Hockey

High On The Hog: Back To The BMO Center

By Jon Fromi 839

The Rockford IceHogs will be opening their home schedule this weekend, hosting the Chicago Wolves Saturday night and the Manitoba Moose Sunday afternoon. They’ll be doing this at the BMO Center-formally known as the Rockford Metro Centre and the BMO Harris Bank Center.

It’s the same old BMO. Except that it isn’t.

There is much to marvel at as the new-look IceHogs roster settles into their home digs. Rockford’s sweaters now feature an updated logo, though not the new team logo that debuted back in the summer. Adorning the front of the sweater is Hamilton E. Hog, otherwise known as Hammy.

The folks in design have exorcised the “Rockford IceHogs” part of the logo and also taken the stick out of Hammy’s mouth. They did not, however, close Hammy’s stickless mouth.

Hammy has apparently been hitting the weights this summer, part of what will surely be a rebranding of sorts for the long-time Rockford mascot. Why is the face on the sweater the pre-health-conscious Hammy? Is the new scoreboard as awesome as has been foretold? Did they fix the towel dispensers in the restrooms? Will we ever see the vaunted Illinois Lottery Cup again, or did the Wolves lose it in Rosemont?

These questions get answered starting Saturday night.

Oh…and we get to see how the veteran-laden Hogs fare against the defending Calder Cup Champions. The Wolves roster has been depleted of many of the key names that helped hoist the cup, including David Gust, who had three points (1 G, 2 A) for Rockford last weekend.

Six of Chicago’s top-seven scorers last season are with other clubs. Jack Drury (20 G, 32 A) is the lone holdover. Newcomers include veteran forward and Wheaton native Ryan Dzingel, who has a couple of 20-goal seasons with Ottawa and will provide offense for Chicago. Former Blackhawks forward Brenden Perlini also signed a PTO with the Wolves.

Max Lajoie (4 G 29 A) is back as a key piece of the Chicago blueline. Vying for playing time are several Carolina Hurricanes prospects and 37 -year-old Jason Garrison, who is also signed to a PTO.

Goalie Pyotr Kochetkov was very impressive for the Wolves down the stretch when he wasn’t stopping pucks for Carolina. His play in net may cover some of the departures in the Chicago roster.

The Wolves tangle with Manitoba Friday night heading into their first meeting with the piglets, for what it is worth. Will Rockford take advantage of fresh legs, or will there be jitters as they hit the BMO ice for the first time this season?

Aside from a four-goal explosion in the third period of the season opener October 15, the IceHogs have failed to make an impact on offense through their first two games. I would expect that to change, as the skill-level on offense should keep scoring droughts to a minimum. I’m going to stick my neck out and look for Rockford to drop a big number on one or both of their weekend opposition.

Roster News

On Monday, the Blackhawks assigned D Alex Vlasic to Rockford. The Hogs also recalled D Andrew Perrott and G Dylan Wells from Indy for the week, then sent both down to the Fuel along with D Koletrane Wilson on Thursday.

F Cole Guttman left Saturday’s game in Manitoba in the third period after taking a fall and struggling to get the the Rockford bench. The IceHogs were pretty consistent with medical updates last season, but haven’t commented on Guttman’s status for this weekend.

 

Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for musings on the IceHogs throughout the season.

 

 

Hockey

Suggestions to Remedy Mediocrity – Hawks beat Sharks, lose to Avs and Knights

By Summer Corson 821

So far for this organization, the narrative has been followed—the team is bad, the offense is bad, the expectations are low, and games were lost. There is very little to enjoy about the Hawks but I’m gonna try to point out the good where I can. But before we get to anything positive, let’s call it like we see it: the Hawks have only scored twice so far this season on even strength, which is pretty fucking terrible. What is worse is that they are currently considered the 10th-worst team in the league, which doesn’t bode well for the whole “tanking-for-a-#1-draft-pick” plan the front office has laid out. From a numbers standpoint, other teams factually have it much worse than us. Let’s review.

Wednesday 10/12
Hawks 2, Avalanche 5
Box Score
Natural Stat Trick

Did you expect this to go any better? The Hawks had to start their season against the reigning Stanley Cup champs after they raised their banner in Colorado and were outskated, outmatched and outplayed the entire night. The only genuine highlight was Toews scoring the first Hawks goal of the season on the powerplay, with an assist from Andreas Athanasiou. The powerplay was the only time the Hawks could score, which means having one extra man on the ice was the only way to even out the talent level enough for the Hawks to have a chance. Otherwise, our d-men were getting pantsed by Cale Makar and domed in possession for 2 of the 3 periods.

