Everything Else

Game #22 – Hawks 2, Capitals 4: It’s Just a Face in the Crowd Down a Dead-End Street

By Rose Rankin 1765 0

I don’t know what the hell the Hawks were doing at the beginning of the game, but a slow start pretty much screwed them. They followed that up with a lot of dumb penalties, making life harder for themselves, but had it not been for some abject stupidity right after puck drop we may have had a game. Oh, and Michal Kempny exacted his revenge, that did it too. To the bullets:

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

– Of course it was Tom fucking Wilson taking advantage of the Hawks looking drunk and clueless at the start of the first. Of course it was. And not only did this anthropomorphized turd score less than a minute in, he also made sure to barrel over Crawford and knee him in the head. Fuck Tom Wilson. The fact that he’s even playing right now is an affront to decency. This league is a toilet.

– Something ridiculous happened to me the other day: I walked into an elevator at my office building, the lone dude who had been in it walked off said elevator, and as I went in, pressed the button and breathed, the smell of fart was unmistakable. As the doors closed he looked fearfully over his shoulder and definitely saw my twisted, disgusted face looking back at him with an “I know what you did!” expression. The Hawks were that guy in the first period. They laid a huge fart, and then tried to coolly walk away pretending like nobody noticed. Once the first couple minutes were over and Andre Burakovsky made it 2-0 with a power play goal, the Hawks pulled it together and got a flurry of shots on goal (after having none for about half the period). They ended up only slightly underwater in possession (47.5 CF%, all day not just evens), which was quite the accomplishment given the way it started. And yet just when it seemed like they were bouncing back, Saad high-sticked Nicklas Backstrom, which inexplicably was called an elbow, and inexplicably was argued by both Saad and Toews. Whatever.

– I’m dismissive of that silliness because Brandon Saad continued his resurgence with his third goal in as many games. It was a beautiful move just de-pantsing Orlov about mid-way through the second period. At that point the Hawks were down 3-0 so not only was it great to see Saad doing what we’ve been waiting for him to do (and consistently), but it briefly gave us, and the Hawks, some hope. And that was the mistake.

– You know how it was 3-0 when Saad scored? That’s because Michal Kempny got his first goal of the year against the Hawks. And later, in the third, he made a great play in the neutral zone to prevent a breakaway (by Anisimov who would have tripped over his own dick anyway but that’s beside the point), and it led immediately to the fourth goal, effectively ending the Hawks chances at making it a game. Well, they had in fact made it a game with Gustafsson’s goal in the third, but Smith-Pelly’s just moments later, thanks to Kempny’s defensive prowess, crushed the Hawks. And I can’t even be mad at him for it.

– This isn’t a hot take, but jeebus the Hawks are top heavy when it comes to offense. The Saad-Toews-Kane line led all four lines with eight shots, and they had over a 60 CF% at evens. Loading up on the top line isn’t necessarily wrong—it just underlines how empty the rest of the offense is. On the bright side, the second line of Schmaltz-Anisimov-DeBrincat generated the pass that led to Gustafsson’s goal, so at least Wide Dick and Nick Schmaltz got assists.

– And that’s good for Schmaltz because, if the broadcast is a reflection of the company line, then the organ-I-zation hates him these days. I know it’s a little conspiracy-theorist of me, but Eddie has been unrelentingly bad-mouthing Schmaltz these last few games which just makes me think they’re priming the ground for getting rid of him. It’s no secret Schmaltz has been struggling lately, with only nine points on the season so far. Yet seven of those points came when he was on the ice with Patrick Kane, so the source of the drought seems to clearly be sticking him on the wing and on a line without a top scorer where he (Schmaltz) can be a playmaker. I get why Colliton is going with Toews and Kane on a line, and the change doesn’t absolve Schmaltz of all responsibility for generating SOMETHING on offense. But the ire over Schmaltz from the broadcast really needs to be put in perspective, and unless they can package him as part of a season-changing deal, launching a young guy out of frustration is probably not the ideal move here.

– The power play still sucks. In case you were wondering.

We shouldn’t be all that surprised that the current Stanley Cup champions beat this group of schlubs, even if those champions are still drunk from the summer. But still, the sloppy start is maddening, and for a team with talent issues like the Hawks, having to dig yourself out of a hole basically as soon as the game starts just isn’t acceptable. And now it’s on to an even better team in the Lightning. Just get drunk and the weekend will go by in a blur. Onward and upward.

