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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: David Kampf

By Rose Rankin September 28, 2018 1784 0

More like David CAN’T, AMIRITE? I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. But it was right there on a tee. You would have done it too. OK anyway, David Kampf is one of those on-the-bubble guys who could play on the bottom six, could be sent down to the Ice Hogs, and will probably do a bit of both. He’s naturally a center and it would seem the Hawks are settled on Toews, Anisimov and Kruger, (and hopefully Schmaltz, wtf THIS ONE IS EASY GUYS) so Kampf will likely play wing, unless someone on that list totally craps the bed or Q continues with this nonsense of Schmaltz on the wing (both are a real possibility). Let’s look closer:

2017-18 Stats

46 GP – 4 G – 7 A

51.6 CF% – 46.0 oZS% – 54.0 dZS%

12:48 Avg. TOI

A Brief History. A fresh-faced youngster from the Czech Republic, Kampf turned out to be a serviceable bottom-six guy last season. He centered Sharp and Top Cat, and at times Top Cat and Our Cousin Vinny (skypoint) during Q’s obnoxious third-line experimentation. He was also competent in the defensive zone, taking the majority of his starts there while maintaining a respectable 51.6 CF%. His point totals weren’t lighting the world on fire, but for a bottom-six guy that’s kind of what you’re stuck with. He had 11 points in 46 games with the Hawks, and 19 in 45 games total with the Hogs during the season, including the AHL playoffs. He even scored his first-ever NHL goal on his birthday—how fucking adorable is that?

It Was the Best of Times. The best-case scenario here kinda depends on who you are. If you’re David Kampf, it would be for Anisimov to get hurt or just to suck something awful, and he ends up as the 3C. Now, if Anisimov gets hurt, meh, that happened last year and Kampf filled in just fine. But if he sucks something awful for the amount of time it takes Q to finally demote him and his wide dick to the press box, it’s going to be quite painful for the rest of us.

There’s been all sorts of weirdness with the lines lately, and not that any of it should be taken as gospel, but another decent outcome would be for Kampf to play wing on Kruger’s line, hopefully with someone not named Andreas Martinsen. He could center the third line with Brandon Saad and Chris Kunitz (for the record I am against this idea of Saad on the third line but it seems to be a thing happening, shitty performance last night notwithstanding), he could center Dylan Sikura and John Hayden, or there could be some other random combination. The bottom six are still a game of Tetris right now where no one’s entirely sure who will fit where except for Kruger as one of the two centers. But if Kampf is decent enough to contribute in any meaningful way, that will be a win for the Hawks. Penalty killing would be nice, given his apparent comfort in the defensive zone and not-wretched faceoff numbers. At 6’2” and a shade under 200 lbs. he’s not a complete oaf and seems to have decent speed.

It Was the BLURST of Times. Conversely, the worst-case scenario would be that Kampf is the one who sucks something awful and he lands a permanent spot on the Ice Hogs. The Hawks could use depth in the forward corps…I know it’s not as dismal as the defensive situation, but this team will be lucky to make the playoffs and we need pleasant surprises and lucky breaks wherever we can find them. Having another young prospect turn out to be a quadruple-A guy does nothing for anyone.

Prediction. Kampf will likely be closer to quadruple-A than anything else. Maybe I’m just being a pessimist (duh), but I think he’ll fill up space when Anisimov gets hurt—which he will, he has the last few years and it’s going to happen again—but Kampf won’t break out for a crazy number of goals or anything like that. He’ll score about 15 points, will be a decent journeyman, and probably not much else. Not that I got anything against the guy—I actually think it’s cute how Jan Rutta is his little translator friend, because if I had to give interviews in a foreign language I would be terrified beyond belief and I admire anyone who figures out a way to get through it (this makes me hate Rutta less at the same time). But I’m a black-hearted realist as well, so I’m taking the under on this one.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Chris Kunitz

Victor Ejdsell

Brandon Saad

John Hayden

Everything Else

Preseason Game #5 – Ottawanna Go Ta Bed – Hawks 1, Senators 2

By John Pullega September 27, 2018 1839 0

Tonight’s preseason game was as invigorating as a toenail-clipping party. That’s about par for the course when both Ottawa is involved and Garbage Dick is on the sidelines. We did learn a little bit in this game though, so let’s get through it.

