Days Of Y’Orr was once a great hockey site. But like anything that burns so brightly, it can’t last forever. Out of the rubble though we still have Marshall. You can follow him on Twitter @MarshallDOY.
Three quarters of the B’s roster caught the plague this season at some point, or so it seems. So how does Bruce Cassidy keep it afloat?
The short answer is that Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak are just really, really good. Even without Patrice Bergeron for a massive stretch, the Bruins managed to go 9-6-1 thanks to the play of the two wingers. It helps that people forget how good David Krejci is. He’s been perpetually saddled by mediocre linemates since Jarome Iginla‘s departure, but while filling in for Bergeron, he managed 14 points in 16 games.
Despite using 12 different defensemen this year, including John Moore and Steven Kampfer, the Bruins have actually allowed the fewest even strength goals in the league. It defies logic. They are getting above-average goaltending, but let’s discuss that.
Jaro Halak seems to have at least earned a splitting of starts with Duke Tuuke’m, if not the #1 job overall. Do you expect that to continue or will he return to being Jaro Halak soon?
Right now, Halak gives the Bruins the best chance to win games. Tuukka Rask, however, will always give them the best chance to win a championship. Rask has always been a feast or famine goalie; he’ll drop some major turds, but then look like a Vezina contender for months at a time. What’s worrying me this year is that he hasn’t gotten enough of a chance to get into a rhythm in favor of riding the hot hand. It’s a great short-term plan, but Halak hasn’t won a playoff series in about a decade. If Rask can’t re-gain his crease soon, it does not bode well for the team’s postseason hopes.
Is Charlie McAvoy good? Other than being a moon-faced mouth-breather, we know the offense is there but every time we look up he seems to be in the trail position defensively.
I don’t know if we have enough of a sample size to accurately judge McAvoy’s season yet. He missed half of October and all of November with a concussion. When he has been on the ice, he’s been giving up a lot of shots, but not a lot of goals. I can live with that out of a 21-year-old defenseman who makes the kind of offensive contribution he does. Like I mentioned earlier, the blue line has been a rotating cast of warm bodies this year, so once that settles down, a little stability will do wonders for Charlie.
No. Shut up. Zdeno Chara will play until he’s 80 and he’ll still be in better shape than all of us.
When fully healthy can the Bruins throw a scare or more into the Leafs or Lightning in the spring? Are they more than just the best all around line in hockey plus?
This is a team that will win a first round series and then get bounced. Apart from the top line, they are pretty average in every way. There was a lot of hope that the Bruins could build on the progress they made last year, but with so many injuries, younger players have been forced to play above their development level to skate big minutes. When everyone is healthy and in the right slot, they can get a chance to learn and improve, but that just hasn’t happened yet this year. Rather than taking a step forward they have stood still while Tampa and Toronto have continued to blossom. But man is that Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line fun to watch though.
The NHL decided it wanted to place its signature regular season game in a famous, hallowed college football stadium to draw in viewers.
Too bad they missed.
While any Notre Dame fan, between huffs of paint, won’t hesitate to tell you how much the Golden Dome means to football, society, and the world, you have to ask yourself other than alums and the occasional Chicago meatball, who does Notre Dame matter to? Because it certainly isn’t due to results of the past three decades.
Every so often, Notre Dame is able to manipulate its hand-picked schedule into a record that appears good, and more importantly the school and fanbase and NBC stamp their feet, close their eyes, and yell as loud as they can that they must be taken seriously and given a bowl or a playoff spot. And probably out of sheer exhaustion of listening to them, they’re given one. And they get the eight kinds of shit kicked out of them every single time. They’re second class. They’re a history lesson. They’re a mid-major with a television deal and faux-religious piety.
Notre Dame doesn’t join a conference to adhere to some history or because they think they’re above the rest of college football. They do it because they know it would kill off any notoriety they get. If they were in the Big 10, they’d be Iowa. If they were in the Big 12, they’d be Colorado. If they joined their basketball brethren in the ACC they’d be Pitt. No one would care. Barely anyone cares now. Every SEC school would suck their eyeballs out through their anus and fuck the brain hole.
That’s why they’re an also-ran with a shiny gloss. Star recruits now have never known Notre Dame as being anything, and they certainly don’t want to spend anytime in Bumfuck, Indiana. Fuck, their fathers don’t remember Notre Dame being anything worth talking about! They want championship games and NFL exposure you get in the SEC or Big 10, not beating up BYU in the middle of the afternoon on NBC. Who gives a flying fuck?
Notre Dame hasn’t mattered since the 80s. INXS has more hits after that decade than the Irish do. They’re an anachronism. And then we say the names of Lizzy Seeberg or Declan Sullivan, and it’s not just that they’re overblown or incompetent, it’s a downright evil institution. Fuck your touchdown Jesus into death. And then they pile their religious bullshit on top to give them even more piousness even though if it wasn’t for their quickly fading football glory no one would ever go to that school without being forced. It would be a prison camp like the rest of that godforsaken state.
Then again, maybe it’s perfect that the Hawks want to stage the only game they’ll play that anyone will care about there. There are some similarities.
