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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Artem Anisimov

By Rose Rankin September 20, 2018 1892 0

For the last six months, pretty much any time I’ve thought about Artem Anisimov I’ve thought of the word trade along with him. Obviously this is what I decided I wanted to have happen and now I’m fixated on it. But it isn’t just me who’s stuck on this idea. I mean, come on—a 3^rd line center (at best) for 4.5 million a year? A guy whose assists halved last year from the year before? A guy whose xGF% is 45.6%, meaning that the Hawks are more likely to have a goal scored against them when he’s on the ice than they are likely to score with him on the ice? At that price? But hey, this is the Hawks and no one can try to polish a turd longer than they can!

2017-18 Stats

72 GP – 20 G – 11 A

49.9 CF% – 52.8 oZS% – 47.2 dZS%

16:47 Avg. TOI

A Brief History. Once it became clear that the Hawks were going nowhere last year and that their blue line was absolute shit, people began salivating over the idea of unloading Anisimov’s contract to make cap space. But ‘ole Wide Dick hung around (for those of you who may not recall, he got the nickname Wide Dick Arty via a podcast last year when his skating style was described as looking like his dick was getting in the way…I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things). And he wasn’t completely useless, but with the development of Nick Schmaltz into a 2C Anisimov fell down the depth chart. Pat and Eddie never tired of extolling his ability to park his ass (and dick too, I suppose) in front of the net, and lo, he did score 11 power play goals, thanks to his ability to position himself there for garbage pickup. Given how wretched the power play was, this is not to be overlooked—but it’s still too much to pay for, when instead the Hawks should have a functioning power play that doesn’t solely rely on the elusive and overrated Annette Frontpresence.

It Was the Best of Times. I’d like to say the best-case scenario is they that trade Anisimov as part of a package for someone more useful, but unless it’s a trade deadline move that at this point I cannot divine what it would be, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. We’re rolling into this season with this lineup, like it or not. And if no team has been dumb enough to take his contract yet, so why would they do so now? No, the best-case scenario here that Anisimov can be on the second power play unit and continue scoring some garbage goals, and that he’s mildly useful either in the 3 or 4C spot, depending on how Marcus Kruger bounces back (or doesn’t). Not fucking up royally is about the best outcome here.

It Was the BLURST of Times. What would be the worst situation? Wow, let’s just let our minds wander…he’s on the second line, he’s moved to wing, Schmaltz is hurt and he’s just so slow I DON’T WANT TO I DON’T LIKE IT. The worst-case scenario is really that Anisimov gets a lot of playing time anywhere other than the third line. And that better players get stuck with him (again, Top Cat is NOT a third-liner).

Prediction. Most likely, Wide Dick has a repeat performance from last year. He’s the 3C, with Kruger handling the main defensive duties for the bottom two centers, he’s got a rotating cast of wingers, including EggShell, Kampf, maybe Chris Kunitz, depending on how it all shakes out. Arty scores around 20 goals (probably a little less), half of which come on the power play as he parks his ass in front of the net (when he can skate that far) and gets lucky occasionally. He doesn’t bring much value to the team and his cap space would be better used elsewhere, but he doesn’t actively pour gasoline on the tire fire, either. He’s not even supposed to BE here today anyway.

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Cam Ward

Jan Rutta

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Washington Capitals

By Matt McClure September 19, 2018 2081 0

Oh yeah, these guys. While the Capitals finally hoisting the Cup last season was basically the equivalent of Denzel winning an Oscar for Training Day or Scorsese winning for The Departed, they certainly didn’t celebrate like a team that beat an expansion franchise, and to be fair, they did take out the top seed in the conference Lightning and the two-time defending champion and arch-nemesis in the form of the very tired Penguins, so the names won’t be ground out of the silver any time soon. Last season’s champions return mostly in tact, if more than a little bit dehydrated.

’17-’18: 49W-26L-7OT 256GF 239GA 22.5%PP 80.3%PK 47.96%CF 9.19SH% .9248SV%

Goaltending: Last year was finally the year that Braden Holtby broke under years of tremendous workloads, with sub .900 months of January and Febrary, ceding much of the home stretch of the season to Philipp Grubauer, who even started the playoffs in Round 1 against Columbus. But as Grubauer faltered, a somewhat rested Holtby was able to return to form and posted a .922 overall the remainder of the post season. With Grubauer shipped to Colorado for a second round pick, Holtby will now be backed up by something called Pheonix Copley (yes, that’s how his name is spelled) who has allowed 6 goals on the 35 shots he’s faced in the NHL since 2016. While Barry Trotz and his propensity for grinding goalies into dirt might be gone (due to some of the dumbest ass reasons ever), Holtby might have to play 70 games again out of necessity. He’s always generally been up to the task as one of the most consistent and stable goalies in the league and has a Vezina to prove it, but the modern game just simply can’t ask goalies to play that much.

