Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – October 27th

By Sam Fels 1104 0

First Screen Viewing

Jets vs. Leafs – 6pm

While you’ll probably be out in a Halloween costume you paid too much for at some party where some or more are taking it way too seriously, there is some hockey around. It’s the return fixture of the only All-Canadian matchup I can remember ever gracing NBCSN on a Wednesday night. And it lived up to it, so no reason to think this one won’t either. These are two of the best three teams in the league. and the last time they’ll meet before any possible Final that will have Gary Bettman throwing himself out of his window. Even without William Nylander, the offensive force on display here is pretty jarring. Enjoy this one as your pregame drinking background.

Second Screen Viewing

Canadiens vs. Bruins – 6pm

Another classic rivalry, and the first time these two have met this year. I don’t buy the Canadiens for a second but they’re 5-2-2 and the Bruins are right there with them, so they’re at least feeling themselves a bit at the moment. Andrew Shaw will be a healthy scratch which is hilarious. Montreal’s underlying numbers suggest this isn’t a fluke, and everyone seems to think Claude Julien is a good coach and maybe this will prove it. Not that this is where Boston will have its focus tonight, assuming anyone is still awake.

Other Games

Capitals vs. Flames – 3pm

Sabres vs. Blue Jackets – 6pm

Avalanche vs. Wild – 7pm

Lightning vs Coyotes – 8pm

Penguins vs. Canucks – 9pm

Everything Else

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Blues Preview: I Never Did Like It All That Much And One Day The Axe Just Fell

By Sam Fels 1750 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 6-2-2   Blues 2-4-3

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: WGN

MIKE MATHENY’S NEW PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT: St. Louis Gametime

As you’ll have seen/will see in our Q&A with grade-school dropouts and Missouri state congressmen St. Louis Gametime, games against the Hawks tend to be watershed moments for Blues coaches. Not only is it how the fanbase defines their tenure, but they tend to signal the beginning/end of their time behind the Blues bench.

That appears to be the case against tonight, and Mike Yeo is basically having the black hood put over his head and the rope placed around his neck. All that’s left is for the players, yet again, to signal to the hangman to drop the floor. “This Time It Will Be Different” is coming off getting it shoved up them sideways by the Jackets at home on Thursday, where they gave up a touchdown and the PAT. They’ve got two wins on the season, and are rooted to the bottom of the Central. Their underlying numbers blow too, though I wouldn’t be convinced the Blues’ front office pays attention to that kind of thing, mostly because I’m not convinced the Blues’ front office can read. Gives them a nice symbiosis with the fanbase, you have to admit.

There are so many factors here contributing to the Blues state. One, it’s a wonky roster. They have some of the same problems the Hawks have. Their defense just isn’t that quick and isn’t that good, and that’s in a conference that moves toward hyper-speed more and more. Yeo’s directive was to play a more open, expressive, and faster style than Hitchcock, but that’s hard do when the defense isn’t really built for it. What the Blues don’t have is a world-class goaltender to bail them out nor as much top line scoring as they need to counteract their defense. Especially with Vladimir Tarasenko off to something of a slow start (and his -7 is a touch unsightly after nine games).

Whatever their give-a-shit levels or their desire to get yet another coach turfed, the biggest problems remain in net. Overall, the Blues are getting a .895 SV% at evens. You’re not going anywhere with that. They could have cracking analytic numbers and still be bottoming out because their goalies can’t get in front of a manatee in the sand. This seems to be a problem they want to have, because they keep foisting Jay Gallon the team like your grandmother and her coworker’s child because you’re not getting any younger! (Just me?) There are only three teams that have given up more goals than the Blues.

So tonight seems to be a nexus for the Blues. Either they’ll show some actual professional pride against a team that they still consider their biggest rival, realize it’s still quite early, and they could turn things around with a feel-good win. Or they’ve completely checked out, as seems to be their way, stand aside and watch it crumble so they can get another solution and the Hawks will gleefully drive the final nail in Mike Yeo’s coffin and the Blues will once again be trying to change course. It was ever thus.