Notes: You’ll be shocked and in no way entertained by the fact that this is David Baceks’s third game of a three-game suspension for being a dumbass. This has thrown everything below their top line into even more of a mush…Rask hasn’t been as good as last year and has been outplayed by Halak for the most part, but he still is the #1 so he should get the call…not one of the Bruins d-men have played every game…Krejci’s production is the real miracle because he’s played with everyone and none of them are any good…
Notes: If you want to throw something after seeing Ward start, we don’t blame you. There’s no excuse for it other than Coach Cool Youth Pastor is terrified of telling any veteran player something they don’t want to hear…you’d think Murphy and Dahlstrom will draw the Bergeron line assignment, as would Toews…we bitch about Anisimov but that line in producing…Sikura went back with Top Cat in Colorado but lost out on some shifts to a double-shifting Kane…Caggiula couldn’t sort out his visa things in time to practice yesterday, so we’ll guess his debut comes Thursday against the Islanders…
One of the most baffling things about the Hawks during The Core’s 11.5-year run together has been the overall underperformance and at times downright putridness of the power play. With all of the scoring threats the Hawks have had since the 07–08 campaign—Kane, Toews, Hossa, Sharp, and DeBrincat, just to name a few—the Hawks have finished in the Top-10 for PP% just three times. In each of their Stanley Cup campaigns, the Hawks finished 16th, 19th, and 20th in PP% during the regular season, respectively. Their best finish came in 2015–16, when the Hawks finished second in the league. You might recall that as the year Patrick Kane scored 17 PP goals (T-2nd in league behind Ovechkin) next to Panarin and won the Hart, Ross, and Pearson (Lindsay).
Over the last year and a half, though, it’s looked dismal even by the Hawks’s underwhelming standards. For reference, last year they finished 28th, and they currently sit at 24th this year. But this year’s bad ranking was much worse just a few weeks ago, when the Hawks power play ranked dead last (31st).
Things have begun to look up recently, with the Hawks catapulting seven spots. But why?
For context, let’s first compare Time on Ice Per Game on the power play for the Hawks’s top time-getting defensemen between Quenneville and Colliton.
PP TOI/Game: Quenneville (15 Games)
PP TOI/Game: Colliton (26 Games)
Keith
2:34
1:03
Gustafsson
2:18
2:25
Seabrook
2:16
2:08
Right off the bat, you can see a huge difference in how Colliton uses Keith on the PP vs. Quenneville. We’ve been screaming in the rain about how Duncan Keith is not and never has been a good PP QB, and it looks like Colliton agrees. Since taking over, the Hawks have leaned primarily on Gustafsson and Seabrook in the QB1 and QB2 roles.
Now, let’s do the same for the Hawks forwards who tend to see the most time on the PP:
PP TOI/Game: Quenneville (15 Games)
PP TOI/Game: Colliton (26 Games)
Kane
3:34
3:43
Toews
3:15
3:05
DeBrincat
3:14
2:50
Schmaltz
2:53
2:22
Anisimov
2:20
1:20
Saad
1:46
1:34
Kahun
1:42
0:52
Strome
–
2:19
Both coaches used Kane, Toews, DeBrincat, and Schmaltz primarily. The biggest differences in terms of time were that Colliton has used Anisimov much less and replaced Schmaltz with Strome. There’s a frustrating dip in DeBrincat’s time under Colliton, but over the last six games, that number is closer to 3:20, so it may have just been Colliton trying things on. (John Hayden was on the PP for a while under Colliton. No, really.)
Essentially, Colliton has preferred Gus to Keith and Strome to Anisimov, quite rightly.
Now we have an idea about the big changes Colliton made (less Keith and Artie, more Gus and Strome). Let’s dig into the more recent success the Hawks have had on the PP. Check out the splits between the PP1 (Gus, Cat, Toews, Kane, Strome) and PP2 (Seabrook, Keith, Artie, Saad, Kahun) units over the last six games, which is when the PP started clicking:
PP TOI/Game (12/18–12/30)
Gustafsson
3:35
Kane
3:28
DeBrincat
3:20
Strome
3:15
Toews
3:11
Saad
1:04
Keith
1:01
Anisimov
0:52
Kahun
0:52
Seabrook
0:40
Colliton has really relied on his PP1 unit over the last six games. So that’s one piece of the puzzle. But that sure as shit doesn’t explain it all. Next, we’ll look at the difference between Kane–Seabrook and Kane–Gustafsson as a combo to determine whether who QBs for Kane matters.
Let’s compare Goals For and High-Danger Chances For between the Kane–Seabrook combo and Kane–Gustafsson combo. We’ll look over two time frames: 11/08–12/16 (19 games, beginning when Colliton took over) and 12/18–12/30 (6 games, beginning when the PP started clicking):
PP TOI/Game
Goals For
HDCF
Kane–Seabrook, 11/08–12/16/18
2:31
4
17
Kane–Gustafsson, 11/08–12/16/18
1:20
0
5
Kane–Seabrook 12/18/18–12/30/18
0
–
–
Kane–Gustafsson, 12/18/18–12/30/18
3:26
6
10
In isolation, it sure looks like simply having Gustafsson out with Kane regularly is far more effective than having Seabrook with Kane regularly. They’ve put up two more goals in six games than Kane–Seabrook did in 19, and the high-danger chances for are quickly catching up in a fraction of the time.