Defensemen: Someone was going to pay John Carlson an exorbitant amount of money this past off season, particularly after the playoff run he had where he scored 5 goals and 20 total points from the back end, and given that the Caps actually walked away with hardware this time, it makes a certain degree of sense that it would be them to keep the home grown product in the fold. Carlson is the de facto #1 defenseman here, and he’s certainly paid like it, but it’s the goddamnedest thing that his game picked up right around the time that the Capitals acquired Michal Kempny from a long-out-of-it team with a coach that somehow couldn’t or wouldn’t figure out how to properly use him. Kempny’s coming out party in the post season earned him a contract of $2.5 per over four years, which will be an absolute steal if he plays the way he did in Washington post-trade. Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov provide a fair amount of offensive punch themselves, however one of them is still going to be dragging around what’s left of the wheelbarrow full of cinder blocks that is Brooks Orpik. Orpik was traded, bought out, and resigned back with Washington for $1 million for this year, which probably figures to be his last as he turns 38 a week from today. It’s a solid grouping, but it still kind of hinges on Michal Kempny not being a fluke.

Forwards: The strong suit of any team that has Alexander Ovechkin on it. The sheer firepower that Ovechkin has produced in his career, particularly having occurred in this era, has been poured over at length in this space. Having just turned 33 on Monday, he’s not quite the force of nature that he once was, but he can still basically get whatever he wants on the ice whenever he wants it, even if he probably didn’t fully deserve the Conn Smythe he was awarded in June, which should have gone to Evgeny Kuznetsov and his 32 post season points. Kuzya’s emergence has given the Caps some true center depth as Nicklas Backstrom ages gracefully into a slighly reduced role as a #2 center, and Lars Eller slots in nicely as a #3. Timothy Jimothy Leif predictably did not put up the Mike Bossy-esque shooting percentage numbers last year that he did in his contract year, and the game he plays at 31 would indicate that age is going to hit him in a hurry when it finally catches up, and a summer of being dick in the dirt drunk probably won’t help that. Andrei Burakovsky will be counted on to take the next step while providing some size on the wing, and Brett Connolly and Jakub Vrana will certainly contribute some zest from the bottom six. Tom Wilson is now paid $5.16 million dollars a year to attempt to injure other players and generally be a pus-seeping carbunkle on the ass of the league.

Outlook: After the absolutely boneheaded decision to not pay Barry Trotz like the top tier head coach that he always has been in the wake of his and the franchise’s first Cup, and Todd Reirden has subsequently been giving his first ever head coaching job as Trotz has fucked off to Long Island/Brooklyn/wherever they play. Given how publicly and infamously the Capitals partied this year, having a rookie coach in the room doesn’t exactly seem like a great way to get everyone back on task to making another run at things. This team is still stacked given the restraints the salary cap imposes, but it took a lot of tread off the tires just to get to #1, and they may just not have it in them anymore. Given the personnel, the team can only get so bad, and they’ll probably ride Holtby until he collapses in the regular season which could very well win them an iffy division, but in all likelihood everyone will probably run out of gas by the time the inevitable post-season matchup with the Penguins comes around again.

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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Chris Kunitz

By John Pullega September 19, 2018 2010 0

If you believe that time is a flat circle, then there are two signings that make perfect sense. One is Brandon Manning, whose performance Q recently described in an after-camp interview as pleasing in the same breath as saying that Jokiharju will need to work on his decision-making if he wants to make the team. The other is Chris Kunitz. He came into the league when the Hawks were really bad and, barring a lot of ifs becoming yeses, will likely go out of the league when the Hawks are really bad.

2017–18 Stats

82 GP – 13 G, 16 A

50.2 CF%, 46.8 oZS%

Avg. TOI 11:57

A Brief History: Kunitz has been playing professional hockey since 2004. And believe it or not, he’s played mostly good hockey by the numbers over 14 years. Kunitz is a rare combination of GRITHEARTFAAAAAAAAART and actual talent, and unlike many other plugs teams sign simply because DEY WERE ON DA TEAM DAT WON DA CUP SO DEY KNOW HOWDA WIN, Kunitz usually contributed to his team’s success in ways that didn’t get the blood pumping to Mike Milbury’s gnarled shillelagh. Over all four Cup runs, he posted a healthy 51.5 CF% and contributed 29 points (five goals, 24 assists). His career 55 CF% is nice, and reflects both the talent he’s played with (Crosby, Malkin et al.) and the 55.4 oZS% he’s accrued over his career.

So what the silly shit is he doing in Chicago?

Last year saw Kunitz in a full-fledged fourth-line grinder role. For only the third time in his career, he started more often in the defensive zone than the offensive zone. Despite spending just 46.8% of his time on the offensive side of the ice, Kunitz still posted a 50.2 CF% with the infinitely talented Ning. He also scored 29 points, which would have made him #8 in the Hawks’s scoring totals last year, just two points off Artem Anisimov.

Given his contract this year (one year, $1 million) and usage last year, Kunitz would have been a no-doubt improvement for the Hawks on the fourth line. He’s a bit long in the tooth, but he can still be a gigantic boil on his opponents’ asses in terms of agitation and offensive production.

