Baseball

HI EVERYBODY!

By Andy Jonathan 2049

Welp, it looks as if MLB is really gonna do this.

 

I struggled coming up with an article announcing the imminent return of my favorite pastime for weeks now. It’s a weird feeling, watching sports during a pandemic. As many of you know already, I watch a boatload of professional wrestling. My favorite company, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has been running empty arena shows along with WWE during the entirety of the crisis. I’m torn, because I know these men and women are potentially risking infection and quite possibly serious health issues or death to bring me entertainment on Wednesday nights. Yet still I tune in every week, and enjoy almost every second of it (unless it’s Raw or Smackdown, in which case I enjoy 1 out of every 10 seconds).

Baseball feels the same way to me, in as much that part of me is thrilled to watch these elite athletes ply their trade for my entertainment but another part of me is terrified that I’m going to wake up and find out that Lucas Giolito is in the hospital hooked up to a ventilator. I desperately want to have the comfort back that comes with watching a baseball game from my couch in the summer while checking my fantasy team’s stats on my phone. Just being able to pull your mind away from the constant stream of terrible news and watch something that’s fun is quite good for your mental health, but there’s also a feeling that by tuning in you’re enabling behavior that’s not helping the country work past this virus. There’s really no good answer to the question of “should we be watching this?” other than to come to grips with this being the new reality, and (for me at least) to just try and enjoy as much of it as I can. That’s not to say you’re wrong for not feeling comfortable with watching the product, far from it. I wouldn’t blame anyone in the slightest, I’m more just presenting my frame of mind going into this season (or whatever you wanna call it).

Speaking of this season, the start of it is merely a few days away. Since MLB is gonna plow ahead with this, I (and most likely Wes) will be here to cover all the Sox Excitement moving forward. This fresh of the heels of the White Sox pummeling the Cubs bullpen last night in an exhibition game that featured a mammoth home run by (seriously) Adam Engel that touched off a 6 run rally in the 6th inning that chased Robo-Hendricks from the mound and gave Jahrel Cotton vertigo from all the spinning around he was doing. Yasmani Grandal, Edwin Encarnacion and Luis Robert went back to back to back with doubles to end Cotton’s night and cement the win for the South Siders. More importantly, nobody got hurt and Yoan Moncada is apparently healed up from his bout with COVID-19 and could potentially be ready for the start of the season.

With Friday being a pseudo-Opening Day for the Sox, a few questions still remain heading into the series against the Twins. Here’s a few of them that hopefully will have some positive answers going forward:

What Does the Sox Rotation Look Like Going Forward, and Does Carlos Rodon Have A Place In It?

With Michael Kopech opting out for the rest of this season, the Sox are still left with good (if mostly unproven) depth at starter. As it stands, the rotation looks something like this:

1. Lucas Giolito

2. Dallas Keuchel

3. Dylan Cease

4. Gio Gonzalez

5. Reynaldo Lopez

6. Carlos Rodon?

Rodon, fresh off of Tommy John surgery, has made no secret about his desire to slide directly back into his spot in the rotation. With that being said, Gio Gonzales was signed in the off season specifically to provide depth to an unproven rotation outside of it’s top two starters. Will Rick Renteria go with a six man rotation heading forward, or will Gonzales be moved into more of an opener situation? Most of his success in 2019 was predicated on Craig Counsel of the Brewers keeping him from going through a lineup the third time. How will that fare in a shortened season like this? Will he be able to eat enough innings to be valuable? On top of that…

How Much Effect Will Yasmani Grandal Have On The Sox Young Rotation?

One of the main reasons Rick Hahn signed Yasmani Grandal this past fall was not only to add switch hitting pop to a Sox lineup that lacked it from the left side (Moncada notwithstanding), but to bring his elite framing skills to a Sox staff that outside of Lucas Giolito could desperately use a few extra called strikes. Will Grandal’s framing ability be able to harness the talent that Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez clearly possess? Also…

Is The Regression Monster Coming For Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson?

With both Moncada and Timmy hitting over .315 last season and TA winning the AL Batting Title, how much regression can be expected for the two? Moncada completely flipped the script from his 2018 season by massively cutting down on his K total and raising his BA from both sides of the plate. Tim Anderson did the same, all while walking approximately -7 times all season. I don’t think anyone believes that Tim is going to hit .335 again, the question is how far will he fall?

