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Everything Else

Game #19 – Blues vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Jabe O’Meester And Sunk Cost

By Sam Fels November 14, 2018 1755 0

There is a modicum of respect you have to pay a veteran, no matter what kind of shit-heep he’s turned into. So when a player like Jay Bouwmeester ends up a healthy scratch, as he’s done a couple times this season, the coach and his teammates have to read from the script from the box marked, “Veteran Scratched Act Sad.” And you hear about how it’s such a shame and we really wish it didn’t have to be like this but he’ll work harder and come out of it better.

Except he won’t. Jabe O’Meester is 35. This is what he is, and what this is sucks. It’s sucked for years. He’s had multiple surgeries and the odometer is about to burst. He makes the Blues worse when he’s out there.

And yet the idea of sunk cost isn’t something that’s come to the NHL. You see it Edmonton with Milan Lucic. Or Calgary with Mike Smith. Hell, you could throw Brent Seabrook on this list, except the Hawks don’t have better options. This list could go on for a while.

The Blues probably have six better d-men than Bouwmeester. Kids like Vince Dunn and Jordan Schmaltz need to play if for no other reason so the Blues can see what they have. Carl Gunnarsson is at least more stable than J-Bow, and has been a better partner for Alex OrangeJello anyway.

The Blues have spent that money on Bouwmeester. It’s gone. They’re not getting it back. So why keep trying to justify it by crowbarring him into the lineup every night? Your fans know he blows. His teammates, though they’ll never say it, know it as well.

Is it the most glorious end to a fine career? No, it isn’t. But not everyone gets that, and certainly no one is owed that. It’s not like Bouwmeester is a Blues legend or anything. Getting paid $5M to watch hockey isn’t the worst job in the world. The Blues still have hopes to make something of this season. Which means putting their best players out there. That’s not Bouwmeester. Time they admit that, no matter what his bank balance is.

Hockey is defined on the margins. A couple of Bouwmeester shifts could honestly be the difference. Might it have been last year when the Blues missed out on a playoff spot by a point? You’d think they’d learn, but we know how St. Louis and learning go together.

Game #19 Preview Suite

Everything Else

Game #19 – Blues vs. Hawks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels November 14, 2018 1322 0

Game #19 Preview Suite

Everything Else

Game #19 – Blues vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels November 14, 2018 1352 0

Game #19 Preview Suite

Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – November 13th

By Sam Fels November 13, 2018 1119 0

First Screen Viewing

Predators vs. Sharks – 9:30

Their first game was a doozy, as the Sharks scored three times in the 3rd to get a comeback win. This is what most people expect the West Final to be, so these are occasions. The Sharks recently did get their dick kicked in by the Blues recovered to beat the Flames at home on Sunday. The Preds are yet to lose on the road this season, and those of us who would like them to prove to be a fraud are getting more and more nervous. A treat for the insomnia set.

Second Screen Viewing

Canadiens vs. Oilers – 8pm

The Habs remain the surprise of the league, and it appears an old dog coach in Claude Julien has figured out to get his quick forwards into space. Max Domi won’t shoot 25% forever, at least we hope the little turd doesn’t, but they’re playing up-tempo and are overwhelming some teams. The Oilers can at least partly match the speed, so your hopes for 6-5 aren’t dead.

Other Games

Penguins vs. Devils – 6pm

Canucks vs. Islanders – 6pm

Panthers vs. Flyers – 6pm

Lightning vs. Sabres – 6:30

Coyotes vs. Red Wings – 6:30

Capitals vs. Wild – 7pm

Maple Leafs vs. Kings – 9:30

Everything Else

Atop the Sugar Pile – So the Lesson is, Never Try

By Adam Hess November 13, 2018 2067 0

The Hawks are in a weird spot right now, and that’s being downright generous. They’ve lost seven in a row and perhaps you heard something about a recent coaching change? Oh, you haven’t? Well, let me assure that everyone around Chicago took it very well and no one is overreacting or furious or aghast in any way. Yet in the midst of these chaotic times we still need to parse who’s doing what and how (we’re self-hating masochists to do this but you knew that already). So let’s take a look:

The Dizzying Highs

Patrick Kane: Kane’s give-a-shit level was down around -50 for much of the early part of the season, but whether he wants to or not, he’s had to shoulder more of a load (literally) and is one of the few bright spots on this team right now. Colliton has been leaning on Kane for minutes—his TOI jumped up nearly 10 minutes from Quenneville’s last game in Calgary to Colliton’s first at the UC against Carolina. Kane had a goal and as assist in that game, and if you ignore the fact that neither he nor anyone else did jack shit against Philly yesterday, Garbage Dick has four points in his last five games. He’s also been kept on the ice for the entire power play a few times in this brave new Colliton era. Again, this hasn’t resulted in an offensive explosion quite yet but he belongs out there…and so much the better with some right-handed shots finally. Kane’s shooting percentage is a robust 16.9 right now, so you’d have to think that if Colliton keeps him out there as he’s been doing—both on the power play and at the even-strength minutes—then Kane’s points total, which is already leading the team at 21, will only go up. At least that’s what we can hope.

The Terrifying Lows

The Entire Defense: You know what, at this point I almost feel bad for Brandon Manning. Almost. He’s admitted publicly that he sucks, acknowledged that he was struggling with Q ignoring him, and said that he’s looking for a fresh start. And then he gets a fucking own goal in Philly. I mean, you can’t make this shit up. He’s exhausted my loathing for him (and we’re not even 20 games in!), and now it’s verging on pity.

I’m feeling something close to pity because it’s not like Manning is the one fucking things up defensively and everyone else is just peachy. Duncan Keith has had bad turnovers lately. Erik Gustafsson has joined in on the fun, with some of his own in the Carolina game. Brent Seabrook seems like he’s trying but he’s still slow, even if his nacho belly is a little smaller these days. Brandon Davidson, Jan Rutta…what can you even say?

The Hawks are second-worst in goals against right now (64) and goals against per 60 (3.72), with only Ottawa coming in worse in these stats. And you know it’s not all Crawford’s fault—it’s because they’re giving up an average of 33 shots per game. But here’s the real kick in the ass: they’re averaging that same number of shots per game themselves (33.1), yet they’re giving up more high-danger chances than they’re getting (13.66 HDCA/60 versus 11.56 HDCF/60). So while you’d think that at least based on shots they’d be closer to equal in terms of goals for/goals against, they’re giving up a shitload of the types of chances you can’t allow and hanging Crawford (and Ward, to a lesser extent) out to dry. It’s a mess.

The Creamy Middles

Jeremy Colliton: It’s the smallest of sample sizes, I know. But the pace is accelerating, they’re being more creative (or trying to), the power play is at least seeing some needed personnel changes, and by all accounts he’s trying to address neutral zone issues and many of the myriad problems this team has. The crappy results in these last two games can’t be directly attributed to coaching miscues. Colliton is still trying to figure out what the hell he’s going to do with these guys. He hasn’t been a train wreck and has appeared calm and collected despite the vitriol and dumbshit performances surrounding him this week. And that’s about all we can ask for at this point.

Everything Else

Game #18 – Hawks 2, Hurricanes 2 (Canes win ping pong tourney): Can’t Get Right

By Sam Fels November 12, 2018 1960 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Well, changing coaches hasn’t worked yet. Jumbling around the lines didn’t really either. Though Jeremy Colliton has his first point, a return of one out of six probably isn’t what management had in mind. Or maybe it was and they didn’t tell us?

Whatever it was, tonight was nothing we didn’t know. The roster is short, and there a couple veterans not carrying their weight. This team was probably calibrated on the hope that they would. I don’t know why you’d calibrate it that way, but here we are. At least I don’t have another explanation. If you do, feel free to share.

All right, let’s clean this up and get on with our lives.

The Two Obs

-Not sure where to begin, so I’ll unfairly begin with Duncan Keith again. While his glaring gaffe (alliteration, people) took place on the penalty kill, so I should probably just dismiss it as him getting the inevitable goal against out of the way early so the Hawks could get back to even-strength.

At some point this season, if Jeremy Colliton accomplishes nothing else this season but convince Duncan Keith that he’s no longer DUNCAN KEITH, I’ll call it a success. We went over this on Saturday. Duncan Keith was paired with Henri Jokharju to take that aspect of his game off his plate. It was meant to streamline his game, and keep him more efficient with what he can do. He didn’t listen. Maybe he can’t fight it, maybe it’s been too long.