Things are much smoother on the SS Westside Hockey Club. They’ve won three of four, are coming off two confidence-building wins against hanging curveballs Anaheim and the Rangers. There have been signs of life from Brandon Saad, there might be an actual third line with Alex Fortin, SuckBag Johnson, and Nick Schmaltz, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Erik Gustafsson and Brent Seabrook have been pretty good when not under serious duress. Corey Crawford looks like Corey Crawford, which of course is the biggest thing.

So it could be quite the atmosphere in Whatever-The-Fuck-It-Is-Now Center. The natives got awfully restless in that loss to the Jackets on Thursday. They’re already aching for change. And it’s a Saturday night against the Hawks, which we know they get just about as gassed up for as the ol’ Family Pit Fight out back to decide who will get Brutus The Mule this year. An early Hawks lead could turn it pretty poisonous. Or the Blues will come out flying in response to being embarrassed (if they’re capable of such a thing anymore) on Thursday and it’ll be the normal bullshit the Hawks find down there. What it won’t be is boring, you can be sure of that.

Again, this is a pretty soft part of the schedule. The unimpressive Oilers await tomorrow, and then a jaunt to Western Canada and its various wayward children on the road. It’s really not until around Thanksgiving that the Hawks face what you’d call a “gauntlet,” and with the way the rest of this division looks you need to grab every point while you can when you can. Ruthlessness is vital, and putting Mike Yeo out of his misery is part of that.

 

Game #11 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Blues Spotlight: Dead Yeo Walking

By Sam Fels 1776 0

In some ways, it was never going to work out for Mike Yeo in St. Louis. One, the guy who replaced him Minnesota, Bruce Boudreau, has gotten better regular season results with basically the same roster that Yeo had. That always colors a view of a coach.

Second, and more importantly, the whole “succession” plan with Ken Hitchock was doomed from the start. When you tell a team that their head coach’s replacement is standing right next to him on the bench every night, you can’t be surprised when they’re not totally invested in what the coach is selling. Especially when it’s the Blues and were aching for an excuse to quit on Hitch yet again. But by then that lack of give-a-shit and bad habits are already entrenched. You don’t get the bounce of a fresh voice when they’ve been listening to that voice already and it was the one they knew was coming anyway. There isn’t a surprise or a lift on a new atmosphere at work.

Third, Yeo has been saddled with Jake Allen, a slow roster in a league that’s speeding up rapidly, and a lack of scoring depth. His charge was to play a style that was a little more free than what Hitch was running that killed everyone’s soul. Except the Blues haven’t really had the horses, especially with Robby Fabbri‘s (or Fabby Robbri’s) and Jaden Schwartz‘s injury problems. The acquisitions of Tyler Bozak and  Ryan O’Reilly was meant to address this, except Bozak apparently showed up with his give-a-shit still in Toronto to stay.

Still, after all this time, Yeo has only coached one team to 100 points in a season. That was 2014-2015, which got the Wild a second-round sweep by the Hawks. And that was on the back of Devan Dubnyk suddenly becoming a firebreather. It’s not a very impressive record at all, even if his teams consistently have finished around 95 points…that is before they quit on him. Yeo maxed out what he had in Minnesota, and he did it by trying everything. He was the players’ coach. He was the hard-ass. They pressed and harried up the ice. Sometimes they trapped. It seemed at the time like Yeo was trying to keep opponents guessing. Now it seems like he was just trying everything until something clicked.

Until the Wild realized he had played every card, and waited him out. Based on the Blues giving up a touchdown to the Jackets at home on Thursday, the Blues don’t seem to be too far behind. Whenever the axe comes down on Yeo, it’ll probably be due to decisions that came too late. Jay Bouwmeester hasn’t been a top-four d-man in three years at least. Only this year has he been relegated to the third pairing. Vince Dunn is finally getting a look with Alex Pietrangelo. Carter Hutton was clearly playing better than Allen last year. He got two starts in the season’s final month as the Blues tumbled out of the playoff spots.

That was combined with things out of Yeo’s control. First off, the directive to play Allen might have come from above, because they forced him on Hitchcock as well. They traded Paul Stastny out from under him at the deadline. Alex Steen got old in a hurry, and players like Patrik Berglund and Vlad Sobotka had flattered to deceive for years before last year. Yeo wasn’t the first nor will he be the last to not get that much out of them.