What Will Eloy and Luis Robert Bring To The Table This Season?

Eloy had a pretty solid rookie season all things considered, finishing with a .267/.315/.828 slash line with 31 dingers. Unfortunately for him, he spent a decent time on the shelf with varying maladies that kept him from really reaching his true potential. Will he be able to stay healthy and pick back up where he left off? Will Luis Robert be as good or better than Eloy in his rookie campaign? We all saw him rip a dinger off Carlos Rodon while falling down the other day, and that alone made a lot of our pants uncomfortably tight while watching it. How will he fare against pitchers that aren’t coming off Tommy John surgery? Does he have the plate discipline to go head to head with the Mike Clevingers and Josh Haders of the league?

How Good Are The Twins, Really?

As far as competition for the Sox goes this season, the main monolith standing between them and the promised land still resides in the swamps of Minnesota. With the type of offense that gives pitchers night terrors, the Twins are an offensive force to be reckoned with. On the other side of the ball, however, the Twins have a lot of questions of their own to be answered. Jose Berrios is a true ace, but after him the drop off is STEEP. Jake Odorizzi threw above his head in the first half of last season, but came crashing back to earth. Michael Pineda is very good, but also very suspended. Kenta Maeda is solid, but hasn’t been anything more than a super long reliever for the Dodgers in the past 3 years. The shambling corpse of Rich Hill is there, still throwing his 32 MPH curveball. Their bullpen is average at best. Is this the weakness the Sox hitters will be able to exploit? Finally…

Will COVID-19 Make All Of This Moot?

The challenges for this season to get underway, let alone finished are colossal. As of me writing this, the Toronto Blue Jays are still without a park to play in since the Canadian government told them to pound sand. The list of players who are opting out grows by the day, as does the case count across the nation. Testing delays are wreaking havoc across the South, forcing players to sit out without results to their required results. How long before the league has to take a serious look at whether or not continuing the season is viable? We could’ve been a month into the season by now with a decent infrastructure in place for testing if the owners hadn’t decided to be colossal dicks about everything, and now the league is behind the 8-ball. Will the considerable obstacles facing a full season be overcome? I guess we’ll see before too long.

 

Hoping you all and your families are well, and continue to be so. Stay safe everybody, and please for the love of baseball…wear a fucking mask.

 

 

Hockey

On Jeremy Roenick

By John Pullega 3819

Jeremy Roenick is a weeping wound on the unwashed asscrack that is the NHL off the ice. His recent lawsuit, which claims that NBC fired him as a result of “heterosexual discrimination,” is both a laughable farce and a boot on the neck of people who face actual discrimination simply for being who they are.

Let us be clear: Jeremy Roenick is not a victim of any kind of discrimination. He is simply a gigantic asshole and sexual harasser who faced the consequences that gigantic assholes and sexual harassers ought to face. Going on a supposed sports podcast as a representative of a national broadcasting company and openly suggesting a threesome with a coworker, then getting fired for it, is not discrimination. If you, like Jeremy Roenick, want to point to some comments Johnny Weir made about a figure skater once on a half-baked variety hour skit brought to you by Seth MacFarlane in Roenick’s defense, fuck you.

However the lawsuit plays out, one thing will remain true: Roenick was an excellent hockey player once but will always be a useless asshole otherwise. His schtick is consistently showing us what a massive piece of shit he is off the ice because frankly, he doesn’t have anything else he’s good at. Past the post-hockey career money, fame, and everything else, not being good at anything useful anymore has to eat at him.

The sooner Roenick permanently disappears from the airwaves, the better off we’ll all be.

Hockey

Let’s See What’s in the Newspaper Today: Crawford Unfit, but Seabrook in

By John Pullega 2249

Welp, they’re gonna go through with it. A close-contact sport during a spreads-via-close-contact pandemic played by a collection of rockheads who breathe way too hard through their mouths as a matter of course, pushed and propped up by a cavalcade of immorally wealthy assholes who wouldn’t care what a virus did if it weren’t simultaneously attacking their bottom lines. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

With a restart about two-and-a-half weeks away, we figured we might as well take a shot at talking about the Hawks happenings over the past however fucking long it’s been. We just can’t help ourselves. Let’s kick it, 900-number style.