The problem, of course, is that Joel Quenneville has no intention (and perhaps no option) to use him as he should be used. Early in camp, he’s on the top line with Jonathan Toews. With all the what-have-you about how Toews needs to up his scoring if the Hawks want to stand a chance, it’s hard to understand how having Kunitz on his left side helps him do that. Kunitz is slower and less handsy than he was in his heyday. Maybe, if you really, REALLY squint, you can justify having him on the right side next to Alex DeBrincat and Toews, but if it’s come to that, then this year is already a burning clown car with a stuck horn.

And of course, in the organ-I-zation’s constant attempt to tie their own hands behind their backs while pissing into a headwind, Kunitz has a No Movement Clause. So, if he manages to have a decent year and turns into trade bait, he will have all the leverage in picking which team the Hawks can even potentially trade him to. That’s fine from a high-level players’ rights lens, but I don’t see any reason why the Hawks had to give him an NMC in the first place, and I’ve given up on trying to figure it out.

It Was the Best of Times: There might still be some gas in Kunitz’s tank. In a best-case scenario, he hunkers down the fourth line with Marcus Kruger and I guess John Hayden, and they serve as a strong shutdown line with a bit of scoring flair in Kunitz and Hayden. In small doses, Kunitz plays on the right side of the first line with Toews and DeBrincat, playing the role of Annette Frontpresence and taking the Wide Dick route of having Toews and DeBrincat fire shots at him instead of the net. He scores 15–20 points by the trade deadline and agrees to a trade to Toronto for a second- or third-round pick in 2019.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Kunitz spends most of his time on Toews’s left side, which is where DeBrincat should be if Q is dead-set against throwing Top Cat–Schmaltz by the Bowlful–Garbage Dick out there regularly (and of course he is). This means that either DeBrincat has to play on the right side (recall that even though Top Cat is righthanded, he’s goofy-footed in that he’s more comfortable on the left wing) or, god forbid, on the third line again. When approached by upper management about a trade, Kunitz declines.

Prediction: With this team looking more and more like the West Lake Landfill—which, I shit you not, is a smoldering landfill fire approaching a radioactive waste dump outside of St. Louis, a more apt metaphor for that dogshit city I cannot think of—I suspect Kunitz will play more time than anyone wants on the top line. But with Dominik Kahun promising to fuck off back to Germany if he’s not on the team this year, maybe Q does DeBrincat–Toews–Kahun (which is a problem itself) and lets Kunitz troll around the bottom six, which is where he belongs at this point in his career.

The nice thing about Kunitz is that he’s fine. He’ll be OK if in the bottom six, frustrating on the top line. Much like how this season looks to bode, his presence is an overall shoulder shrug, a constant reminder that nothing gold can stay.

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Cam Ward

Jan Rutta

Nick Schmaltz

Alex DeBrincat

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Pittsburgh Penguins

By Sam Fels September 18, 2018 2033 0

It’s kind of startling how quickly you can become an afterthought in the NHL. We’re only a year removed from the Pittsburgh Penguins being two-time defending champs (clap for them) and at times looking like a third was a distinct possibility. But when you finally succumb to the fatigue and your long-time plaything in the Capitals, suddenly no one remembers your name. Despite them still having perhaps two of the best five centers of all-time, a goalie with two rings, a consistent 30-goals scorer on the third fucking line, and quite possibly the best center-depth in the East.

It’s a strange world, this.

And yet, because it’s kind of the same team that didn’t get it done last year, with a much worse player in defense which we’ll get to, it’s whole “You’re Falling Behind If You’re Standing Still” thing. Let’s run it through.

2017-2018: 47-29-6 100 points 272 GF 250 GA 52.2 CF% 52.6 xGF% 7.2 SH% .910 SV% (ES)

Goalies: Here’s something strange to say about a goalie with two Cup runs under his belt: We still don’t know what Matt Murray is. That’s because we only have two regular seasons to deal with, and even in both of those injuries limited him to just 49 games in each. Two years ago he was really damn good. Last year he was very much not. How do you know where to go with that?

Of course, a young goalie having a rough sophomore year is no obstacle to eventual greatness, as every Blackhawks fans should be able to tell you now. And much like football and its quarterbacks, it’s a real advantage if you can have a young, really good goalie for cheap because that’s money you can spend elsewhere before the bill comes due for what’s between the pipes (and one day, goalies are going to get paid market value and there will be several making over $10 million, because they’re that important).

We know Murray is fragile, but beyond that we’re just going to have to find out. We know that there’s greatness in there somewhere, and inconsistency in there as well. As a goalie who can rely on his athleticism too much and end up somewhere near the parking lot sometimes, he’s still learning his angles and anticipation. Sadly, it doesn’t look like he’ll get much help from his defense this time around.

Backing him up is Tristan Jarry, who was basically “there” as a backup last year. Let’s just say if Murray turns out to be Ondrej Pavelec more than Carey Price, the Penguins are going to be pissing up a rope (the only actual good Ween song and go fuck yourself).

