer, if this continues much longer.

To the Hawks. They were mostly ok against the Ducks, so you can probably look for the same lineup aside from Crawford swapping in for Lehner, The former had his first really good game against the Kings, and even still that saw him give up four goals. The Hawks will need to get both goalies going at top speed if they’re going to make a run, or just turn to Lehner full-time which is another headache they don’t need.

The Sharks are one of the few teams that can’t leave severe windburn on the Hawks. They used to be able to dominate them by just having the puck all the time, but they aren’t doing that either right now. Both teams let you get wherever you want in their defensive zone, so this one will have chances and likely goals. The only known threat from the Sharks right now is the Hertl-Kane axis, so if Jeremy Colliton wants to get cute he can keep changing on the fly to get Kampf out there against them. But that might be a bit adventurous for the first week in November.

It might not have been pretty, but if the Hawks can get this one that’s five points on this trip which is one below the max. And that would be good, even if a total mirage given the method. They need anything they can build on right now. And right now, the Sharks are a very fragile team that you can fill with head-goblins early in the game. Then again, the Sharks probably think the Hawks are the slump-buster they need. Catch the fever.

Hockey

Game #14 – Hawks vs. Sharks Spotlight: Logan Is Finding Out What It Feels Like

By Sam Fels 1260 0

Over the summer, the Sharks made a pretty big call. Their usual M.O. has been to just strip their captain of the position when their season flamed out before they felt it should. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau both felt the sting of that particular whip, with the former taking over for the latter and then Joe Pavelski taking it from Jumbo Joe. And then everyone would pretend everything was fine, in true Canadian fashion.

This time around, the Sharks just let their captain toddle off somewhere else. In order to fit other salaries and make room for some more kids, the Sharks let Pavelski walk to Dallas, and bestowed the “C” onto Logan Couture. It has been an ill-fit, shall we say.

Couture has been the biggest example of how the old and not-all-that-quick Sharks have struggled to recover from their long playoff run last year. Whereas last season you could argue they were only undone by the league’s worst goaltending, because the rest of their measurements were some of the league’s best. If they’d even had representative goaltending, they probably walk out of the Western Conference last year. And we’ll never forgive them for not doing so and saddling us with this cloud of despair.

The question-existence-entirely goaltending is still there, but the dominant process has gone away with it. The Sharks don’t have the puck nearly as much as they did, they aren’t creating as much as they did, they give up a whole lot more than they did, and Couture is at the center of it.

Couture has been crossed by some fiendish PDO treachery. He’s shooting below 7% at evens and 3% overall. But he’s also not getting to the spots he used to that would drive that shooting-percentage up dramatically to career norms. His shots per 60 are down a third at evens, his attempts down a quarter, and his individual expected-goals are half of what they were last year. Throw in the power play time and things look better, and that 3% number will go up. But the Sharks need serious help at evens and he’s not providing it.

His possession numbers stink, too. Couture has always been something of a high-event player, but he mostly kept those events to the other end even if he was on the ice for a decent amount of attempts and chances against. You live with decent amount against when a player gets a ton for. Well, the second part hasn’t happened this season, and now Couture is just a player who’s on the ice for a lot of chances against. Not good.

How much of this is due to the absence of Pavelski? Couture has seen him replaced with Patrick Marleau for the most part, who just might be clinically dead. Timo Meier is still the main running buddy, as he was with Pavelski and Couture last year. So if only on that limited evidence, Pavelski has been a big miss (and while Pavelski’s individual numbers in Dallas are down, his overall possession numbers are still very good).

So far this year, Couture has only found success with Tomas Hertl, but the Sharks would be bunching up their two biggest threats that way as well as weakening themselves down the middle, which has almost always been their strength. Joe Thornton isn’t taking on #2 center assignments at age 93. Quite simply, the Sharks aren’t as deep as they once were and they don’t have enough wingers to go around.

Perhaps as the year progresses, a couple of their kids can step up like Lean Bergmann or Dylan Gambrell. But it seems like an awfully big ask for neophytes to immediately take roles for what’s supposed to be a Cup contender. The Sharks might have to swing another trade, which will only kneecap their future even further.

The Sharks were always a bit up against it given their collective age. They don’t have one core piece under 30, other than Meier and Hertl. The kids haven’t caught up. But they couldn’t have expected it to catch up this quickly, and neither could Couture. But yet, here they are.

Hockey

Game #14 – Hawks vs. Sharks: Hedley’s Lamarr’s Dimwits, Halfwits, Nitwits

By Sam Fels 1235 0

Evander Kane – As always. But it’s a conspiracy against him, don’t ya know?

Erik Karlsson’s Effect On The Media – Should you be completely bereft of something to do, watch a Sharks game through the opposing broadcast. Because it won’t be much more than 5-10 minutes before the color analyst or studio one gets in a shot at Karlsson’s defensive play or paycheck or both. The grumpy old men or wannabe grumpy old men that comprise hockey analysis still can’t seem to wrap their minds around that Karlsson has always been a different type, and overall still one of the best in the league because he keeps his team out of its own end. Yeah, he might not play a 2-on-1 well, but he also is almost never in one because of his skills. But anyone who makes a big check and isn’t a good ol’ Canadian boy is the enemy. If they really need fodder, they only need to look to…

Brent Burns: Maybe the most overrated player in the league. He racks up points, and then when he plays any team with a plan and skill he gets rolled over. The definition of a flat-track bully who avoids criticism because he’s Canadian and at least hints at having a personality. Which up there only means to not have all your teeth. Seriously, walking around like that makes you teflon to the hockey media.

Hockey

Game #14 – Hawks vs. Sharks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1050 0

Hawks

Notes: Morning skate on the West Coast came after we put this together, but Kane spent most of his time with Strome and Top Cat on Sunday so we’d expect a repeat…Carpenter and Kampf should be together and form a hybrid 4th/checking line, with Dach getting better linemates than this. But the Hawks don’t have enough wingers to go around, so we’ll just live with it for now and hope Andrew Shaw changes brains with someone…Keith seems to be sacrificing himself for Boqvist so far, which is an upset. Watch him get over to Boqvist’s corner to get the retrievals and stay within himself. See how long it lasts…

Sharks

Notes: Something is rotten here, as the Sharks are getting run over most nights…Vlasic has been an utter disaster this year so far and has firmly earned this third-pairing standing. Maybe he really is just younger Seabrook…Marleau’s only two goals came against the Hawks a month ago…Couture also seems to be slowing down in his 30s, and is a big reason why this team isn’t popping like last year…