Corey Crawford unfit to play on Day 1 & 2

In recently-used-metal-grinder-pressed-against-your-bare-ass fashion, the one guy who might have let the Hawks sneak by the Oilers wasn’t on the ice for Day 1 or 2 of camp. Deemed “unfit to play” according to Jeremy “Unfit to Coach” Colliton, it’ll be impossible to determine what’s going on with Crow. As part of the restart, injury information will be binary and vague—either a player is fit to play or not. This is the NHL and NHLPA’s effort to maintain player privacy during COVID-19, keeping in line with the NHL’s “out of sight, out of mind” business model that’s helped build such a glut of trust among the highers up of the league.

Suffice to say, if Corey Crawford misses any time, the Hawks should forfeit and not waste our time. He was the one clear advantage the Hawks had against the Oilers. Not having him goes well past “Do Not Pass Go” and into “Box up the entire fucking game, now NO ONE gets to be the dog” territory.

Without Crow, the Hawks will rely on some combination of Malcolm Subban, Collin Delia, Kevin Lankinen, and Matt Tomkins. Against Connor McDavid (the best hockey player in the universe), Leon Draisaitl (2019–20 Art Ross Winner), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2 goals, 2 assists in 3 games against the Hawks this year), and Kailer Yamamoto (26 points in 27 games, including 11 goals, which is one more goal than Alex Nylander had through 65 games, in case you thought I fucking forgot about him). And though everything is made up and the points don’t matter at this juncture, it’s hard to have confidence that Subban or Delia will make a miracle run a la 2015 first-round Scott Darling.

To make matters worse, if Crow can’t make the bell—whether due to concussion, COVID, or simply saying “Yeah, fuck you guys,” as he is in his entire right to do—we likely won’t see him in a Hawks sweater as a player again (unless he takes a pay cut, which he shouldn’t). That would be an ending right in line with his Dangerfieldian career in Chicago. But just because he’s unfit to play for Day 1 doesn’t mean he’s necessarily done. It’s just a bad start to this farce.

If Crawford can suit up, the Hawks will at least be watchable, maybe even have a shot to advance. If not, Edmonton in 2.

Brent Seabrook unfit for play, but playing anyway

At least we can actively reminisce about times before COVID-19, since that was the last time we saw Brent Seabrook on the ice for the Blackhawks. Until now. Yes, dear reader, Seabrook was on the camp roster, skating, and getting ready for a Blackhawks playoff effort. In 2020.

Jesus Christ bare-assed on the cross. This is our reality.

It’s sincerely nice to see that Brent Seabrook is on a road to recovery from two hip surgeries, as a person and revered player in this team’s history. But for fuck’s sake, let’s fucking not. With all the precautions the team and league are saying they’re going to take regarding player health, how is Brent Seabrook playing even within the realm of acceptable?

Putting this virus to the side, which is apparently the most American fucking thing you can do these days, Brent Seabrook wasn’t in playing shape when he was in playing shape. He was somehow worse than Slater Koekkoek and Olli Maatta, which is something you’d otherwise have to try to do. Now, you want to give him a shot to be on the ice against the fastest human being on skates? I seriously debated whether I’d rather have Seabrook or Nick Seeler suit up, since at least Seeler would only get eight minutes a game. That is not a debate anyone should ever have to have.

That Coach Nathan For You is even entertaining this idea is further proof that we’re all marks for whatever outdated version of Punk’d the Brain Trust is using up its three-Cups-in-six-years goodwill to produce. The Hawks have a chance to play with house money and give Boqvist, Beaudin, Carlsson, and, fuck it, Chad Krys a chance to play meaningful-ish minutes. And yet, here’s Brent Seabrook, the answer to a question no one asked.

Quoth The Maven:

Blackhawks decline to change name, logo

No surprises here, but worth a mention. With the football Washington Whatevers dropping their slur name and logo, questions about the Hawks were bound to come up. Powers did a better job of doing the history reporting than we’d do. Our thoughts on the topic live in our name. If you want a prediction, I’d say give it another 5–10 years before they seriously consider a name and logo change.