Beer: Totally Naked by New Glarus, followed by Myrcenary from Odell when I really needed a higher alcohol content.

Line of the Night: “Here’s your so-called second line…” —Foley throwing shade at Schmaltz, and Wide Dick and Top Cat by association.

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune

Everything Else

Game #22 – Hawks vs. Capitals Preview – Bottled In Cork

By Matt McClure 1819 0

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Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
What A Bunch Of Clowns: Japer’s Rink, Russian Machine Never Breaks

Though the Circus Trip is now a thing of the past, the Black Wednesday/Black Friday two-fer for the Hawks still remains, and the past to years things have been set out east rather than in California. And the earlier start time is probably better for all involved on one of the biggest drinking nights of the calendar year, but given the state of things with the Hawks, that probably won’t stop anyone reading this from getting after it and ending up at White Castle/Burrito House/Bacci’s Pizza by 9:30, not that anyone here would know anything about that.

Everything Else

Game #22 – Hawks vs. Capitals Spotlight: Michal Kempny’s Phoenix

By John Pullega 1849 0

You knew it was going to happen. From the second the Hawks traded Michal Kempny for a conditional third-round pick from Washington (which in an annoyingly roundabout way turned into Niklas Nordgren, who might be a scoring threat in 2021), he was destined to play a noticeable role in getting Washington its Cup. You’ll remember three of his five playoff points (one goal, two assists) coming when the lights shined brightest as we all pondered how often he must have “run over” Q’s “dog” to have himself relegated to a position in which trading him for a pick that won’t matter until people stop caring about the Hawks again seemed appealing. But you’ve read this crown of sonnets before, so what’s he doing now?

Since departing, Kempny has had two things break his way. First, he’s simply getting more playing time, primarily because he hasn’t been the Lionel Hutz to Todd Reirden’s (and Barry Trotz’s before him) Judge Snyder. Through 17 games this year, Kempny is averaging well over 18 minutes of ice time, by far the most of his career. Second, he’s played a good chunk of his time with John Carlson instead of whichever one-legged vagrant Q demanded he drag around in the three-legged race Ulf Samuelsson and his hairpiece called a defensive strategy in his time with the Hawks.

Over the past few games, though, Kempny has found himself away from Carlson, instead pairing with Matt Niskanen and taking more dungeon shifts than just about anyone expected. In the last four games in which they’ve spent most of their time together, they’ve started in the oZ 25%, 80%, 25%, and 0%, respectively. This weirdness seems like a consequence of the Caps’s hot and cold start to the year. It makes some sense, since dungeon starts have been Niskanen’s MO since he got to Washington and Kempny has always shown a penchant for possession. In theory, it should work.

Perhaps most interesting about Kempny’s rebirth in Washington is how he’s been used since arriving. Over his last five games, Kempny has played at least one minute and as much as 5:55 (against Arizona) on the PK, which was rare in his time in Chicago. Both Trotz and Reirden have tended to use Kempny more often in the defensive zone. In Kempny’s 31 games with the Hawks last year, he started in the offensive zone at an enviable 54+% rate. Upon arrival in Washington, those starts plummeted to around 43% over 22 games, which has continued into this year. And though that put a dent in his CF% (from 53+ to 47+), his high-danger-scoring-chances-for percentage stayed at a constant 52% after the trade, bolstering the argument that when Kempny was on the ice, scoring chances tended to crop up more often than not.

But for all the kisses we’ve blown Kempny’s way, there’s been the nagging fear that last year’s performance was more a dead cat bounce than a sign of tapped potential. And early on, you can use the primary stats to pad that fear. He’s got no goals and just three assists (one of which came in 3-on-3, so who fucking cares?) in 17 games. Though Kempny’s never really lit up the stat sheet, you wouldn’t be off in expecting a few more points from him having played a decent amount of time with Carlson and behind the Alex Ovechkin line. He’s also got 16 PIM early on, good for third on the team behind Evgeny Kuznetsov and Lars Eller. Though Kempny’s always had more snarl than his Werewolf of London hairdo would suggest, the 77 PIM pace doesn’t really bode well for a guy whose appeal lies in his puck possession abilities.

