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Game #82 – Hawks vs. Jets Douchebag Du Jour: And the Winner Is…

By Rose Rankin 1898 0

We’ve reached the final Douchebag of the year…so let’s pause for a moment to reflect on some of the great douchebags that have been:

There was George McPhee, the ultimate piece of shit GM who literally punched a Hawks coach back in the day (1999 really should NOT be considered back in the day, but that was nearly 20 fucking years ago and god I’m so old).

There was the Leafs media, which is about as insufferable a group of lackeys, sycophants, and lunatics you’re going to find. Jars of urine, people.

And who could forget about douchebags like Alexandre Burrows, a complete waste of a human who has bottomed out as a player and been exposed as the untalented, dirty jamoke he’s always been.

But the biggest douchebag of all this year isn’t one of these fools, or someone from the Jets, who the Hawks are playing tonight for the final game, or a craphole town where an NHL team comes from. No, the ultimate douchebag of the 2017-2018 season was Corey Crawford’s head injury.

Let me clear: Corey Crawford is NOT a douchebag, and I am not holding him responsible for an injury. I’m just like Lear on the heath, raging at the storm in pointless fury, about the thing that most devastatingly took down the Hawks’ season. Yes, there were plenty of other douchebag moves—playing Rutta and Forsling together for as long as they did, a combo that even a healthy Crawford would have struggled to compensate for. Marooning Top Cat on the third and fourth lines most of the season, where he got stuck dragging around the likes of Patrick Sharp and his half a hip. Or Jordan Oesterle. Just Jordan Oesterle in general—he was one of the biggest douchebag aspects of the entire year.

But a god damned concussion taking out our Vezina-season-having goalie was far and away the shittiest thing, since it unmasked all the other weaknesses and dumb coaching decisions, allowing the wheels to fall right off. And a concussion isn’t like a groin pull, or even a broken bone—it’s sneaky and unpredictable…it sort of heals but may not ever heal but you don’t really know if something is wrong until it’s too late. It’s the douche-iest injury of them all (well, Anthony Duclair getting his knee ripped apart by anthropomorphized anal fissure Brad Marchand is close, but I digress).

It not only ruined the Hawks season but it left us in constant uncertainty: would he return? Should they manage their backups differently? Will he be OK even next season? Ligaments, muscles and bones may never be the same either after an injury (see: every NFL high draft pick ever), but an injury to your brain is even less predictable and more insidious given that you may be fine in every other capacity, not to mention that every time you forget something mundane it risks being a manifestation of early-onset dementia.

And so, as we end this ignominious season I crown the douchebag champion as Crawford’s Head Injury. We actually have some rays of hope to pull out of this dumpster fire (Top Cat, Schmaltz, possibly Sikura, you know the drill). But this stupid Douchebag du An* is so shitty it may even leach into next year. Fuck you, Crawford’s Head Injury.

*That’s not a typo, that’s year in French, ya ingrates!

 

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Game #81 – Honey Don’t Stop Tryin’ and You’ll Get What You Deserve – Hawks 1, Blues 4

By John Pullega 2051 0

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Like a day at the Robert Crown Center, this game leaves us cold, bored, and completely disenfranchised about things that are supposed to be fun. The good news is that none of it mattered, and it’s now almost over. To the bullets.

– This was less a hockey game and more a farewell to one of the most important Blackhawks of this era, Patrick Sharp. He got a nice video montage both before the game and in the third, and was slotted on the top line next to Kane, in hopes that he’d be able to recreate some of the magic of his younger years. While it’s no surprise that nothing really happened, it was a nice gesture from the organization. It hardly matters that Sharp was the worst possession player for the Hawks by far. Given that Colorado lost last night, the outcome of this game was window dressing, so giving Sharp a good sendoff was about as good as it was going to get.

It might be easy to forget just how good Sharp was for the Hawks in his prime, but I’m not going to take that away from whoever does his year-end wrap. All I’ll say is I’ll miss what Sharp once was and am glad to see him retire as a Hawk, which I assume is what he’ll do following tomorrow’s game.

– J-F Berube looked good until he didn’t, which is about par for the course. Crawford can’t come back quickly enough.