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– In true FFUD form, just a few hours after Hess wrote about how you’ll never really notice John Hayden out there, John Hayden was probably the most noticeable Hawk for most of the game. The Hayden–Marcus Kruger–Andreas Martinsen line was by far the best performer on the ice for the Hawks tonight, which is both good and bad: Good in that it’s always encouraging to see the fourth line dominate possession like they did, bad in that your fourth line probably shouldn’t ever be the most noticeable line, especially against a team contending for the first overall pick (IF THEY STILL HAD IT THAT IS). Hayden’s performance got him bumped up to the “second” line with Schmaltz and Anisimov later in the game, and while he wasn’t as noticeable in that role, he sure earned it.

– With Hayden moving up, Dylan Sikura got bumped down to the fourth line in the second half of the game. The hawk-eyed Mark Lazerus suggested that this could potentially be a death knell for Sikura’s hopes of breaking camp, especially with Luke Johnson and David Kampf playing relatively lights out. It’ll be a huge disappointment if Sikura has to start in the AHL, as just about everyone assumed he would be an offensive contributor out of the gate. Something to keep an eye on.

– Anton Forsberg only gave up two goals, and the first one was on blown coverage from “Hard J” Henri Jokiharju and Dominik Kahun. The second was on a Joe Louis Arena-esque bounce off the end boards. Overall, he looked decent, but he always looks like an eighth grader nervously asking his crush to dance with him when under pressure. There’s a loudness to his playing style that always has you on edge it seems.

– Jokiharju is going to have a pretty steep learning curve to overcome on the defensive side of the puck, but that’s not the end of the world. His offensive instincts are there. He ended up with a 45 CF% on the night, spending most of his time with Keith.

– Thank fuck Alex DeBrincat is 5’7” and fell to the Hawks in the draft last year (with the pick they got for Andrew Shaw. Never forget that.). The pass he conjured through Chabot’s legs on the Jonathan Toews goal slipped past three Senators total, and was simply a sight to behold. They may have brought Saad in to reinvigorate The Captain, but Top Cat on his left side is going to be the Michelangelo to his Renaissance.

– I’ve been pissing and moaning about Brandon Saad on the third line with Chris Kunitz and Luke Johnson since it’s been announced, but his play was deserving of his status tonight. He had a few unforced turnovers early and never really got into a groove. He finished with a disappointing 44.44 CF%. There might be a couple of mitigating factors here: Namely, Kunitz and Johnson are grinders and Saad was playing on his off wing, which he’s never really done, but that’s not much of an excuse. With the Nick Schmaltz–Artem Anisimov–Sikura line being the only line to be more of a ghost out there, I still think putting Saad with Schmaltz and Patrick Kane will be best for everyone, but his performance tonight didn’t inspire confidence. The Fels Motherfuck knows no bounds, apparently.

– Let’s cut this “Nick Schmaltz on the wing” horseshit out now.

Join us next week when we watch the Hawks play the fucking Senators again, because nothing worth doing ever comes easy.

Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: A Team In Vancouver That Apparently Exists

By Sam Fels September 27, 2018 1534 0

You would think it would be hard to not think about the Vancouver Canucks anymore. After all, we’ve been through so much together. Maybe it’s their isolate placing on the continent. All tucked away down there. But that can’t be it. At least not solely it. Maybe it’s that their rebuild is too shrouded is monumentally dumb signings that mean they’ll never be relevant. Which is fine. Maybe it’s without the Sedins I can’t really identify anyone who’s there, nor do I care to.

This is how it used to be with the Canucks. They played in either a really dark arena or then moved into a really brightly lit one. They wore bad uniforms, and that’s really all you knew about them. They were the extras for the real show, which was the Oilers or Kings or Avalanche or whatever else.

What’s funny, and perfect, about the Canucks is that what sprung them out of anonymity is Todd Bertuzzi assaulting Steve McCarthy. No one thought about them before, and after that we weren’t able to get rid of them until now. And mostly it was for additional, cowardly, despicable acts. No one’s ever really marveled at anything they’ve done hockey-wise.

It’s kind of amazing that this organization ever figured out how to contend. Although the truth is they never did. The Canucks only run of consequence came when the Wings got too old, the Hawks had their first cap problems, and the Kings hadn’t matured yet. It also helped they played in the worst division in hockey history before realignment, and that includes the one made completely up of expansion teams in 1967. Once the Hawks recovered and the Kings figured it out and one or two other teams became good, the paper tiger that has been the Nucks in their entire existence folded back into the shadows. Where they belong.

