Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – November 8th

By Sam Fels 1130 0

First Screen Viewing

Sharks vs. Stars – 7:30

If the Stars had anyone other than their top line that could score once a week, they’d probably be making noise about crowding into the Jets and Predators booth at the top of the Central. They have one of the better goals-against marks in the league, and yet can’t find anyone else to support Seguin, Radulov, and Benn. They’re also ahead of the Hawks, and if they have any fantasies about getting back into the playoff picture the Stars are probably a team they’re going to have to overhaul. The Sharks are the Sharks, and while they’re on top of the Pacific, and probably to stay, their results haven’t quite matched up to the metrics that suggest they’re utterly destroying everyone on a nightly basis.

Second Screen Viewing

Islanders vs. Lightning – 6:30

Wait, the Islanders don’t suck to high heaven? Well no, they do. They don’t score, they give up a ton of shots, but Thomas Greiss and Robin Lehner are stopping everything they see and some things they don’t, so the results are there. It won’t last at this rate, but whatever keeps Nosferatu Lamiorello in a job for comedy’s sake is all right by me. The Lightning are great. That’s all.

Other Games

Canucks vs. Bruins – 6pm

Oilers vs. Panthers – 6pm

Coyotes vs. Flyers – 6pm

Sabres vs. Canadiens – 6:30

Knights vs. Senators – 6:30

Wild vs. Kings – 9:30

Everything Else

Game #16 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Preview: It’s A New Day, Yes It Is

By Sam Fels 1655 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hurricanes 6-7-2   Hawks 6-6-3

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

HE HIT THE FUCKIN’ BULL, DIDN’T HE?: Canes Country, Section 328

However you feel about Joel Quenneville‘s firing, tonight marks the most interest-laden regular season game in quite some time around these parts. Anyone with the slightest inkling of Hawks give-a-shit is going to want to tune in and see whatever changes might be visible (also, Eddie O’s pregame take should be must-see viewing, as well as the verbal wheel-poses and one-legged crows he and Foley will perform trying to air their grievances without directly indicting their bosses. I’m almost sorry I’ll be in the building. Almost).

As far as things you can identify on the ice tonight, they might be scarce. Jeremy Colliton himself has said there isn’t really time for a systematic overhaul, and that there will only be tweaks to start with. As we said yesterday, the big things to watch for, if any, are how the Hawks try to break out of the zone. Whether they’re still trying to make two or three passes to do so or if they just go with a GTFO-method. The other will be how they defend, as we’ve seen them try to be more pressure-based with very mixed results, to be kind. Colliton has made noise about being just as aggressive but doing so farther up the ice. We’ll see if that materializes and what they do in their own end. Right now we’re just asking for four guys not to end up on one side of the zone and all puck-watching. Baby steps to the elevator, people.

As far as lineup decisions, Colliton has told John Hayden, Brandon Manning, and SuckBag Johnson to do one tonight, and you certainly can’t fault him on the latter two. The difference between Hayden or Andreas Martinsen is somewhere around negligible, so we’re not going to hold our breath until we turn purple on that one. Sadly, it appears that Nick Schmaltz will remain on a wing tonight, with Artem Anisimov and Patrick Kane, but again…baby steps to the elevator.

You might look at the Carolina Hurricanes’ record and conclude that this is a pretty nice landing for a first-time coach making his debut in front of what will be an at-best skeptical UC crowd. This would be a mistake. While the Canes’ record sucks, and for the usual reason in that they can’t hit a bull in the ass with a snow-shovel when it comes to scoring, their metrics suggest this is a dominant even-strength time. They’re running 60%+ in both Corsi and expected-goals, and lead the league in both. They give up the least amount of attempts per game, and are 4th in xGA/60 as well. If their shooting-percentage were to curve up in any way, this is a team poised to rocket up the standings. But it seems like we say that every year and the Canes still end up just south of a tropical depression.

One thing that might keep that from happening is the Canes just don’t have a premier scorer on the roster. Sebastien Aho might claim to be one on more days than not, and Andrei Svhechnikov was drafted to be that but is 18. And that’s about it. This team is never going to shoot the lights out, which might betray their possession-dominance. This is why they’re the front-runner to relieve the Leafs of their William Nylander conundrum. They desperately need someone of that quality and have the wealth of blue-liners to make that happen.

