Everything Else – Page 106 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Blackhawks Open Camp, Are Covered In Puke Within 10 Minutes

By Sam Fels September 14, 2018 3313 0

People, as I’ve shared in the past, I used to be a comedian. And never, in my seven to eight years of dedicating my life to trying to write stuff to make people laugh, did I ever come anywhere close to anything as absurd and uproarious as the opening hour of Blackhawks training camp this morning. Yes, I use the featured photo a lot, but you sum it up better than that!

Where to even fucking start? So yesterday, company and television stooge Pat Boyle “reported” that Corey Crawford would hit the ice today. He didn’t say in what capacity, if he was just going to check that he in fact can still skate at all, or would be just touching up the logos painted under the surface. This was clearly the Hawks attempt at…

So Crow did actually hit the ice, and he did actually practice…just by himself. Which is…something? I mean it’s better than nothing. It’s on the road to full participation, it’s just that no one has any idea how long that road is. But hey, he’s alive and he’s wearing gear and that’s like, a step forward from where we’ve been. Maybe. Unless he disappears again tomorrow and/or this was all for show. Good stuff, really.

Oh, but it gets so much better.

Right about the time the Hawks were hitting the ice as a team, it was announced that Connor Murphy is going to miss two months with a back injury. TWO MONTHS. BACK INJURY. Let’s try and unpack this all, because it’s a fucking ton and ain’t none of it good.

So, this summer, Stan Bowman hoarded all of his “assets,” such as they are, and decided against upgrading a blue line that was rat semen anyway, because the Hawks are terrified of what they have to pay Nick Schmaltz and Alex DeBrincat in the next two years (no really, that’s the reason). Except there’s no fucking chance Murphy showed up today and said, “Hey I think my back is fucked up.” For it to be a two month thing, they have to have known about it for a while, and still elected to present you with Brandon Manning and Jan Rutta. TICKETS TO THE HOME OPENER STILL AVAILABLE, PEOPLE!

So essentially, what the Hawks are telling you while hoping you don’t notice their lips are moving, is that they know they’re going to be a dungheap this season. Because if you thought you had a chance at being anything, you wouldn’t just toss your hands up at the news that your most consistent d-man of last year was going to be out until December basically, yelling, “Dems da breaks!”

Going further, you wouldn’t do that if your thought your team has any hope of being anything other than a representation of sadness and confusion in watercolor because back injuries of this significance to a player who is, y’know, 6-FOOT-FUCKING-5, have a tendency to be career-altering, if not debilitating. That’s a major, major problem that the Hawks thought they could just sneak by you.

Oh, and Brent Seabrook is going to miss a week with an “abdominal injury,” which simply just has to be a really unruly burrito.

The capper of course is that at the first practice Chris Kunitz was skating with Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat, which couldn’t be a more Quenneville moment unless it came with a bottle of wine, a Whalers jersey, and a mustache painted on the ice. TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE

If there’s a silver lining to all of this, and there isn’t, basically Quenneville is going to be forced into giving Henri Jokiharju a long look because there ain’t shit on shit else. And he was already skating with Keith today, so fuck it, let’s ride that snake as far as it’ll go and figure out the rest later. Or never. Probably never.

So just to review, when the Hawks open the season, your pairings could be a declining Keith with a 19-year-old the coach will hate, Sbarro and Jan Rutta, and The Guy Worse Than Radko Gudas next to Cowboy Gustafsson.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage: ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Henri Jokiharju

By Adam Hess September 14, 2018 2136 0

It has been a while since the Blackhwks last had a blue line prospect the caliber of Henri Jokiharju. He fell to the number 29 pick in the 2017 draft where StanBo quickly gobbled him up. He was instantly the best prospect in the organization, but really that’s just how things go when you hadn’t picked in the first round in the two drafts prior. Now, the Blackhawks hope he’s ready to make the leap from the WHL to the NHL at age 19, just one year after being drafted.

2017-18 Stats

With Portland Wintherhawks (WHL)

Regular Season: 63 Games – 12 G – 59 A – 71 P

Playoffs: 12 Games – 3 G – 5 A – 8 P

WJC (Finland): 5 Games – 2 G – 2 A – 4P

A Brief History: For those that don’t know, the WHL is the one of the three major junior hockey leagues that comprise the Canadian Hockey League. It’s essentially a semi-pro hockey league for teenagers who show a lot of promise at a young age, but typically it’s full of good ol’ boys from Canada and the odd American who spurns the idea of college. Jokiharju, of Finland, took a bit of an unconventional path for a Finnish player and decided not to honor a contract he signed to play in Finland’s top division prior to 2016-17 to head to Portland and the WHL, the CHL division considered to be the closest to NHL style, with tighter checking and lower scoring games than you’ll find in the other OHL leagues.

That’s a whole lot of background for me to give you just to say that Jokiharju scoring 71 points in 63 games from the blue line last year in the WHL might not sound all that impressive, but really it should probably make your pants tighter (or damper, for the ladies in the audience). I don’t really have the patience or time to dig through WHL stats history and draft position for blue-liners, but I am willing to guess that it’s not often that defensemen who put up that kind of production make it to the 29 pick in the draft. If he had done that in his draft year, he might’ve been top-10 pick. But, in Joker’s case (come on, that nickname was obvious) he had a bit of an adjustment after coming to North America and had a slightly less production 2016-17 with 48 points in 71 games for Portland (3 points in 11 playoff games as well) and with that he was there at 29. We call that one good fortune for the Hawks.

It Was The Best of Times: So what is the best case scenario for Jokiharju in 2018-19? In training camp, he shows that he is one of the three of four best blue liners the Blackhawks have available to choose from to fill their roster. He makes the squad and gets bumslaying minutes, maybe with Seabrook (though Nacho would have to play his offside, and we might not want that) or Forsling. He’ll probably struggle to pick up the defensive side of things, as nearly every young defenseman does, particularly the offensive-minded ones, but he shows the right instincts and grows as the game goes on. He holds his own in the shot attempts department with a 52 or better CF% and uses some PP time to pad his score sheet and ends up with 30 points in the NHL this year, more if he’s the real deal. Outside of lighting the world on fire or me bring unrealistically optimistic with this ideal scenario, I’d say that’s a damn good season for Joker.