Still, when you look at the peripherals, it’s hard not to ask “What if?” A 50.3+ CF% despite starting in the oZ just 46.4% of the time is strong, especially since that’s never been how Kempny’s been used until now. His 2.1 CF% Rel trails only Christian Djoos and Carlson for Caps D-men, and they start in the oZ at respective 57+% and 54+% rates. And there’s still time for him to find his stroke, especially if he’s still shaking off rust from the concussion Robert “Big Pussy” Bortuzzo doled out in his efforts to elbow his way to the last slice of gabagool earlier in the year. At the very least, it’s safe to say that Kempny’s four-year, $2.5 million per against the cap and ability to skate and puck-handle without circumcising himself would look a lot better than Brandon “It’s the Zone-Defense Scheme’s Fault I Suck” Manning’s albatross (and given how bad he’s been, even two years at $2.5 million per is an albatross) any day of the week.

All of our eyes will be on Kempny in a sweater he wants to wear, wondering why he never got the shot we’d all love to see now.

Game #22 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #22 – Hawks vs. Capitals Q&A: Russian Machine Never Breaks…Unless It’s Drunk…Then Only Sorta

By Sam Fels 1699 0

RussianMachineNeverBreaks.com has been a quality Caps outlet for as long as we’ve been doing this. Follow them @RussianMachine. 

It’s odd for a Cup-winning team to lose its coach. What really happened with Barry Trotz and has it made any difference so far this year?

There’s probably less to the story of Trotz’s exit than meets the eye. Trotz’s contract was up at the end of last season, but he had a provision that would have extended him with a modest raise if he won the Cup. Trotz felt he deserved more than a modest raise, and the Caps felt they should not commit upwards of $20 million on a coach that would likely be fired before full term. Trotz had come very close to a firing this time last year, and Todd Reirden had been groomed to take over for a couple years now. It was an awkward split, but this is sort of the way it had to go.
The team is mostly the same, but they’re having massive trouble with team defense, especially on the PK. New AC Reid Cashman is reportedly in charge of the defense, and they’re certainly struggling so far.

Much like last year, Braden Holtby can’t seem to stop a sloth. He struggled last season, and then was excellent in the playoffs. What’s the deal here?

We think Holtby’s doing okay, but “okay” is sub par for Holtby. Instead of saving around 93% during 5v5 play, he’s barely saving above what we’d expect given his workload — and that’s the rub. Holtby’s job has gotten much harder in the last year: more shots and more of them from close up. The team needs to do slightly better for him, and then I suspect Holtby will climb back up to that 93% range.

Feel free to go ahead and taunt us about Michal Kempny. We’ve lost all feeling anyway. 

Kempny literally saved the Caps season. He replaced Madison Bowey in February and immediately transformed the blue line. He seemed just as happy about the change of scenery as we were. Flat out: the Caps could not have won the Cup without him. Thank you for sharing.
Actually, Kempny got a concussion in the preseason and hasn’t quite been on the ball yet this year. I hope he’ll get back to it soon.

With the defense this team still has, why do their metrics underwhelm?

A bunch of factors, but here are a few: they stink without the puck. They are way too passive on the forecheck, which leaves the potential of dangerous floaters like Ovechkin and Kuznetsov unexploited. Orlov and Niskanen seem to be having down years, and depth forward Andre Burakovsky can’t seem to get his scoring touch back after an injury-riddled season. Still, I expect the Caps to outscore their shot-attempt stats by a fair bit just on the strength of their shooting talent.

If the Caps went 0-82, would anyone around there really care?

In the words of JP at Japers Rink,
[}=[[[[[[[[[
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Game #22 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #22 – Hawks vs. Capitals Douchebag Du Jour: A Workplace Danger And A Union Problem

By Sam Fels 1773 0

There’s nothing we can say about Tom Wilson that we haven’t already. So let’s stick with the current problem.

Here’s the thing about this galactic dumbass. When he cleared out Oscar Sundqvist of the Blues in the preseason, one has to wonder what he was trying to accomplish. Wilson is no longer some knuckle-dragging grunt who is desperate to make an NHL roster. He should be, and probably even below that, but he’s not. His role on the Caps is well carved out. So there was nothing to be gained from turning into a meteor in a preseason game other than hurting someone. It certainly wasn’t for “the win.”