Within this game scored the only goal by Kane’s line all god damn week which is not a promising start—very underwhelming, in fact. If the goal wasn’t to tank this season, our first line scoring 1 goal in the first three games would certainly be a red flag, especially since Kane is flanked by the shiny new free agent acquisitions that were supposed to placate us. But red flags like that are positive for a tanking team, right?

Thursday 10/13
Hawks 0, Knights 1
Box Score
Natural Stat Trick

The theme for this night was that it genuinely could’ve been worse. The still-undefeated Golden Knights with their new #1 center in Jack Eichel were only able to score one goal against the Hawks as opposed to the 5 goals we’d let in the night before. Alex Stalock made 36 saves and didn’t look too bad except for when he seemed to lose his net at one point in the 1st—luckily Vegas wasn’t able to score on a wide-open net.

The Hawks’ main issue of having shit and nonexistent offense continued into this game, and of course this was their second straight game without having an even-strength goal. The Hawks had 10 less shots to the Knights’ 37, and their 2-shots-per-powerplay formula was helping nobody here. In fact, the only goal of the game came right after the Hawks powerplay in the 2nd period, directly after a shorthanded opportunity for Vegas. Vegas is looking like a top team right now whether you like it or not, however, so the fact the Hawks only held them to 1 goal when their average so far this season is over 3 per game, that’s somewhat surprising.

Saturday 10/15
Hawks 5, Sharks 2
Box Score
Natural Stat Trick

Of all the teams the Hawks had to face, only the Sharks match them in pitifulness. Both teams showed up in the building with a goose egg in the win column so someone had to pick up the points. The Hawks jumped out ahead for the first few minutes of the game and the Sharks were unable to register a shot for the first 11 minutes. But the Sharks ultimately did score first, getting a shot past youngins Philipp Kurashev and Filip Roos that Peter Mrazek didn’t even see (shocking). The Sharks scored again shortly after as a shot deflected off Amy’s Eldest and went in to wrap up a shitty 1st period. Surprisingly, the Hawks were able to take control from here and turned the game around.

It was Jason Dickinson’s first night in a Blackhawks uniform, and his line with Philipp Kurashev and Sam Lafferty took the game’s opening faceoff. The line would then go on to have 7 points between them that night (2 goals for the line). Lafferty’s 2 shorthanded goals meant the special teams scoring was starting to add up for the Hawks, although that’s not too hard when the Sharks can barely get a shot off. Still, the Hawks collected the win and the plan to tank for Connor Bedard was put on a temporary pause.

—

This weekend, the Hawks have their opening night game against Scum, but considering the team to the northeast is without a regulation loss this season, it appears the losses for Chicago will continue to stack up. That shouldn’t be unexpected news, however.

Hockey

High On The Hog: Mixed Bag In An Opening Split

By Jon Fromi 733

The Rockford IceHogs ran hot and cold in splitting a pair of weekend tilts with the Manitoba Moose. On one hand, you could certainly see the scoring potential of a veteran-laden Hogs club. However, developing chemistry seems to be another matter at the moment.

The piglets triumphed in the season opener with a stunning comeback, but lost Sunday’s rematch via the shutout. Here are some quick thoughts on the opening weekend of the 2022-23 season.

  • First off, this was a solid Manitoba club opposing the IceHogs. The bulk of the Moose return from a very good team the previous season. For the bulk of Saturday’s game, they controlled the action and looked to win going away.
  • Rockford stormed back in the first eight minutes of the third period, getting goals from Luke Philp, Dave Gust and Lukas Reichel to erase a three-goal deficit. The Moose regained a 4-3 advantage, but a second Philp tally with just over two minutes to play forced Gus Macker Time. From there, Brett Seney hit the top corner of the net to secure a 5-4 victory.
  • On Sunday, the IceHogs were the aggressor, moving the puck with aplomb in the Manitoba zone. However, it was the Moose who were able to get the puck into the Rockford crease and generate some strong chances.
  • The key play Sunday was with Rockford on a late power play in the second period. Reichel attempted a backhand pass to the blueline that was picked off. Adam Clendening wasn’t able to get into position to defend a shorthanded breakaway chance by Jansen Harkins and Manitoba took a 1-0 lead that they would not surrender, beating the IceHogs 4-0. Rookie goalie Oskari Salminen took it from there, blanking the Hogs by stopping 32 shots.
  • Rockford captain Garrett Mitchell was out of the lineup this weekend. He was suffering from an illness and did not make the trip up north.
  • Rookie Cole Guttman left the ice in the third period Saturday after being knocked to the ice in a multi-player collision. He appeared to hit his head on the ice and lost his helmet in the process. Guttman struggled to get to the Hogs bench and was helped to the locker room soon after.
  • With the influx of veteran talent on the roster this year, playing time could be at a premium for forward prospect Evan Barratt. He’s in the final year of his entry deal and is probably getting his last look from the organization. Barratt was a scratch Saturday, engaging in a scrap with Manitoba’s Leon Gawanke in the second period of Sunday’s game.
  • The IceHogs get a week to practice and make some adjustments before opening the home schedule against the Chicago Wolves Saturday night. On Sunday, Rockford gets another crack at Manitoba, who visits the BMO Harris Bank Center for a 4:00 p.m. puck drop.

Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for my thoughts on the IceHogs all season long.

Hockey

High On The Hog: Not Your Father’s Piglets

By Jon Fromi 753

The Rockford IceHogs have a new look entering the 2022-23 AHL season. It’s a real paradigm shift for the organization, and I’m pretty excited about heading into another season of keeping you informed on the action out west of I-39.

Back in the spring, Hawks GM Kyle Davidson announced that bringing in veterans to raise the talent pool in Rockford was a priority. This was an easy statement to take with a grain of salt, since the IceHogs roster has been comprised mostly of prospects since Rockford became Chicago’s AHL affiliate in 2007.

Turns out, the organization followed through.

Over the summer, the Blackhawks, who enter their second full season of ownership of the ‘Bago County Flyin’ Piglets, made good on reshaping the roster. Veterans with serious AHL upside were brought in to fortify last year’s bunch of overachieving prospects.

The 2021-22 crop scrapped their way to fourth place in the AHL’s Central Division and won a play-in series with Texas before falling to the Calder Cup Champions, the Chicago Wolves. Leading the way was rookie Lukas Reichel, who is back for another season at the BMO after a strong debut of 21 goals and 36 helpers.

In addition to Reichel, the current IceHogs roster now has three players that paced their clubs in scoring last season. Many of the solid defensive pieces are back and are enhanced by a familiar face.

Let’s dig into the roster!

Forward

NHL Prospects: Lukas Reichel, Mike Hardman, Josiah Slavin, Michal Teply, Evan Barratt, Cole Guttman.

AHL Contracts: Garrett Mitchell, David Gust, Bobby Lynch, D.J. Busdeker, Carson Gicewicz, Morgan Adams-Moisan.

Veteran Oomph: Dylan Sikura, Brett Seney, Luke Philp.

Guttman is the only rookie in this group. The returning prospects all were big contributors to Rockford’s success, as were Busdeker and Gicewicz. Mitchell enters his third season as the Hogs captain.

Gust (16 G, 20 A for the Wolves last season) is a player who’s been on my wish list for several years, though he’s exactly what the organization has avoided in past campaigns. The Orland Park native is a strong AHL player with a winning pedigree, having skated with the last two Calder Cup winners.

Lynch will chip in on the bottom six; he totaled eight goals and 13 assists in 46 games with Manitoba. Adams-Moisan is a big, physical forward that may wind up splitting time between Rockford and the Indy Fuel of the ECHL.

The addition of Sikura (73 points with the Colorado Eagles last season), Seney (59 points to lead the Toronto Marlies), and Philp (44 points with a strong Stockton Heat club) figures to give Rockford the kind of potency on offense that’s been missing in past seasons. If this forward group can consistently light lamps from the raising of the curtain, this could be a formidable group.

As the Hawks roster fluctuates, Buddy Robinson, who has cleared waivers, will probably wind up with the IceHogs at some point. The same goes for rookie Jaren Luypen, currently on injured reserve with the Blackhawks.

(UPDATE-The Blackhawks assigned Robinson to Rockford on Friday morning.)

Defense

NHL Prospects: Jakub Galvas, Issak Phillips, Nicolas Beaudin, Louis Crevier.

AHL Contracts: Adam Clendening, Cliff Watson, Koletrane Wilson.

The major addition is the return of Clendening for his third tour of duty with Rockford. The 29-year-old defenseman is coming off a five-goal, 37-assist season with Lehigh Valley, his best point output since his 59-point season with the Hogs back in 2013-14.

The signing of Clendening to a one-year AHL contract was the opening salvo of the new development philosophy. He’ll be a mainstay on the Rockford power play and provides yet another upgrade to the talent pool.

Galvas and Phillips may see time in Chicago, rotating with other prospects like Alec Regula (currently with the Hawks) and Ian Mitchell (injured). Beaudin is back for his fourth season in Rockford. It’s likely his final chance to realize his potential as a former first-round draft pick.

Crevier, a seventh-round pick from the 2020 NHL Draft, is a big (6’8″) rookie who should see the ice on a regular basis. He will need to adjust to AHL forwards and contribute in the offensive zone.

Watson saw action in 20 games with Rockford and spent the rest of his season with the Fuel. Wilson has spent his first two years of pro hockey in the ECHL with the Kansas City Mavericks.

 

Goalie

NHL Prospects: Arvid Soderblom, Jaxson Stauber.

Anchoring an experienced team in net are two youngsters. Primary starts are likely to go to Soderblom, who was very impressive in stretches of his rookie season. In 38 appearances, Soderblom was 21-15-2 with a 2.76 goals against average and a .919 save percentage.

Stauber was signed to a two-year entry contract by the Hawks after two seasons at Providence College. Last season, he posted a 2.10 GAA and a .921 save percentage in 37 games.

 

Coaching Staff

Anders Sorensen, who really had his young bunch playing well despite being outmanned most nights, took over early in the season as the interim coach when Derek King was promoted to Chicago. Sorensen was retained to helm the Hogs in 2022-23.

Assisting him will be a pair of former IceHogs. Jared Nightingale was brought in mid-season and did a great job with the blueline and penalty kill. He’s back as well, and rightfully so.

Joining Sorensen, Nightingale, and goalie coach Peter Aubrey is Rob Klinkhammer, a former IceHogs favorite who is making his debut in the coaching ranks after wrapping up his well-traveled pro career with six seasons in the KHL.

 

Outlook

The Central Division is no cakewalk, starting with the defending champs over in Rosemont. The Wolves lost a lot of pieces from last year’s juggernaut but are always built to compete. Manitoba returns most of last season’s second-place squad, and Milwaukee and Grand Rapids will also be tough opponents.

The IceHogs, on paper, look to be as experienced and as talented as any of their division rivals. Slow starts have always been an issue in Rockford. That’s been especially true in the last two seasons, which featured the greenest roster in the AHL by a wide margin. That shouldn’t be the case this fall.

The AHL season is full of ups and downs as roster moves by the parent clubs can have a huge effect on their affiliates. For the time being, it appears that Rockford is stocked with a veteran cast that should spend most of their seasons with the IceHogs. Davidson wants his prospects to play meaningful games well into the spring. Rockford is set up to do that; now it is time to see what the next seven months hold for this team.

 

Jerkin’ The Curtain In Manitoba

Rockford gets to work this weekend, opening the 2022-23 season with a pair of weekend matinees with the Manitoba Moose.

The action begins at the BellMTS Iceplex in Winnipeg Saturday, October 15 with a 2:00 p.m. CDT puck drop with the Moose. Rockford and Manitoba are at it again on Sunday, October 16 at 2:00 p.m. CDT

The IceHogs were 5-3 last season against the Moose but did not fare well on the road, managing just one win in four attempts in Manitoba.

The Moose had nine players that finished 2021-22 with at least 30 points. Seven of those players return to the team this season, including leading point producers Mikey Eyssimont (18 G, 24 A) and Jeff Malott (23 G, 18 A).

Manitoba’s projected starting goalie, Arvid Holm, was 0-3 vs Rockford last season with a 3.80 goals-against average and an .823 save percentage. Soderblom, who will start at least one of this weekend’s games for the IceHogs, was 3-2-0 with a 3.04 goals against average and a .919 save percentage against the Moose.

Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for in-game thoughts this weekend as well as throughout the season.

 

 

 

Hockey

Ready or Not – The Long-Awaited 2022-2023 Blackhawks Season Preview

By Summer Corson 980

The moment has finally come, whether you like it or not. The Blackhawks season is upon us and it will probably be the shittiest team this town has seen since at least 2008, give or take a few Hall of Fame players who may not make it to the end of the season in Hawks uniforms.

The new Blackhawks front office has taken us all at our word when we asked them to clean house of any trace of Stan Bowman or the previous regime. This offseason they cleared out almost exclusively players acquired by Stan Bowman in one way or another. In the name of Connor Bedard, an actual zoomer born in 2005, the Hawks have successfully traded off and discarded every offensive weapon they had. The Cat? Gone forever. Dylan Strome? You didn’t think you were gonna miss him, but you will. Dominik Kubalik? Maybe you didn’t notice his 32 points last season but you will now that they’ve disappeared from the roster. And I’m sure Kane and/or Toews will be for the taking come trade deadline, for the right price of course.

Instead we have, uhhhhh…this roster to get pumped about? This does not give me joy to look at. Remember how pissed off we all were when the Hawks traded away Dylan Sikura in 2020? Well he’s back now, and his numbers have literally never returned to his ‘18-19 stats because fuck you. They acquired Jarred Tinordi (son of Mark) off waivers who isn’t gonna do shit outside of barreling into people at the blueline, and David Poile likes him so that confirms just about all of your worst nightmares. There are also three Johnsons on this fucking team that are probably just simulations of hockey players and not even real people.

Maybe the front office staff thought you’d be placated by them bringing in familiar names from around the league, but let’s be honest—it’s hard to get jazzed up about some of these guys. Andreas Athanasiou seems to be the only one with offensive promise, being pretty quick on his feet and playing with Kane which will assure him lots of points on an offensively floundering team. (A limp dick would score points playing with Kane though.) Then there’s Max Domi, who ragdolled halfhearted-Duncan-Keith-replacement Connor Murphy last season when he was on the Blue Jackets. He’s already successfully played his way off the first line with Kane as we saw resurgences of Daydream Nation in this preseason—squint and you will remember better days. Depending on how quickly the Hawks fall out of the gate it’s likely neither of these dudes will be in Hawks uniforms by the end of this season.

The rest of the offensive lineup is incredibly underwhelming to me, though I pray I’ll change my mind after watching a few games. Most of the forward corps is a jumble of bottom-six forwards on a normal team, but plenty will be thrusted into top-six positions for the Hawks. The 2nd line pairing of Tyler Johnson (who is who he is at this point) and Taylor Raddysh (who just needs an opportunity to realize his potential!) are great examples of this. On the bottom six, Philipp Kurashev survived Davidson cleaning house of all offensive-minded forwards, and although he’s still just 23 I am not sure if I’d pin him as the breakout star of this season. God knows there’s a place for him to be that there if he wills it, though. He’s on a line with Sam Lafferty, who is fast but doesn’t have a ton of finish, and Mackenzie Entwistle, who is still young but is coming off just a 12-point season, so maybe Kurashev is actually screwed here. Finally, rounding out the fourth line is Colin Blackwell and Buddy Robinson, who are the equivalent of two ships passing me quietly in the night. They center Jujhar Khaira, who I’m just glad is back on the ice after getting bulldozed by professional assclown Jacob Trouba in December 2021 and dealing with concussion issues for the rest of the season.

On defense…well, not a ton has changed. The Joneses continue to be rostered, although Amy’s Youngest will be starting this season on the IR. Our top pairing of Amy’s Eldest and one of the Johnson simulations (Jack) find themselves reunited not only on the ice but off the ice as well in the I Played For John Tortorella in Columbus Support Group that I can only assume they are a part of. Murphy is hopefully healthy despite dealing with some back tightness to start off the preseason, leading him to miss a couple of games. (He might ask Coach if he could miss a few more after spending some time dragging around Tinordi on his pairing.) Jake McCabe, who is currently being held together by duct tape at Luke Richardson’s personal request, made his way onto the roster despite another major surgery this offseason, so expect to see him in the lineup once he feels fully healthy. And to round out the pairings, we’ll be able to watch two future pieces of the Blackhawks blueline in Filip Roos and Alec Regula probably get skulled by every opponent. But hey, at least it’s just two young guys getting skulled instead of the entire prospect pipeline.

We were all tossing and turning at night wondering what the Hawks goaltending could possibly look like this season. Considering Arvid Soderblom is 23 which is like 15 in goalie years, more stopgaps had to be placed on the NHL roster so he could continue with his development elsewhere. Unfortunately, the stopgaps available to us were…Peter Mrazek and Alex Stalock? Mrazek’s stellar .888 save percentage on a 115-point Maple Leafs team last year sounds about right to me. People will hold out hope he’ll return to his .923 numbers that he had with the Hurricanes in 2020-21, but that was behind a competent team with solid offense and defense, neither of which Mrazek is gonna see between the pipes in the United Center. Stalock has drifted between “meh” and “serviceable” during his time with the Wild between the years of 2016-2020 but considering his age and the fact that an injury sidelined him for all but one game last year, it will likely take him a while to get his footing.

To round it all out, the Hawks get to start their season against the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, who are still considered contenders this year by just about every sportswriter I’ve seen on Twitter Dot Com. It will probably get bad real quick, right off the bat, and we’ll have to get comfy in the muck and mire that will be the rest of the season. But if you’ve read until here, you’re a fan for the long haul and will stick around for as long as it takes to see a contending team get built here again. Hopefully there will be some silver lining to this season—like Lukas Reichel’s eventual callup—that will make things Fun-Bad in the meantime. We’ll try to hold down the fort here, previewing and wrapping groups of games as much as we can, and hope to see you along for the ride.