– One positive from this game was the chemistry between DeBrincat and Sikura. Sikura fed DeBrincat a few nice opportunities tonight, the best of which coming in the first period. Sikura took advantage of a Carter Hutton turnover behind the net and fed DeBrincat for a high-danger zone shot that Hutton managed to stuff. Then, in the second, DeBrincat returned the favor with a crisp pass through the Royal Road to Sikura, who also got stuffed by Hutton. The only real question is who’s going to center these two, because Ejdsell looks like a sore thumb out there with them. He’s going to need to progress by leaps and bounds if he wants to be the guy for these two.

– Duncan Keith had one of his worst games in recent memory tonight. He had three turnovers by the second period, and never looked comfortable on the ice. Again, this was a meaningless game, but watching Keith struggle as badly as he did is never fun. Like most of us, he’s obviously ready for this year to end.

– Connor Murphy also had a bad game, which makes two stinkers in a row for him. Only Duncan Keith had a worse possession night for Hawks defenseman, and what was worst about Murphy’s night was his regression into balloon hands in his own zone. He’s got a lot of potential as a defensive defenseman I think, but his struggles to exit his own zone are going to need to improve if he wants to stake his claim as the Top 4 guy we all think he can be.

– Outside of the Sharp farewell tour, this game was drudgery. The Hawks had 13 shots about midway through the third, and never looked alive at all out there. They finished with 20 shots, but I’d be hard pressed to describe any more than two. The highlight of the game was the two free chalupas and one cheesy gordita crunch I got in my Taco Bell order, which are currently calling my name from the microwave, the disgusting animal I am.

That’s it for the home games this year. In a game against a desperate rival, the Hawks rolled over, which doesn’t really deserve anything more than a shoulder shrug at this point. The last one’s tomorrow, and you should join Adam Hess for that one.

It’s been a pleasure writing for you all about this Hawks this year, despite the performances on the ice. We’ll be back at it for the playoffs and postmortems soon enough.

Beer du Jour: Dogfish Head Oak-Aged Siracua Nera.

Line of the Night: I didn’t catch the actual quote, but Brian Campbell suggested that the Hawks need a “character guy” like Andrew Shaw or Danny Carcillo during one of the intermissions. The perfect summary of this brat-fart season.

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Game #81 – Blues vs. Hawks Q&A: Nope, Same Thing

By Sam Fels 1496 0

It’s still SLGametime.com. Don’t worry, after this you won’t hear from them until October. 

Oh hey look, your team sucks too. What happened there? We haven’t seen you in a while so we kind of lost track. 
Here’s the Reader’s Digest version. The Blues were one of the best teams in the NHL in October and November. Then early in December Jaden Schwartz took a shot off his boot in Detroit. Fucking figures. Broken foot, missed significant time. The Blues had basically become a one-line team with him, Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko. Without little Schwartzy, the forward lines became a patchwork quilt of crap. At the same time, Jake Allen forgot how to make saves. Starter Hutton pushed him for playing time and Allen responded by allowing a shit ton of goals. The story line for the middle of the season became, “Thank god the Blues got off to such a good start so they are still safely in playoff position.” Then when Schwartz came back, they still couldn’t score. The team basically believed they were still the squad from the first two months. Every night they came out and played the same exact game and it didn’t work. It took fans booing and giving Allen sarcastic cheers for making an easy save after allowing four or five for the players to basically speak up and say, “We suck.” There’s been a little resurgence in the last 10 days or so, sparked by a return of the forecheck. Alex Steen and Kyle Brodziak (a pending UFA who chose to leave a Mike Yeo team before and remains unsigned even though he’s been one of the most consistent guys on the team all season) have become a nice little wrecking crew dragging Patrik Berglund’s useless ass down the ice. Allen has been forced to play better while Hutton recovers from a puck to the back of the head injury in practice. Bu there are 12 games left including tonight and they’re three points back of the Stars with a game in hand, but the Ducks are still ahead of them and the Flames right behind. It’s going to be a close call. Thankfully the schedule has some easy games on the schedule, including three with Chicago.
So this has to be it for this Jay Gallon bullshit, right?
I want to agree. I want to say he needs to find a quality realtor. I want to say the Blues front office believes he needs a change of scenery. But the guy is in the first year of a four-year contract extension for a $4.3 million a year cap hit. They signed him to the deal soon after trading Brian Elliott in 2016. It didn’t take effect until this season. They tried to make him the starter multiple times as career backup Elliott continued to outplay him. And now career backup Hutton has done the same. At every turn, the Blues have chosen to stick with Allen. And he’s shown he does not have the capacity to be a steady, reliable and consistent NHL goaltender. His positioning is bad, his focus worse. Watch tonight how many times the Hawks try to go short side. There’s a really good reason, it’s soft as Charmin. There were bullshit rumors that Montreal was interested in him, but it was a companion piece to a bullshit rumor that the Blues wanted Carey Price’s $10 million a year cap hit starting next season. Anyway, there’s a Finnish kid who looks like he’s the real deal named Ville Husso. He probably won’t start tonight after Allen got the OT win last night in St. Louis, but he’s only been trusted to wear stylish hats on the bench while Hutton has been hurt. By the way, Hutton is a free agent and probably has earned a nice little contract for a team who needs a stopgap guy while youngsters mature. So Allen, when he probably returns next fall, will probably have to fight off Husso for playing time. So yeah, expect Husso to get starts next season.
Doug Armstrong is gonna get canned for all this, no?
He has been the general manager since 2010. His team got to the Western Conference Final and two wins from playing for that big shiny silver thing. That was in the 2016 playoffs. Last year they got outplayed by the Wild and still won in the first round. They got rolled by the Predators in the second. This year they will be lucky to make the playoffs. These two step-back seasons coincided with the final two years in Armstrong’s contract. This season, he signed a four-year extension. With and option for a fifth! Let’s cover a few quick highlights. Thought Ryan Miller was the option when his career numbers were slightly worse than Elliott’s. Didn’t end well. Gave Jay Bouwmeester (Jabe O’Meester?) a five-year, more than $5 million a year contract extension for his early to mid 30s after he played about a million games in a row. He’s out six months with a hip injury. He gave Steve Ott $2 million a year for a couple years. He extended Berglund and Sobotka just 12 months ago and then was heavily rumored to be trying to move their embarrassing contracts at the deadline. He passed on a new contract for David Backes saying it was too much money for a player his age. And then a few months later gave an identical deal to Steen, who has underwhelmed to say the least. He protected Ryan Reaves and let David Perron go to Vegas in the expansion draft. Perron has set career numbers in assists and points. Here’s the biggest issue. The Blues have spent close to the cap every year since the current ownership group took over in January 2013 coming out of the last mini lockout. So that’s trying to win now, right? But in recent seasons he hasn’t tried to add in season, especially at the deadline. They’ve traded Kevin Shattenkirk and Paul Stastny at the last two deadlines. And he has refused to trade one of four highly regarded prospects saying he wants to protect the team’s future. In other words, he’s trying to win now. And build for the future. But he hasn’t committed fully to either. When you try to use all strategies, you don’t actually have a strategy. And as the Blues have imploded since early December, we have four or five years more to look forward to. Still shorter than the Seabrook contract length, though.
Ok, but there are more than a few promising kids here, right? Like, the Blues conceivably could turn this around next year…
Do yourself a favor and look up highlight videos of Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas. Have hard liquor nearby. They are destroying the OHL this season. Both played at the World Juniors for Canada. They have legit top-line talent. They are teenagers. There is still plenty of time for the Blues to fuck them up, trust me. With the last pick of the first round last June, the Blues used the first-round pick they got from Pittsburgh in the Reaves trade (WTF, indeed), and chose injured Russian Klim Kostin. He’s been one of the youngest guys in the AHL this year at San Antonio. He has all-world skill. Either scouts are xenophobic and dislike Russians, or he does have a little bit of a work ethic issue. And the other member of the Untouchable Four is Tage Thompson who will bring his bird legs to United Center tonight. He has size, reach, vision and velvety soft hands. He also weighs less than your sister, gets pushed off the puck by a light breeze and has more deer frozen in the headlights moments in NHL games than we can remember. He’s a work in progress. While all four of these guys are important, the subtraction of Stastny is more so. Can you believe his cap hit was $7 million? And if the Blues can convince Bouwmeester to be more like Marian Hossa and pretend to be injured all year (with a real hip injury instead of a make believe equipment allergy), they could put all of his $5.3 million cap hit on long term IR. That’s $12.3 million. Maybe they can find a taker for Car Gunnarsson and his almost $3 million and maybe John Tavares likes deep-fried ravioli and I know it’s a pipe dream, but you probably don’t want to envision Tarasenko and Tavares coming down the ice with the puck in Chicago for years to come, I’m just saying. Bottom line: Blues have legit prospects not far from impact status and potentially a difference-making amount of cap space to work with. Granted, we’re talking about the St. Louis Blues. We get that, trust me.
We kept asking our friends in Minnesota about this but they were never sure. Is Mike Yeo a Moron or Not A Moron?
I mentioned the Brodziak situation. He’s played well enough to warrant promotion to the third line. He knows his role and he has played it well and consistently all season. And yet it seems like he will test free agency for a second time after playing for Yeo. It’s not his fault Schwartz got hurt in December. It wasn’t his fault he has to play Sobotka, Berglund and Dmitrij Jaskin as the three forwards on his second power play unit, he has to play the guys put on his roster. And by the way, Tarasenko left the game Saturday night in the first period after a shot to the jaw. You’ll really be saying, “Who the fuck is that Blue?” if he’s not able to go tonight. I think he’s handled the goaltending debacle as well as possible. His lines sometimes make no sense. But again, the hand he’s dealt. Do I think he was the difference in winning a playoff round last year? Hell no. Do I think he could have prevented such a fall in the standings this season? Meh. You probably think the Blues are a bunch of assholes. They played that way much of January and February. Remember, Steen and Berglund and Pietrangelo have played for four head coaches for the Blues. Tuning out Ken Hitchcock and giving the new coach a momentary boost wasn’t just expected, it’s how they’ve operated their entire careers in St. Louis. That’s not on Yeo. And while saying you can’t blame him for shit going bad, it’s not like I can sit here and tell you he’s done anything to turn it around. The only thing that’s been noticeable has been his calm demeanor since he got here. And maybe that’s bad because these guys needed to get fired up several times and didn’t. Maybe they needed fire from the head coach, and they haven’t gotten it, at least in public. Hey Blackhawks, fire the mustache and we’ll put out a red carpet in St. Louis. It’ll be like “Quantum Leap.” The Blues could put right what once went wrong and makeup for firing Q when the team was resetting with an ownership change (not even the current owners) and turning over players across the entire organization. I know it’s not happening, he’s the new Ditka. But we know how that ended. Finally, fuck Patrick Kane, it’s fun watching Captain Serious be average and we will finally admit Corey Crawford is good. You’re welcome. Have fun at the draft lottery.

 

 

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Game #81 – Blues vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: A Tage by Any Other Name

By Rose Rankin 1563 0

Full disclosure, I’m named after a flower. Sure, there was a great-aunt Rose somewhere back in my family tree, but she was long gone by the time my parents picked my name. Kids at school used to taunt me that I was a flower child and my parents must be hippies, which was bait I didn’t take since nothing could be further from the truth. So I get it that having an unusual name can give kids a reason to pick on you, and as we don’t really choose our names, that isn’t really fair criticism.

However, that won’t stop me from asking, what the fuck kind of name is Tage? That’s not a name. That’s not even a word. That’s not like a Kayden, or Madison, or Mackenzie, all of which have become inexplicably popular lately. Kayden (spelled in a million different ways) has become ubiquitous and so we’re stuck with it, kind of like what happened with the name Stacy back when I was a kid (you never heard of any Stacys in Laura Ingalls Wilder books or Little Women, so when the fuck did that one come around?) Madison…well, I may laugh at the idea of naming a child after a street and/or last name of a very old, dead white guy, but if you’re really trying to prove your Hawks fandom, I guess it could be worse. And we all have that rando friend from college who now has a kid named Mackenzie, boy or girl, doesn’t matter. Come on, you know you do.

But Tage? That sounds like a joke Rob Delaney made on Twitter about his muscular sons. It’s not a clever approximation of another existing name (Bruce was a common name, switching out the vowel for a Y made it Bryce, which is different but better). It’s not a random noun that sounds kinda cool as a name, possibly in the vein of parents like mine, who aren’t necessarily hippies but want something unique (Juniper, Piper, words you would find in a dictionary even if they’re not exactly your thing).

Nope, this one is just stupid. Even on a team of dumbass names (Colton, Jayden, etc.) this one takes the taco. It screams “I’m super-young white guy and all my life everyone made a fuss over my entitled ass.” And while this guy has played about half the year with the Blues, he’s not good enough to make his bizarre name cool: his nine total points (3G/6A) and 49.6 CF% do not a phenom make, and you’d have to be generational-talent good to turn that name into an asset, rather than a pointless curiosity. Besides, look at this fucking guy. That hair has “Tage” written all over it. But if he ever makes a real impact on the Blues roster, expect lots of St. Louis-born babies to be sporting a moniker as dumb as they are.

 

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