It Was The BLURST of Times: There are two possible worst outcomes here. One, the Blackhawks keep Joker on the roster to open the season, and decide after ten games that they want to keep him around, meaning they don’t send him back to the W and burn a year of his entry level deal, but then a few months later decide he sucks and isn’t ready and then send him back. Burning a year of the ELC for no reason would be terrible asset management and worst talent evaluation, because if you can’t tell if he’s NHL ready or not after a training camp and nine NHL games, you need new evaluators. The other worst case scenario is that he stinks to high hell this year, regardless of where he plays. Maybe its the NHL and he is just a turnstyle in the defensive end who never finds his feet or hands on offense. Maybe he goes back to the W and forgets how to hockey. I don’t the latter scenario there is particularly likely, but if you wanna get dark, before talking injuries, starting to suck in the W would be troublesome.

Prediction: I think Joker has a real shot at making the Blackhawks out of training camp, in part because there are just so many question marks on the blue line right now. Is Gustav Forsling good? Is Erik Gustafsson good? Is Jan Rutta good? Is Brent Seabrook alive? All of these are up for debate. That leaves a big enough opening for Joker to make the team with a strong camp. If he can do that, all signs from his history point to him blooming where he’s planted, if you will. He took to the North American game very easily in his first WHL season, and then dominated that league the next year. I don’t think he’s like to do that in the NHL, but there’s no reason he can’t produce something like 15-20 points, and perhaps more like I said in the best case. If he’s not in the NHL, the Hawks have some options in terms of what they can do with him, but the best decision would probably be to send him back to Portland for a year. They might be able to exploit some loan loopholes and get him the AHL, but is that really the best place for him to develop? I am not convinced. Either way, Joker is at least one interesting player to keep an eye on, and might just be worth getting excited about.

Previous Player Previews

Cam Ward

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Everything Else

You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Columbus Blue Jackets

By Matt McClure September 13, 2018 2036 0

It remains a mystery what purpose exactly the Columbus Blue Jackets serve in the league, though now their ineptitude proved to be a catalyst in propelling the perennially underachieving Washington Capitals to their first ever Stanley Cup victory after going up two games to none in Washington and proceeding to lose four straight in the first round. It takes a special kind of pants shitting to have made these Caps look like the killers they always should have been, and based on their relative stasis in the off season, that trend appears to primed to continue.

’17-’18: 45W-30L-7OT 97PTS 242GF 230GA 17.2%PP 76.2%PK 51.49%CF 7.44%SH .9283%SV

Goaltending: There is little doubt that Sergei Bobrovsky is the pillar of anything the Jackets hope to accomplish and has been since he came over from the perpetually goaltending challenged Flyers for a 2nd round pick, having won two Vezina Trophies and four all star games while the Flyers still have a handful of themselves in the crease. Bob’s numbers took a slight step back from his 16-17 Vezina campaign, dropping 10 points overall from .931 to ONLY .921, while still being unimpeachable at evens with a .935 from a .938 the year prior. The big drop was in his shorthanded save percentage, dropping 60 points from .892 to a far more pedestrian .831, by far his lowest in Columbus. But all things being equal, there’s no reason to expect much deviation from Bob this year provided he stays healthy, which he has the past two years, playing 128 of 164 total games. In an ideal world, a true #1 goalie should play somewhere in the neighborhood of 55 games a year to avoid overworking, as Bobrovsky’s numbers in April have a precipitous dropoff. In the series against the Caps he sported only a .900 even over those 6 games, which is actually well ABOVE his post season average of .891, and that simply will not cut it, particularly behind a team that isn’t particularly dynamic offensively or behind the bench. Joonas Korpisalo is slated to back up Bobrovsky once again, and his .897 in 17 starts last year is certainly less than inspiring. If he can’t provide even replacement-backup-level netminding, Bobrovsky’s workload will stay at what it’s been and the Jackets will once again meet a similar fate unless some outside help is brought in.

Defense: Seth Jones is an absolute monster, and the time his nigh for his ascension into the Norris conversation annually. Jones will ONLY be 24 at the beginning of next month, and last season put up 16 goals, 41 assists, and a 54.1% possession share all while facing the toughest competition and zone starts available to him. He had 7 goals and 17 assists on the Jackets’ power play, which had greatly declined from the year previous. There is nothing he cannot do from the back end, plain and simple. Likewise, while not as defensively stout, Zach Werenski is a play-driving machine from the Jackets’ blue line, and though his scoring numbers were down from his fantastic rookie season, that was more of a function of power play production, where his assist totals dropped, and that can end up being circumstatial. Werenski put more shots on net and shot a higher percentage than he did from his rookie year, an exceptional 7.7% from the point. The problem is that these two spent 90% of their time together (only 142 of Jones’ 1387 even strength minutes were away from Werenski), and the only times they were split up were seemingly late game defensive zone draws where Werenski couldn’t be trusted to protect a lead. Behind these two is a complete bum squad, with David Savard running out of position, Ryan Murray never making good on his first round pedigree, and some things named Dean Kukan and Markus Nutivaara managing to take up $3.4 mildo of cap space. If Torts were somehow able to split up Werenski and Jones and not a) lose Jones’ offense covering for a dipshit partner, or b) have anyone else capable of playing free safety for Werenski to not give up as much as he produces, they’d have a solid grouping here. But as things currently sit it’s extremely top heavy and can be exploited by any coach with two functioning synapses and last change.