So either Wilson pathologically needs to hurt people, or he’s incapable of turning it off, even in the preseason. Neither is acceptable. Doubling down on this, Wilson obviously refuses to see what he did wrong and never has. So you can be sure this will happen again.

What’s galling on top of that is that the NHLPA seems to forget who it represents at all times. There’s this automatic trigger that they have to appeal every suspension and defend every player who get disciplined by the league. But the union also represents Sundqvist. And it represents every other player that Wilson has tried to paralyze or will try to maim in the future. There’s a greater good here.

Wilson simply makes it dangerous for everyone else to perform their job. While all NHL players accept that there’s a danger inherent to the job, what they don’t accept is someone acting outside the boundaries either because he’s a loon, an incomprehensible moron, or both. That’s not what they signed up for, and if you asked most of them off the record they’d probably tell you they’d like to see Wilson taken out behind the woodshed by the union’s leadership.

There is no other sport, or even industry, that would accept an employee running around putting the very livelihoods of their coworkers in jeopardy. Even football doesn’t really accept this kind of horseshit, or at least is getting there. At least football knows where its money is made.

Hockey can’t seem to get that right. Wilson’s original quarter-season suspension seemed like a start, but of course the union found their friendly arbitrator and got it reduced by almost half. And the lesson for Wilson is that he’ll always have someone to fight for him and he doesn’t have to correct anything.

The union should be fighting for all the members who are in danger thanks to this abomination of a player. Maybe they’ll get around to it when he does actually end a career, which he seems intent on doing.

 

Game #22 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Your Awards At The Quarter Mark

By Sam Fels 1831 0

Something I like to do at the landmarks of every season. Most of these are the players that should win certain awards on analytic bases. But they probably won’t. And remember, the “quarter-pole” is when there’s a quarter of the race or season left, and you’ll hear plenty make this mistake. Including Pat Foley on Sunday night, which should never happen considering who is broadcast partner is. Anyway…

Hart Trophy – MVP: Conor McDavid or Patrice Bergeron

The problem with MVP debates in every sport in this country is that they split between “Player Of The Year” candidates, which is what the award should be, and some nebulous, indefinable “What This Player Means To His Team” connotation. And no one is going to hear the other side, and I’m one of them. As it seems to me, “most valuable” means “has the most value,” it’s simple. And you’ll never be able to define what would happen if you remove a player from a team without any doubt. Call me a lunatic, but removing the best player from any team is probably going to irreparably damage it.

Anyway, Connor McDavid is the best player in the league. So you don’t have to overthink it. Yes, a section of Avalanche fans (ones with names like “Anthrax”) are going to come running with weaponry in hand about Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon, who should have won it last year. They have each other and Gabriel ThreeYaksAndADog. McDavid has been playing with Nugent-Hopkins and a various sculptures made of boogers.

You could also give this to Patrice Bergeron, and it will be the only time you can as he’s going to miss the next month. The Bruins have half of a roster and are still near the top of the Atlantic because Bergeron has kept their one line humming. See what happens to Brad Marchand now.

Vezina – Best Goalie: Pekka Rinne

I don’t like it any more than you, but he’s been the best goalie. He’s got the best overall SV% of any starter, the best SV% at even-strength of any starter, and the best difference between his expected save-percentage and his actual save-percentage at evens. That’s a clean sweep.

Selke – Best Defensive Forward: Jonathan Marchessault

Ah, here’s where the fun begins. Normally, the Selke goes to whatever forward scores a lot and everyone knows wins a lot of draws, or it just goes to Patrice Bergeron. And Bergeron is never a wrong choice, but we can do better this year. If you’re looking for best defensive forward, then you want someone who keeps attempts down, keeps chances down, keeps scoring down. And Marchessault, and his linemates William Karlsson and Reilly Smith, are doing that better than anyone right now.