Defense: WHY DOES ANYONE EVER THINK JACK JOHNSON IS GOOD HE MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT PLEASE STOP DOING THIS TO YOUR FANS AND TEAM AND REALLY SOCIETY!!!

The Penguins signed Jack Johnson this summer, because they thought he was the guitarist, or because the concise rhythm of his name makes you think he’s good, or you’re actually thinking of the boxer, or you think d-men with big, round, dumb faces have to be good even though Braydon Coburn has been disproving that for nigh-on eight years now. Not only that, they gave this dipshit $3.2 million until he’s 36, even though he’s bad and slow and dumb now. And he’s going to have to take second-pairing minutes while Justin Schultz looks at him quizzically. It’s important to note that Justin Schultz looks at everyone quizzically, because that’s just his face.

It’s even stranger because the Pens had their big, dumb face quota filled on the blue line by another overrated, slow player in Olli Maatta, who I guess will be restricted to only third-pairing assignments, something he’s proven he can handle but that’s it. They think they’ve unearthed something in Jamie Oleksiak. They haven’t.

Which once again means Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang, for the four minutes something hasn’t fallen off of him, are going to have to shoulder the load in every possible situation. They’ve done it before I guess, but Letang is now 31 with an awful lot of miles and an awful lot of ailments and one wonders when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are going to arrive and pronounce him DOA. This is clearly the Penguins’ weakness. And they weren’t a good defensive team last year and have added Jack Fucking Johnson. Then again, they weren’t really a good defensive team two years ago and won the damn thing.

#EndHockey

Forwards: The Penguins can get away with a lot of things most teams can’t at the same time because for two-thirds of any game they can throw out Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. It’s just that simple. That’s 180 points right there, easy. They’re still here, they’re still really good, and as long as that’s the case it’s nearly impossible for the Penguins to be bad.

They’re still accompanied by a host of forwards we can’t be sure are any good but are smart enough to be where Malkin and Crosby need them, otherwise known as “The Marchand Method.” Jake Guentzel scores, I don’t know he does anything else. Bryan Rust is another. Dominik Simon joins the ranks. Carl Hagelin is really fast, and maybe nothing else, but here it works.

Phil Kessel is still around, and he’ll pour in 30 goals without breaking a sweat. Like, literally. And he’ll be a grumpy asshole about it and it’ll be awesome. I hope the Pens win again and beat the Leafs on the way and Kessel misses the Final because he’s too busy walking around Toronto, pointing at people and laughing. This will be the only good ending to the season possible.

Derick Brassard spells his first name wrong and has never been as good as people have wanted him to be, but he’s a damn fine #3 center. He’s not exactly a checking-type though, which means Crosby will have to do more firefighting than he has in the past, because Riley Sheahan blows goats. Whatever, this is still a really fast and skilled outfit that set the new style in motion, and they’re still going to get the puck the fuck up there and score before you can set up and that’s probably good enough for another 100 points at least.

Outlook: The Metro has a few good teams but no great ones. The Penguins have more questions than they’ve had before, but they still have those two guys. You can see them winning the division, getting a sweetheart first-round matchup before yet another kerfluffle with the Caps. You could see them finishing third or fourth in the division, too, as the miles catch up and Matt Murray continues to try and do a rubix cube in the dark.

They’re not as good as any of the Big Two in the Atlantic. But they don’t have to be. They just have to beat them in a series if it comes to that. Really, anything is possible for this team.

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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Alex DeBrincat

By Rose Rankin September 18, 2018 1967 0

Following on yesterday’s hopeful theme, one of the other bright spots from last year was obviously Alex DeBrincat, affectionately known as Top Cat around these parts. Despite his coach’s best efforts to keep him off the team, and then thwart his development once there, Top Cat blossomed into the latest version of our Special Boy. So what does sophomore year hold?

2017-18 Stats

82 GP – 28 G – 24 A

54.3 CF% – 58.9 oZS% – 41.1 dZS%

A Brief History. Along with Nick Schmaltz, DeBrincat was the breakout star of the season. And Top Cat may actually take top honors in that category because he was the leading goal-scorer. And he did it without playing on a line with Patrick Kane. DeBrincat led the team in hat tricks, with three (how meta); had the second-highest shooting percentage at a muscular 15.5 (behind only Schmaltz’s aberration); and his line’s possession numbers were the strongest on the team, although DeBrincat’s zone starts were incredibly sheltered, it must be added. However, if you control for guys who played less than 41 games (i.e., didn’t play at least half the season so getting discarded in my very scientific opinion), Top Cat’s 54.3 CF% at evens is fourth best, and guess who was ahead of him? Linemates Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad (and Vinnie Hinostroza, sky point).

And let’s not forget—let’s NOT forget Dude—that Top Cat was shuffled around with subpar linemates while Quenneville tried his damndest to find a reason to be off with his head. DeBrincat was moved to the opposite side and got stuck with the likes of Lance Bouma as well as Patrick Sharp and Ryan Hartman. No, I’m not comparing even about-to-retire Sharp with Lance fucking Bouma, but none of these were appropriate linemates for Top Cat’s speed and passing. Despite Saad’s rough year and Toews’ ongoing decline, their line was definitely not painful to watch, notching 8 goals and an impressive 67.4 CF%.

It Was the Best of Times. In an ideal world, everything comes together and Top Cat remains effective on the right side because if he’s going to play on the top line, it’ll be in that capacity, that much is clear. And he should be on the top line—he’s one of the most gifted scorers on the team and I’m kinda being generous to some of the other players by saying it that way. In the best-case scenario, he has a 70-point season, helping to spark a Saad renaissance and extending Toews’ usefulness. He can make the jump from promising youngster to legitimate elite top-6 scorer.

It Was the BLURST of Times. There are a couple worst-case scenarios to ponder, unfortunately. So far, Chris fucking Kunitz has been seen on the top line with Toews and DeBrincat, which is so utterly stupid and utterly Quenneville-ian that it defies the capacity for logic. Yes, let’s put a useless, aging, bottom-6’er on the top line with an already-slowing center, entirely wasting DeBrincat’s abilities. Another potential situation is that he falls victim to Q’s machinations and gets marooned on the third line with Anisimov and whatever other oaf ends up there—could be Kampf, could by Hayden, really a race to the bottom in terms of options for DeBrincat, while Kunitz is this year’s Tommy Wingels, i.e., no-talent asshat on the top line because REASONS. In this scenario, physically unable to skate as slowly as these fools, Top Cat unsurprisingly struggles to score, which becomes a wretched feedback loop of Q claiming he doesn’t deserve to be on the top line, and so he doesn’t score, and it goes around and around. This sophomore slump entirely of the coach’s making makes him eager to get the fuck out of here and play for a team that recognizes his talent, while at the same time the front office obliges so that they can bring in yet another useless, aging veteran because they decide that GRITHEARTFART was what their forward corps was lacking.

Yet another nightmare scenario is that Top Cat doesn’t keep his head up and some Neanderthal decides to CHANGE THE MOMENTUM in a random game and demolishes him, since even if he can put on some bulk he will not conceivably be able to put on any more inches, and he ends up concussed or with a liquefied knee. (If Niklas Kronwall so much as blinks at him I’m going to hunt that fucker down, I’ll tell you that right now.) Either way, whether by misuse or abuse, should one of these situations come to pass this city would see yet another talented youngster provide flashes of brilliance before having it all ripped away.

Prediction: I can only hope to be wrong about the injury thing. I’m going to tell myself calm, soothing words and just say that won’t be the case. As for Top Cat’s place in the lineup, I think he’ll earn his spot on the top line and he’ll click with a resurgent Brandon Saad. It’ll take a few weeks of dumbfuckery as Q tries to make the Kunitz experiment work, or Saad-Schmaltz-Kane works out for a while so they genuinely have to play someone else on the top line. DeBrincat will lead the team again in goals, this time over 30, yet probably have some wobbly patches throughout the season when Q wants/tries to demote him, and Top Cat has to play his way out of trouble every time. And he will. Because he’s our Special Boy.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Philadelphia Flyera

By Matt McClure September 17, 2018 2008 0

For the longest time under the stewardship of Bobby Clarke and Paul Holmgren, the Flyera simply threw good money after bad in always chasing the name brand free agents and trade targets in search of a Cup that has eluded the franchise since 1975. But under the leadership of notorious red-ass as a player Ron Hextall, the team has taken a much longer view and trying to actually build consistent winner from scratch. The results so far have been middling, but at least it’s been consistent in its vision. But this team’s psychopath fanbase isn’t going to be particularly patient with a non-linear progression. To conclude, the Flyers are a land of contrasts.

’17-’18: 42W-26L-14OT 98PTS 251GF 243GA 20.7%PP 75.8%PK 49.7%CF 7.83%SH .9245%SV

Goaltending: The same way that Bears fans wouldn’t know solid quarterbacking if it bit them in the nuts, there has been an institutional bungling of goaltending by the Philadelphia Flyers for generations. They even had a future multi-Vezina winning netminder in their system in Sergei Bobrovsky, but of course traded him for a big bag of bullshit to Columbus. Which brings things to the present day where the crease is entrusted to Brian Elliott and Michael Neuvirth, two “1B” goalies in their 30s who have wilted either under expanded workloads or not having lock-down systems in front of them. Things got so bad last year that the team acquired the completely broken Petr Mrazek and promptly let him walk at the end of the year. Elliott was the defacto #1 getting 42 starts and throwing up an unacceptable .909 overall with a slightly more respectable .926 at even, but an .812 on the PK which dragged things down. Special teams numbers can spike both ways for factors outside of a goalie’s control, but at 33, Elliott kind of is what he’s always been, which is certainly not a long term solution. Neuvirth had a similar disparity in his numbers (.915 overall, .934 evens, .810 PK), so it does speak to something systemic with the Flyer’s penalty kill. Either way, even if these two stay around this level and the PK picks things up, there’s not a lot here to make anyone a long term believer, particularly with Carter Hart waiting to assume the starter’s spot in Lehigh Valley should one or both piss their pants.