Don’t be shocked when this all falls apart

We’d be lying if we said we weren’t excited about the prospect of hockey coming back. But obviously, the circumstances are suspect. Players are going to get sick with COVID-19. It’s already happened several times—to the Lightning, to the Blues, to the Canadiens, and perhaps the Penguins, as Fels reported recently.

Nothing is normal about playing hockey at this time, despite the normalization of doing the exact opposite thing that you need to do to stop the virus’ spread. In short, this is gonna get worse before it gets better. And for what?

There’s nothing special or unique about the precautions the NHL is taking, except perhaps in its arrogance. The league has specifically stated that it’ll take more than one positive case to shut things down again, but gives no inkling about what that would take. They say they’ll do constant testing—which has gone SO WELL in the real world and is why we don’t have hundreds of thousands of new confirmed cases in the last week with no end in sight oh shit wait—but won’t give any indication about where any potential hot spots started or spread to. This all has a “remain calm, all is well” feel to it.

And while the league says that anyone who tests positive will have to quarantine, do you really think that’ll happen? Especially if someone like Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, or Connor McDavid gets it? Can’t wait to hear THOSE justifications.

Compounding this worry was Jonathan Toews’s completely normal and well-educated take on COVID-19 recently. It’s always fun to point to Toews as more of a thinker than his coworkers when he’s going Greenzo on everyone. But this is the kind of arrogance, misinformation, and willful ignorance that sets this season as the farce it is and will be.

Not to say that Toews is a shithead or anything—he’s not—but he ought to know better, especially as one of the less unsavory (savorier? This fucking language . . .) players in the game. It gives us no hope that “take one for the team” will take a backseat to doing the things we need to do to cull this pandemic, which has killed over 135,000 Americans to date, and infected 3 million plus nationwide and nearly 13 million worldwide.

But hey, that’s hockey baby, and only one thing matters, which is why we’re here at all.

Hockey

Good Luck, Everybody – Hawks Open Summer Camp

By Matt McClure 2123

Hola amigos. It’s been a long time since we rapped at ya, but shit’s been hectic here at HQ enduring wave after wave of pestilence.

Even with that being said, NHL teams league wide that will be participating in the expanded playoff tournament in three weeks broke camp today, including the Hawks. Before getting into some observations coming out of today’s practice, let it first be said that any plans for sports to return in this country are wantonly irresponsible and unearned, even with as uncharacteristically thorough a plan as the NHL has laid out. With the disease raging elsewhere in the country and climbing a little locally on the heels of a hasty re-opening, any sports even as a diversion are completely unearned and reckless. But the unrelenting machine of capital feels no compunction about throwing bodies at the problem in the name of recouping whatever lost TV revenue they can. This will be the overriding sentiment going forward, but as long as they’re going to do this, we’ll try to cover it as best we can here.

Hockey

High On The Hog: Who’s Worthy Of AHL Ink?

By Jon Fromi 1491

The Rockford IceHogs, Chicago’s AHL affiliate, certainly have question marks heading into their next season of action. With the current NHL season about to go into playoff-mode, it’s going to be difficult to pinpoint a starting date for a 2020-21 campaign, let alone what players may be on the roster.

It may not be business as usual, but the IceHogs are making offseason moves.

As is the case throughout the American Hockey League, Rockford is charged with developing Chicago’s NHL prospects. The Hogs also sign players to AHL contracts to fill out the roster. These players see action both in Rockford as well as in the ECHL for the Indy Fuel.

Rockford used 14 players this past season that were either on AHL standard or tryout contracts. Goalie Matt Tomkins earned himself an NHL deal with Chicago over the course of the season.

Tomkins, who had just eight appearances in two prior AHL seasons, earned time in the Hogs net with solid play while Kevin Lankinen was injured and Collin Delia slumped in the first few months. Tomkins represented Team Canada in the Spengler Cup and signed a two-year deal with the Blackhawks at the end of January.

Forwards Gabriel Gagne and Garrett Mitchell came in on tryout deals when the IceHogs were besieged by injuries over the winter. Both were signed to standard AHL contracts for the upcoming season.

Gagne, a second-round pick by Ottawa in 2015, put up six goals and six helpers in 21 games to secure his contract. Mitchell, a long-time AHL veteran with the Hershey Bears, quickly became a team leader after his PTO signing in February.

