Hockey

Game #65 – Hawks vs. Panthers Preview: Florida Men

By Sam Fels 1514 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 28-28-8   Panthers 33-25-6

PUCK DROP: 5pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

60% OF THE TIME IT WORKS EVERY TIME: Litter Box Cats

The Hawks wrap up this funeral dirge/death rattle of a road trip in South Florida this evening, before returning home to either an indifferent but possibly more cantankerous home crowd next week. They’ll find a Panthers team right in the middle of the East playoff grinder, trying to chase down both a wildcard spot or an automatic spot in the Atlantic if it’s there. The former sees them having to leap three teams, the latter only the Leafs who seem intent on making that a possibility. Oh, and the Hawks former coach is still on the other bench.

The story with the Panthers has changed a little since just about a month ago when they were at the UC. They’re still one of the higher scoring teams in the league. And they still get mediocre-or-worse goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky (OH BOB! YOU CAME AND YOU TOOK OUR MONEY! AND NOW YOU CAN’T SWAT PUCKS AWAY! OH BOB!). This is not a metrically sound team either, as you would have expected out of a Quenneville-led outfit with this much talent on display. They outshoot their problems for their record, which they can do with Huberdeau having a career-year and Barkov his usual brilliant self, along with My Kaufmann a line lower.

So as he is wont to do, Dale Tallon made some changes at the deadline, and some changes that take some figuring out. Vincent Trocheck certainly had issues staying healthy, but he was a genuine #2 center. But Tallon moved him out at the deadline for useful, bottom six pieces in Lucas Wallmark and Erik Haula. Some Panthers observers had said Trocheck’s defensive game wasn’t what it was, and Wallmark and Haula especially should bring more of that. The Cats probably need that if Bob isn’t going to bail them out regularly. And Eetu Luostarinen is considered something of a prospect, so maybe the numbers make it a better deal than it looks at first. Given Tallon’s recent history in Sunrise though…

You sort of wonder if Tallon shouldn’t have been looking for blue line help now instead of down the road. Ekblad and Weegar (I almost forgot my fellow babies…) have been effective on the top pairing, but pretty much everyone else has been going backwards. We know what Keith Yandle can’t do, and Anton Stralman is turning odd colors in the sun at this age. Mike Matheson is certainly rich, but anything beyond that is a mystery.

The race between the Panthers and Leafs for the third spot is certainly entertaining, as both teams attempt to stake their spot without really any goaltender they can count on between them. The wildcard chase is no less dense, though you’d have to figure the Rangers will eventually sink away and the pixie dust for the Jackets has to run out sometime. That leaves the Panthers tussling with the Canes, who also don’t have a goalie at the moment (almost literally). It would be a big disappointment for the Cats to miss the playoffs, given the investments in Bobrovsky and Quenneville and their recent history. Hoffman, Dadanov, and Haula are all free agents after the season, and the first two are in line for sizable raises. So will Weegar as an RFA. This might be as good as it gets for the Cats, which isn’t good enough.

As for the Hawks, not much to report. One would think that Crawford will finish out the road trip to build off his win in Tampa, and that Subban could possibly make his debut against the softer landing of the Ducks or with the back-to-back against EdMo and Detroit next week. Shouldn’t be too many, or any, other lineup changes with Strome back at center and Koekkoek back on the third pairing. Possibly Nick Seeler back in for Carlsson or Boqvist to waster all of our time.

Note: This seems to have fallen at a place on the calendar when all of us have schedule conflicts. So there might not be Twitter or a recap for this one, though we are currently efforting that. Sorry, just one of those things. 

Hockey

Game #65 – Hawks vs. Panthers Spotlight: A Decade Of Dale Tallon

By Sam Fels 1353 0

Let’s let our friend @Petbugs13 start this one for us:

 

We couldn’t do it any better.

Hockey

Game #65 – Hawks vs. Panthers: Hedley Lamarr’s Nitwits. Halfwits, And Dimwits

By Sam Fels 1034 0

Canadian Media’s Fascination With Crowd Pictures – If you’re on Twitter or Insta, next time a Canadian team plays in Sunrise check out how long it takes before their beat writer posts a picture of the arena not full. It’s like a duty or a reflex for them. Yes, the Panthers have attendance problems. They’ve also not won a playoff series in over 20 years, have only been to them twice in the interim, play in the middle of nowhere, and Miami is just a slightly more entertaining place to be with more to offer than fucking Ottawa. We get it. You don’t think South Florida deserves a team. Well, they’ve got one, and they don’t appear to be leaving anytime soon. A move back to downtown Miami would probably solve a lot of their problems, but we’ll see if that’s on the cards. What’s the attendance in Ottawa like these days? What’s it going to be when Winnipeg bottoms out? We’ll hang up and listen for our answer.

Brian Boyle – This tall doofus will never suffer for work because people think being tall and winning faceoffs are the last keys to victory for a team. Remember when he was going to be the final piece for the Preds last year? Or the windburn he got from the Hawks in ’15? We bet Quenneville loves him, though.

Mike Kitchen – Boy, this guy knows where his bread is buttered, huh? Clearly a moron who can only get work as Q’s cabana boy. Wonder how long it’ll take the players in Florida to start requesting his firing in postseason exit interviews. Took him two years here, though he was able to hang on to a job for five more years because of Q.

Hockey

Game #65 – Hawks vs. Panthers: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 907 0

Hawks

Notes: Strome back at center and five goals. We’re geniuses! Seriously, Strome’s line was the only one to come out ahead in possession and they did it without a wealth of offensive zone starts…Boqvist found himself on the bench a ton, though the wealth of penalties in the first didn’t help. Still, least ES time of anyone, and we basically give up. Olli Maatta should not be getting double the ES time…

Panthers

Notes: Strange trade of Vincent Trocheck. He was a genuine #2 center and the Panthers only got bottom six forwards in return, though a defensive prospect as well. Trocheck seemed like the perfect Quenneville player, but the story in South Florida is that his defensive game had slipped, which we know Q won’t take…Pysyk is the latest d-man to go into Crazy Q’s lab and come out a forward…Hoffman has scored in four straight…

Hockey

The Distance Perceived And Real, Jeremy Roenick Is A Big Fat Baby, And Whatever Else Is Floating Through Our Ears

By Sam Fels 2099 0

Some notes pieces before we decamp for the weekend…

-It’s been a dark week for  Hawks fans, there’s no point in selling anything else. As gratifying as the 3rd period may have been last night, we know it’s for naught. The Hawks themselves have made no bones about where they think they are, even if they can’t put a finger where that is exactly. They’ve declared the rest of the season about their young players, which means they don’t have anything real to play for. And this is the third straight season that’s basically been the case, which firmly lands you in the hockey desert.

A lot of the discussion over those years has been whether or not if this is the price fans would pay for the six years of glory. No one seems to be asking whether or not fans should have been asked that at all. As we said yesterday, Pittsburgh and Boston haven’t really asked that of their fans. But that’s a discussion for another time.

The scarier or more frustrating strand of thought that’s been leaking out of the Hawks’ offices these days, along with the gas that has been clouding theirs and the Bulls’ minds, is that all of the sudden this is going to take two or three years to fix. It feels like the Hawks are prepping fans for a full rebuild that they A. can’t actually do and B. don’t actually have to.

While we’re one of, if not the, darkest Hawks corner of the dark corners of the internet, we’ve also been pretty consistent that this team isn’t far away from being an entrenched playoff team. Now, it’s not that close to running with Colorado or St. Louis or Boston or Tampa, and maybe that’s what they mean by taking two or three years. That seems a hard path to negotiate given the ages of some of their best players, but they can still relatively easy put themselves around the discussion.

Still, that’s a strange note to strike when the previous note was the “all we have to do is get in” the Hawks had been playing the past couple years, using the Predators team that caved in their skulls in ’17 or last year’s Blues as evidence, even though that wasn’t close to the whole story on those two teams. Both of them were preseason favorites that just took longer than expected to get their shit together. The Hawks can’t seem to decide where they want the goalposts.

Clearly the Hawks don’t know what message to send, which is what happens when you don’t even know what direction you’re taking your team. Or if you’re John McDonough, who you are (I really wanna know…).

Still, looking at this roster, it’s easy enough to point to where the Hawks have to address in the summer to gain the 10-15 points they’ll need to not just make the playoffs next year, but perhaps compete for automatic spots instead of being in this muck.

Despite Jeremy Colliton’s thoughts most of the year, if you can even pin them down, the Hawks have in place quality center depth. I don’t know what Dylan Strome is exactly, but I do know that hiding behind Kirby Dach and Jonathan Toews next year is a pretty good place to be and one he can flourish in as well. Maybe none of Toews, Dach, or Strome are #1s either anymore or yet, but having three #2 centers seemed to work out pretty well for the Blues last year or the Predators in the past. It’s certainly a model you can win with.

The problem up front for the Hawks at the moment is that they only have four top nine wingers instead of the six they need. Saad, Kane, Debrincat, Kubalik, But if you’re using a “3+1” model, as the Hawks are pointing toward with their centers, you can get away with Drake Caggiula as a third-line winger. Or the idea of Andrew Shaw that he no longer is anymore. Or something like that. It would be fine.

So really, the Hawks need one more winger up front, and one that is a complete burner. This is why Andreas Anathasiou would have been perfect, but the Hawks need more speed. They’re not slow up front, but they’re also not in the same neighborhood as Colorado or Calgary or half a dozen other teams. Ideally they could add two wingers with gamebreaking speed, but I’m trying to be realistic.

At the back, we’ve been talking about the historically bad and slow defense for two years. Which makes it seem strange to say it doesn’t have to be all that far either. Part of that is Adam Boqvist hasn’t developed this year in the way that you’d hoped. But some of that is Keith not being really a great partner for him but also no one else being able to play with Keith. Calvin de Haan is a miss, whether we like it or not.

But simply the addition of Ian Mitchell helps. The Hawks can make noise about bringing him along slowly, but he’s been a top pairing d-man in the NCAA for three years. If he needs anytime in Rockford it’ll be an upset and probably means he’s not going to be anything close to what we hope. And he shouldn’t need that. How much he improves the blue line is up for debate, but he unquestionably will. If they can get him here.

If the Hawks are aggressive–i.e. buying out both Smith and Maatta, locking Brent Seabrook in his house, and simply letting Andrew Shaw retire–and use the $20M in space they might have in that scenario to bring in…oh I don’t know, Taylor Hall and Torey Krug or Mike Hoffman and Sami Vatanen or the like, they’re there again.

This idea that they’re just going to have to wait is them just giving themselves more rope for the fuckups they’ve made and the ones they’re going to make. Two more big contracts might make people worried, but they hardly have any other long-term commitments other than Daydream Nation. You can even see the end of Keith’s contract now. Strome or Kubalik are RFAs and aren’t due long-term commitments either, especially Strome.

It feels like the Hawks are preaching patience after they’ve already exhausted everyone’s. Which is about as backwards as everything else they do.

-The cognitive dissonance to separate Jeremy Roenick the player who presided over my world from ages 8-16 or so and Jeremy Roenick the person now is becoming a mountainous task. Thankfully we’re on the cusp of him having to go away forever.

Roenick showed up on The Score yesterday to whine some more about losing his job for being an unrepentant pig on a BarfStool show hosted by and for goo-brained warthogs. JR is now just every other older white guy complaining he can’t be an asshole without someone calling him on it and having real consequences when they’ve had run of the place before. Why you’d have this dope on your show is anyone’s guess, because he proved long ago he’s a shit-assed analyst and now his only job appears to be showing his ample ass. But of course Dan McNeil still needs to prove to everyone that he still knows famous people, and Danny Parkins was just disappointed that he wasn’t having an actual rapist on his show to get back at all the girls who didn’t talk to him in high school.

The choice quote of course is, “”I think anyone who knows the situation and who knows me, knows I got the biggest raw deal of all time.” I know when I’m sitting at home and thinking about JR I slot him right between slavery and the Jewish people in Egypt. Anyway…

JR doesn’t seem to get he was on a public forum with a public job. This isn’t some glib remark he made at the water cooler behind Kathryn Tappen’s back, and even that wouldn’t be acceptable in a workplace. He demeaned and objectified a coworker, making her job harder. It changes the conversation from Tappen’s skills as a broadcaster and presenter, and reduces her to just how she looks. JR is the same cigar-chomping boss you had who would go down claiming, “What? It’s a compliment! Don’t be so serious!” before smacking his secretary on the ass.

Thankfully, NBC seems to be moving their hockey coverage toward the same style as their soccer coverage, which is everyone acts like an adult and just analyzes the game or the league. Milbury is still lurking around, but Boucher, Sharp, Hartnell, Carter, Lovejoy, Johnson are all younger, more reserved personalities for the most part. Fuck, this is the same outfit that just announced and all-women broadcast for Hawks-Blues on the 8th, so it shouldn’t be a huge shock that NBC might not want some drooling goober grabbing himself around.

Hockey has always been terrified of pissing off its neanderthal section of the fanbase, which is why fighting is still around and the disciplinary system is a joke. But it can’t get the fans it does want to welcome in without eliminating it. It’s a painfully slow process, but punting JR and his type into the sun is progress.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Nico

By Sam Fels 1146 0

Nico Hoerner wouldn’t be the first kid to be tossed into an emergency situation and end up a team fixture for a long while. It’s just that I can’t really think of another one. K-Rod? Willson Contreras wasn’t thrown into an emergency, he just played his way into a three-catcher rotation in ’16. It does happen on occasion, and considering what the other options are at second base, the Cubs might have to hope it does again.

Nico Hoerner 2019

20 games, 82 PA

.282/.305/.436

.305 wOBA  86 wRC+

3.7 BB%  13.4 K%

0.7 Defensive Runs

0.2 WAR

The excitement over Hoerner basically had to do with the Cubs having a prospect worth a shit for the first time in a couple seasons, the unique circumstances, and some initial success. It also had to do with Hoerner making a lot of contact when the Cubs whiff paranoia was at its highest. That doesn’t mean that Hoerner had any business being in MLB at that point, and was only there due to a lack of depth thanks to the front office, Addison Russell’s inability to do anything right on and off the field, and Joe Maddon’s aversion to even trying Bote there in an emergency.

Overall, Hoerner was a touch overmatched, which isn’t much of a surprise for a player how barely had half of a season at Double-A. He showed a little more pop than you might expect, but that doesn’t mean he had a lot of it, and with his no-walks policy it meant he just didn’t get on base enough. You can do that if you’re Javy Baez. If you’re not…well, you’re going to have to hit an awful lot of doubles for anyone to care.

YES! YES! YES!: The Cubs seem pretty determined to start Hoerner off in Iowa, which makes sense as he’s never been there. They might rotate a couple of burnt steaks in Kipnis and Descalso along with whatever it is David Bote is in the meantime, it’s just figuring out how long that meantime is going to be.

If Hoerner can put up numbers in Des Moines that he did in Tennessee (7.1 BB%, .344 OBP) you wouldn’t think it’s going to take more than six weeks or two months for him to be installed as the everyday second baseman at 1060 West. From there he could be the one hitter other than Rizzo who doesn’t strike out much, and give the Cubs some contact-driven on-base habits at the bottom of the lineup. He’d be another candidate to bat 9th with Bryant leading off to maximize what Bryant is doing in the #1 spot.

Hoerner even boosts all of that by driving up his hard-contact rate (26.5%) from last year, and some of those singles turn into doubles and triples while he sprays line-drives all over the field. That was the big thing for Hoerner’s approach last year. He was happy to use right field in AA but that went away with the Cubs, with just 17% of his contact going that way. Hoerner isn’t a weakling when aiming for right field, and that’s probably Priority #1 the Cubs have told him to work on amongst the corn. If he gets that down, the Cubs might end up with the Marco Scutaro-plus they’re envisioning.

You’re A B+ Player: Hoerner never hits the ball harder, nor uses the opposite field, which means he’s just grounding out to short and third a lot because he almost certainly won’t strike out much. His high-contact ways don’t really matter if all that contact sucks. Hoerner was easily busted up an in last year in his brief cameo, and that’s almost certainly where AAA pitchers are going first when the season starts. If he can’t prove he can turn on those, then his future looks more “Theriot” than “Scutaro.” And that’s a word that should have every Cubs fan’s indigestion level on the rise.

Dragon Or Fickle?: Some of what Hoerner’s future this year is hinging on what the rest of the lineup does. Say the Cubs do hit 1-7, which involves Ian Happ finally blossoming full-time and Jason Heyward hitting righties at merely a decent clip…well then the Cubs can afford to basically go glove-first at second base. And Hoerner is still the best defensive option amongst the four who could line up there (though Kipnis is still pretty good there). And Hoerner has just as much offensive upside as Bote. The Cubs could do what they did with Russell (sadly) in ’15, which is tell him you’re up here to catch the ball and we’ll worry about the offense later.

But there are a lot of ways this could go wrong. The three-headed monster of confusion currently slated for second could all fall flat on their face offensively. Happ could do Happ things and be all over the map. And then the Cubs might need Hoerner to hit straight from Iowa, and quickly.

None of that has anything to do with him though. Hoerner’s contact rate kind of institute a floor, but it also makes him a little BABIP dependents. And he doesn’t have a lot of speed to help with that. Like, he can’t be Tim Anderson (and man, do I wish he could be Tim Anderson). He’s only 22, so there’s plenty of time to add muscle and bat speed with it. Most likely, Hoerner is called up in June after a good to pretty good, but probably not dominant, stretch in Iowa. But I also think the Cubs will hit outside of him, and he won’t be required to carry anything.

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Player Previews – Edwin Encarnacion

By Andy Jonathan 1139 0

Here we arrive at the player who represents something the Sox desperately needed and haven’t had since Jim (HI ITS JI-) Thome took his whoopin stick up I-94 up to the Land Of Ice And First Round Flameouts: above average production out of the DH position. Having pretty much created slugging percentage at every stop he’s had on his career, Edwin Encarnacion is the balm that could sooth the pain created by the hemorrhoid that was watching AJ Reed flail wildly about in the batter’s box last season.

With a fairly team friendly contract (1 year, 13 Million with a club option for a 2nd year) partially resulting from a cool market for DH style players and the fact that he spent the 2nd half of the season hurt, this was a sneaky good signing for Rick Hahn. Let’s dive into it a little more, shall we?

 

2019 Stats

.244/.344/.531

34 HR 86 RBI

11.9 BB% 21.2 K%

.362 wOBA 129 wRC+ .875 OBPS

Outs Above Average: 0

 

Last Week On Nitro: 2019 saw pretty much the same thing from Edwin Encarnacion that the previous 8 years had, namely him blasting 30+ HR and racking up RBIs by the barrel full. He started the season with the Mariners, ostensibly to anchor a young hopefully contending offense at the DH position. What ended up happening was the M’s crashing out of contention pretty rapidly, which resulted in him being flipped to the Yankees for Juan Then (the Yanks 27th ranked prospect) and cash considerations. At the time of the trade, the then 36-year old Encarnacion was leading the AL in dingers with 21 through 68 games.

It was in New York that he ran into a streak of shitty luck, getting drilled by a pitch on the wrist that resulted in a hairline fracture that cost him a month and sapped a goodly amount of power from him. He also missed time with an oblique strain that he suffered while hitting a home run. Despite all that, he still managed a .249/.325/.531 line with 13 home runs and a 121 wRC+ rating with the Bronx Bombers.

While Encarnacion’s power numbers have remained remarkably steady, 2019 became the 3rd consecutive year posting a drop in his batting average. The .244 mark is now down .026 from his career average of .270, and despite posting a record low (for him) BABIP of .239 last year, there really isn’t much hope of a rebound in that category. His walk rate remains in line with the rest of his career, but his K rate has gone up a few years in a row, most likely tied to the dip in his batting average. 34 HR is still 34 HR however, and at this point in his career nobody is signing Encarnacion to work the count.

Despite those solid numbers (which other than the BA are right in line with what you’d expect), there were not too many teams beating down his door to sign him to a multi-year deal. This left him sitting around until Christmas Day, when Hahnta Claus shuffled down his chimney with a 1 year deal worth 13 million dollars and an option for a 2nd with the same numbers. Merry Christmas indeed.

TOO SWEET! (Whoop Whoop!): Best case scenario is Encarnacion returns to the offensive output he was providing in 2019 before getting popped on the wrist by a pitch. His .246/.360/.542 slash line and 139 wRC+ he posted through June would  absolutely annihilate whatever meager power the Sox have gotten out of the DH position during the last 5 years.

Production like that in a lineup like this would make it pretty simple for him to break 100 RBIs again, and 35 home runs would not be out of the question. Placing him in the cleanup spot in the batting order would allow him to reap the benefits of having Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal and (eventually) Nick Madrigal or Luis Robert hitting in front of him. Or if Eloy Jimenez breaks out completely you could have any combination of Encarnacion, Jose Abreu and Nomar Mazara hitting in the 5, 6 and 7 spots. While this is not a true Murderer’s Row (yet), it’s easily the most exciting batting order the Sox have assembled in years.

Defensively (if it comes to that), Encarnacion isn’t a disaster at first base either. His 0 OAA stat from last year marks him as exactly league average at the position, and his -1 DRS is a stat you could easily live with if he was pressed into service for an extended length of time if someone (Jeebus forbid) got hurt. Otherwise you wouldn’t expect to see him out there more than a game per week max.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: The White Sox history at signing DH players through free agency (with the obvious exception of Jim Thome) has been a minefield of epic sadness. If things truly went nipples up with Encarnacion this season, the spectre of Adam Dunn and his .219 average would hover over first base like Casper the Soft Contact Ghost. If his batting average continued its slow progression downward, and his health limited him to less than 100 games, I could see this being a wasted 13 million by the Sox.

That awful picture aside, even if Encarnacion turns out to be a disaster at the plate this season it’s only a one year deal. The Sox would merely have to decline his option in the off-season and replace him with someone from the copious free agent pool next year. On top of that, the Sox have gotten such hilariously shitty production from the DH spot that it would take a Palka-esque level of regression for Encarnacion to be any worse than what we’ve had from there the past few years. Odds are, Edwin is going to be the best DH the Sox have had for a few years, merely by not dying in the batters box.

 

 

BAH GAWD THAT’S ENCARNACION’S MUSIC!: I fully expect Edwin Encarnacion to hit 35 home runs this season, and knock in 110 RBIs. Honestly, why would I expect anything else? The man has been an absolute model of consistency in his power numbers throughout his career. It hasn’t mattered what coast of the country he’s on, 30+ dingers has been a lock for him and this season is going to be no different. Shit, even if he replicates his numbers from 2019 it would still be a win not only for the Sox, but all of us who have had to watch the endless parade of dopes taking at bats from the DH spot. Anything more than what he put up last year is gravy.

That being said, I also feel like the .245 average for him is the new norm. I don’t doubt that his OBP will be pretty static, but the reality of his age keeps the idea of him hitting .265 pretty unlikely. He’s also not going to be playing 1st base very much, which is also fine. Jose Abreu and Grandal are both more than capable of nailing down that position for the season. NL parks could be an issue down the road, but that’s a bridge you cross when you get to it.

If Encarnacion plays more than 100 games this season at the level of consistency that he’s shown over the past decade, this signing will be a complete win for the Sox. The man is a professional hitter, and that is something that’s been in short supply on the South Side for quite some time. If he happens to drag his average back above .250 and stays healthy? That 13 million dollars is going to look like quite the steal for the team, and whoever owns stock in the company that sells fireworks to the White Sox is going to have quite the windfall.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks 5, Lightning 2: Give Me A Run For My Money, Sipping Kubbly, Feeling Lovely

By Adam Hess 1726 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

I have to admit that my expectations for this one were not high. Given the Hawks recent string of play, the fact that the Lightning are a far superior squad, and that they badly needed to get a win at home, I felt that this one could get ugly. In the second period, I thought I was being proven right, and then the final frame happened. I am happily surprised to be wrong. Let’s dig in:

IF KUBALIK LOSES THE CALDER WE RIOT

– Let’s start with our header, as Dominik Kubalik really spearheaded the offensive attack for the Hawks, outscoring the Bolts all on his own in the third period (okay, one was an empty netter but it counts all the same). Given the scouting reports about him and the Hawks’ success in finding some hidden gems in Europe over the years, there was little doubt that Kubalik was going to be a good NHL player, but I don’t think even the most optimistic Hawks fan expected this kind of season from him. He’s been riding a hot steak for damn near two months now with 18 goals in his last 22 games, and with his first career hat trick tonight he now sits just one goal shy of 30 for the year. With 18 games still to go and the hot hand he’s riding, he has a real nice chance at 35 goals and an outside chance at 40. Especially given how snake bitten Top Cat has been this year, that is very welcome.

– The real MVP of this one was probably Corey Crawford, though. Really, that shouldn’t surprise you anymore, but it’s true nonetheless. Crawford was great in the first period, as the game saw a lot of back and forth action and Crow went blow for blow on impressive saves with Curtis McElhinney. The second period was all Tampa, though, and Crow really stood on his head to keep the Hawks in it. Eventually the Hawks allowed a goal, but it took a nice play on a cycle by Brayden Point and a hell of a shot to beat Crow and give the Lightning the lead. On the second Bolts goal there was literally nothing Crawford could do to stop it, and we will get to that shortly. Overall, another great performance from Crow in a career and season full of them.

– As much as I admittedly dislike Jeremy Colliton and have fun making fun of the smoothness of his brain, I have to give credit where it is due – he made some nice adjustments on the power play tonight when it came to the strategy of the first unit. Early in the game it was evident that Tampa was going to pressure the absolute shit out of Patrick Kane every time he touched the puck on the PP, which Olzcyk called out on the broadcast. As the game went on, you could see the Hawks adjusting to try and use that aggressiveness to their advantage, and eventually they were able to do so – on Kubalik’s second goal, go back and watch the way Tampa defended it. The Hawks put Keith right in the middle of the ice on the umbrella with Kane on his left and Kubalik to the right. Tampa was so unwilling to leave Kane along, even on his weak side, that they left the forward on that side down low so he could pressure Kane if the puck went to him, forcing the other forward to skate way out of position to pressure Keith at the point. Duncs just went right back to Kubalik, who had a wide open shooting lane with that forward out of position, and with his shot that is a gift he made the most of.

– This next part is another comment on a PP adjustment by Colliton, but you can choose how you want to read it, and you’ll get what I mean in a moment. I don’t know the exact numbers here and am too lazy to go dig it up right now, but the Hawks second PP unit got a bit more ice time tonight, and that was the unit that actually ended up scoring the Hawks first goal to get them on the board tonight. Now, you can take that as an adjustment by Colliton to get another unit of good scorers like Boqvist, Saad, and Strome on the ice and being willing to give them more opportunity after seeing that it is working. Or you can wonder why it took him so damn long to actually start doing that more consistently, and the answer to that would be that his brain is smoother than a fresh paint job. I mean, even with the small amount of credit I’ll give him for utilizing PP2 more often, he also is putting Olli Maatta out there with that unit….

– Speaking of which, that guy fucking sucks. Remember that second Lightning goal I talked about that wasn’t Crawford’s fault? Yeah, that’s cuz it was Maatta’s. The only reason the Bolts even scored that goal is because Maatta received a pass from Crawford terribly and lost the puck, made no legitimate effort to find the puck and instead tried to body Nikita Kucherov away while standing flat footed which resulted in Kucherov winning the puck (shocker), and then Maatta just completely failed to follow him and lost track of him altogether, leaving him all alone deep in the zone for Point to find with a nice pass that Kucherov had all day to put into a wide open net, cuz Crawford never even had a chance to react to all of this because it happened so quickly. Get that guy the fuck out of here, and send Slater Koekkoek along with him.

– But I won’t do anymore negative. This was a good win, good enough to restore a small amount of faith in this group, even if I still don’t think they have any chance of making the playoffs and even if I think that losing more games than they win is the more favorable result for this team moving forward. You’re probably sick of me lobbying for tanking by now, huh?

– Hawks go next on Saturday, as they’ll head down to Miami to take on Coach Q and the Panthers. Until then.

Hockey

Game #64 – Hawks vs. Lightning Preview: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

By Sam Fels 1336 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 27-28-8   Lightning 40-18-5

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

POINT AT THE SIGN: Raw Charge

I keep thinking it can’t get worse for the Hawks, or really us, and yet somehow it does. It’s certainly bad enough to go have to play the team you used to laugh at that’s now a league standard right after the trade deadline where your management made it clear they’re not much beyond cats pawing at a laser pointer. But then to have to follow that up with the team who’s been the clearest illustration of what you’ve become from what you were…well, how much more can you take? Oh right, after this they’ll have to face their former coach with the highest scoring team in the league.

We chose this.

The last three times the Hawks have faced the Lightning it’s been something of a definitive statement on their status. And if I cant throw in a Tin Cup quote (god I’m truly lost), “And the definition was shit.” Remember it was five years ago they were contesting the Final. Last year, the Lightning simply embarrassed the Hawks twice, including that 30-shot period at the UC. This year, while the score was closer, you never got the impression that the Bolts were even sweating as they calmly skated away in the 3rd period. That’s where they went after ’15, and this is where the Hawks are. And that’s back early in the season when the Lightning were fighting it.

They’re not fighting it anymore. Put it this way, since that late November dance around the maypole at the United Center, Tampa has gone 30-11-3. 63 points of the 88 on offer, which is a 117-point pace over a full season. It’s landed them second in the NHL overall, with the misfortune of the best team in the NHL being in their own division. But wouldn’t you know it, the Bs and Bolts play twice next week in something of a division decider (the Lightning probably have to take both in regulation though).

How did the Lightning turn around after an iffy opening two months? Same thing they always do. Get scoring from everywhere (six guys with 15+ goals and Johnson with 13) while NIkita Kucherov leads the way. Get great goaltending (Vasilevskiy ran a .948 in January and has been .920 since Dec. 1st). And dominate possession (fourth in both Corsi and xG% over the whole season, and second in both since Dec. 1st).

While the Lightning have a tremendous amount of firepower, it’s their defensive game that’s really the backbone of this as they’re third in both the amount of attempts they give up and their expected goals against. Their speed up and down the lineup allows them to choke space whenever they don’t have the puck, which isn’t all that much.

Of course, nothing really matters about the Lightning until April, when they’ll have a couple gremlins to work out of their heads. Last year’s first round disaster probably isn’t much more than an anomaly considering this is a team that has made three trips to the conference final at least in the past five years. It’s Vasilevskiy who will have to answer the biggest questions, as he spit up big time against Columbus and wasn’t terribly good against the Capitals the year before in the East Final. But again, this roster and this system they seem poised to do big things in the spring. You get the feeling if they can negotiate the first round boogeyman, which could end up tricky given the arsenal of Toronto or Florida or even Carolina, there might not be any stopping them.

As for the Hawks, you wonder if this isn’t about damage control. They saw their front office (rightly) declare their season over on Monday, and then while showing more gumption than you might have thought, got kicked in the nuts by the worst possible people anyway. You wouldn’t blame them if they just didn’t have it in them to chase the Bolts all over the ice tonight. Still, there’s professional pride at stake and bigger roles in the future to claim. Corey Crawford gets the start.

It’s hard to believe a team led by this group will just quit on the season, but they’re up against it tonight for sure. This is our lot in life now.