The reason we’re using six games as the touchpoint is twofold: First, the last time Kane played even a minute with Seabrook on the PP was on 12/16. He hasn’t played a single minute with Seabrook as the QB in the last six games.
Second, over the last six games, the Hawks have a 36.8 PP%.
Thirty-fucking-six-point-motherfucking-eight!
The only team ahead of them over that span is Pittsburgh (40%), who is sixth in the league and benefited from a 4/4 night against St. Louis on 12/29. What an outhouse that team and city is. The next closest teams over a similar span are Florida (35.3%), the third-best PP% team in the NHL, and Boston (33.3%), the fifth best.
But how do all of these numbers fit into the overall gameplay? One of the crazy theories we had earlier in the year was that the Hawks PP was struggling because of Kane, not despite him. Compare these two clips:
This is a clip of a Hawks power play against Vegas on 12/06. Notice how long Kane spends with the puck (“Carmelo-ing” as Fels calls it) in both instances and how it allows Vegas’s PK to set up, leaving only low-danger perimeter shots for Seabrook and DeBrincat.
This is a clip of the Hawks power play against the Stars on 12/20. Rather than playing with his dick on the boards, notice how much more movement Kane creates with Gus at QB. The Stars now have to focus on both Kane coming off the half-boards and Toews in the high slot. The biggest difference here is that Gustafsson can move farther than five feet in any direction, unlike Seabrook in the previous clip. With DeBrincat and Gustafsson cycling, Kane doesn’t have to make everything happen by himself. It also lets him move into higher-danger spots, such as when he skated to set up the slapper in the spot that DeBrincat was once in (DeBrincat cycled to the point while Gus took Kane’s usual spot).
Another wrinkle between the two set ups is how Colliton uses Toews. In the first clip, Toews rarely stayed put in the high slot, instead roving around the lower portions of the ice. This “movement” was less strategic and more moving for the sake of moving. Note how no one on Vegas pays much heed to Toews.
In the second clip, Toews tends to stay in the high-to-mid slot. After one retrieval behind the net at the very beginning of the clip, Toews never strays past the dots or lower than the blue paint. In this set up, Toews is a threat to either (a) tip a shot, (b) sweep in a rebound, or (c) set up in the slot for a wrister or a one-timer. By cutting unnecessary movement out, Toews makes himself a threat and gives Kane, DeBrincat, and Gus more real estate to work with.
While both of these set ups came under Colliton, you could easily mistake the first clip for a Quenneville set up. It may have just been a matter of time and experimentation, but once Colliton put Kane and Gus together on the PP1, things started to change.
It took a little over a month, but Colliton has done three things to improve the power play:
1. Massively reduced Keith’s role.
2. Put Gus with Kane at nearly all times.
3. Set Toews in the high slot and reduced unnecessary movement.
When you consider how much movement the Hawks PP has created over the last six games, the reason why the power play looks and is more formidable is likely a function of Gus’s skating ability and risk-taking. With Seabrook, the onus is on Kane to make plays because all Seabrook can do anymore is pound slappers from the point. That’s fine and all, but it’s a huge waste of Kane’s toolset. It forces everyone to play more conservatively, Kane included, because the point man in Seabrook needs cover and can’t create movement by himself. His passing can’t save him, basically.
Gus is more willing and able to make high-wire passes and plays because of his relative speed, decent vision, and the ways he takes advantage of Kane’s preternatural offensive skill, as we saw on Kane’s first goal against the Wild on 12/27. His aggressiveness and ability to cycle with Kane and DeBrincat, coupled with the threat of Toews in the high slot, open up more lanes for both good passing and shooting, rather than the dull perimeter passing they’d get with Keith and Seabrook.
While six games do not a power play make, the Hawks are trending in the right direction, and it looks like all it took was someone for Kane to perform with. The rub here is that you’re relying an awful lot on Gus not to do outlandishly stupid things, which is a coin-flip at best. Nonetheless, the results are clear:
1. The Kane–Gus combo has produced six of the Hawks last seven PP goals over six games. It took the PP 35 games to get to 12 goals prior to this combo playing regularly.
2. Since making Gus the QB on the PP1, the Hawks have the second-best PP% in the NHL, behind only Pittsburgh.
3. Before Gus became the QB1, the Hawks PP% sat at 11.4. With Gus as the QB1, it’s 36.8%. That’s a 223% increase in conversion rates. That’s right: 223%.
The sample sizes are small, but promising. If nothing else, it’s a relief to watch the Hawks PP do something, anything, other than suck out loud, even if it’s only for a little while. But the way the stats flesh out and the PP looks on the ice, this might be what the PP is now.