Defensemen: On the Flyera blue line, there are certainly some foundational pieces here in Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gosthisbere, but what their respective roles are going to be once this team intends on mattering again remains to be seen. While Ghost’s offensive and possession numbers are all impressive and what a puck mover should put up in the modern NHL, he’s still a bit of a turnstyle in his own end and will need some manner of protection in the form of a center-field type partner, optimized zone starts, or both. Provorov’s possession rate is basically directly at the team’s while playing much harder minutes all while still putting up 40 points from the back end. And with the likes of likely future war criminal Radko Gudas and the perpetually hurt or bad or both Andrew MacDonald complimenting these two young defensemen, it does not appear that there are any long term solutions currently in the organization, and leading to an unbalanced group.

Forwards: Claude Giroux had 102 points last year and Jakub Voracek had 85, and absolutely no one gave a shit. Moving Sean Coutourier and his two way abilities to the #1 center role and in turn moving Giroux to freestyle a little more on the wing certainly had everyone reaping the rewards, as Coots himself had 76 points along with devouring the souls of whatever center he drew as an assignment on a nightly basis. But doing so drastically altered the Flyers’ center depth to the point where they actually had to rely on any kind of contributions from the now departed Valteri Filppula and Finnish punchline Jori Lehtera down the middle. They haven’t done much to address the issue over the off season, as bringing back prodigal son James van Riemsdyk certainly gives them another rugged set of hands on the wing along with Meat Train Wayne Simmonds, so it will be necessary for Travis Konecny to take the next step and spend more time in the middle.

Outlook: Much like the Devils across the River, the Cold Ones probably did themselves more harm than good by making the playoffs last year only to promptly go home, as they would have been better served getting into the lottery. But with their top point-getters all right around 30, another development year might not have been the best route either. So Ron might have to get a little spicy and trade some franchise cornerstones to restock the system and fully start over should things sputter a bit, because the development arcs of their kids and the aging curves of their vets don’t sync up.

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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Nick Schmaltz

By Rose Rankin September 17, 2018 2436 0

OK, we made it through the defensive previews. It was rough, I know, but we survived with maybe even a glimmer of hope about Jokiharju and even Gustafsson (ah Pullega, ever the optimist around here). Now we turn to the forwards, where the few silver linings from the shitcloud that was last season came from. And undeniably, one of those linings was Nick Schmaltz, who proved he can be a legitimate #2 center and became Patrick Kane’s best friend (seems like an inadvisable choice there but his game did improve). In fact, Kane led the team in points and Schmaltz ended in a three-way tie with DeBrincat and Toews for second. Not only that, Schmaltz was extremely fast, nearly doubled his point total from the year before (albeit playing in more games), and is now in a contract year, which should maintain the fire that seems to be burning under his ass. Let’s see what we have here:

2017-18 Stats

78 GP – 21 G – 31 A

51.9 CF% – 64.1 oZS% – 35.9 dZS%

18:14 Avg. TOI

A Brief History. Schmaltz centered Kane and Hartman for a significant portion of the year and they were definitely the most interesting line to watch. His speed played a factor in that of course, but he and Kane developed a real chemistry that provided some stability in contrast to the too many other frenetic lineup changes. Schmaltz was (rightly) criticized for passing too much, but his ridiculous 17.8 shooting percentage at least meant he was effective when he did shoot. The Hartman-Schmaltz-Kane line had a 51.2 CF%, and although they basically gave up as many high-danger chances as they got—unsurprising given their defensive weaknesses in aggregate—they did score more high-danger goals than they gave up (39 HDCF vs. 38 HDCA; 5 HDGF vs 3 HDGA). Hartman was of course summarily dismissed but he was also the expendable one from this line, so now the search for a replacement begins.

It Was the Best of Times: The best-case scenario here is that Schmaltz goes off for a career year. He scores 70 points, he and Kane continue their on-ice bromance, and a new winger slots into the left side seamlessly causing us all to forget about Ryan Hartman if we hadn’t already (we pretty much have). Who would that winger be? Possibly Victor Ejdsell, who had a solid prospect camp playing wing. Dylan Sikura is another candidate, should he pull an Alex DeBrincat and go straight to the top club after camp. Given his five games with the Hawks last year this doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. And now Saad is in the running too, based on admittedly the tiny sample size of training camp so far.

Whoever it is, in this ideal situation the second line centered by Schmaltz provides stability against Q’s worst impulses and goals on a team with a defense and goaltending situation that could end up being classified as anywhere from “suspect” to “downright putrid.” What would really top it off would be if Schmaltz took a bit of a discount and the Hawks could re-sign him for maybe just under $6 million a year—i.e., not breaking the bank despite the Dylan Larkin contract hanging out there as a comp, and thus lowering the chances that his inevitable post-contract bed-crapping in 2019-2020 will be entirely tragic, as it would at $7+ million.