As of June 29, Rockford has nine players under AHL contracts. Along with Gagne and Mitchell, forward Dylan McLaughlin (2 G, 5 A in 28 games) is returning for the second year of his contract. Defensemen Dmitri Osipov and Jack Ramsey were both re-signed this spring.

The IceHogs also signed several new faces to AHL contracts. Mitchell Fossier, who spent four years at Maine and served as captain last season, was signed by Rockford on June 26. Earlier in the spring, the Hogs inked forward Riley McKay, forward/defensman D.J. Buskeker, and goalie Tom Aubrun.

It would appear that Rockford is approaching its limit as far as signing players is concerned. This may mean that some familiar names will be moving on in their hockey careers. Here’s a list of Rockford skaters whose AHL contract expire this summer.

Liam Coughlin
Chase Marchand
Josh McArdle
Nick Moutrey
Jake Ryczek
Tyler Sikura
Mathew Thompson

The two names that stand out on that list are Sikura, Rockford’s captain this season as well as the Hog’s leading scorer (34 points), and Moutrey. Both were mainstays in the IceHogs lineup.

Sikura will be missed at the BMO after three seasons. He spent the 2018-19 season under an NHL contract but was hampered by a thumb injury. After returning to form last season for Rockford, he is likely to be in pursuit of an NHL opportunity that may not be available with the Hawks.

McArdle, who hails from Roscoe, Illinois, appeared in just four games for Rockford after skating in 19 games the season before. McArdle, Marchand, Coughlin, Ryczek and Thompson spent the bulk of their time with the Fuel.

I guess you can’t completely close the book on any of these players returning to the fold this summer. After all, there are a lot of unknowns in the NHL right now that will dictate how Rockford approaches the rest of the offseason.

As the snow globe that is the NHL prospect picture begins to settle, I’ll begin to sort through the players we may see filling out the IceHogs roster next fall. See you in a couple of weeks.

 

 

Everything Else

Are You Ready for Some Futbol—Serie A Returns

By Rose Rankin 1642

Let’s be honest—it feels a little ridiculous to be writing about sports right now. We’re in the midst of a long-overdue reckoning with this country’s toxic legacy of racism and police brutality; the economy is a mess and we all know someone, maybe ourselves, affected by un- or under-employment; and oh yeah, a poorly understood and frequently deadly disease is still ravaging the planet. So yes, sports as a diversion or as something to expend energy on seems downright frivolous. To tell you the truth, I haven’t found myself ready or able to write much about them, even though there have still been plenty of things to say even with leagues closed down. I’ve not seen much reason to put my voice out there when there are so many more that deserve to be heard.

And yet here I am writing about soccer. I guess I’m grasping at some sense of normalcy, and while Serie A’s return can’t really be described as “normal” for a soccer season, I’m unabashedly excited to have this little piece of my life back. So I’m going to share it with you, whether you’re interested or not (and Sam’s not here to shut down my Serie A content so BUCKLE UP).

The German Bundesliga has been back for a few weeks now, and La Liga from Spain and England’s Premier League will all be back in action soon too. But, lots of Serie A games will be on the various ESPN channels because, well, they got a lot of time to fill. So what the hell is going on when this league re-starts? The title race is actually interesting for one thing, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Beginning with the End

They’re starting with the semi-finals and final of the Coppa Italia (which I’m sure is clear that it’s an Italian national tournament). It may seem odd to start with the end of a competition when everyone is rusty, but I think it’s actually a good thing—let the few teams still in it get this out of the way and then everyone can focus on the scudetto (league title) and whatever the hell the rest of Champion’s League and Europa League end up being. So this Friday, Serie A’s version of the Patriots, Juventus, plays AC Milan, who have been terrible. To be honest though, Juve wasn’t playing all that well before the world fell apart, and given that everyone is starting from such a weird place, I guess it’s possible Milan pulls off the upset. But it sure isn’t likely. Juve has too much depth and Milan is woefully short on that. Although, running into the suspension of the season, Maurizio Sarri was using Paolo Dybala, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gonzalo Higuain as the attacking trio, and since that time Dybala got sick with COVID-19 for months on end, and Higuain showed up to training overweight and out of shape, so that front three that had been working so well may not be anymore. Still, I think they have enough talent to turn it on well enough to get past hapless Milan, but it will be interesting to see how their increasing age and slowness plays out now.

Saturday is Napoli-Inter, and as a Napoli fan I’m a bit terrified but also trying to be positive (and I’m just happy to see my fucking team again). Inter had been playing like shit right before the pandemic hit, losing to both Juve and Lazio in league play which basically ended their realistic chances at the scudetto. Napoli, on the other hand, after miserably underperforming for the first two-thirds of the season, were finally pulling their heads out of their collective asses. Our best center back, Kalidou Koulibaly, was hurt but should be back now, which would be a huge boost to our suspect (at best) defense. Thing is, Inter’s coach Antonio Conte loves to play the soccer version of the prevent defense. If Inter scores once (and they need two because Napoli is already leading in aggregate), they’re going to drop back and let Napoli dominate in possession. And Napoli excels at dominating possession but not finishing. They make one dumb mistake that leads to a goal when they’ve had 70% possession—it’s their specialty. So if Inter plays to their strengths they can probably take this, but it’s equally possible that the prevent defense blows up in their face if anyone on Napoli can finish.

Regardless of what happens, these are four powerhouses of the league all in various stages of growth, decline, and rebuilding-on-the-fly, so it’ll make for interesting viewing. And Juventus just might lose, so there’s that.

Ripresa

Now, what of the actual league play that kicks off (HAHA GET IT) on June 20th? The title race is the most interesting it’s been in a few years, and the current wackiness is just another element to that. Juve has won the last eight years and currently is top of the table with 63 points, but Lazio is right there with them with 62. It’s unfortunate because Lazio is the team of, by and for fascists, so you can’t actually root for these fuckers, even though they have the league’s top scorer in Ciro Immobile, who is entertaining as hell to watch. Anyway, it’s at least competitive and Inter is still making some noise in third. Atalanta, hands down the most fun team to watch and the league’s best Cinderella story, is fourth and it would be fantastic to see them pass Inter and make the latter sweat for the last Champion’s League spot next year (year? Season? Whatever length of time…what is time anyway?).

From there it’s a multi-car pileup in the middle of the table, but it means on paper the last Champion’s League spot is in play, plus the Europa League spots are up for grabs. Roma and Napoli are both in the running, as long as there’s no dramatic collapse on either side. Roma had also lost one of their best players to injury, Niccolo Zaniolo, who should be back before this whatever-end-of-a-season is over. In short, this season was already exciting and more unpredictable than usual, so seeing how it all sorts itself out should be a fun time in an already sports-starved summer.

Italy took a serious curb-stomping from the coronavirus, and their hardest-hit areas were the northern regions where most of these Serie A teams hail from. Atalanta in particular is the home team of Bergamo, the northern city that was the epicenter of the pandemic for a long time, as if we needed another element added to their story (and it’s another reason why you absolutely have to root for them in Champion’s League, outside of them playing against your team of course). No matter what happens, it’s a huge emotional lift for the country to have its calcio back. Remember, when Hank Scorpio asked Homer his least-favorite country, France or Italy, he followed up Homer’s answer with an astute observation—nobody ever says Italy.

Hockey

Game On? The NHL’s Wildly Wondiferous Playoff Plan

By John Pullega 2839

Let’s not bury the lede you came for, dear reader. So long as the NHL plays this summer, the 2019–2020 Chicago Blackhawks are a playoff team (sort of), just like the Brain Trust fucking said. Chicago will get its first taste of playoff hockey (sort of) since Nashville smacked it out of their mouths in their piss yellows three years ago.

Given the circumstances, there was no chance that whatever the Board of Governors (or whoever) and NHLPA came up with would be the belle of the ball. But the whole what-have-you they did come up with isn’t as horrid as you’d expect from this condom-in-the-toilet of a league. The seven worst teams in the league don’t get playoff hockey. They’ll likely have any playoffs in just two Hub Cities to reduce travel. Bettman talked about the nebulous concept of “having enough testing” before things resume. And most importantly for us, the Hawks will be there, which, combined with the Habs making it, is a Gribble of an idea.

So, here’s what we know and don’t know, relative to the Blackhawks (mostly).

What We Know

The Regular Season is over. All stats, awards, and the like will be based on where the league stood when it paused on March 12. DETROIT SUCKS.