Once again, Yeo has been trying everything, which signifies a lack of answers and desperation than a confidence in one’s decisions and lineups that stability would. Bouwmeester has swung from healthy scratch to third pairing to top pairing in the span of a week. Vinnie Dunn has done the same. Edmundson has played on all pairings. Lines have been shuffled with the kids in and out every night.

And this is still mostly the same roster that torpedoed Hitchcock. At some point, it can’t be the coach anymore. Maybe someone can come in and get this team to play at a pace to match Winnipeg and Nashville and Colorado. It’s at least what the Hawks and Stars are attempting. There isn’t that much time. While the Blues do boast some kids they like, Tarasenko, Schwartz, O’Reilly, and Schenn are in their primes right now. Pietrangelo is 29. There are some years left, but not that many.

Yeo seems like the kind of coach to max out a team that’s looking to scrape into the playoffs with limited talent. Maybe the first coach in a rebuild. But the Blues signaled with their trade for Ryan O’Reilly and signing of Bozak that they were after more.

Then again, firing Yeo seems to have worked out ok for the Wild. Maybe it’s the key log the Blues have been looking for their entire existence.

 

Game #11 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Blues Q&A: How Can We Miss You If You Never Leave?

By Sam Fels 1717 0

Believe us, we’re even more sick of them than you are. But with Hawks-Blues games being crammed into the first month, we have to put up with @StLouisGametime together. Just close your eyes and think of a happier place, and soon it will be over. 

 

When’s Mike Yeo getting fired? Is it tomorrow? It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?

Here’s a fun story. When Andy Murray took over for Mike Kitchen as head coach of the Blues, his first game behind the bench was against the Hawks. When Murray got replaced by Davis Payne, his first game was against the Hawks. When Payne was cut loose, Ken Hitchcock’s first game was against the Hawks. You remember Joel Quenneville used to be the Blues head coach, right? His last game with the Blues was a Hawks game. And here we are, Mike Yeo, embattled Blues head coach, piloting a quickly sinking ship and it’s a Hawks game. Too bad Craig Berube, the associate coach who has experience stepping in mid-season, wasn’t hired yesterday. So Yeo could follow in Q’s footsteps and make tonight his last game. When they beat Toronto a week ago, Yeo said after the game he didn’t know why his team played better. After Thursday’s blowout loss, he said something to the effect of the Blues focused a lot on the end goal for the Blues and not the process of becoming a team. That’s some mumbo jumbo bullshit that frankly sounds like an indictment of his own coaching. He’s tried to be nice. He’s tried to be mean. Nothing works. Maybe this is telling: when the axe finally falls and a new guy is in charge, Alexander Steen and Alex Pietrangelo will still be Blues. Petro was a young guy just coming in, but Steen was established when he came to St. Louis. The next guy will be their fifth head coaches in St. Louis (Murray, Payne, Hitchcock, Yeo, Berube). If Berube is only the interim and they name another permanent head coach, that would be six. These are two of the leaders of the team. Maybe they shouldn’t be.

When’s Jake Allen getting fired? Is it tomorrow? It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?

Jake Allen has to fucking love Mike Yeo. He probably offers him a discreet over the pants HJ on the team plane as a thank you. Because hardly anyone is talking about Jake Allen in St. Louis right now. In eight games this season, his goals-against average is 3.93. He’s pushed his career GAA to 2.53. If he tries hard enough (doesn’t try enough?), he could double his career average this season. Only one more goal a game. And I think he can do it. He’s stopped only 87.6 percent of the shots he’s seen this season. Those numbers would get most goaltenders put on waivers and then not claimed. Of course Allen is in the second year of a four-year deal paying him more than $4 million a year. It’s not Brent Seabrook bad, but even Cam Ward wonders how Allen got that contract. But like I said, no one is even mentioning Allen as an anchor pulling the Blues to the bottom of the ocean. So no, he’s not getting fired tomorrow. Even if he deserves it. He’s problem 1B on a list as long as my arm. And I have long arms.

Why is Vince Dunn terrible this year? Is he getting fired?