The other constant virus that brings the Canes down is goaltending, and that’s no different this year. Scott Darling started the year injured and in his two games back has been iffy. Neither Petr “Try Try Try To Understand He’s A” Mrazek Man or Curtis McElhinney, even with the statue of him going up in Toronto at the moment, have grabbed the job with two hands in Darling’s absence. They’ve kept an opponent under three goals just once in the past six, and that was to the Islanders who are similarly bull-ass-and-shovel disabled. And seeing as how they shoot, three goals is about the number they can’t overcome.

So yeah, on the surface this could really look bad if it goes sideways on Colliton tonight. But the Canes are the exact kind of team that Quenneville’s Hawks found to be a nightmare the past two years. They’re fast and play high-pressure, and there’s no give in that speed anywhere in the lineup. Q’s methods were undone by teams like this. It comes too early to find out if Colliton has better answers, but the Hawks won’t get anywhere if they can’t figure it out against teams like this. The good thing is the Canes lack the firepower to consistently punish you for mistakes or simply being on the receiving end of a possession-mauling, nor can they keep you out from the limited chances they surrender. How the Hawks surpass the Canes forecheck will give you an idea of where we’re headed with Colliton at the wheel.

That’s where the Hawks will likely get THE NEW ERA off to the right start tonight. Corey Crawford getting back to the first couple appearances of the year, and their superior scoring talent burying the fewer chances they get at a better rate than the Canes do with the higher amount they’re certain to have.

Whatever you thought the past was, it’s gone now. This is where the Hawks pivot, for better or worse. You can’t say you’re not curious.

 

Game #16 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineup s& How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #16 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Spotlight: Rod The Bod

By Sam Fels 1932 0

In some ways, the Carolina Hurricanes vacant coaching job was an odd one. It seems easy on the surface. They haven’t made the playoffs in 10 years, they hadn’t been close to them in just about as long, and anything that gets close would be seen as an improvement and buy any new coach more time and esteem. It’s hardly a pressure-bearing hockey market, and there’s certainly a few pieces around those parts that you would think any candidate could improve upon.

And yet, under the surface, there didn’t seem to be a lot of places the Canes could go. Under previous coach Bill Peters, metrically the Canes were one of the better teams around for years. They always ran a top-five Corsi-percentage, and generally were ok in expected-goals. While those don’t automatically lead to wins, it’s about the only thing a coach and team can control and are generally good indicators of where your results are going to go.

What undid Peters was never having a goalie that wasn’t turning into surrealist paintings in the crease, and a lack of genuine finishers in their top-six. That didn’t appear like it was going to change this season. Scott Darling was still here, and Petr Mrazek or Curtis McElhinney weren’t exactly causing Homer-esque sagas to be written about them (well actually they are in Toronto about the latter but that’s what they do up there, other than store their own urine in jars and then film videos in front of them). While Andrei Svechnikov projects to be the Canes first, genuine top-line scorer since Eric Staal was young and spritely, it would be a lot to ask of him to be that at 18.

Rod Brind’Amour has found a way.

While it’s only 15 games, somehow “Rod The Bod” has not just improved the Canes’ metrics, he’s vaulted them up and over the mountain. The Canes Corsi-percentage has gone from 54.4% last year to 61.3% this year.  Their xGF% has gone from 53.1 to 61.1. These are massive gains for a team that was already on the right side of the ledger. Both lead the league.

What helped to undo Peters was that for all the attempts they generated, he turned all of his d-men into cowboys to the point you could probably here a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ and spittin’ on the ice, and maybe even a calf or two got loose in the defensive zone. Brind’Amour has been able to quiet that down and give his goalies more of a chance. They give up six attempts per game less than last year, their xGA/60 has gone from 2.29 to 2.11.

He’s also been able to settle down his defense. Getting Dougie Hamilton to play with instead of Noah Hanifin is certainly a nice break. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary has been Justin Faulk. Faulk has been nestled on the second-pairing for a while in Raleigh, and Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin did the mine-sweeping. But under Peters, Faulk had become something of a Tasmanian Devil character, shotgunning everywhere around the ice while not really caring about the vacancies and openings that were developing wherever he wasn’t. This season, Faulk has seen his attempts against down by 10 per game, his goals-against per game cut in half, and his xGA/60 has been cut by 25%. He’s still generating as much at the other end. To be fair, perhaps Calvin de Haan is a more stable partner than a still very young Hanifin, but Brind’Amour has unlocked something here.