Last season brought a lot of things about the Blackhawks into harsh clarity, and perhaps none more so than the importance of Corey Crawford to this team. The Scott Darling Apologists all disappeared as it became painfully obvious that neither Anton Forsberg nor the Jeff Glass Experience was up to the task of covering for the Hawks’ shitty defense. And not having a world-class goalie behind them revealed just how bad the blue line really was, as we’re all too well-aware now.
So the lead-up to this season was heavily focused on if and/or when Crawford would return, and just what kind of player he’d be if he played at all. The fact that he was at Vezina level when he went down with a concussion in December 2017 only raised the tension—if he came back, could he play at THAT level again and potentially salvage this It’s-Tinkering-Not-A-Rebuild Hawks team that the front office kept trying to sell everyone? Could Corey Crawford redeem the Hawks in the present moment and leave last year as an anomaly?
Now that we’ve reached the midway point of the season, we know the answers to those questions, and they’re both a resounding no. With his latest concussion, thanks to Evander Kane being a total fuckstick, the Hawks have to move on to a future without Crawford, and it starts now, whether anyone likes it or not.
Before we go any further, let me just say that yes, Crawford could conceivably come back this year. Maybe just maybe he recovers quickly. Concussions are strange and recovery times vary wildly. There have even been murmurings on Twitter from the team saying he’s around, but Coach Cool Youth Pastor doesn’t know about a timeline. At this point though, such chatter seems to me like the Hawks’ feeble attempt at bullshitting people, like a lazier version of the nonsense they peddled late in the offseason when they talked openly about Crow returning, despite this being a surprise to the player himself.
Anyway, even if the Hawks dug up some Dr. Nick Riviera to medically clear Crawford, for the good of his health and the Hawks’ future, Crawford shouldn’t play again. Let’s start with why this is best for Crawford.
Risk v Reward
It’s become increasingly clear that concussions and repeated brain trauma have devastating effects including higher rates of depression. Concussions are reaching the level of carcinogens, where no amount of exposure is safe, but recent research is also showing that it’s not just concussions but general head trauma and hits to the head that multiply the risk of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a fatally degenerative disease.
Crawford has now sustained two concussions in a year, and the first one was obviously pretty fucking bad to keep him off the ice for 10 months. Now, I’m clearly no doctor—not even Dr. Nick—so I can’t say what is going on with his brain cells or what will happen or what his prognosis is. I’m not even trying to. I’m just laying out established studies that all say getting hit in the head a lot or getting concussed is bad.
With the medical facts being what they are, athletes (in football, hockey, whatever) need to weigh the risks versus the rewards when it comes to playing. That can pertain to any injury, but it’s particularly relevant with the risk of traumatic brain injuries, which are by nature different than blowing out a knee or breaking a bone since recovery is uncertain and CTE can’t even be diagnosed until after death. It’s a different level than fucking up a knee and never quite walking normally again—you can still walk in that situation; your brain doesn’t heal and move on in that way.
Crawford turned 34 today—not exactly an old man by non-sports standards, so one would hope he’d have a number of years left. The quality of those years (not to mention the quantity) can be jeopardized by the potential for lasting damage due to multiple concussions and brain injuries. Is it really worth it to put your brain and potentially the rest of your life in danger to help out a dumpster fire of a team, particularly one that you’ll probably only play another year with? I hope that Crawford himself responds with an emphatic “no” to that question.
Sure, he could get traded somewhere, maybe some good team seeing as nearly all of them are better than the Hawks but again, in your mid-thirties, how many playing days are left? And is the slim chance of success worth the risk, after you’ve already accomplished so much? I’m not a professional athlete and I certainly can’t comment on the delirium of winning, but this seems like it’s an open-and-shut case to say no, and walk away.
A New Hope
OK, so why would it benefit the Blackhawks to move on from the guy who is one of the most valuable goalies they’ve ever had, if not THE most? It’s because the reality of the situation laid out above will make itself felt eventually, and the Hawks have to be prepared. Even if Crawford magically recovered and came back in a few weeks, he still celebrated that birthday today and assuming he could go for 12 consecutive months without another injury, he’ll be 35 in a year’s time.
If things had been different I would say without hesitation that he would have Lundqvist-like longevity (I enjoy alliteration, fuck off), or Tim Thomas-like success getting a late-career Cup (although obviously Thomas was a nobody early in his career and it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison but you get what I mean).
But things didn’t turn out differently. They turned out like this. When he first came back this year, there were flashes of the Vezina-quality goalie who got hurt late in 2017. It was probably adrenaline to a degree, and he cooled off to human levels while the still-putrid defense did him no favors. Crawford is currently sitting with a .902 SV% and 3.28 GAA in his 26 games this season.
Assuming he came back from this concussion, one would have to expect a similar performance, maybe slightly better, quite possibly worse. Aging and injuries piling up doesn’t bode well for returning to league-leading form. The defense isn’t going to turn things around in a meaningful way in the immediate future, and only by a small miracle will things be better next year. And then his contract is up after that and you’ve got a guy in his mid-thirties who is a shadow of his former self, and you’re a dick if you let him go but you can’t overpay another fading star just for nostalgia’s sake.