Vince Dunn is not terrible. You see, Brad Shaw was an assistant coach here forever. All those coaches I mentioned above, he outlasted almost all of him. He was in charge of the defensemen. Now he’s in Columbus. And Mike Van Ryn is the assistant in charge of the defensemen. I’m sure he has a system. If you named it, the moniker might be Chase The Other Team Around Like A Puppy Chases His Tail And Never Get The Puck Like The Puppy Never Gets His Goddamn Tail. Van Ryn has Jay Bouwmeester go from a healthy scratch for the first time in his career to basically leading the defensemen in minutes the next game to third-pairing to practicing yesterday back on the top pairing. When Yeo gets fired, if he doesn’t pack up Van Ryn with him, there may be a riot. And if there’s anything we know how to do in St. Louis, it’s riot.

Your Schmaltz is as big as ours….

Jordan Schmaltz is a find third-pairing defenseman. He’s not too fast or tough. He’s ok. He’s fine. Don’t get me started on the mistakes the other defensemen are making on a nightly basis. I haven’t screamed his name at the TV or at the game yet. That’s a positive sign. He was a first-round pick, but was one of the slowest in his draft class to sniff the NHL. He’s fine. Honest.

When are you getting fired? Is it tomorrow? It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?

This is my seventh season running the Game Time paper. Before that, I wrote for the previous editor/publisher, Gallagher, for seven seasons — six on the front page. So this is my 14th season writing for GT. Our prospect guy is the only one who has written longer. During that time, the Blues have won four playoff series. All those coaches up above, I’ve written extensively about all of them from Kitchen on. I’m still here and all those guys are gone or will be gone soon. I’m the cockroach of St. Louis underground hockey writers. It’s going to take more than one shitty season to get rid of me. And if this wasn’t a well-disguised cry for help, I don’t know what is.

 

Game #11 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #11 – Hawks vs. Blues Douchebag Du Jour: Another Night Of Fellating Ryan O’Reilly’s Faceoffs

By Sam Fels 1571 0

One of the many problems with cramming in this many games with one opponent in such a short amount of time is that we already know the narratives that will be belched out during the broadcast. Along with Eddie Olczyk’s newfound passion for slamming analytics or possession-numbers (he seriously must not have got a job or something because he wouldn’t consider them and thus is going to make everyone pay now), and the long-standing fascination with hit-stats, apparently the new argle-bargle for Pat Foley and Eddie O is faceoffs.

And there’s no one they love to talk about more on that subject than Ryan O’Reilly.

Sure, ROR is third in the league again in faceoff-win percentage at 62.4%. That’s par for the course for O’Reilly, who consistently has been among the league’s best. What it hasn’t stopped is his possession numbers from being middling at best, considering how much he’s starting in the o-zone this season, or his team from being a big ball of suck.

It’s not that faceoffs don’t matter. They just don’t matter as much as everyone seems to want to believe.

Last year, ROR was second in the league in FOW%. The leader was Antoine Vermette, He spent most of the season getting his head kicked in while a Duck and is now out of the league. Claude Giroux, Jonathan Toews, and Patrice Bergeron were behind ROR, and we know they’re some of the best possession players in the league. It can go either way.

Team-wide, faceoffs matter even less. Two of the top five teams in faceoffs last year didn’t make the playoffs, and a third, Philly, didn’t really have any business there either. Three of the bottom five and four of the bottom six were playoff teams. You find these kinds of numbers no matter what season you look.

It’s not that faceoffs are completely irrelevant. There are a few draws within each every game that do matter, and they’re usually on special teams or toward the end of a game. But there are so many that they become rather meaningless if you study them all at once. They’re a pebble in a river.

But that won’t stop Foley and Eddie from championing ROR as the cure for cancer and/or complaining about the lack of draws that the Hawks win. Strangely, Anisimov doesn’t win draws and yet can’t seem to do wrong in their eyes, though.  Some men you just can’t reach.

 

Game #11 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Missing Hate

By Sam Fels 1974 0

I doubt John Tortorella was as angry about the state of things after his team torched the St. Louis Blues last night, but here he was at the morning skate yesterday:

Now, if you’ve been here for any length of time, you know I’m a tree-hugging socialist that does only what St. Vincent and Shirley Manson tell me to do and have pissed myself at the outset of every confrontation I’ve ever had (this isn’t entirely untrue, but due to inebriation rather than fear). So you probably expect me to once again lambast one of our favorite targets, no matter how much he loves dogs (or was right about Ryan Johansen and Brandon Saad).