So let’s run through whatever this is and get on with our lives.

2017-2018: 31-40-11 72 points 218 GF 264 GA 47.6 CF% 46.5 xGF% 7.2 SH% .921 SV%

Goalies: Contrary to popular belief, Jakob Markstrom is not the substitute teacher from the Simpsons that Lisa became infatuated with. He apparently plays goalie for the Canucks. And much like the rest of the team, he was indistinguishable from the scenery. He put up a .912, which is just a tick under league average. IT was his first full season as a starter. He turns 29 during the season, so I think we can probably say this is what he is. They’ll be pining for Thatcher Demko pretty quickly.

Backing him up will be Anders Nilsson. He was good is spot-duty in Buffalo two years ago. He wasn’t in Vancouver last year. He’ll be 29 as well this season. Again, these are placeholders for Demko to replace, if he can.

Defense: Alex Edler and his magical flying elbows are still somehow here. So is Chris Tanev, who clearly should have been traded last year as he was the only piece they could have gotten anything for. Tanev has two years left oin his deal so the deadline would be THE TIME to move him, which you can be assured the Canucks will biff.

For some reason they have a second pairing of Michael Del Zotto and Erik Gudbranson, possibly to construct the most-overhyped-in-the-past pairing in the league. Both of these guys belong on a third-pairing if that, and that they’ll be getting more minutes for the blue and green shows what kind of season they’re headed for. Troy Stetcher might be good…or it might be a term for some living room device that only rich people have. I’m not really sure.

They need help, and they seem excited about Olli Juolevi and one or two other kids. You’ll see some of them before the year is out.

Forwards: It’ll be the first season since 1984 that the Canucks will line up without The Children Of The Corn. Passy and Shooty Twin have moved on to their matching houses with matching yards and matching outfits somewhere in the suburbs of Vancouver or Sweden, not that it matters.

Which means Bo Horvat is now the #1 center. Which means watching this team should be considered community service. Horvat has never lived up to his draft position and probably never will. He’ll get to play with Brock Boeser, or Bose Brocker, or Brick Boser. Whatever his goddamn name he is the only genuine talent anywhere on this roster. His 29 goals were no fluke, and he has one of the best shots in the league.

Elias Pettersson and Nikolay Goldobin are the only other hopes, and Pettersson turned some heads at camp at 19. But if it’s bad contracts you want, boy are you in luck! Can I show you Sam Gagner? Are you interested in a Jay Beagle at $3 million a year to not be anything more than a checking center?Brandon Sutter at over $4 million for a fourth-line center? How about Loui Eriksson for $6 million a year until the sun swallows us all (thankfully) to score 22 goals you’ll never remember? Sven Baertschi at $3 million to do….something?

Oh, and Jake Virtanen is still here. And he still sucks.

Outlook: With Stetcher, Demko, Boeser, Pettersson, and possibly Goldobin, there are some kids here who could possibly make up the next Canucks team that isn’t a fart in the wind. I would imagine Adam Gaudette will be up at some point in the season, and we can only hope he doesn’t prove to be the only reason anyone cares about Dylan Sikura (though that’s more on Dylan). Kole Lind is another they’ll keep an eye on.

But they are hardly enough to wash away the massive amounts of shit you dig out of your eye when you wake up that populates this roster. The goalies aren’t impressive, the defense is terrible, and the forwards don’t have enough scoring or speed or anything else. And the coach might be an idiot. If the talent ever spikes in Arizona, this is an outfit headed for last place.

Not that you’ll notice. Because in every fashion, the Canucks are a dark room.

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Vegas Golden Knights

Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: The Knights Who Say Ni

By Sam Fels September 27, 2018 1614 0

We, or maybe just I, spent most of the season bitching about the Vegas Golden Knights, and specifically how stupid they made the league and really the nature of the sport look. Because they didn’t reinvent any wheel here, despite what some would like you to think. They just put together a bunch of fast players, got somewhat lucky when other teams overvalued complete stiffs and gave them useful parts instead, and then told them to get the fuck up the ice as fast as possible and score. And because hockey is decided on such tight margins, you only need a few bounces and a division made up of partially digested foodstuffs to suddenly find yourself with more than 100 points and in a Stanley Cup Final.

But really, the indictment wasn’t on the Knights but on the league that A.) couldn’t see what the Penguins had been doing the previous two years and replicate it and B.) fanbases and front offices who still can’t see how arbitrary all this can be.

It could very easily go sideways on the Knights, and it wouldn’t take too many of those bounces reversing themselves for it to do so. They’re not getting .927 from Fleury again. Wild Bill Karlsson is not shooting 25% again. Without Nate Schmidt, other teams might discover that this blue line actually sucks, though the Knights system and speed shelters it just about as well as any team can.

But they’re also buffeted against that better this year. And the division still requires golf shoes to wade through. We’re goin’ in…to Sin City…

2017-2018: 51-24-7 109 points 272 GF 228 GA 50.9 CF% 50.6 xGF% 8.3 SH% .921 SV%

Goalies: No reason to not run it back from last year, though handing Marc-Andre Fleury the contract extension they did is going to end up with everyone covered in expired pudding (does pudding expire? I can’t even remember the last time I had pudding, honestly. Do adults eat pudding? They do, right? How come I never do? Has it all gotten away from me?).

I know how it goes whenever I say something definitive, as the “Fels Motherfuck” is becoming Chicago lexicon right up there with “Zorich To Linebacker!” But there’s simply no way Flower gets back to a .927 SV% this year. We have 13 years of data to look at with him. His career-mark is .913. Last year’s spasm of godliness was a career-high by six points. Fleury put together back-to-back .920+ years in Pittsburgh in ’15 and ’16, but bottomed out in ’17 with a .908. What exactly he’ll put up this year is hard to pinpoint, so I’ll go safe and general and say it’s probably between his career mark of .913 and .920. Which is fine. Can the Knights do as much with just “fine” in net? Probably not. But they can still be good.

Fleury’s “Starry Season” masked the fact that the Knights also got highly competent work out of Malcolm Subban, both as a backup and when Fleury was hurt. And Subban had struggled in the AHL his last two seasons there, much less the NHL. He’s still only 24, and we know the learning curve for young goalies is steep and treacherous. Maybe last year is a glimpse of what he can be, but the Knights will not be wanting to turn too much over to him this season.

Defense: Whatever you think of Nate Schmidt’s suspension–and you think it’s ridiculous because it really is given his very plausible and backed-up defense–he’s gone for a quarter of the season. It’s a big miss. Which is weird to say, because we’re fairly sure he was never top-pairing quality, and yet he was in Vegas and they were a good defensive team.

So before delving any further into the Knights’ blue line, it’s important to remember how their system protects what is a unit that lacks talent. They aren’t asked to break themselves out of trouble. They barely have to pass. The defense is merely asked to get the puck out to the neutral zone for the forwards to skate onto. It can be the fly pattern or simply a chip off the glass. And because the forwards are so frenzied and make everything look like Smash TV, the Knights d-men aren’t in the d-zone all that much. Their forwards also help a ton on the backcheck. Because they have to.

Because when you look at a list of names like Colin Miller, Brayden McNabb, Shea Theodore, Deryk Engelland, and Nick Holden, we know everyone pretty much sucks aside from Theodore. And the sample size isn’t huge on him yet. They’re not even that quick. But again, the Knights ask of little of them as possible. So every piece of logic and evidence I have says it’s not a good blue line. But it also might not really matter. Fuck, the Penguins won two Cups with defensive corps that were just above mop-bucket residue. It’s kind of the way things are going.

Forwards: Let’s clear this up right now. Jesse Marchessault and William Karlsson are not combining for 150 points again or 70 goals. I just can’t believe that, because alone Karlsson is not going to shoot 25% again. Seriously, the dude had one of every four shots go in. In the past 10 years, only two players have managed more than one 20%+ shooting season, and they are Alex Tanguay (who somehow did it five times and I don’t know why we even bother trying to figure out this world) and Mike Ribeiro. Karlsson has a date with a Lady named “Regression” and she just ordered the lobster.

Marchessault could actually consider himself a touch unlucky, as even with his 27 goals last year he saw his SH% drop from 15% the year before to 10% last campaign. We’ll see what he is this year. The Knights are simply better supported though for any kind of sinking from the top line because the second line is Alex Tuch–Paul Stastny–Max Pacioretty, which is probably their first line when all is said and done. That’s going to generate more scoring than Tuch-Doofus Du Jour-James Neal. Though with Stastny and Patches, it’s probably not as quick but if Neal found a home in this system, they’ll find a way to get something out of those two as well.

The bottom-six is still comprised of the hopped-up gnats it was last year like Erik HAULA!, Cody Eakin, Tomas Nosek, Oscar Lindberg, Ryan Carpenter, and because they have to give away at least one roster spot to galactic stupidity Ryan Reaves is here (please let Gerard Gallant use him with the goalie pulled again. I need as much mirth in my life as I can get right now). The names don’t do much for you but again, they’re all quick and they’re told to be quicker and most teams can’t live with it with their third-pairings.

Outlook: They’re not the Sharks. Regression is going to hit them in a few spots. But with that second-line and all the games they get against the other teams wandering the countryside with no particular plan or urgency, it’s hard to see them losing the 15-20 points that would make a playoff spot suddenly in jeopardy. Maybe Fleury falls completely apart. Maybe Subban can’t bail him out at all. Maybe Karlsson and Marchessault shoot like 7%. But those seem extreme. Second place seems like home, a comfortable 98-102 points. Who who else in the Pacific can you safely say gets there?

Previous Team Previews

Everything Else

How Many Fucking Brandons Do We Need?

By Sam Fels September 27, 2018 1976 0

God we’re going to use that picture a lot.

I’m probably going to disappoint you here, because my energy to rant and rave got up and went. My borderline-dread of what this season very well may be has kind of robbed me of the vigor to go nuclear at the lowest-level signing of Brandon Davidson.

Because the thing is…Brandon Davidson is fine. He’s fine if he’s in your #5-7 rotation. Yes, he played for three teams last year. And players who play for three teams in a season suck. That’s just the nature of the thing. Yes, he played for three teams with terrible defenses and moreover two of those teams don’t really know how to coach or develop any d-men. I don’t know what to make of Claude Julien anymore, so I’ll reserve judgement on that.

Davidson doesn’t score much, but his underlying numbers have always been good with the roles he’s been given. He’s honestly not going to kill you. But if there’s room for him on your blue line, your blue line probably blows.

What Davidson’s signing should have been is the one instead of Brandon Manning. Because they’re essentially the same thing, though Davidson probably has a little more dash to his game, whatever kind of claim that is. They’re both left-sided, third-pairing guys that you hope you don’t even notice really. The fact that the Hawks found room for both of them is a pretty huge indictment of what they are right now.

The Hawks are spending nearly $3 million this season to get two versions of the same thing. They could have had one of them for nothing, as that’s what Davidson is getting. There’s really only one slot for both, I guess, behind Keith and Gustafsson who take the other left-sided spots. And if one of them overtakes Gustafsson, that means things are worse than we thought and Goose is never going to be anything and you’d be better off watching porn than this team (probably always true, though).

None of this solves anything, which is the gaping holes on the top four. And they’ve been there FOR YEARS. They were there the minute Johnny Oduya sauntered off to Texas after the third parade. And the Hawks have done nothing, NOTHING, to fix it. Their pro scouting continues to let them down, or their internal budget does. It’s why we’ve seen confused clowns like Rob Scuderi, Jordan Oesterle, Christian Ehrhoff, Trevor Daley, David Rundblad, TVR, Darko Svedberg, the corpse of Michal Rozsvial or the corpse of Oduya’s second term, while somehow Michal Kempny wasn’t used and then went on to just anchor a second-pairing on a Cup winner. Also, if you read that entire list you will now die of dysentery in the next four years. Sorry.

That’s not to say Stan Bowman can’t recognize any d-man, because it’s generally agreed that Adam Boqvist and Henri Jokiharju are going to be difference-makers. Ian Mitchell may be as well. But all of that is two years away at a minimum.

The Hawks actually had cap space to address this. They could have addressed it in the past. Their answer was Brandon Manning, whom they just duplicated for a quarter of the cost. And the defense is the biggest reason this team is almost certainly going to suck and no one will be paying attention to it by Christmas. The forward corps isn’t great, but with a good blue line and a healthy Crawford (or any goalie who isn’t Cam Ward and could be competent) the Hawks would threaten the playoffs at worst. This one is probably going to get its head kicked in by any team with a collection of speed, which these days is just about all of them except like, the Islanders. And you only play them twice.

This is what happens when you have to use your movable pieces to help get things off the roster instead of put things on. I could trace this back to trading Patrick Sharp a year too late, or having to move Stephen Johns to get Sharp off the roster (not that Johns saves this, but he’s an NHL-quality d-man who at the very least could have netted something in return if he wasn’t used as Sharp sweetener. Insert your joke about all the places “Sharp Sweetener” went in Chicago here, just like he did). Or Teuvo, who most certainly could have gotten you a young, serviceable d-man in return if he didn’t have to be lashed to Bickell.

But that’s getting to be the longest book written, next to “Why No One Goes To Comiskey.” The problem isn’t Davidson. The problem is that there’s room for him at all.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – John Hayden

By Adam Hess September 27, 2018 1792 0

Did you guys miss me? It has been almost two full weeks since I wrote up a player preview because I was out of town most of last week. I return to bring you – wait, what? You barely noticed that I was gone? You mean to tell me that when I am here or when I am not you can hardly tell the difference? Well, that gives me something in common with today’s subject – John Hayden.

2017-18 Stats

47 GP – 4 G – 9 A

47.69 CF% – 44.37 oZS%

10:49 Avg. TOI

A Brief History: Okay, so maybe saying that you don’t notice when Hayden is or isn’t on the ice is a bit misleading. If you ever catch yourself thinking “holy shit this line is getting completely shelled in their own zone right now,” you probably will find number 40 on the screen if you look for it. I mean, you almost have to be impressively bad to have nearly 53% of the 5v5 shot attempts go against you when you’re averaging less than 10 minutes of 5v5 ice time per game. And it’s not like this guy was playing top competition either. Look, Hayden isn’t totally to blame there, because the Hawks bottom six was pretty weak in general last year, but good lord my dude you’re barely playing in the game and yet still getting your ass kicked when you’re out there.

It’s not hard to figure out why Hayden kept getting ice time (and will do so again this year) despite sucking out loud: he does “the little things” which is hockey speak for he is rough and tough or some shit. Spin the giant “hockey cliche wheel” and I’m sure you’ve heard just about everything in the book said about this due. Gets in the corners. Makes the ugly plays. Finishes his checks. Eats slop out of the garbage. Wait.

It Was the Best of Times: I’ve mentioned in the past that I really am not good at these best case scenario things, but ho boy is it hard to do it with Hayden. It’s like trying to find something positive about getting punched in the face. “Well, my jaw’s broken but it could’ve been worse!” Bitch, your jaw is still broken. Hayden is 23 years old and doesn’t have the profile of a player who will have any sort of real scoring breakout ever. We know what he is already, and really knew what he was before he got here. He’s fodder for a team that wants to at least look like it has depth.

So with that said, I guess the best case scenario is just that Hayden isn’t as bad as last year, or doens’t play much if he is. It can’t be that hard to inch closer to 50% of the shot shares, even if he’s unlikely to push north of that. Scoring wise, it’s not necessarily unrealistic to think he can climb toward 20 points, given that he had 13 in 47 games last year, but I wouldn’t expect much more than that even in the best outcomes. He also might not play in more than about 50 games again, so something in that 15 point range might be where he tops out.

It Was the BLURST of Times: At this point, I have very low expectations/hopes for the Hawks this season, so I don’t really see how a bad season from Hayden would really have any sort of major negative impact on their season. Still, there is a worst case scenario for him, especially as an individual. I’d say that if he doesn’t at least improve his shot share from last year, that’s a major issue. If he goes even more in the wrong direction, just cut your losses and buy him a house in Rockford so he knows his place.

Prediction: Is it clear yet that I think Hayden sucks? I think he will continue to suck this year. He might see more luck with the shot share, but I bet it still looks bad at the end of the year, still in the 47-48% range. I don’t think he should play more than about 50 games, which means he will probably be this year’s Bollig and play in every damn one. At least it might inch us closer to Jack Hughes/Kaapo Kakko territory next summer.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Chris Kunitz

Victor Ejdsell

Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: San Jose Sharks

By Sam Fels September 26, 2018 1910 0

It only feels like we’ve been slogging through previews of teams that are, at best, not all that impressive, or just straight up bad. That’s what happens when you are stuck in the Pacific Division with nowhere to go and no escape route. But now we get to the good stuff.

Although it’s slightly painful, because the Sharks did, and have done the past couple years, what the Hawks couldn’t or wouldn’t do. They know there’s not much tread left on the tires of Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture. Even Brent Burns is past 30. So is Marc-Edouard Vlasic. So when the timeline is limited, you say fuck it it’s free cake and you go get a generational player when he’s out there to be had. They cleared the decks for John Tavares. Didn’t work. The decks were still clear for Erik Karlsson. That did. And now they’re favorites in the West because they can get out of their division in about 10 games and then pick the carcass of whoever survives the Jets-Predators (maybe Blues?) tango of death in the Central.

It’s a fuck of a lot better than hoping your goalie who hasn’t played in a year can somehow find Vezina form in about seven minutes to shore up all the cracks in your team that you caused to begin with. Or watching Luke Fucking Johnson.

Let’s to it.

2017-2018: 45-27-10 100 points 252 GF 229 GA 50.8 CF% 51.9 xGF% 7.5 SH% .916 SV%

Goalies: You can’t really be more consistent than Martin Jones has been with the Sharks the past three seasons. He’s not been great, as he’s stayed between .912-.918 in save-percentage, but he’s never been terrible. He’s also brought it in the playoffs something serious, as he has averaged a .926 in them. He will turn 29 this season, so barring any type of injury there’s no reason to expect any kind of drop-off. And considering how much the Sharks might score, he probably doesn’t even need to be that good. If he played in Canada, you’d probably hear a fuckton more about him. You will this year.

Backing him up is Aaron Dell, and once you wade through the obnoxious amount of Silicon Valley jokes with him, he’s been about as sturdy a backup as you can find in the league. Because of him the Sharks don’t have to push Jones any more than 55-60 games and he’s fresh for their playoff runs. They could probably even get out of a couple weeks if Jones were to get hurt with Dell. This is something more GMs really should pay attention to.

Defense: Clearly this is where the fun begins. For 50 minutes a night at least, the Sharks can throw out either Brent Burns or Erik Karlsson, and basically know they’re going to get their foot in the ass of anyone up to the throat. No team is going to be able to boast anything close to this, and if you’re any kind of hockey fan you have to be at least a little excited to see what it looks like.

The only question is what Pete DeBoer lines this up as. Before, Vlasic and Justin Braun basically did the mine-sweeping for Burns, who then gooified lesser competition to his historic shot-rates. Obviously, Karlsson will take Braun’s right-sided role with Vlasic, and they’ll do more than just mine-sweep. Braun, unless he flips to the left-side and there hasn’t been much talk of that, slides down to the third-pairing with Brendon Dillon. But he’ll be used late in close games I would imagine with Vlasic to shore up the defensive zone. Basically, when you have Braun on your third-pairing but can slot up when needed, you have the best defense in the league.

DeBoer isn’t the most aggressive of coaches, but he’s also far from an idiot. It would be senseless to have these two horses on your team and not let them run. Considering what’s in front of them, this could be SHOWTIME! if they so choose.

Forwards: It’s the same story as always up top for the Sharks. It’s a bit top-heavy, and Pavelski is forced to play wing because they don’t have quite enough wings to make a top-six. Thornton-Couture-Pavelksi down the middle would probably be the best center-depth in the West, but you can’t turn down the 30-35 Pavelski will get on Thornton’s wing. That’s if Thornton is healthy, and after missing a big chunk of last year, this has to be a huge concern for a player who’s 39. Wouldn’t be shocked if Joe gets the back ends of back-to-backs off just because.

Hertl and Meier are going to flank Couture again, which is not a bad place to be. The third and fourth lines aren’t going to blow your eyelids off or anything, but Joonas Donskoi and Kevin LeBlanc have flashed being very useful in the past. They lost 40 points in Chris Tierney, but that’s the kind of thing you do to get the 80 you’ll get out of Karlsson, minimum. Don’t worry, the Sharks will call up someone with a really dumb name to fill in on the fourth line and it’ll be fine.

Outlook: Considering this power play was self-aware before, with Karlsson who knows where it goes. Yeah, maybe they’re a touch heavy at forward. They can throw Karlsson out behind the third and fourth lines a lot of shifts and make that not matter. Burns can continue to light it up behind the top two lines and against bums or both. The division sucks. This is the ultimate go-for-it. There aren’t any excuses left for the Sharks. Anything short of a Cup is a disappointment, and it very well might be their only chance.

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