So it’s time for the Hawks to find their next long-term goalie, and it’s entirely possible that Collin Superfluous-L Delia could be an NHL-caliber player. It’s way too early to say that for sure, but so far, with the smallest of sample sizes (3 games), he’s got a .957 SV% and 1.66 GAA. Those numbers will undoubtedly move in the wrong direction eventually, but he’s earned the right for the full audition.
So whether or not Crawford comes back, the team needs to play Delia and figure out sooner rather than later what he’s going to be, even if what he’s going to be is just a nobody. Because if Delia really is just a clod, then all the contract machinations swirling around this team get another element added, as the Hawks would need to hit the market for a legitimate starter, not fucking Cam Ward or another of his ilk. The entire team is affected by what happens in the crease, so dithering over this issue will only delay any improvement or rebuild or whatever the hell you want to call it.
End of the Road
No matter what happens, the organ-I-zation needs to do right by Crawford. They owe him so much that if he requested that Stan Bowman go streaking through Millennium Park in zero-degree weather as a joke, they’d better make it happen. But both the player and the team need to admit to themselves and the fans that their futures diverge from here, and that’s better for everyone. It’s been a helluva run.
I’m sure it was only a coincidence that the Hawks completed and announced a trade of perhaps their most bewildering signing in a decade during the last Bears regular season game. Wouldn’t want anyone to notice an admission of a stupefying and yet comedic mistake of this proportion.
The headline is the Hawks traded Brandon Manning and failed prospect Robin Norell to Edmonton for Jason Garrison and Drake “The A.K.” Caggiula.
The Brandon Manning signing sucked when they made it, but we tried to reassure ourselves he was only a bottom-pairing player and really couldn’t do that much damage. And then he played, and somehow the signing looked significantly worse than we thought it would. Then he blamed it on the system Joel Quenneville employed. When the coach and system changed, he still sucked. Then his GM blamed his signing on the coach he just canned. And when Manning finally played himself out of the lineup, he bitched and moaned until he got traded. Perhaps the most infuriating part of this whole thing was that nothing was ever Manning’s or Bowman’s fault for his acquisition or play.
Take a moment to consider all that.
Manning was a continuation in a war between Bowman and Quenneville that went on for far too long, and it looks like both will eventually lose. Michal Kempny was the big battlefront in it, which has caused Bowman to re-sign Jan Rutta and Manning while basically saying to Q, “Fine, you can have your type of player. Good fucking luck.” I wonder if it doesn’t go back to Trevor Daley, who is utterly terrible and always has been but the similarities are there. Bowman desperately wanted anything to show for having to give up Patrick Sharp and also Stephen Johns just to get rid of Sharp’s contract. Daley was also unhappy under Q and his system, and his play showed that. And he wasn’t shy about telling people, even though he was always a cowboy laced on meth when it came to his defensive play. And the Hawks had to give up on him barely halfway into his first season here because it was just that bad.
We’ve seen this before.
In the end, the Hawks were always going to be bad and Manning only cost them some money, and some bleeding eyeballs at his play. Maybe they could have believed in Carl Dahlstrom more and let him just start the year here, but these things aren’t always linear. At least it’s over.
They get back Drake Caggiula, a player they wanted to sign out of college and made a push for. He’s at least not a complete suckbag, though close. He did manage 13 goals last year. You’d probably rather see him take fourth-line shifts than Andreas Martinsen or John Hayden, who gets an abnormal amount of ink spilled about him for someone who can barely do anything. That’s about the ceiling for Caligula. Jason Garrison is on a minimum deal for this season and we’ll never see the light of day and will probably be waived tout suite.
While the Hawks will tell you it clears up their defensive logjam, it really doesn’t. When Henri Jokiharju comes back, they’ll have seven d-men and various arguments about why they all need to play. Certainly Dahlstrom’s play doesn’t warrant him sitting regularly. Jokiharju has to play. Murphy’s been their best d-man by miles. You’re not going to sit Keith, who seems to have found some reasonable understanding with Gustafsson, no matter how little sense it makes. Which leaves Forsling and Seabrook. Forsling is terrible and awful and bad and stupid and sucky, and if never plays again I’lll consider it a brief ray of light in an otherwise ceaselessly dark existence, but the Hawks are still under the impression he needs to develop and at least see what they have. He can’t do that from the pressbox. Which means they’re headed for their Seabrook Nexus Of Death faster than they would like, I’m sure.
All in all it sounds like a really healthy organization we’ve got here.
The Rockford IceHogs have 34 games behind them this season. They currently sit in sixth place in the AHL’s Central Division with a 15-12-3-4 mark, good for a .544 points percentage. Truth be told, this year’s Hogs are faring about as well as they did a season ago.
Yes, before the roster was bolstered with veteran talent in the last three months, it was a young, inexperienced group that was in a similar position at this time of the 2017-18 campaign. Through 34 games, that club was 18-14-1-1 for a .558. That’s about the difference of a standings point for those of you who don’t want to do the math.
The glaring difference in this year’s and last year’s club is the offensive numbers. The IceHogs of a season ago scored at nearly a goal per game better than this year’s crop of piglets. In 2017-18, Rockford had 105 goals scored and 101 goals allowed at this point of the season. This year, the Hogs have drawn cord 78 times while surrendering 98 goals.
Even with the Wolves putting together a 10-0-1 streak this month, the Central Division is pretty closely contested. No one has run away with the division yet. Last season, several teams put together hot stretches of hockey that had them moving up and down the division ladder. It stands to reason that the playoff spots are all up for the taking come spring.
For that to happen, Rockford is going to have to be better in the opposing zone. The IceHogs do not have a player in the top 20 scorers of the league. That’s a huge understatement, actually. Defenseman Darren Raddysh, Rockford’s top point man with 21, is currently tied for 85th in the AHL in that category.
Last season, the IceHogs were shut out just once. So far, Rockford has been already been blanked on four occasions. The lack of scoring punch is being felt all over the lineup
The Hogs potted three goals in three games this week, squeezing a point on Saturday because of a strong performance from goalie Kevin Lankinen. At 2.29 goals per game, they occupy the league basement. Like Saturday’s overtime loss, what’s keeping Rockford in contention this season is the play in the crease.
There is rarely elite scoring on the Hogs roster from year to year. Most seasons, they’ve put up points by committee. This season, Rockford again lacks top-end scoring power…and the committee has been out to lunch.
Matthew Highmore, last year’s high goal scorer, has missed all but seven games with a shoulder injury. Tyler Sikura, who put up 23 goals a season ago, has just six so far. Vikor Ejdsell is currently out with a groin injury and has just four goals in 27 games.
Jordan Schroeder has 18 points (7 G, 11 A) on the season and is putting up numbers that measure up to his past output in the AHL. However, he is a complimentary scorer. Veteran Terry Broadhurst (2 G, 4 A) hasn’t been productive from a scoring standpoint, but, like Schroeder, he isn’t a guy who should be pacing your club.
There are bright spots. Raddysh has stepped up his game in his sophomore campaign, with seven goals and 14 helpers. Rookie Lucas Carlsson (6 G, 10 A) has also come on in the last few weeks in response to increased responsibility on the blue line.
Jacob Nilsson (7 G, 8 A), who was up for one game with the Blackhawks, has five goals this month. Nilsson isn’t going to lead this team to offensive respectability single-handed. Several players need to bring more to the table. Here are but a few:
Graham Knott (2 G, 6 A in 32 games)-If this kid could find the net on the opportunities he’s had, it certainly would help. Knott has had some top-six time at center and has put himself in places to score at times. He just hasn’t shown any knack for getting a puck past a goalie in his season-plus in Rockford.
Alexandre Fortin (2 G, 3 A in 10 games)-Fortin seems to be a bit more under control after a spell in Chicago. He’s now getting top-line minutes and power play time with the Hogs. Now would be a good time for him to go on a points explosion.
William Pelletier (0 G, 2 A in five games)-Recently returned from offseason surgery, Pelletier is a player who can be used throughout the lineup. He’s capable of chipping in on the offensive end; hopefully he’ll start making a dent as he gets more games under his belt.
You can also toss Sikura and Broadhurst onto that heap. Unless the organization swings a trade that brings a blue-chip AHL goal scorer to town (not counting on it), Rockford is going to have to pick it up throughout the lineup.
Roster Bits
On Friday, Jacob Nilsson was sent back to Rockford by the Blackhawks. He played in both weekend games against Chicago. Defenseman Dennis Gilbert suffered a lower body injury in Wednesday’s loss in Iowa. He did not suit up for either game this weekend.
Following Sunday’s trade with Edmonton, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a player assigned to Rockford from the current Hawks roster. If Garrison, who had 28 points (8 G, 20 A) in 58 games with the Wolves last season, gets through waivers, his shot would be a welcome pickup for the IceHogs.
Recaps
No lines this week.
Wednesday, December 26-Iowa 4, Rockford 0
This Boxing Day effort was nothing to write home about. The Hogs went to DesMoines and got shut out by Kaapo Kahkanen. The rookie goalie stopped 39 Rockford shots to continue his impressive season.
The IceHogs out shot Iowa 15-3 in the opening period, though neither team scored. The Wild took a 1-0 lead 3:11 into the second period on a Matt Bartkowski snipe. A defensive zone turnover led to a Gerry Fitzgerald goal at the 14:41 mark put the Hogs down a pair.
A Will Bitten tip-in made it 3-0 1:25 into the final frame and pretty much sealed the fate of Rockford. Hogs coach Derek King yanked starting goalie Kevin Lankinen for an extra skater with 3:17 remaining to try and foil the shutout bid, but Matt Read intercepted a pass and threw in an empty netter to close out the scoring.
Rockford denied three Wild power plays but failed to convert on four of its own man advantage opportunities.
Friday, December 28-Chicago 4, Rockford 2
Rockford dropped its second straight game despite leading twice in this game. Curtis McKenzie’s two goal effort provided the winning margin at the BMO Friday night.
After skating to the tune of no goals for most of the opening period, the teams traded goals in the latter part of the frame.