Hockey being hockey, this is a complaint we’re hearing now about five years or more after we’ve heard it in other sports. I remember complaints like this in all the other major sports, and it usually starts out criticizing those not from these shores. Hell, you remember Bruce Boudreau getting salty about Alex Ovechkin laughing it up with fellow Russian players on the other team that had just steamrolled the Capitals that night. In baseball, it was the Latin players who were too chummy. Then basketball and and football followed suit with players being nice to each other on and off the court (fuck, Isiah and Magic were kissing each other in the 80s!).

And the reasons for this in hockey are pretty much the same as they were in the other sports. With the continued growth of player movement, a lot of these guys have already played together before. If they haven’t, they might have the same agent and work out together in the summer instead of retreating to whatever farm or factory older players used to work at to grunt, sweat, and stew for months while staring at a picture of some drunken punter who was the third center on Montreal before getting on the ice again. Specialization at younger ages plays a role, as a lot of these guys were probably at the same hockey camps as kids and developmental systems. They’ve played on youth national and older national teams together. There’s just more familiarity.

At the top level, the shit-disturbers have been moved out for players that can actually play. Your third line is less and less diligent checkers and pests. They’re moved to the fourth or off the roster completely, in favor of guys who can still skate and score. Look at the third lines of teams that are contenders this year. Just a brief snippet: When Nylander signs, Toronto will have Kapanen-Kadri-Lindholm (maybe Kadri is a bad example). Winnipeg has Copp-Lowry-Tanev, and has/could feature Roslovic and Perreault. Joonas Donskoi and Kevin Labanc are on the third line in San Jose. Basically, a lot of the guys whose main job it was to raise the temperature are being phased out. We’ve heard this all before in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. Bill Laimbeer wouldn’t get anywhere near an NBA court today. The “Baseball Police” are heavily mocked.

And yet, on some level, I see what Torts is getting at. And on that level, I’m with him in that I miss it, too. One of the appeals of hockey, as I’ve written here and other places before, when I got into it was the feeling of danger you got when walking into an arena. It’s what you tried to channel when you watched it on TV. You didn’t know what you might see, both on the ice and in the stands. It was fast and furious and what made it special was that utter art could be created out of utter mayhem.

Missing it doesn’t mean longing for it to be back, though. The feeling of danger in the stands washed away long ago, as every arena has a more homogenized and stale feel with game presentations almost exactly the same and everything catered to the glitterati and aristocracy. It’s not as fun, but that doesn’t mean I long to be thrown up on again by Tony from Oswego or have bags of piss tossed around (this was more a soccer thing but you wouldn’t have put it past the creatures of the Old Stadium either). And as we all agree, I certainly don’t miss standing in two inches of what I could only hope was water in the bathroom.

As far as the product on the ice, it’s different but that doesn’t mean it’s worse. It’s way better, actually. Take this from Torts’s own team last night:

Ok, maybe I take more joy in this than most because it was the P.A.T. on the Blues, but look at that pass! And that’s to Seth Jones, a 6-4 d-man who skates like the goddamn wind and effortlessly puts this away. 10 years ago everyone would complain that Jones didn’t “play to his size,” or something equally ridiculous and his game would have mutated. Isn’t this way better?

And this kind of thing is happening every night, especially this season. We can bemoan that hockey isn’t nearly as vitriol-filled as it was, but it doesn’t have time to be. Go on, try and be physical with Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid or a dozen or more other players. You can’t catch them to do so. You can send your knuckle-draggers out there if you want, and you’ll get slaughtered every night.

It’s a different product, but it’s a better one. We’ve heard all these complaints in the NFL too, and some of the roughing the passer rules now are laughable. But no one’s complaining when their QB is racking up 400 yards again (please do this soon, Mitch). And finally there are more than like, four decent quarterbacks. It’s just a more watchable product.

Yes, Torts, sometimes I sit back and reminisce about the actual fear I felt when walking into 1800 W. Madison for a Wings-Hawks game, because I didn’t know if the chaos would happen on the ice or in the row in front of me. Or even Hawks-Canucks games between 2009-2012. I miss actual emotion, too. Which is a reason I watch the Premier League, and if that doesn’t square up for you I can’t help you. But that’s also hard to generate in October. I’m fairly sure there’s a decent amount in April, still.