It Was the BLURST of Times: The worst-case scenario is, quite frankly, that Schmaltz sucks and they have to put Anisimov as the #2 center. His struggles in his own zone make him, Kane, and fill-in-the-blank guy a liability, and as the turnovers rack up and Cam Ward impersonates Swiss cheese (remember, this is the worst-case scenario we’re talking here), Q sees his chance to hit the blender and Schmaltz bounces between lines and, even worse, between playing center and moving back to wing. Adding to this would be giving him a big contract extension in the hope it’s an off year. Equally bad would be losing him to another team and having him bounce back strong in ’19-’20 and the Hawks’ front office falls officially into the “Moron” category.

Prediction: Like my colleague Hess, I often struggle with predictions but I’m going all in on Schmaltz and saying reality will be closer to the best-case scenario. No I don’t think he’ll double his point total again from year to year, but somewhere in the 60-65 range and assisting on about 20 of Kane’s goals sounds both possible and not entirely insane. The left wing spot is of course a question mark, but if Schmaltz can improve his work in the defensive zone and maintain the coked-up-gerbil pace that he had last year, I’m pretty confident that the Hawks will find some jabroni who can at least do no harm on the left side (I still want Saad on the top line so yes, that situation may work but I’m holding out hope).

And then they’ll pay Schmaltz $6.8 million for 6 years, which we’re all delighted about in April when they’re scraping into the playoffs, and then cursing come November 2019 when he’s hurt and/or terrible. Sorry, even when I’m taking the positive outcome I’m still a miserable pessimist.

Photo: Nick Schmaltz’s Twitter, which I wish he would post at more often

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: New York Rangers

By Matt McClure September 16, 2018 2067 0

For seemingly eons now, the New York Rangers have been foisted upon the general hockey viewing public based solely due to the city they play in despite being boring as shit and never winning anything, culminating each spring with the torpor of yet another series against the Capitals. Mercifully they spared everyone another round of that misery by being particularly terrible last year and missing the playoffs, and will no doubt do the same this year as they enter a full-on rebuild with no real clear plan in place.

’17-’18: 34W-39L-9OT 77PTS 231GF 268GA 21.2%PP 81.4%PK 45.92%CF 7.55%SH .9222%SV

Goaltending: Obviously the discussion here begins and ends with Henrik Lunqvist and just how much of this shit he wants to put up with when he’ll be turning 37 in March. Lundqvist isn’t what he once was, throwing a pedestrian-to-bad .915 overall and .919 at evens last year, but given that he was under seige behind a team with a league-worst share of shot attempts that was going nowhere, he could hardly be blamed for selling out. He could probably still help a team that felt it needed goaltending help, but having the heftiest price (and mostly deservedly so based on past performance) and full no-trade protection, it makes any deal dicey. There’s also the question of if Hank would entertain leaving Broadway for one of the NHL’s lesser outposts that might even put him to use in the spring, as it’s never been any secret that the impossibly handsome Lunqvist enjoys everything that Manhattan affords a man of his wealth and good looks. Marek Mazanec and his 25 career starts and .895 overall will be backing Hank up to start, so he could very well play 60-65 completely meaningless games, and it’d more than likely be nobody’s choice but his.

Defensemen: The Rangers promptly diving face first into the shitter is hilarious on a lot of levels, one of the best ones being that Kevin Shattenkirk (Kirk Shattenkevin) basically telegraphed for two years that he was going to sign here, and then sucked to high heaven along with the rest of the team when he finally got to MSG. Shat has always been a bumslayer that flatters to deceive as a true top pairing guy, and there will be no hiding him as this team routinely gets its skull kicked in again this season. Blog favorite Brady Skjei got long term paper over the summer as an RFA, and he could usurp Shattenkirk as the Rangers’ best option to move the puck from the blue line, as Skjei’s defensive zone instincts aren’t nearly as abstract. Marc Staal is still alive, but has about the same pulse and moves at about the same rate as moss on a downed tree branch does. And Rangers recently just went out and traded for Adam McQuaid, as if Staal by himself wasn’t slow enough, they needed to and slow and stupid and always hurt to the mix. And it’s not like they didn’t have the market cornered on stupid to begin with in the form of Brendan Smith, who somehow makes Trevor van Riemsdyk seem decisive and heady in his defensive zone approach.

Forwards: There are some halfway decent constituent parts up front for the blue shirts, as Mika Zibanejad is a fairly dynamic center, and Chris Kreider, while never living fully up to expectations, plays like Brandon Saad on a bottle of Jager and a bag of meth. Vlad Namestnikov was a possession darling in TB before coming over in the McDonagh deal, but he’ll be hard pressed to be as territorially dominant without the benefit of how stacked the top of the Tampa lineup was. Ryan Spooner would be a fine fourth line energy center but he’ll be playing second line minutes here. And the dipshit college boys in Kevin “Captain Stairwell” Hayes and Jimmy Vesey remain here and continue to underwhelm. There’s no underlying thought process or unifying theory of what the Rangers want to be as a forward group, so they’re left with this quarter-cooked crockpot ful of crap to run out the clock on an entire 82-game season with.

Outlook: Bad, and made even worse by virtue of the fact that this team will still be on national TV constantly just because of their laundry. GM Jeff Gorton went out and grabbed David Quinn from Boston University to replace Alain Vigneault as head coach, which at least shows he’s trying to approach things differently. But the entire season is basicaly a formality in finding out if Henrik Lunqvist can be moved for a KING’S RANSOM (GET IT?) to jump-start this full-on rebuild job that’s barely accumulated any real prospects to date.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: New York Islanders

By Sam Fels September 15, 2018 2218 0

Well this is a waste of time.

It would appear the New York Islanders didn’t really have a Plan B if John Tavares left. Their hook-and-lateral was to hire Lou Lamiorello to somehow convince JT that they really meant it this time. Now with him off to Toronto, Lou is free to fistfuck this team into oblivion because the game passed him by at least seven years ago and he hates pretty much every player in the league. They’re going to split time with this dreck between Nassau and Brooklyn, as the two communities try and foist this team off on each other in a real, “Hmm, this sauce tastes like shit here try it,” kind of fashion. This is Mathew Bartzal and his misspelled first name and opening band roadies.

There just isn’t much here, so let’s get through it quickly so we don’t get infected.

Goalies: This has been a bugaboo for the Islanders for a while, and it doesn’t appear to have gotten much better. Thomas Greiss has finally wrangled the full-time starting role from the departed Jaro Halak. Well, he didn’t take it so much as Halak got old, was allowed to leave, and Greiss was just about the only person around to clean up the mess. He was at .892 last year, which REEL BAD. Greiss has flashed being NHL starting-quality before, posting years of .913 or .925 the previous two campaigns while splitting time with Halak. But it would seem to be a longshot that he’s going to star in the role.

He could be easily usurped by Robin Lehner. Lehner certainly had his troubles in Buffalo, but if he’s past those he has flashed being a plus-starter before in both Ottawa and Buffalo. You certainly are rooting for him, and there isn’t much here to keep him from the crease unless Greiss goes off in an unpredictable fashion. Neither would seem to provide enough to cause the Islanders to surprise, however.

Defense: Oooh boy. This is still an outfit that’s going to toss Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk out as a top pairing, when both are most certainly second pairing players. The hope will be that Scott Mayfield, Ryan Pulock, and Adam Pelech (and don’t worry if you transpose Pulock and Pelech, You wouldn’t be the first), make THE LEAP. Pulock might be the real keeper of the group, as he was the most dominant possession player they had last season.

It actually could be a nifty unit if two of the three kids can take the biggest responsibilities off of Leddy and Boychuk, who simply have never been up to it. That seems like a big ask of three neophytes who were restricted to second and third pairing duty last year. Also, Thomas Hickey is here to dutifully man the second pairing puck-moving role, as he’ll be doing for the next 45 years it feels like. Hickey is one of those players who define the word, “fine.”

Forwards: It was only natural that as soon as he took the seat in the office wherever the Isles deign to place it these days, Nosferatu Lamiorello saw fit to bring in Matt Martin in a glorious return to New York to get mistaken for Jacob deGrom. He also brought in Leo Komarov to provide…well, a dude who smells bad on the bottom six. Those are basically the only additions to a team that lost John Tavares and still finished with only 80 points last year.

The top six will actually be ok in Tavares’s absence. Barzal will slide up to the top line, and he’s most certainly capable of shouldering that. Jordan Eberle and Anthony Beauvillier are certainly dynamic, shifty wingers who make things happen. Anders Lee will score no matter what, it’s just a matter of whether you should give a shit or not. Brock Nelson will slide back to center, which isn’t his best spot but it’ll do. Josh Bailey has been a sneaky good winger for about five seasons now. You can do worse than that.

But this bottom six…WOOF. The aforementioned Martin and Komarov are going to be a waste of everyone’s time. Cal Clusterfuck is the wrong side of 30 and those who play that kind of style do not age well. Cizikas started to back up last year, and again bottom line centers don’t age well even if he’s only going to be 28. Andrew Ladd died three years ago. Barzal and Nelson are going to have to freak the fuck off this year or the Islanders simply won’t score.

Outlook: Even with Barry Trotz parachuting in here like a neckless Mighty Mouse, they’re up against it. As stated, this was an 80-point team last year that lost one of the best centers in the game and didn’t add much. The goaltending solidifying would be a big help and there’s a chance that could happen, but they look awfully short all over the ice. It’s a rebuilding year, and the goal of the year might be flogging Eberle, Nelson, and Lee at the deadline for whatever can be found. If they can’t be built around, that is. It’s going to be a long year, wherever the Isles call home.

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