Jordan Schroeder got Rockford up 1-0 at the 15:26 mark. Schroeder got to a rebound off a Darren Raddysh shot at the right post, knocking his attempt through Wolves goalie Oscar Dansk and just across the goal line. Moments later, Chicago responded with a Curtis McKenzie goal. The teams went to the first intermission all even.
Lucas Carlsson was set up by Graham Knott early in the second period to give the Hogs a 2-1 lead. At the seven minute mark, the Wolves Keegan Kolesar potted the equalizer. After a delay of game penalty on Rockford, McKenzie drew cord on the power play for his second goal of the contest. His back hand attempt slipped under the stick arm of Hogs goalie Anton Forsberg at 11:24 to give Chicago a 3-2 advantage.
Late in the second period, the Wovles man advantage struck again. Dylan Coughlin sent a hard slap shot from the slot that skidded past Forsberg for a 4-2 Chicago lead with 14 seconds to play in the period.
The IceHogs made a push to get back into the contest but found the post uncooperative on numerous occasions in the third period. The Wolves couldn’t score, but didn’t need to.
Chicago won the special teams battle, converting twice in six chances. The IceHogs came up empty on four power play attempts.
Saturday, December 29-Chicago 2, Rockford 1 (OT)
The Hogs salvaged a point in Rosemont solely on the strength of Kevin Lankinen’s performance on the evening. The rookie goalie stopped 43 shots and weathered a first-period assault by the Wolves to keep his team in the game.
Chicago came out smoking; Lankinen fended off 25 of the 26 shots the Wolves sent at him in the opening frame. Brooks Macek capped an extended scrum in front of the crease by knocking in his 17th of the season at the 14:18 mark, giving Chicago a 1-0 lead that they would hold through the bulk of regulation.
Rockford managed to play a more competitive game after the first intermission. However, they wouldn’t come up with the equalizer until the waning minutes. Stefan Matteau provided the opportunity after throwing an elbow at the IceHogs Blake Hillman.
Nathan Noel and Curtis McKenzie were already in the bin of sin for an earlier altercation. As they exited the box, Jordan Schroeder faked the shotand hit Jacob Nilsson at the goal line with a pass. Nilsson got Wolves goalie Max Lagace to bite on a fake, scooted around the cage and beat Max Lagace to the right post. Nilsson’s wrap-around made it 1-1 with 3:25 remaining.
An IceHogs infraction would set up the Chicago game-winner. Rockford was called for too many men on the ice three minutes into Gus Macker Time. The Hogs got caught in a partial change and Macek set up McKenzie in front of the net. Lankinen stopped the point-blank chance, but Dylan Coughlin followed up on the rebound, backhanding the puck though Lankinen’s pads and across the goal line at 3:55 of overtime.
Both teams scored once on the power play; Rockford was one of four, while the Wolves were one for six.
This Week
The IceHogs will be in Grand Rapids Monday night to close out the 2018 portion of the schedule. Starting Wednesday, the Hogs will don their white sweaters at the BMO. First home date of the new year is with Milwaukee. Friday, Rockford travels to Iowa before hosting the Wild on Sunday afternoon.
OK, so it wasn’t exactly like their performance against the Avalanche last week but it was enough. The Hawks have five wins in their last six games, and even more shocking, they have seven power play goals in that time. What a world. To the bullets:
– The Hawks started strong yet again, and if there is anything that makes watching them bearable, it’s them NOT finding themselves in a 2-0 hole by the five-minute mark. In fact, the Hawks were the ones up 2-0 relatively early, thanks to the functional power play and overall good puck movement in the first 10 minutes. Alex DeBrincat scored the PPG, which brings his scoring streak to five games, and as a whole, the power play continued to be a legitimate offensive weapon for the Hawks. Not long afterwards, Kane added a goal, putting him on a seven-game scoring streak as well. Things were looking up.
– Then, Gustav Forsling went all Gustav Forsling all over everything. He took a dumbass penalty late in the first which led to Rantanen’s goal. And while Foreskin’s tripping penalty set things up, his was not the only defensive failure at this point. Keith and Seabrook were on the PK and I swear to you they stood still and watched as Gabriel ThisLandIsYourLand walked up to the net and scored. It was patently absurd.
– But he wasn’t done yet! Forsling managed to do the exact same thing at the end of the second period, although Nathan MacKinnon had already scored on…wait for it…a delayed penalty just seconds prior. Forsling repeatedly passed to no one and went around tripping people and yet, he had a 72 CF%. Hockey is weird.
– Speaking of weird, the Hawks’ power play has been, as we’ve mentioned, downright functional as of late. But in the third when they had a 5-on-3 the Hawks completely shat the bed. They went right back to everyone standing around waiting for Patrick Kane to do something. When Kane did get a shot, it was a crazy deflection off the post and into the crowd on the other side of the ice. It was impressive in its own way. But that didn’t make up for the fact that with a 2-man advantage and one defender with a broken stick—so basically a 2.5-man advantage—the Hawks receded to their bad habits of not moving themselves or the puck.
– They made up for it by scoring on a power play right at the start of OT, thanks to Connor Murphy once again getting his face demolished, this time by Landeskog. He ain’t pretty no more (he was never pretty anyway), but who cares, we’ll take whatever help we can get. Toews batted down the puck with a suspiciously high stick and fed it to Kane, exactly the quick puck movement that they needed. Luckily the refs were as done with the game as anyone, so no one bothered to review if Toews’ stick really was over the crossbar. Again, we’ll take whatever we can get.
– In other news, Collin Delia looked really good once again. Neither goal can be pinned on any mistake of his; the first one, his defenders sat on their asses and watched, and the second was in the midst of a defensive breakdown and scramble. In fact, he was the sole reason the Hawks didn’t get brained late in the first and through most of the second. His positioning and composure were both exactly what the Hawks needed, particularly with the Avs top line having their way with whoever was on the ice at the time. Delia ended the night with a .938 SV% and had better get the god damn start on New Year’s Day.
– Alex DeBrincat is not a fucking third liner. Why can’t Coach Cool Youth Pastor see this? What more must this guy do?! FUCKING SHIT
–Dylan Strome had two assists and continues to be eminently useful. Meanwhile Artem Anisimov is still 10 steps slower than Strome and Kane on their line, and it’s beyond frustrating to imagine how many goals a DeBrincat-Strome-Kane line would have. Anisimov stumbled over or lost the puck in his feet at least three chances tonight. It seems so obvious.
Another win so we’ll have to just shut up and deal with our line combination complaints, and hope that Forsling can benched or traded or teleported to the land of wind and ghosts ANYTHING JUST MAKE IT STOP. But there’s no better way to go into the Winter Classic, such as it is. Onward and upward.
The Hawks continue whatever this little streak of barely managed competence means by a second trip to Denver in eight days. But hey, is there anywhere else you’d rather go twice in a little over a week? Yes, yes there is. But you don’t get to decide those things. So there. Enjoy all the fucking breweries, dipshit.
Since beating the Avs right before the Christmas break, the Hawks have sent the Avalanche into something of a tailspin. Though to be fair, the Avs weren’t playing all that well before, either. They’ve lost their two games in the interim, both on the road, to the Coyotes and the Knights. That gives them an unsightly December record of 4-7-1, which has seen them drop off the pace a bit of the Jets and Predators, which they were keeping up with. Then again, no one was really expecting them to tussle with the glitterati of the Central all year.
The main problem for the Avs is that their one, gushing source of goals has dried up. They only scored once against the Knights last out. Same thing again with the Coyotes the game before that. As you remember they came up with only one goal against Collin Delia the last time these two flamenco’d. None of this is a huge shock, as when the Avs were surging to the surprise of the league in November they were shooting 13.8% as a team. That’s never going to last. December’s 7.8% is actually pretty normal, but well below what they had been doing.
Which probably means they’re getting a market correction against the Hawks, right?
When the Avs aren’t pouring in an inordinate ratio of goals to shots, their defensive shortcomings come to the fore. They are not a great possession team, or defensive team, as Samuel Girard (the big dog is always right!) and Erik Johnson are the only pair you’d trust with anything. They have gotten better goaltending of late from Phillip Grubauer, who has only given up nine goals in taking the last four starts from Semyon Varlamov. He may have permanently usurped the starter’s role, but we’ll see what they do tonight.
Obviously, with the Avs the whole story is how you deal with the top line of Gabriel ThreeYaksAndADog, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen. They’re still putting up boxcar numbers, and if you can’t get them on a leash you’ll lose. The Hawks kept them off the scoresheet last time by some miracle or witchcraft, and that’s the order of the night again. Do that, and the Avs struggle with support scoring. Only J.T. Compher and Carl Soderberg have more than nine goals beyond that, and Soderberg hasn’t scored in his last 10 games. It’s not really what he does anyway.
The Avs will get really good when their kids like Tyson Jost or Alex Kerfoot start cashing in on their promise and they can beat you from various angles. Until then, it’s what the top unit can do and nothing else. So far, that’s been more than enough to secure a playoff spot.
For the Hawks, there shouldn’t be too many changes, if any. There’s utterly no point in going back to Cam Ward tonight, whether the Hawks still think they have something to play for or they’re already into their development for next season, other than some whacked “Gotta be fair to Holly, dude” nonsense. Collin Delia is the better option no matter how you’re looking at it. Don’t overthink it.
Lineup-wise, the Hawks have been better with Brandon Manning‘s and Chris Kunitz‘s ass stapled to a chair in the pressbox, so no reason to change that either. Maybe Martinsen comes in for Hayden or some such meaningless garbage, but that doesn’t matter. We’d like to see Perlini and Dylan Sikura switch back to where they were before, but again this is nit-picking.
Again, the schedule isn’t too daunting to the bye and All-Star break. Weird things happen in outdoor games, and then there’s a fair amount of New York teams on the schedule in January, who all suck. It’s also pretty light, so head coach Cool Youth Pastor will get some practice time to implement whatever it is he’s supposed to implement. If the Hawks think there’s something to be saved from this season, and they do even if it’s deluded beyond all belief, this is the stretch to do it.
vs. 