However, the Canes are still knee-deep at the bottom of the Metro Division, and that’s because Brind’Amour has run up against one of the same problems. The Canes can’t score. They’re offensively agoraphobic, especially that space between the posts. They have the third-worst SH% in the league at 5.8. That’s way worse than their barely-7% of last year. And you can coach whatever system you want, but there just aren’t any natural-born finishers here. Maybe Aho? He’s playing center now and not in the same finishing positions. Svechnikov will get there one day, but that day isn’t today. And that’s about it.

Still, all Brind’Amour has to hope for is getting back to that 7% number from last year, which isn’t even that good. Given the amount of shots the Canes are generating at evens and the improvement from last year, that low SH% would see them average 2.8 goals at evens per game. For frame of reference, that would ranks 6th in the league, right next to Tampa’s 2.81 per 60 at ES.

Waiting for the percentages to even out has been a favorite pastime in Carolina recently. But now they just need them to rebound to the still-unlucky level they’ve been, and they could shoot up the standings.

 

Game #16 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineup s& How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #15 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Q&A: Section 328

By Sam Fels 1340 0

Section 328 are the rabid section of the Canes fandom. You can follow them on Twitter @Section328. 

 

Game #16 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineup s& How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #16 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Anyone Against The Canes Celebration

By Sam Fels 1312 0

Ok, we’re a little sick of the “Skol” clap. It’s ripped off from Iceland, and anything Vikings fans do obviously is for the truly bewildered and dorky. But hey, it’s a minor crime.

However, the team-wide celebration of wins, whether it’s crashing into the boards or something else, that we’re on board for. Because hockey needs personality in any way it can get it. It’s a game after all. Games are supposed to be fun. And the Canes could use anything that connects them further to their fans. Wins in the NHL aren’t easy to come by. They should be celebrated.

But you know where this is going, especially if the Canes get near the playoffs. One night, after beating a Canadian team you can be sure, some crusty, white-haired jerk-ass on Rogers who hasn’t had a decent shit in four years is going to go off on this as classless, or not the “hockey way.” Because there is no fun in hockey. There is no personality, and if there is it means you don’t care about the team. And the team is all that matters, remember? That’s why no one can read.

We would love to see a league where every team has their own celebration tradition, not just waving their stick at center ice before retreating to the dressing room, except for one guy who gets pulled aside for a “How about these fans?!” interview. Have one team light a stick on fire. Have another do “Thriller.” A fake sword fight. All of it. One team trying to one-up the other. That’s how you get on Sportscenter. That’s how you get people to notice.

Which is why it’ll never happen.

 

Game #16 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineup s& How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

What Can Jeremy Colliton Do?

By Sam Fels 2675 0

Even with four days off, there’s hardly any time to pivot from the end of the greatest coaching career the Hawks have ever seen to the era of Jeremy Colliton, whatever it might be. Maybe you shouldn’t look to bury your news on Election Day, hmmm? Another discussion for another time.

The Hawks may still be in a state of shock, but the schedule kicks into gear again tomorrow night and it doesn’t let up after that. The Hawks won’t have more than two days off in a row until Christmas, and only two days off in a row twice in that span. It’s 24 games in 45 days, and at the end of it the Hawks will have established that they can in fact be in the playoffs or it will be over and thoroughly so.

So there isn’t a lot of time to implement whatever changes the Hawks and Colliton want (and we can only pray these are the same, though they have to be). So what can Colliton do?

Up the speed: The roster isn’t going to change, so this isn’t going to become a good defensive team anytime soon. The biggest change I think we’ll see with the Hawks is them getting up the ice as fast as possible. Help the defense by not playing it as much. The Quenneville Breakout (TM) will be consigned to the trash. I think you’ll see Hawks d-men putting the puck off the glass or chipping it over the opposing d-men or attempting stretch passes far more. And that’s with two Hawks forwards bursting out of the zone instead of one. One waiting along the half-boards to either squeeze it out along the boards or hit a moving center in the middle of the ice is something you won’t see a lot of. Get the puck into space, let your fast forwards skate onto it, and try and score on the rush. Get into the offensive zone before teams can get into shooting lanes.