But that doesn’t mean I want to back there. Maybe some things are best left in the past.

Everything Else

High On The Hog: Of Monsters And Moose

By Jon Fromi 1484 0

The Rockford IceHogs, AHL affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks, are hitting the weekend on a two-game win streak. Coach Jeremy Colliton will hope to extend the winning ways as the IceHogs host Cleveland and Manitoba.

Rockford bested a scuffling San Antonio Rampage club at the BMO Wednesday night, but looked a little sloppy doing so. The IceHogs put together 15 minutes of real good hockey Wednesday; that got them by a struggling opponent who now have lost seven straight. Beating Cleveland will require a more complete performance.

With a record of 4-2-1 heading into this weekend, Rockford sits in fourth place in the AHLs Central Division standings. Two wins would keep the Hogs within reach of the Milwaukee Admirals, Chicago Wolves and Texas Stars, the teams ahead of Rockford.

 

Roster Moves

Defenseman Gustav Forsling was sent to Rockford on Monday, having recovered from wrist surgery over the summer. He went right into the lineup Wednesday night.

Tuesday, goalie Anton Forsberg cleared waivers and was assigned to the IceHogs. For the moment, Rockford is carrying three goalies. How long will this remain the case?

Both Collin Delia and Kevin Lankinen have played well for Colliton in the early going. Both may figure into the future for the Blackhawks. It doesn’t appear that Forsberg fits into those plans. On the other hand, he does have experience in an NHL net in case of an injury.

Forsberg is a very good goalie at the AHL level and will need to showcase those skills if the Hawks have designs on moving his contract. Colliton hinted that Forsberg could get a start for Rockford this weekend. From there, we may see a move made to thin the herd in the crease.

Also on Tuesday, Luke Johnson was recalled to the Blackhawks. This comes after a solid weekend of action with the Hogs in Tucson this past weekend.

 

Tomkins Shines In Indy

Matt Tomkins, who is on an AHL contract with Rockford, is playing well to open the season for the Indy Fuel. Tomkins was named the CCM/ECHL Goaltender of the Week for the week of Oct. 15-21. Tomkins earned the honor for the second time in his career, previously winning the award the week of Dec. 4-10, 2017.

The former Ohio State goalie turned away 72 of the 76 shots he faced last weekend, winning both games he started for the Fuel. Overall, Tomkins is 3-1 with a 2.76 goals against average and a .926 save percentage.

 

Recap

Wednesday, October 24-Rockford 5, San Antonio 2

Rockford broke out with four second-period goals, overcoming some uninspired play in the first and third frames to pick up the win over the Rampage.

There wasn’t much action in the opening period. Rockford had three shots at the power play but couldn’t put much together in the way of scoring chances. The same was true when the Hogs were at even strength. It was a different story, however, when the teams hit the BMO Harris Bank Center ice for the second stanza.

The first of three IceHogs goals in the opening minutes of the period came at the 1:17 mark. Darren Raddysh and Matthew Highmore moved the puck along the right half boards and into neutral ice. Viktor Ejdsell collected the puck and skated it all the way to the right dot. His shot made it past Rampage goalie Ville Husso for a 1-0 Rockford advantage.

Less than a minute later, Raddysh lifted a puck out of his zone. It was gathered in by Anthony Louis, who skated into the San Antonio zone with teammates in tow. Louis sent a nice saucer pass to Henrik Samuelsson skating toward the right post. The glove-side shot kissed cord at 1:58 of the second and made it 2-0 Hogs.

Rockford went up 3-0 a few minutes later after Terry Broadhurst sprung Highmore on a breakaway chance. Highmore lost the handle on the puck as he prepared to fire on goal. Fortunately, Ejdsell was following the play and knocked the loose biscuit into Husso’s basket at 4:11 of the second.

Dylan Sikura got a chance to showcase his speed after swiping a pass from Robby Fabbri just inside the Hogs blue line. Sikura the Younger zipped across the neutral zone and made a beeline for the San Antonio net. The shot slid between Husso’s pads at 14:26 and it was 4-0 Rockford.