Forwards: Artemi Panarin‘s first season in Columbus went better than this outlet certainly expected, with him going a point per game (27G, 55A) despite not having a top end playmaker to get him the puck. But Panarin plays some of the most sheltered minutes in the league, almost exclusively starting in the offensive zone, and that can handicap a coach without having the center depth to get granular with who takes what faceoffs where. That’s not to say that Alex Wennberg and P-L Dubois are bad players, they aren’t, but they certainly aren’t going to maximize what a bad shot maker like Panarin can do, at least not yet. And Panarin is now in a walk year with his 2 year bridge deal at $6 million per coming to term, and the fact that he doesn’t have an extension yet doesn’t speak highly of his chances of remaining in Columbus. Panarin will likely command around $10 million a year, and with Jarmo wrapping up $11.3 mildo in Nick Foligno and Brandon Dubinsky for the next three years, it doesn’t speak highly to sound asset management. Cam Atkinson is a consistent 25-30 goal scorer in his own right, and he’s locked in at $5.875 per year, but he’ll also be 35 when his paper is up. This is a grouping still not sure of what it wants to be despite having some fairly useful parts.

Outlook: Because John Tortorella is a goddamn cave man with regard to his coaching philosophy and techniques in 2018, it will always handicap his team slightly, but in his defense he’s working with a roster that doesn’t have a consistent thesis statement defining its construction. This team has top end talent in a few spots, but it’s not necessarily complimentary to the other constituent parts of the roster. As a result, a wild card bid and a first round out is once again about what to expect out of this team, and if they flounder out of the gate or Bobrovsky gets hurt early, the trade market for Panarin could heat up in a hurry and offer them a chance to re-think this grouping, though Jarmo as a GM hasn’t shown much consistency in being able to properly augment his team either. The Jackets are in Hockey Hell and there’s no clear path at the moment to escape it.

Previous Team Previews

Toronto Maple Leafs

Carolina Hurricanes

Everything Else

The Austin Watson Problem(s)

By Sam Fels September 13, 2018 2725 0

I’ll admit my first reaction last night when I saw that Austin Watson had been suspended 27 games for pleading no-contest to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge was, “Well, at least they did something.” Such is my weariness and the way my expectations have been beaten down, not just by the NHL’s, but really all sports’ handling of such things. Honestly, I don’t envy anyone who has to come up with what the right number should be for this charge. There’s many who are incensed that it’s barely more than Nate Schmidt got for his sneeze’s worth of a banned substance, but that’s actually negotiated with the NHLPA and has a standard.

It goes two directions from there. The first is that there are those who think Watson and anyone else caught up in a domestic violence charge should immediately be banned, fired, tarred, feathered, whatever. And believe me, I understand that impulse. Playing in a professional league is a privilege and there’s certainly an argument to be made it should be taken away much easier than it is today.

But various survivor’s groups have said that really isn’t a solution, partly because loss of income doesn’t help anyone in the long run and is a factor in the fear of coming forward for women to report such things. Second it can make a woman or partner an even bigger target for someone who’s already shown to be violent, which can lead to somewhere much worse. I can certainly see the problem.

The second is to mock or spew venom at the NHL for not having a standard, domestic violence policy, and this is obviously understandable, too. Except the standard policies in the NFL, MLB, and NBA haven’t really satisfied anyone either. And I’m not convinced a bad policy is better than none at all. That’s a discussion that could go on forever, but for the only the optics this is probably something the NHL should hammer out with the NHLPA tout suite.

There’s also the small complaint that the players’ union is filing an appeal. And while I could just settle for the usual, “That’s just what unions do,” at some point they have to draw the line as well. It’s one thing to file an appeal to a weird, flimsy failed drugs test or an on-ice suspension. This guy swung at his wife and mother of their baby, and whether or not that’s what they’re actually doing the optics are that the union is taking the side of a wife-beater. Some cases you just let slide by and tell that union member to sit down and swallow this one.

What I do know is that as long as hockey players stop going to school around 7th grade, and their entire social world is developed inside a hockey dressing room and around a hockey team, this is almost always going to be a problem that they’re going to have to deal with.

I don’t know what the answers are to any of these questions, but I do know what I worry about most, even though it’s not the most important component.

When Watson returns to the Predators’ lineup, currently scheduled for December 3rd against the Sabres, we know that he will get a standing ovation from the Bridgestone Arena faithful. This doesn’t really make them any worse than every other fanbase. We’ve already seen this in town with Daniel Murphy and up the road a bit with Josh Hader just in the past couple months. However, next time any media member tries to proclaim that there’s something special about Preds fans, you’ll know there isn’t.

I know it’s not the biggest problem, but it’s the one that seems to wound the most. It’s what I never got over with Patrick Kane at Notre Dame, and we could pick any one of hundreds of instances where this has happened with a player and that team’s fans. Oh, I’m sure some dimwitted Brewers fan would try and tell me, for instance, that what they were really doing is showing Hader that they support him in his attempts to evolve and become better from what he had done and was.

But that’s horseshitt. They know it, we know it. What it is is putting being a fan above all else, that no one really cares what these guys do away from the field as long as they can strike out 38% of the hitters they see or be a decent penalty-killer (if that’s what Watson does and that’s up for debate). When Preds fans salute Watson in December (or November on appeal), it won’t be to show support in his rehabilitation into a non-piece of a shit, if he even does that much. It’ll be a thumb in the nose to his suspension at all, because he’s a player on their team. And what he did to that woman won’t matter, and certainly her emotions won’t either.

And mostly out of ignorance rather than maliciousness, what it will be is a thumb in the nose to any Preds fan, hockey fan, or anyone who is a survivor of domestic abuse or anyone close to one. That their feelings, their history, the damage caused doesn’t matter as much as the Preds winning a hockey game. And there will be Preds fans who feel this, and they’ll feel helpless to say anything because nothing will change and they will fear being drowned out by the masses.