Even if you don’t score, you can cause chaos off the ensuing rebounds and loose pucks that further prevent teams from collapsing into their slot and keeping everything to the outside. This will lessen the responsibility on the d-men who don’t have to worry about options and tough passes on the breakout and can just get pucks to space instead of sticks. It might not help them much actually defending, but the idea is that the puck will spend more time in dangerous spots on the other side of the ice.

Back pressure: The hope is that this new, faster style of attack will lead the Hawks to losing the puck less and less around the blue lines. This has been a huge problem, because over the past season and a month now you’re awfully familiar with teams getting to use the neutral zone as a launchpad with no Hawks forwards in the picture and 3-on-2s all day steaming into the Hawks’ zone like a Mongolian horde. Or they turn it over at their own line, with forwards caught heading into the neutral zone, and it looks like the last scene in “Inside Out” when the “Girl” alarm goes off in the boy’s head (this is also what happens in my head when confronted by a girl)e.

The Hawks defense can’t really step up beyond their blue line if there aren’t forwards supplying the back pressure to crash those puck-carriers into the rocks. This was a Q staple, and something the Hawks need to find a way back to. They can’t do that when they’re turning it over from the opposing circles and above. If they play faster into the offensive zone, get more space, and force teams to start their forays forward from deeper, they can. Again, this will relieve some pressure on a blue line that really isn’t up to it.

Load up the first PP unit, fuck the rest: This seems so simplistic. Your first power play unit is Patrick Kane, with three right-handed shots staring at him from across the ice. Whether that’s Seabrook or Jokiharju at the blue line, no one fucking cares. Top Cat at the other circle, because he also has the ability to send that pass back to Kane for the same results. Schmaltz in the middle of the box. Toews bouncing between the slot and behind the goal line. This gives Kane all sorts of options and forces the PK into making decisions and leaving something open. Leave them out there for 90 seconds at least each opportunity. You don’t have enough for two killer power play units anyway, so give the first one all the chance in the world.

Oh, and take that “Push ‘Em Back” entry and push it back into your ass. Thank you.

Put Schmaltz at center: Welp, already boned this.

Seriously, if the Hawks’ intention here is to go plaid all the time, then it’s hard to know how Artem Anisimov can fit into that. That said, the Saad-Kampf-Fortin line has a ton of speed and defensive know-how, and if the idea is to get them into space more and more that could be fun. So for the first few games, I guess it’s worth seeing.

Communication: As we said on the podcast, this seems to be the #1 thing the Hawks want to change. And it’s not surprising to hear that a host of young players were on edge because they didn’t know why they were in a certain spot in the lineup or out of it altogether. No longer will answers to the press of “We need more,” suffice. The Hawks clearly need to maximize Kahun, Schmaltz, Jokharju, Gustafsson (who’s on that young really), Forsling when he’s up, Kampf, and Sikura when he arrives (which I’m sure is shortly). Having them feel comfortable, appreciated, and with clear tasks only helps that.

If Colliton can do that and the Hawks still fall short, we’ll know exactly where the problems are (I mean we already do but you get it).

Everything Else

MIldewed And Smoldering, Fundamental Differing: A Timeline Of The Quenneville-Bowman Schism

By Sam Fels 3386 0

Whatever the Hawks say, it’s been an open secret to just about everyone in the league and those following the Hawks that Joel Qunneville and Stan Bowman didn’t see eye to eye. Everyone got past it because the Hawks were so successful. When that stopped, this is what you get. And their disagreements spilled everywhere. You didn’t have to have inside information to know this, because you could see how the team was deployed. I’m going to do this mostly from memory, but this is a rough outline of how things went that led to today.

2010-2011: There wasn’t much to be done here. The season before had gone so swimmingly, aside from Quenneville starting the season with John Madden as a Patrick Kane’s center. But that was Tallon’s signing, and it only last two or three games. So we move to this particular season, and after the roster was gutted due to the cap. And there wasn’t much Q could do when half or more of his team spend about seven minutes sober. Duncan Keith admitted he wasn’t totally focused during this season, and I guess if you wanted to you could pin it on Q to have run a tighter ship. But that would have been awfully tough.

If you want to look deeper, the immediate promotion of Nick Leddy to pair with Duncan Keith didn’t make a lot of sense. The acquisition of Michael Frolik was a tad confusing, as he was billed as a center, which came as news to him. Q tried him there but quickly moved him to wing, which is what he was and is. He bounced all over the lineup. Marcus Kruger came over at the end of the season, which is when “The Plan All Along” was born. This season went about as it should.