A broken Plexiglas panel forced an early second intermission. The last 3:28 of the second period was played, followed quickly by the third period. This delay marked a shift in momentum as the visiting team was allowed to get back in the game.

Just 1:43 into the final frame, Trevor Smith took a rebound off the end boards and found the back of a wide open net from the left post to get the Rampage on the board. The Rampage closed the gap to 4-2 on a shorthanded goal by Fabbri at the 9:56 mark.

That’s as close as it got, however. Hussa was pulled to attempt a two-man advantage with Louis in the box for sending a puck over the glass. Tyler Sikura forced a turnover that Highmore deposited into the Bank of Empty Net at 18:40 of the third period, earning frozen custard for all at the BMO.

Lines (Starters in italics)

Mattheson Iacopelli-Graham Knott-Nathan Noel

Terry Broadhurst (A)-Matthew Highmore-Viktor Ejdsell

Dylan Sikura-Jacob Nilsson-Jordan Schroeder

Anthony Louis-Tyler Sikura (A)-Henrik Samuelsson

Blake Hillman-Carl Dahlstrom (A)

Gustav Forsling-Darren Raddysh

Andrew Campbell-Lucas Carlsson

Collin Delia

Power Play (0-7)

Sikura-Sikura-Schroeder-Samuelsson-Raddysh

Louis-Highmore-Broadhurst-Nilsson-Dahlstrom

Penalty Kill (Rampage was 0-5)

Nilsson-T. Sikura-Dahlstrom-Hillman

Highmore-Knott-Forsling-Raddysh

Broadhurst-Samuelsson-Campbell-Carlsson

 

Previewing The Weekend

Cleveland-Saturday, October 27

The Monsters are 5-3 on the season and in second place in the AHLs North Division. Like San Antonio, Cleveland will be coming off a game in Milwaukee Friday before taking on the Hogs Saturday at 6:00 p.m.

Zac Dalpe paces the Monsters with nine points (6 G, 3 A). Rookie Eric Robinson has gotten off to a strong start as well, with four goals and three helpers. Both were instrumental in handing Rockford a pair of defeats in Cleveland to open the season.

The IceHogs will need to stop Dalpe and Robinson this time around, as well as captain Nathan Gerbe (1 G, 5 A) and speedy rookie Vitaly Abramov (2 G, 2 A). Forward Alex Broadhurst (1 G, 4 A) has also been tough on his former team in recent years.

One player that Rockford will see for the first time is defenseman Gabriel Carlsson, who leads the Monsters back end with a goal and three assists. J.F. Berube, who beat the Hogs in the season opener, has taken most of the turns in net. In his last start Wednesday morning, he gave up five goals in Chicago in a loss to the Wolves.

 

Manitoba-Sunday, October 28

The Moose make their first visit to the BMO Harris Bank Center Sunday afternoon for a 4:00 p.m. start. Manitoba is 3-3 heading into their game Saturday night in…you guessed it…Milwaukee.

Last weekend, the Moose took a pair of games at home from San Antonio. After scoring just five goals in their first four contests, Manitoba exploded for ten goals against the Rampage.

Manitoba is led in scoring by last year’s AHL Outstanding Rookie, Mason Appleton. The big winger is off to a solid start, with eight points (4 G, 4 A). He’s coming off a hat trick on October 21, when he had a five-point game against San Antonio.

Rookie C.J. Suess tops the Moose with five goals. He has found the back of the net in four of Manitoba’s first six games. There hasn’t been much scoring throughout the rest of the lineup, save for veteran Seth Griffin, who has chipped in a pair of goals and two apples. Griffin played with Rochester, where he posted 41 points (15 G, 26 A) a season ago.

Sami Niku is a dangerous scoring presence on the blue line, though he’s yet to light a lamp this season. Former IceHogs defenseman Cameron Schilling had a career-year for Manitoba last season (6 G, 26 A) and is back for the Moose.

Other familiar faces include J.C. Lipon, who’s starting his fourth season with Manitoba, and former Milwaukee and San Antonio forward Felix Girard. Girard has two goals for his new team so far.