We can figure out the standards and suspensions at some point soon. What the Predators and NHL can do now is find a way to avoid the above scenario. Watson doesn’t have to be booed by his home fans. I feel like it should be greeted by nothing but silence, out of respect to those in yellow who have had this heinous scenario in their lives and also as a patient approach to force Watson to earn the adulation back through demonstrated progress, contrition, learning, and evolution.

I don’t know how you go about that. A concerted campaign by both team and league to illustrate the horrors of this. Perhaps Watson himself doing an ad or speech on the jumbotron, though that would probably just garner applause, too. Some sort of regular press-release about the details of the case and the reasons for the suspension, so it doesn’t fall out of the memory or news cycle. Maybe that’s harsh, but it doesn’t feel like it’s too much so. Perhaps Preds fans themselves could start a campaign to makes this happen, but I’ll just go ahead and assume they’re too busy trying to figure out yet another way to keep Hawks fans from buying their tickets.

There are obviously loftier goals we should be reaching for when it comes to professional sports and domestic violence/sexual assault. And we shouldn’t stop. But for right now, this one, small, attainable step should be something we can accomplish and sharpish.

So the next time a team acquires an Aroldis Chapman or Roberto Osuna or Watson or Mike Ribeiro (never forget), their fans aren’t spurred to cheer even louder because every other fandom is disgusted. That only polarizes and hurts.

Let’s just aim for silence. It doesn’t seem that far away.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Erik Gustafsson

By John Pullega September 13, 2018 2020 0

As we move down the Hawks’s agonizing back-end, which at this point resembles someone who’s fallen into a porta-potty in a Super Mario Bros.-esque attempt to warp to a different place after the mushrooms really started to kick in, we reach a relative bright spot. We often bemoan the fact that the Hawks don’t have a puckmover on defense anymore, given Duncan Keith’s wrestling match with the ravages of time and Joel Quenneville’s hatred of everything beautiful in Michal Kempny. But if you squint, Erik Gustafsson can maybe fill that need.

2017–18 Stats

35 GP – 5 G, 11 A

55.4 CF%, 57.4 oZS%

Avg. TOI 18:33

A Brief History: You may remember Erik Gustafsson from such films as Signing a Two-Year, $2.4 Million Extension in the Middle of March and Scoring 11 of His 16 Points After the Extension. (What do you know? A guy scoring a bunch after his extension.) While that’s clearly a coincidence, Gustafsson does bring some intrigue.

In 35 games in 2017–18 (all of them post-Corey Crawford), Gustafsson posted a 55.4 CF%, good for second among all Hawks D-men in that category, behind Cody Franson (58.44 in 23 games). Couple that with his 54.0 CF% in 2015–16 over 41 games and you have a D-man with a cumulative 54.7 CF% over 76 games. That’s a pretty good start.

Additionally, Gustafsson’s xGF% last year sat at a robust 52.78, meaning that the Hawks could expect to score more than their opponent when he was on the ice. Even better, Gustafsson’s Rel xGF% was an obscene 8.42, meaning the Hawks were 8%+ more likely to score as a function of Gustafsson’s presence. Small sample sizes be damned, those numbers portend potential at the very least.

It’s important to look at whom Gustafsson played with to get those numbers. Last year saw Gustafsson skate a glut of his time next to Brent Seabrook and behind the Patrick Kane line, which you may have deduced based on his 57.4 oZS%. And really, it’s been that way his entire 76-game career: Gustafsson has skated with Seabrook and Kane more than anyone else.

Gustafsson also contributed a bit on the power play, which is where he has the potential to be most intriguing. In just over 49 minutes of PP time, Gustafsson racked up four assists—two primary and two secondary. For comparison, it took Keith almost 213 minutes to rack up two goals, three primary assists, and five secondary assists. It took Seabrook 171 minutes to post two goals, one primary assist, and five secondary assists. So, the rate at which Gustafsson contributes PP points vastly exceeds the rates Keith and Seabrook—Q’s go-to guys on the PP—contribute. Granted, the sample sizes are askew, but it’s something interesting to consider, since the Hawks PP has been beaten around the head with an oversized marital aid the past two years.

Of course, Gustafsson did all of this while spending nearly 60% of his time in the offensive zone. And there are legitimate questions about his defensive abilities: Namely, does he have any? But some of the fancier numbers show that he might not be a total loss on defense. His HDCF%—the measure of high-danger chances for vs. high-danger chances against—was 51.03% last year. His CF% Rel was a robust 6.6. And his 2:1 giveaway/takeaway ratio at 5v5 was the best among Hawks defensemen (Keith, Murphy, and Forsling were the only other D-men who had ratios under 3:1, not counting Franson).

Make no mistake: Gustafsson is an offensive defenseman. But he’s not the worst defender the Hawks have ever seen. With the right pairing and more exposure, the Hawks might have an advantage in Gustafsson’s offensive skills.

It Was the Best of Times: Best-case scenario, you pair Connor Murphy and Gustafsson, which essentially makes them your top pairing. This creates another problem regarding whom to pair Keith with, but pairing Gustafsson with Murphy gives him more range to be creative with the puck and start rushes with the Nick Schmaltz line while Murphy hangs back. I don’t have any proof of this other than my eyes, but Gustafsson and Kane look to have natural chemistry on the ice.

In this scenario, Gustafsson is your PP1 unit’s QB. For nearly a decade, we’ve screamed into the rain about how for all of Keith’s greatness, he’s never been much of a PP QB. Handing the reins to Gustafsson can’t possibly make the PP worse, and it has an added bonus of relieving Keith of his duties, giving his legs a couple hundred minutes of desperately needed rest.

With more time and more responsibilities, Gustafsson becomes a 40-point contributor and puts the Hawks’s PP in the Top 10 for the first time since 2015–16.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Quenneville’s galaxy brain does what it did to Gustav Forsling and uses Gustafsson as a defensive defenseman alongside Jan Rutta. Gustafsson struggles horribly, and halfway through the year, the Hawks trade Gustafsson to St. Louis for the rights to install three Imo’s stands in the concourse where Bobby Hull pisses and pukes on himself when he’s not on camera. He goes on to score 20 points in 30 games, vaulting the Blues to the playoffs. He proceeds to develop into Duncan Keith Lite, spending the rest of his career assisting Vladimir Tarasenko and posting 30–45 points regularly.

Prediction: Gustafsson plays most of his time on the second pairing with Seabrook, but moonlights with Keith for a few small stretches. Barring injury, he contributes 25–30 points over 75 games, most of which come playing with the Schmaltz line. He splits time with Seabrook as the PP2 QB and still manages to contribute 10 PP points.

Of course, Quenneville finds a reason not to like him at some point, and there are spots where Brandon Manning plays instead of him, especially in games when Gustafsson posts a 60+ CF% but happens to be on the ice when, I don’t know, Artem Anisimov pukes all over himself in the neutral zone, leaving Gustafsson alone to defend a 4 on 1.

I think Erik Gustafsson will be good. I sincerely believe that he has Top 4 potential (though he’d be the fourth man in the Top 4). I think I’m the only one here who believes that.

Previous Player Previews

Cam Ward

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Everything Else

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

By Sam Fels September 12, 2018 2215 0

We move to the Metropolitan Division, and we start our tour through there with perhaps the biggest example of why hockey needs to die, the “new-look” Carolina Hurricanes. I put “new” in quotes because every utterance and belch out of Raleigh since Thomas “I Punch Myself To Wake Up And Shit” Dundon bought the team last year has been a call-back to some long-gone era that we all decided was best kept in a trunk. It’s like this guy watched that god-awful Bear Bryant movie by ESPN starring Tom Berenger and not only used it for fap material but made it his life ethos and is rich enough to make everyone around him adopt it as well. I mean, look at this happy horseshit:

The Carolina Hurricanes just announced their training camp schedule and if this isn’t the most hockey thing ever, I don’t know what is pic.twitter.com/l7CDwhf5iJ

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) September 5, 2018

What the fuck do you do with that? It’s not enough that this guy made his money by ripping off poor people, he’s now got to prove how tough he is by making his team play a style that outlived its usefulness in either 2007 or 1894? Who knows? Team Grit and Team Grind?! Little does this haughty fuckwad know that it makes sound more like a spin class for a gym in Lincoln Park filled with young mothers in $110 yoga pants. You can hear it now, can’t you? “ONE MORE TIME, TEAM GRIND! PUSH IT!” When someone tells him this he might actually Spinal Tap drummer. In about four months, “Carolina Hurricanes” is going to replace “toxic masculinity” as a term in the lexicon.

Anyway, let’s do this shit.

2017-2018: 36-35-11 (83 points) 228 GF 256 GA 18.4 PP% 77.4 PK% 54.4 CF% 53.1 xGF%

Goalies: So supposedly this is where the turnaround is going to begin, and it kind of has to. While Bill Peters’s coaching and system led to the Canes having a majority of possession and chances the entire time he was there, it supposedly left his goalies out to dry. Either that, or his goalie coach was actively using a voodoo doll on them during games to service gambling debts he picked up on a bad night in a country saloon in Saskatchewan. Either way, every goalie under Peters sucked out loud, and that included LOCAL HERO Scott Darling and new Hawks “backup” Cam Ward. I’m not sure I totally buy this, because the past four years the Canes were always on the good side of xGF% and scoring chances, but this was the theory. We’ll find out in Calgary. Actually we won’t because Mike Smith is still shite but whatever, we’ll get to that outfit of the bewildered soon enough.

ANYWAY…Darling is still here, and still slated to be the starter. He was simply woeful last year, with a .888 SV%. About halfway through the season you could see his confidence had been totally shot and he was completely lost. But I’m not going to tell you that’s who I think he is. While Darling’s first year came behind a still competent Hawks defense or better, his last two years were most certainly not. He was behind the declining Keith or ever-expanding Seabrook or the directionless theorizing of Trevor Daley or the corpse of Rob Scuderi or the rim-protecting of Darko Svedberg. And he still put up better than league-average numbers. Yes, it was as a backup and being a starter is a different thing, but I don’t think he’s Darren Pang back there.

The truth is likely in the middle. It’s no secret Darling’s movement is not great, and his starts on the road remain Scott Darling On The Road. But if he’s allowed to play a little more conservatively and use his size instead of his reflexes more, he can be more than serviceable. Which will look like Jesus has arrived to the 17 Canes fans, who haven’t seen serviceable goaltending since The White Stripes were still together.

He’d better be, because there isn’t much of a net (get it?) here. Backing him up is Petr Mrazek, with his missing “e.” Mrazek washed out of Detroit after failing to dislodge (not TEAM LODGE) Jimmy Howard, and then went to Philly when all their goalies got hurt and wasted everyone’s time. It’s been three seasons since Mrazek has even been league-average. Sure, he was behind some awful Wings teams (don’t worry, Stevie Y is coming to the rescue!) and if Rod The Bod behind bench can tighten up the Canes maybe there’s some relief to be found. The better bet for the Canes is that Darling finds it again.

Defense: Still unquestionably the strength of the team, and got even better if they hold onto Justin Faulk. Which they shouldn’t, because they should trade him here for a Manny’s corned beef, but that’s just how I feel. It’s also unclear how Dougie Hamilton is going to fit into the atmosphere created by the owner where grabbing yourself is considered a full sentence.

On paper, it looks great. Dougie is one of the five best d-men in the game and a pretty significant upgrade on Noah Hanafin, who was really good himself. They can really make the pairs anything they want here. They can keep their shutdown pairing of Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin together. They could pair Slavin and Dougie and have Faulk and Calvin de Haan together on the second with Pesce simply playing soccer with opposing skulls on the third-pairing. And Haydn Fleury, despite being another missing an “e,” is no slouch himself. Squint and there are four top-pairing guys here and two more second-pairing guys, if de Haan is fully healthy. And they can do anything they’re asked. So this team really shouldn’t suck as much as it has.

I assume Dondon takes Mrazek’s and Fleury’s missing e’s and grinds them with the rhino horns he puts in his coffee he thinks makes him more virile.

Forwards: And yet here’s the same problem as it always is. There isn’t a genuine top line forward to be found. Sure, Andrei Svechnikov will be one day, and that day may be as soon as December. Sebastien Aho probably could be one if you put him on a line with two other genuine, top-line players. But the Canes don’t have that. He probably never would have shown up, but this team should have been all-in on Tavares by trade and tried to convince him to stay. They definitely should be making calls on the impending UFAs like Tyler Seguin, Matt Duchene, and Artemi Panarin. They need the help. As good as the defense is, even with rebounded goaltending is this team going to score enough to beat out one of the Flyers, Penguins, Caps, Jackets for a playoff spot? Are they as good as the Panthers, who probably grab the other wild card? I’ll hang up and listen.

Our Special Boy is still making the first line go, which is a problem in itself because though we have various shrines set up for him throughout the city and suburbs to service our worshipping needs wherever we may find ourselves, he’s a second-line player. Jordan Staal is the #1 center here and he’s 30 and has never been anything other than a glorified checking center with a big dumb face. They lost 30-35 goals in Jeff Skinner, mostly because they thought he was a weak asshole who wasn’t going to stick around. And either they think Svechnikov will replace all of that or they have no plan. And even with that replaced this team missed the playoffs by a $50 cab ride. Michael Ferland was completely a product of getting to play with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, and is going to be a Milan Lucic tribute band by the turn of the year.

Maybe grunting louder will solve it.

Outlook: Ok, first off, now that an actual hurricane is going to hit the Carolinas, this entire outfit is going to be a collar-tug the whole season. Secondly, whatever changes Brind’Amour (seriously, what the fuck is with this organization’s spelling?) makes from Peters, there’s a desperate lack of scoring punch here. Sure, the Predators get a ton of scoring from their defense, but they also have Filip Forsberg. There isn’t a Forsberg here. They’ve also got Rinne somehow throwing a .925 at people, and the Canes don’t have that either. Whatever help is in the system is a year or two away at best.

I want this team to be good, because of TiVo Targaryen and they’ve been one of the more entertaining teams to watch. Even if Peters’s system was reckless he at least was forward thinking and had his team push the play. I suppose with this defense Brind’Amour could go the other way and try and lock things down with that defense, and that might get them seven to eight more points. But the 15 or so they’re going to need to get into the playoffs? Seems a stretch.

Oh, and move them to Quebec already.

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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Jan Rutta

By Rose Rankin September 12, 2018 2312 0

There was a time when I thought Jan Rutta might be a halfway decent defenseman. Sure, he was a nobody from a random European league, but I personally have a soft spot for Euros, and besides, the Hawks have a good track record with European scouting.

Oh how wrong I was. Rutta was basically a bust, and the Hawks added insult to injury (literally) by giving him a contract extension for 2.25 million rather than using that money to, oh, I don’t know, bring in someone not constantly tripping over his own dick in the defensive zone. And what I mean by that “literally” comment is that Rutta missed a bunch of games with various and sundry injuries just before the re-signing, making it all the more infuriating. But he’s here and it appears we’re stuck with him, so let’s do this:

2017-18 Stats

57 GP – 6 G – 14 A

49.8 CF% – 50.6 oSZ%

Avg. TOI 19:15

A Brief History: Rutta pretty much sucked, but one could be tempted to blame his fellow slag, Gustav Forsling, who he was paired with more often than not. Rutta had the second-worst possession numbers out of defensemen (49.8 CF% at evens), and the only guy worse was…wait for it…Gustav Foreskin, his erstwhile partner! Unsurprisingly, their joint possession numbers were terrible (48.2 CF%).

But it’s not just that his work with Forsling was hideous to watch. Rutta’s numbers embodied the definition of lackluster: -3.0 CF% rel, 48 xGF%, 33 giveaways to 10 takeaways, it just goes on like this. To his credit, Rutta had the third-highest point total for a defenseman last year at 20, but he had the frustrating habit of scoring a goal after a craptacular run of mistakes, and it was just enough for Q to ignore logic and recent memory and keep putting him in the lineup. The contract extension in March was salt in the wound that resulted from watching the Hawks’ blue line, and it promises to continue causing agony for the foreseeable future.

It Was the Best of Times: The best-case scenario is that Rutta ends up a serviceable third-pairing guy. And by serviceable I mean he improves his possession numbers and his mobility—even just a little. Maybe he and fellow undeserving-signee Erik Gustaffson can kill enough time on a third pairing to let Keith, Murphy, and whoever else gets stuck with Seabrook catch their breath. Maybe he and Brandon Manning can perfect the “just a guy” pairing and not give up about 8,000 goals when they’re out there. Eating up ice time with minimal damage would be the ideal outcome here.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Conversely, the worst-case scenario is that Rutta has a starring role on this defense. If Q puts him on the top pairing with Keith—and don’t think it can’t happen; they had a 52 CF% in Rutta’s 57 games last year—we’re going to have an aging Keith with an immobile partner who is prone to turnovers. Not exactly what you want for what is ostensibly your best pairing. In this nightmare, Rutta bumbles through countless bad giveaways and gets smoked by the opposing offense, yet somehow scores 10 goals and Quenneville’s selective amnesia goes unchecked, while Duncan Keith deteriorates faster than he should. Don’t let the above-water possession stat from last year fool you—this would be a comedy of errors most nights.

Prediction: What likely happens is a mix of these two scenarios. Rutta plays with Keith until a series of egregious mistakes forces Q’s hand. He spends time bouncing between the second and third pairings as Q hits the blender like a drunken bridesmaid attempting to make frozen margaritas near the end of a bachelorette party. He ends up in the press box periodically as Jokiharju comes into his own (it’s wishful thinking I know but LET ME HAVE THIS). Rutta ends the season with less than 15 points and fewer than 5 goals, and when his one-year extension is up, the team lets him go and we all breathe a sigh of relief. Or they trade him as part of a package for a real defenseman, like we’ve been waiting for these past five months. But that’s too much wishful thinking—this is a prediction after all.

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You Share The Same Fate As The People You Hate – ’18-’19 Team Previews: Toronto Maple Leafs

By Matt McClure September 11, 2018 2274 0

But how does this affect the Leafs?

Any time literally anything in hockey, or sports in general happens, the Canadian Hockey Media and 95% of Canadian hockey fans pen either short or longform thoughts on this exact hypothetical. Maple Leafs fans are the most populous group in the sport, and they are also the most vocal and the most incapable of dealing with other human beings on any real level. They have made a ball hockey playing Baby Huey, a face painted cigarette smoking sexist, and an actual psychopath shrieking in front of his action figures in his basement “experts” via social media. Those that don’t even fall into those extremes are far more concerned with salary cap ramifications than the realities of actually winning a championship because doing so would completely strip them of their narcissistic, cloyingly self-deprecating, head-up-their-own-ass fandom. The latter tendency has led them to form a cult around a Rivers Cuomo looking ass motherfucker of a GM, whose sexual politics might actually be worse that Rivers’ in simply brushing aside a sexual assault scandal when he was in charge of a junior team. But hey, he hired a woman and bloggers for the front office, and a Candian junior team needs to have a bus accident to avoid having a sexual assault scandal of one form or another, so Kyle Dubas is a beloved figure kind of by default. It’s a goddamn shame that the on-ice product will probably be some of the most watchable hockey in the league, because all of the bullshit around this team is enough to gag anyone whose face isn’t painted blue and white.

’17-’18: 49W-26L-7OT 105PTS 277GF 232GA 24.9%PP 81.4%PK 49.82%CF 9.01%SH .9287SV%

Forwards: Might as well switch up the format and get right to it here, because this was already one of the more stacked groups in the league, and it only got moreso by adding the biggest free agent since the last lockout in erstwhile Islanders captain and hometown boy John Tavares. But while the crowing masses already planning the parade down Yonge St. still love to squawk about Dubas’ being a BRAIN GEANIOUS, he still managed to throw the first ever maximum salary in the form of almost entirely lump sum signing bonuses at Tavares even when it probably wouldn’t have taken that much arm twisting to get him to want to play in his home town with the current roster. That’s not to say it’s not a brilliant contract, as the Leafs are one of maybe like 3 teams in the league that can possibly afford that much out of pocket and it’s tremendous leverage considering that money up front is always preferable for athletic contracts, but there’s no need to pretend like this is some small market coup as the masses did. The resultant flip side of that coin is that dynamic winger William Nylander is still an unsigned restricted free agent, and because most hockey fans are stupid and don’t realize that good players deserve to get paid, the line will likely be that he needs to take less money to keep this grouping together. Nylander still hasn’t reported to camp but he probably will, because nothing remotely interesting happens in these scenarios with the NHL’s boring ass GM’s. But even aside from Nylander, the Leafs have Auston Matthews to essentially be a co #1 center along with Tavares, which leaves the ever cantankerous and productive Nazem Kadri to take over the third/checking line assignment, where he will simply devour bums all season long. Mitch Marner‘s deft play making on the wing will make this top 6 arguably the best in the NHL, but there are still concerns here. For as much as everyone liked to talk shit, and deservedly so about Tyler Bozak‘s role in the Tronna offensive attack, he and the departed James Van Riemsdyk took a combined 98 points with them out the door to the Blues and Flyers respectively. John Tavares’ career high in point output is 86. So while this offense is certainly more dynamic, it might be running in place in terms of actual output, and preventing goals might be the bigger issue.

Defense: Now it gets fun. While Morgan Rielly (spell your name right dickhead) and Jake Gardiner are fine second pairing guys who can do a bit of everything alright, they’re not true #1 defensemen by any stretch of the imagination. Ron Hainsey is now 38 years old and will be asked to play more top 4 minutes. Nikita Zaitsev needs to take a leap beyond being a bum slaying third pairing puck mover, but despite him being only in his third year in the league, he’ll be 27 next month, so at this point he kind of is what he is. Connor Carrick and Travis Dermott don’t really do anything for anyone, so compared to a lot of other groupings even in this division, the Leafs blue line is found wanting.

Goaltending: And here it is, the great undoing. Freddy Andersen probably doesn’t deserve this level of preemptive blame or responsibility, but deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Last year Andersen was completely serviceably average with a .918 overall and a .921 at evens, and proceeded to implode in the playoffs with an .896 in the Leafs’ 7 games of the first round. It’s not the first time Freddy has shat himself in the post-season, as a lifetime ago he sported a .901 in a 7 game Western Conference Final loss to the locals in red and black. “Frederik Andersen” is simply Dutch for “Evgeni Nabakov”- just good enough to break his team’s heart. He’ll be backed up at least to begin with by LOCAL GUY Garrett Sparks, whose 17 games of NHL experience came three years ago when the Leafs were willfully in the toilet trying (and succeeding) to tank for Auston Matthews.

Outlook: It’s a goddamn shame that everything else about this team sucks shit and is wildly irritating, because the process by which this team has been built has been as textbook as anyone could ask for in the modern NHL, and their forward grouping will be healthy if electric. But for all the bouquets thrown his way, Mike Babcock still has his blind spots and will find a way to get tomato cans into the lineup and coach conservatively despite having a trapeze troupe up front. But that may end up serving the team well given the state of things on the back end and in net, which will likely ultimately lead them to a second round out at the latest as other, more balanced teams within their division, specifically Tampa, will find ways to tear through the gaping holes on that blue line.

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Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Manning

By John Pullega September 11, 2018 2193 0

Motherfucker.

Diving into the 2018 free agency pool for defense was never going to go swimmingly for the Blackhawks. Sure, there were rumblings about John Carlson’s availability, but even if he hadn’t re-signed in Washington, paying him $8 million per over a two-term presidency was neither realistic nor wanted, given all the griping we’ve done about Seabrook. Calvin de Haan may have been nice, but he ended up in Carolina for $4.55 million per over four years. Thomas Hickey also could have maybe been a thing, but the 2007 #4 overall pick signed with the Islanders at $2.5 million per over four years. Once those three came off the board, you’d have thought the Hawks would scrape the bucket for a PTO guy like Franson to throw maybe $1 million at.

Instead, the Hawks went out and gave a two-year, $2.25 million per contract to Brandon Manning, a PTO talent at a Thomas Hickey price. ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET?

2017–18 Stats

65 GP – 7 G, 12 A

50 CF%, 45.6 oZS%

Avg. TOI 17:57

A Brief History: First off, fuck this guy. Brandon Manning spent most of his junior career sucking, and in an effort to get noticed, he—in his own fucking words—”fought nine or 10 times that year and stuck up for my teammates and made some big hits.” Jesus Christ bare-assed on the cross, Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville actually called Brandon Manning and told him, “We need a guy who doesn’t really score and can play physical.” Just keep giving Q the biddy, StanBo, it’s worked so fucking well in the past. Really good start here.

Manning went undrafted before latching on in Philadelphia—a place nothing less than perfect for a booger-eating buffoon whose calling card was protecting grown men on skates from other grown men on skates—in 2012. He spent most of his career with the Flyera doing nothing aside from tripping and breaking the collarbone of Connor McDavid in 2015, allegedly telling McDavid that he hurt him on purpose during a game in 2016, recanting when McDavid talked about it publicly, then getting his ass punched in by the aptly named Patrick Maroon as retribution in 2017. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THIS SIGNING?

In his first two full years, Manning spent most of his time in the offensive zone not contributing offensively. Last year was a bit different. He spent just 45.6% of his time in the offensive zone but contributed a career high 19 points. He broke exactly even at 50% on the CF% front. That’s somewhat encouraging, especially since he played most of his time next to living ghoul Radko Gudas and his aircraft carrier forehead.

But as we are wont to do, once you dig into the fancier stats, things look less than good. His xGF% (expected goals for percentage) was 48.89, which means that Manning’s opponents were expected to score more often when Manning was on the ice than the Flyera were. The closest Blackhawks comp Manning had in this category was Jordan Oesterle (49.00), who, as we all know, is one of the suckiest sucks who ever sucked on defense.

Further, his Rel xGF% (relative expected goals for percentage) was -2.22, which means Manning brought the likelihood of the Flyera scoring a goal down about 2% while he was on the ice. The closest Blackhawks comp from last year is Jan Rutta (-2.24).

And fuck it, let’s go even deeper, because the Hawks brass obviously couldn’t be bothered, as evidenced by the fact that they signed Brandon Motherfucking Manning. Manning’s HDCF%, which measures the percentage of high-danger chances for vs. high-danger chances against, was 47.31, good for second worst on the Flyera. This means that when Manning was on the ice, opponents were more likely to take shots from high-danger zones. High-danger shots are more likely to become goals. Since Manning himself doesn’t generate offense and apparently isn’t great at suppressing high-danger shots, it would seem that having him on the ice against anything but bottom lines is a recipe for disaster, especially if anyone but Crawford is in net.

So, he’s a combo of Oesterle without the KEEP FIRING ASSHOLES mentality and Rutta. And all this for just $2.25 million a year for two god damn years. Whose loins aren’t frothing?

It Was the Best of Times: Best case, Manning becomes part of a trade package for Erik Karlsson. Or, with contract negotiations for Darnell Nurse reportedly breaking down, they do Hall for Larssen II with Manning for Nurse. Barring those miracles, Manning plays fewer than 10 games because Jokiharju pulls a DeBrincat and makes it impossible not to play him. In the time he does play, Manning puts three or four points up and wins a fight or two, and the Hawks can trade him for something not called Brandon Manning. If he can’t be traded (he can’t), Quenneville shocks us all by learning what a sunk cost is and makes him a consistent healthy scratch.

It Was the BLURST of Times: We cannot stress enough how asinine this signing is. The fact that he was signed at all is a worst-case scenario. But he’s here now, he’s going to play, it’s going to suck, and it’s up to us to imagine how badly it’s going to suck. Worst case, Manning slots with Seabrook on the second pairing, because Manning played Top-4 minutes in the playoffs for the Flyera last year, a series in which Manning tossed a 48.77 CF%, 35.83 xGF%, and a hilarious -14.88 Rel xGF% against the likes of Crosby and Malkin.

StanBo throws his entire dick into his pet theory that Manning has gotten better with age and is on the verge of a breakout. That doesn’t happen, of course, because Brandon Manning sucks and would be better served in the boxing ring having his dome caved in nightly like the palooka he is. He channels his inner John Scott and becomes an insufferable monolith, both on and off the ice. After serving as a $4.5 million paperweight in his two years here, Manning uses his money to buy and close Al’s so he can open a Wawa there.

Prediction: Brandon Manning is the most Tom Smykowski signing the Hawks have had since Jordan Oesterle. He spent most of his career doing much of nothing, couldn’t hack it on a team that started Radko Fucking Gudas with a straight face, then got a seven-figure settlement as Bowman (read: Quenneville) went drunk driving and smashed into him with a HOCKEY REASONS contract.

So, he’ll spend time on the Top 4 with Seabrook. He’ll be an unmitigated disaster at all times and still get looks over Jokiharju and Murphy because HE’S HARD TO PLAY AGAINST. He’ll stumble his way into 10 points and then be considered for an extension. We’ll get all sorts of think pieces about how much his teammates like him, yet none of his teammates will offer that thought without priming from whoever’s in charge of pushing that narrative that day.

Just burn the whole building down.

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