Oh wait, did I mention John Scott on the power play in the playoffs? Yeah, there was that.

2011-2012: This is where the real trouble starts. The year started with Q moving Patrick Kane to center. You could definitely argue that there were few other options, as this was when Patrick Sharp basically decided he didn’t want to play center anymore, Dave Bolland wasn’t cut out for it, and anyone else they tried was pants. This was the offseason that Stan brought it Andrew Brunette, Steve Montador, and Jamal Mayers. Montador started as a scratch and on the wing. Eventually Toews got hurt and Sharp and Kane basically had to play center, and it was better than you remember. Montador was never a fit and then had his devastating head injuries, which had fatal consequences. Andrew Shaw came up in the middle of the year. Niklas Hjalmarsson was a disaster. Johnny Oduya came in midseason, but he wasn’t much better, especially in the playoffs.

You’ll also recall it was in the spring of this season that Stan sent Barry Smith into practice and onto the staff to fix a dysfunctional power play (sounds familiar) which did not go over well. Nor should it, because this was as clear a nads-cutting as you can get.

It was the summer following this season that Q nearly either was fired and went to Montreal or just left for Montreal. The Hawks were bounced for the second straight year in the 1st round. In exit interviews, the players made it clear to Bowman that they wanted Mike Kitchen out, because they thought he was A. an idiot (he is) B. a mole for Q (possibly) or C. both. Stan wanted to fire Kitchen, but Q was going to take the fall for his guy. Eventually, McDonough came down and made it clear what the lines o the authority where. He hired the GM, the GM hired the coach, the coach hired his assistants. In a “fuck you” to the players, Q fired their guy Mike Haviland and replaced him with his guy, a for-certain moron Jamie Kompon.

2013: And these problems could have really fissured if every single Hawk didn’t have a career year in the lockout season-in-a-can. But they did. The only mark you could find was it taking Daniel Carcillo to blow his knee out again to get Brandon Saad into the lineup, but once he was there he never came out.

Sure, Michal Handzus was over-promoted, but he actually did play pretty well that spring. Bickell had the playoff run that got him that contract. Whatever issues the coach and GM had were washed away in confetti.

2013-2014: Again, there are only little things here. Starting a tradition, a failing tradition mind, of bringing former players back, Kris Versteeg was re-acquired in November. Andrew Shaw and Handzus bounced between taking the #2 center role, because Brandon Pirri never grabbed it even though Stan made it clear he wanted him to. This was also the first season that Brent Seabrook was pretty damn bloated. It was the season that ended when Q tried to steal an overtime shift with Handzus, Bollig, and Versteeg on an offensive zone draw after an icing in overtime. You know the rest.

2014-2015: Brad Richards was signed to finally anchor the #2 center role that had been in darkness for years. But it took ten games or more to get him there because Q insisted on putting Shaw there. Everything went just about swimmingly until Patrick Kane got hurt and missed the last six weeks. Teuvo Teravainen was called up for good in his absence. He bounces between center and wing and various lines. Antoine Vermette was acquired, and he had the same fate. Kimmo Timonen was actually dead. This was the spring that Q scratched Teuvo and Vermette in Game 3 against Anaheim. They went on to score four of the biggest goals the rest of the way to win a Cup.

2015-2016: It was basically over after this. Brandon Saad was traded because he got expensive and the coach was never sold, and this was the height of Q getting personnel say. Johnny Oduya left and proceeded to age 80 years. Kane and Panarin dragged the Hawks to a playoff spot but Toews was starting his decline and the defense never found anyone to replace Oduya. It was the full TVR Experience. Fleischmann and Weise were acquired at the deadline at the cost of Phillip Danault, and both were scratches before the season was out. Hawks bounced in first round.

2016-2017: Hawks finish first but are gassed by the time the playoffs roll around and a terrible matchup with Nashville. Defense is still thin and slowing, and Oduya’s reacquisition didn’t come close to helping with that. Hjalmarsson can’t keep up with the Preds. Toews is still nowhere and is eaten alive by Ryan Johansen (you’ll be shocked to hear Johansen was playing for a contract then). Schmaltz, Hartman, Forsling, and other kids can’t seem to find a home in the lineup.

And of course this led to the trade of Hjalmarsson right from under Q’s nose, as well as Panarin. This was the organization giving control back to Bowman, which is where the trail to today basically really gets going.