The tandem in goal is led by Eric Comrie, who has three seasons under his belt with the Moose. In five starts, Comrie is 3-2 with a 2.80 goals against average and a .917 save percentage. His backup is former Devil’s farmhand Ken Appleby, who gave up six goals to Iowa in his last start on October 13.

Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for game updates and commentary on the IceHogs all season long.

 

 

Everything Else

Game #10 – Rangers 1, Hawks 4: Got a Little Less Time Than I Had Before

By Rose Rankin 2191 0

Tonight felt like a bunch of coked-up ferrets were let loose on the ice and we got to watch the bizarre yet entertaining spectacle. At times it was hilarious, at times it was maddening, but it definitely wasn’t as dull as you might think for a mediocre-at-best and mostly-really-crappy team matching up for the evening. To the bullets!

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

–To that point, neither team was really dominant. Yes I know the Hawks scored four goals, but one was an empty-netter and it wasn’t until late in the third that the Hawks put this away. Jonathan Toews scored early in the first after McQuaid and Skjei went full-on Three Stooges and fell over both the blue line and one another, leaving Toews alone on Lundqvist. But then Brandon fucking Manning being Brandon fucking Manning allowed the Rangers to tie it up moments later. Each team would get momentum and a bunch of chances, yet frantic goaltending by goalies vastly better than their respective defenses would fight off the onslaught. In total both teams gave up 6 penalties, so frequent power plays kept the coked-up pace I mentioned. Possession ricocheted as well—the Hawks had over a 60 CF% in the first, then down to 48% in the second, then back to 61% in the third. It was, as they say, a back-and-forth affair, despite the broadcast singing the team’s praises.

–So it’s admittedly annoying that the Hawks didn’t dominate this entire game because, as we’ve said, losing to truly good teams is acceptable, but stretches like this one are where the Hawks can actually pretend to be contenders. Now before I sound unappreciative, they had a goal in the third get waved off prior to the other weird one later in the third by Kane. So had that gone another way it would have been 5-1. But the fact that these two “goals” were so strange and close to non-goals (or in the case of the former, truly not a goal), didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence. The core did well, don’t get me wrong–Kane, Toews, Top Cat, and most importantly Crawford, but I want to see the Hawks be GOOD against shitty teams, not just passable.

–OK, we’re already sick of bitching about Brandon Manning so I’m not going to spend too much time here. But, I’ve got to say, as much as I hate him, I can’t even imagine how much Corey Crawford hates him. That aforementioned goal was a direct result of Manning making a pathetic turnover at the offensive blue line and standing there mouth agape at the side of Crawford’s crease while Buchnevich scored. In the second period on one of their penalty kills (which, really, can we make this stop?) the puck bounced off his dumb ass and right on goal, and Crawford had to make the save. I would seriously not blame Crawford if he pulled some retaliatory, underhanded shit on Manning. Key his car? Leave a bag of flaming dog shit at his door? Sleep with his wife? Pretty sure all of this would be forgivable. And Crawford’s only been back for a matter of days at this point.

–Fortin had himself a night. Only one goal but he was just trying EVER SO HARD the entire game. From his first shift trying to split two defenders (and he almost made it, oh he was trying), to rabidly flying around the ice to being in the perfect position for Schmaltz’s beautiful pass in the second (sidebar: not complaining about Schmaltz passing it for once), Alexandre Fortin was a man possessed (OK, boy possessed, but you know what I mean). Some of that rabidity led to dumb turnovers, which will happen in those situations. But the Hawks need speed and I’m also not going to complain about the scoring or effort.

–I realize this is going to sound stupid and I can’t back it up with numbers, but Brandon Saad had a fire still lit under his ass. The stats won’t necessarily show it—one shot, no points and crappy possession at 48 CF%. But believe me, he was all over the ice, and while this isn’t going down as a historic game for him, his improvement this season continues.

All in all, tonight was another win that they had to have and that’s what matters. It was convincing enough and who would have thought they’d have 14 points already? I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it an inspiring win, but it’s better than the alternative. Onward and upward.

Beer: Sumpin’ Easy Ale by Lagunitas

Line of the Night: “Going to disagree with him. Strongly.” –Eddie O, in a weird moment of clarity, criticizing Adam Burish for his especially stupid comment that Henrik Lundqvist is one of the most overrated goalies in the last decade.

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune