Faxes from Uncle Dale

Category: Everything Else

  • Habs Q&A With Mega-Nerd Andrew Berkshire

    Habs Q&A With Mega-Nerd Andrew Berkshire

    You can catch Andrew’s work just about everywhere, but mostly at Sportsnet.ca and RDS.ca. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewBerkshire.

    Ok, explain why the Habs think they need every asshat they can find and why it will or won’t work when things matter?

    Bergevin has it in his mind that the number one reason why the Habs collapsed last season was that they were “easy to play against”. That was probably because they let in a goal every 5 shots scored on one of every 20 for like 3 months, then everyone got injured, but the team took it to mean GRIT and other crap. This same thing happened after the 2013 playoffs when the Habs throttled the Senators by every metric but Anderson stood on his head and Price was playing with a torn groin, so they lost in 5 and Bergevin brought in Douglas Murray and George Parros in the offseason. He’s a conservative GM for the most part, but he’s also extremely reactionary and seemingly mediocre at diagnosing weaknesses. 

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  • High On The Hog: Goalie Jam

    High On The Hog: Goalie Jam

    The Rockford IceHogs dropped their only game on the schedule this week. The Hogs are in action Tuesday at the BMO Harris Bank Center, where they will host Milwaukee before heading to Manitoba this weekend.

    One area Rockford should not be short in is the crease. By my count, there should be four candidates for the job of guarding the net. Apparently three guys weren’t enough for the IceHogs. Or…maybe someone is on his way out.

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  • Easy There, College Boy

    Easy There, College Boy

    Sometimes I wonder how much the Hawks were scarred by having Kevin Hayes spurn their advances and head to free agency after completing his college career. They’ve certainly never let that happen again, though I don’t know how much of a threat that was with any of their college prospects. There were some whispers that John Hayden was looking longingly at the open market, so the Hawks signed him up last night. And they did it by promising he could get int eh lineup this season, thus burning one of the two years on his ELC and getting him to a second contract that much quicker. Because that went so well for Kyle Baun Baun Kyle Baun Baun, Drew LeBlaahhhhh, and all the other jokers the Hawks have punted into a game from the college ranks at the end of a season.

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  • You’re A Big Man But You’re Out Of Shape: Wild 2 – Hawks 4

    You’re A Big Man But You’re Out Of Shape: Wild 2 – Hawks 4

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    I’ll admit to having been a touch worried about Corey Crawford lately. It was starting to look a bit last year. In both seasons, for the first half of the campaign Crow was asked to perform miracles and paranormal phenomenons to keep the wolves from the door. Last year, under the weight of all that he faded at the end, and was only good in the playoffs which wasn’t good enough. We don’t know yet if this year will see the same fade, but of late he just hasn’t been as good as he was earlier in the year. He’d strung four great starts together, but then there was Detroit–where he admittedly didn’t have any help either. And it’s kind of what we’ve seen from Feb. 1 on.

    Today was definitely vintage Crow, which gave his teammates the platform to capitalize on the opportunities they did create. And there’s your difference. The Hawks finished theirs because of their greater top-end firepower. Kane, Panarin, and Hossa on the scoresheet. The Wild didn’t. And this is almost certainly how it will go in May when these two teams see each other again.

    Let’s clean it up:

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  • Trying To Find A Balance – Wild vs. Hawks Preview, Daylight Savings Spring Ahead

     vs 

    Game Time: 11:30AM CDT
    TV/Radio: NBC, TVA-S, WGN-AM 720
    Makes No Sense At All: Hockey Wilderness

    Late season, weekend matinee games suck out loud regardless of the two teams involved. The thought process behind having them is clear, with both college and pro football shuttered for their respective seasons, and baseball yet to move north from Arizona and Florida, there is a void that can be filled by the Winter Tenants for viewership when there’s really only Law & Order: SVU reruns on elsewhere. But the vast majority of hockey games are played at night, and professional hockey players, like all athletes, enjoy their ya-ha time after a game and generally keep later hours. There is always at least a 24 hour break going into them so it’s not totally cutting into physical recuperation the way Thursday Night Football does, but circadian rhythms are still fucked with, and now past the deadline there are many teams who are just playing out the string. Couple that with the overall quality of the league due to a flat salary cap, and it’s left an absolute dogshit product on the ice on par with Thursday Night Football by any absolute or relative measure. And on top of that Daylight Savings just kicked in, so now two teams who at least on paper who are still jockeying for the top spot in the Central and the West, are effectively facing off at 10:30AM local time, all for the sake of courting viewers that the NHL is never going to grab. Nice work everyone.

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  • The Jay Cutler Salute: Hawks 2 – Wings 4

    The Jay Cutler Salute: Hawks 2 – Wings 4

    I suppose it’s fitting that in the first day of the post-Cutler era the Hawks showed about as much verve as he was falsely accused of showing on some gamedays (#CuttyForever). I’m not going to put any more focus onto this wrap than the Hawks did in this game tonight, so here’s a musical representation of just how interested the Hawks were in Joe Louis Arena tonight:

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  • Burn That Seat: Hawks at Wings Preview/PFT

     vs. 

    RECORDS: Hawks 42-19-5   Wings 25-29-11

    PUCK DROP: 6:30pm Central

    TV: CSN, NHLN for those not around here

    THE UNMENTIONABLES: Winging It In Motown

    PROJECTED LINEUPS

    ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Hawks – 51.2 (9th)  Wings – 47.4 (25th)

    ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Hawks – 49.2 (17th)  Wings – 47.3 (27th)

    POWER PLAY %: Hawks – 19.3 (15th)  Wings – 12.6 (Dead Ass Last)

    PENALTY KILL %: Hawks – 77.2 (27th)  Wings – 81.3 (13th)

    The last game at the Joe. There probably won’t be any tear shed by any Hawks fan. I suppose there’s some feeling of lost that this is basically the last “old” building in the league, and it’s going to go the way of all the others. Soon, the Wings will move into yet another faceless, corporate, sterile building to go with their faceless, sterile team. But for Hawks fans, the amount of fucksticks and shitheels that used to grace the surface at Joe Louis Arena will mean sentimentality will certainly be at a minimum.

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  • Wings Spotlight: THE STREAK (Extreme Wanking Motion)

    Wings Spotlight: THE STREAK (Extreme Wanking Motion)

    It’s gonna die. All things do, but we’ve waited for this one for a long time now. It should have died a while ago. It should have died in 2013, but Columbus spit up all over themselves. It was so close. And then Bruce Boudreau had to go and give it credence by then spitting up all over himself in a Game 7 at home, the first time he’d done it with the Ducks but the fourth time overall after departing DC. It shouldn’t have had to come to that.

    And then they fucked off to the Eastern Conference, after Quenneville woke up just in time in 2013 to save us from the ultimate embarrassment. Had they stayed in the West beyond the lockout year, this streak would have died ages ago. Oh sure, they stretched the Lightning to seven games by some miracle once, and have gotten clocked twice more. They’ve never been a threat. And now that the East has finally usurped the West as the power conference, even though they play in the far worse half of it, they’re going to miss out. It’s finally over.

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  • Why Do Guys Like You And Me Know What A Bernier Is?: Ducks 1 – Hawks 0

    Why Do Guys Like You And Me Know What A Bernier Is?: Ducks 1 – Hawks 0

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    Well that’s a funny looking strike.

    These are the games that really annoy fans like you and us, and not because the Hawks got goalie’d by the Ducks backup. That happens. It’s hockey. This is why it should have been Andy Warhol’s favorite sport, because any jamoke in the gear can have his night. Bernier’s actually been really good the past few appearances, so whatever.

    No, what’s annoying is you’ll see a bunch of utterances and belches from players and coaches about how they didn’t get traffic, or didn’t get the greasy goal, or their shot selection is off, because no one can ever admit the guy in the other crease was just better than everyone else. There was nothing wrong about what the Hawks did tonight. They had traffic. They had chances. Another night, they go in. This was not another night. Move on.

    Anyway, guess we’d better clean it up.

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  • Voices Scream, Nothing’s Seen: Ducks at Hawks Preview/Spice Garden Class

     vs. 

    RECORDS: Ducks 34-22-10   Hawks 42-18-5

    PUCK DROP: 7:30 pm Central

    TV: CSN

    GOT A RIDE AND A REASON TO IGNORE YOU: Anaheim Calling, Also Jen Neale of Puck Daddy tweets about the Ducks a lot @MsJenNeale_PD but she’s a gross girl who eats her own boogers and possibly worms so don’t talk to her

    Probable Lineups

    ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Ducks – 50.2 (18th)  Hawks – 51.2 (9th)

    ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Ducks – 52.2 (7th)  Hawks – 49.1 (18th)

    POWER PLAY %: Ducks – 19.0 (16th)  Hawks – 19.4 (15th)

    PENALTY KILL %: Ducks – 84.8 (6th)  Hawks – 76.9 (27th)

    It came a little later than usual, thanks to injuries, but the Hawks are going to have their usual “New Toy Night” tonight after the trade deadline, as Johnny Oduya will bring that life-affirming beard back out onto the UC ice tonight, opposite his muse of yore (if two seasons ago can be considered “yore.” I’m not too clear on what the qualifications on “yore” are) Niklas Hjalmarsson who will also return from tonight.

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