Playoffs determined by points percentage. Never hurts to play in a conference with the Ducks, Sharks (apparently), and Kings, the only teams worse than the Hawks in the West. Two teams that got the pud-end of this deal are Buffalo and New Jersey, who each played two fewer games than Montreal and could have jettisoned over them with just one win in either game. Back and to the left.

Top seeds play round robin, lower seeds play elimination. The top four teams from each Conference will play each other in a round-robin format to determine their seeds. This round robin will use REGULAR SEASON RULES, which includes five-minute OTs and the spicy late-Sunday-morning giardiniera fart that is the shootout. If the round robin ends in a seeding tie, then regular season points percentage will determine the higher seed. Each of these eight teams have a guaranteed spot in the first round and will end up playing one of the remaining 16 teams that will play qualifying rounds.

The bottom eight teams in each Conference will play a best-of-five series for a shot to move on to the first round. The qualifying round uses PLAYOFF OVERTIME RULES, which is a full fucking 20 minutes of overtime hockey until there’s a fucking winner, baby. Who plays whom is based on points percentage. So, the 5 seed faces the 12 seed, the 6 seed faces the 11 seed, and so on. The winners of the qualifying rounds in each Conference will play one of the four top-seeded teams in their Conference, but there’s not much detail after that.

The Blackhawks will play the Oilers when shit gets going. The Hawks get first dibs at the Connor McDavid experience. The Hawks managed to beat Edmonton two of three times during the regular season. With the qualifying round taking a best-of-five format, the Hawks have a legitimate shot at not just making the playoffs (sort of) but also advancing.

At the season’s pause, the Oilers were a bottom-five Corsi team. They have a game-breaking forward and current Art Ross winner. Aside from goaltending, when the Oilers look into a mirror, the Blackhawks scream back. In the words of ol’ JR, this has SLOBBERKNOCKER written all over it. If ever this city were going to appreciate the beauty of Corey Crawford, this playoff series would be it. With at least three future Hall of Famers between these forward corps and a sun-bleached blown-out diaper on the ass ends of each team, goaltending will likely be the thing that wins this series. And Corey Crawford is fucking better than Mike Smith, 2011–12 be damned.

The draft will be a fucking zoo. We’ll probably talk more about this in a different post, but the Hawks could have a 3% chance at the first overall pick if they’re eliminated by the Oilers, and some other goofy shit also happens that we don’t feel like thinking about right this second.

What We Don’t Know

Where or when things will start. We know that teams will end up playing in one of two Hub Cities. One city will serve as a hub for the East, the other a hub for the West. Bettman mentioned 12 potential cities they could use as a hub, including Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas, and Edmonton (but not Arkush). But outside of that, we don’t know which cities they’ll play in.

We also don’t know exactly when things will start. Bettman made it clear though that formal training camps—otherwise known as “Phase 3”—would not start anytime before July 1. So, best case, you’re likely not looking at any actual hockey until about mid-July, since the NHL hasn’t even reached Phase 2 (voluntary practices at home facilities with like six total players or something). That assumes that the NHL will have the means—both physically and financially—to conduct the constant COVID-19 testing necessary to prevent another massive outbreak.

What the playoffs look like after the qualifying rounds. After the round robin and qualifiers, there’s not much info. Bettman explicitly said that they will not reveal how matchups work because it’s what the players wanted. He hinted that they’ll likely do it by seeding or brackets, which is a welcome respite from their bend over, shit on the wall, and read the Rorschach method they’ve been using since any of the previous lockouts.

The only thing we know for sure is that Conference Finals and the Cup will be a best of seven.

Whether any of this will happen at all. Bettman made a point to say that the NHL won’t resume play until they get the go-ahead from health professionals and governments to do so. Given how cohesive and in agreement everyone in this armpit nation has been about even the simplest of sacrifices in such aspects as “wearing a fucking mask in public even if you’re a healthy person” and “not drinking bleach as a cure,” there’s still a very real possibility that this is all window dressing.

What’s Next?

We’ll have thoughts on all this shit as more information trickles out. But for us as Blackhawks fans, you’ll take this setup. While the Oilers aren’t a pushover, they’re the precise team that the Hawks can at least try to outgun.