Marchessault leads all forwards in Corsi-against per 60, shots-against per 60, and expected goals-against per 60. Karlsson and Smith aren’t far behind him, so you can claim that’s all the line’s work. But any defensive forward is going to be hard to separate from the rest of his line. Marchessault is starting 51% of his shifts in the offensive zone, which is one of the lower marks in the league among forwards who have amassed 300 minutes of even-strength time. Anze Kopitar actually starts the least amount of shifts in the offensive zone, and his metrics aren’t that far behind Marchessault’s, so if you want to make a case for him I’d listen. Actually, I won’t, because Kings fans have spent so much time spilling out their bladders about how they get no award attention that they should all be punted into the ocean.

This award never goes to a winger though, otherwise Marian Hossa would have at least one. But if hockey voting is going to catch up to the rest of the world, it should. Marchessault is your clubhouse leader.

Norris Trophy – Best D-man: Justin Faulk

Yeah, that’s fucking right. I’m gonna hand this to a guy with just eight points. Because I’m fucking crazy. TALK TO ME WHN YOU’RE ON MY BLOCK.

The Norris suffers from a lack of definition as well. It almost always goes to the blue-liner who scores the most. And then there’s a nutcase faction that wants it to be the Rod Langway Award (James Mirtle’s term), which means figuring out who the best defensive defenseman is. And we can do that, but stick with me.

So you basically have to synthesize the two. A d-man’s job is over all 200 feet of the ice these days, so they have to be able to do both. And Faulk is doing it better than anyone.

Faulk has the league’s best Corsi-percentage and expected-goals percentage. He has the lowest Corsi, shots, and expected goals against per 60. While he plays on a possession monster of a team, he’s still well above the team-rate in all of this.

The knock is going to be the eight points. Fine. Faulk is shooting 1.7%, and he’s a career 6% shooter. That goals-total is going to shoot up. Faulk’s major problem is that his team is only shooting 6.8% while he’s on the ice, and given the lack of front-line scoring on the Canes, that might not improve that much to vault his assist totals to where anyone will notice him for this award.

But that’s out of Faulk’s hands. The things he can control, he’s dominated. And if we’re forward thinking and living in a world where Jacob deGrom wins a Cy Young with 10 wins and everyone is like, “Well of course he did because he was the best pitcher and the Mets are a Soviet era cartoon,” then we can do better with hockey’s awards.

 

Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – November 19th

By Sam Fels 1182 0

First Screen Viewing

Lightning vs. Predators – 7pm

Well if you talk to anyone clad in yellow, this is your Final preview. If you talk to anyone who’s not, they’ll probably tell you that any dip in goaltending from Rinne and Saros will see the Preds short on scoring. But that’s another discussion for another time. This is another clash between two of the league’s Fab Five, so it’s worth seeing. The Bolts have won their last two but have had a slightly leaky problem (that happens to men of a certain age) given that Andrie Vasilevskiy is on the shelf for weeks and Louis Domingue is Louis Domingue. The Preds had lost three in a row but were able to take their free spot on the bingo card with the visit of the Kings on Saturday (it’s what you’re supposed to do to the Kings). The Preds clocked the Bolts pretty hard at the beginning of the month with a 4-1 win in Tampa. So enjoy the last one of these. Unless they play in June. Which they won’t.

Second Screen Viewing

Blue Jackets vs. Leafs – 6pm

Did you know the Jackets are 12-6-2? I didn’t, and I’m guessing you didn’t either. And I bet you’re asking yourself if it matters that they are. And whether you should care or not. And I’m fairly sure the answer to both of those is a hard no. They’re first in the Metro because someone has to be, and the Penguins have decided to not care and the Caps have decided to still be drunk and the Flyers have decided to still be the Flyers and all the New York area teams blow and can’t decide what they are. It doesn’t matter because the Jackets two best players are already checking out property listings elsewhere, and one or both might have to go in the middle of the season to sink the whole thing. And Torts is bitching about how much he hates the league and everyone in it. All of this sounds like something that will see the Jackets balloon sink at some point. Anyway, they play the Leafs. Who are definitely not sinking even without Matthews. Somehow this is all a referendum on William Nylander and the economic system at large. Whatever.

Other Games

Stars vs. Rangers – 6pm

Sabres vs. Penguins – 6pm

Capitals vs. Canadiens – 6:30

Panthers vs. Senators – 6:30

Kings vs. Blues – 7pm

Knights vs. Flames – 8pm

Jets vs. Canucks – 9pm