Yes, McDavid and Draisaitl are going to kick gum and chew ass against whichever combination of Seeler–Maatta–Gilbert–Koekkoek Coach Nathan For You throws out there. But they’ll also have to deal with Playoff Garbage Dick on months of rest, which probably means 40 minutes of Kane every fucking night. This playoff format fits right into the strengths of Colliton’s system.

And until Corey Crawford shows us that he isn’t the guy doing all the fucking, it’s hard to bet against him in favor of Sike Mmith.

It’s not pretty. It’s not perfect. It’s hockey. And the 2019–2020 Blackhawks are in the playoffs (sort of).

Just like the Brain Trust fucking said.

Hockey

Searching For A Former Clarity – The NHL Releases Return To Play and Draft Format

By Matt McClure 2016

While this country has in no way earned the right to begin discussing the resumption of team professional sports in the way that South Korea has with baseball, or Germany has with Bundesliga soccer given the ghastly disparity in how the pandemic has been handled in the those places versus the United States, the NHL at least got out in front of any of the other team sports by formally announcing how the playoffs and draft are going to work. It’s quite dense, but it’s hockey so it can’t be THAT convoluted.

 

Now to the big takeaways from the announcement:

  • The 2019-2020 regular sseason is officially over, and as such, the top 12 teams via points percentage in each conference are now in this tournament, meaning…..your Chicago Blackhawks have once again qualified for the playoffs, if only by the hair on their ass as the 12 seed in the west.
  • The divisional playoff model has been abandoned, and top four seeds will play a round robin to determine their playoff seeding with regular season rules OT rules, concurrent with the remaining bottom 8 teams playing best of 5 series for the right to advance to one of the top four. Bettman notes in the announcement that it has not been determined yet if the first two rounds will re-seed or follow a static bracket, not to mention that the NHL managed to make overtime even more of a clown show by having two different flavors of it conceivably being played on the same day in the early goings. Even at its most competent, there is no circumstance under which the NHL can’t manage to look like dipshits.
  • That being said, the Hawks are now locked into a best of 5 series with the Edmonton Oilers when and if play takes place. So that means a matchup in a series against the league’s top two scorers in McDavid and now-Ross winner Leon The Ladies’ Man with a defense that had no structure to begin with, and in general when teams break camp raw skill tends to win against systems. But there’s always the chance that there could be revenge of known method actor Mike Smith. Stranger things have happened.
  • Also of local interest is that Chicago is mentioned as one of the potential hub cities, presumably for the Western conference, given the amount of hotels and rinks that are available in the area (the UC, RoseMizon, Sears). Given that there would be multiple games a day concurrently at least in the first two rounds, the time zone issue for starting games past 8:00PM locally here probably wouldn’t loom too large, but it should be considered. Of course, this is operating under the presumption that the city and suburbs have the COVID situation under control, which they absolutely do not right now. But this is the sort of thing the city and state usually trips all over their dicks to incentivize for big business at the expense of common citizens, and during the pandemic things have been no different.
  • Bettman made basically zero mention of the medical safety protocols that are going to be enacted during this, such as full cages/facemasks, celebrations, bench spacing, shared towels, water bottles, dressing room procedures, or any number of other things that need to be figured out and will almost certainly be disregarded by players immediately because they’re by and large minimally educated self-declared Sovereign Citizens. He did mention “extensive testing”, which seems like an absolute bare minimum, and limiting traveling parties to cities to a total of 50 people per team, so after 23 players and 3-4 coaches, teams are going to have to be judicious on their staff selections. And taxi squads (since the AHL season is DONE-done) will likely have to be kept remotely.
  • With regard to the draft, it’s even more convoluted. Basically, they’re going to hold an initial lottery at the end of June, and then if any team that is going to resume play jumps in order, or “wins” the first round lottery, there will be a second re-draw after the conclusion of the round-robin, best of 5 round.

It was made clear numerous times during the video that none of this is etched in stone and the situation is completely fluid from a lot of different angles. Bettman gave July 1 as the absolute earliest camps could open if everything broke right, but didn’t specify if those would be in hub cities or home cities. There’s still time for all of this to go completely balls up again as states start to re open and cases are likely to spike again after the incubation period. But it’s a start, and now the Hawks can say that Jeremy Colliton got this rag tag group into the playoffs and justify keeping him around until the NEXT pandemic.