Pairing him with Seabrook was only going to enforce that feeling, I guess. So there he was, chasing Andrei Svechnikov outside the circles, pretty well contained out there. But Keith can’t get there anymore. And Svechnikov, a budding monster, is going to walk him every time. He did it later in the game as well, So did Aho. But this is the one the Hawks paid for. Svechnikov has a clear path to the net, forcing Seabrook into basically Sophie’s choice. He could maybe do a little more than just amble over there while leaving a passing lane to Michael Ferland, but here were no good options.

Someone get Keith in front of a video screen with nothing but how Ryan Suter plays these days. It’s a super-efficient game, where Suter lets the game come to him and picks his spots when to get outside the normal parameters. Keith is still chasing the game and trying to bend it to his will, He can’t do it anymore. And the Hawks keep paying for it.

-That goal was off a Henri Jokiharju penalty where he braced for a hit at the expense of getting the puck. These are the kinds of mistakes we would normally live with, but now is about the time they have to stop. Hey, The HarJu isn’t going to survive too many hits in the NHL with the puck. But his hands are quick enough to move the puck along before getting hit. Chalk it up to the learning curve.

-Which will bring us to Nick Schmaltz. We generally like Schmaltz around here. Fine player. Clear problems. The refusing to shoot is getting really annoying. And Eddie correctly lit him up for ducking out of a puck battle/hit with Justin Faulk (though Schmaltz did cause a turnover a second later, but still).

And that kind of thing keeps happening. And it’s a tough sell to your fanbase and everyone else when you’re saying you basically did nothing in the offseason to keep your powder dry in big part to re-sign Schmaltz. Because he keeps looking like a second-line player, whether that’s wing or center. You don’t build around second-line players. I don’t want to know what kind of deals Stan turned down that included Schmaltz.

Schmaltz still has 60 games to turn it around and look like a real piece. But it’s year three now, you kind of know where he is. Are you tossing $6 million at this? Or are you hoping he keeps doing shit like this and we’ll have to agree to a bridge deal? And shoot the fucking thing already.

-Brandon Davidson and Jan Rutta got themselves in a tangle when the Canes were on a change and there was literally no forechecker in the zone and they couldn’t manage to pass between each other in the 2nd period. I can’t really sum the third pairing up any better than that.

-Other than the penalty, Goose and The HarJu weren’t a complete disaster, to the tune of a 68% and 64% share on the night.

-It’s nice that the Hawks fourth-line was so effective. But to review, when your fourth line is your most effective, that’s a problem.

Ok, that’s enough. It’s a point. Maybe it’ll be better to snap it against the Blues. Somehow, I doubt it.

Onwards…

Everything Else

Game #18 – Hawks vs. Hurricanes Preview: Because Seven Eight Nine

By Sam Fels November 12, 2018 1733 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 6-8-3 Hurricanes 7-7-3

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MAKES YOU? LARRY!: Canes Country, Section 328

It has to end sometime, it has to end somewhere…

I can’t say that it’s totally encouraging that Jeremy Colliton is hitting the Quenneville Memorial blender in his third game in charge. I’m sure the constant line-shuffling was something that came to annoy the players in the end from Q. But Q drew a lot of water, and it could at least be construed that he was an experienced coach who was just experimenting, and who had earned the right. A coach in his third game in his second season in North America at all might look like he’s just throwing shit at a wall.

But according to the morning skate today, that’s what the Hawks might get. Brandon Saad didn’t skate, and he’s only a maybe to go, so that could confuse things even further. As of now, Patrick Kane and Nick Schmaltz have slotted up with Jonathan Toews in a definite “go-for-it” top line. Sure, fine I guess, Toews hadn’t produced much of late with Dominik Kahun and Top Cat. Then it gets silly.

What a line of John Hayden, Artem Anisimov, and Alex Fortin is going to do is really a mystery up there with the Bermuda Triangle and how Ricky Jay ever had an acting career. Top Cat-David Kampf-Kahun is at least worth seeing as it’s really fast and active. I guess. I don’t know really what I’m supposed to say here. The fourth line doesn’t matter and is basically “Eat Arby’s” territory like the third-pairing.

The changes don’t stop there, as there’s been a shuffle in the top-four on the blue line. Marlboro 72 has been reunited, because apparently they weren’t bad enough separately and can really reach a new level of suck together. Erik Gustafsson paired with Henri Jokiharju only exacerbates the problems that pairing The HarJu with Keith created, in that the Finn has to play free safety for his partner’s directionless wanderings instead of pushing the play and getting involved in the offense which is supposed to be his calling. We know Gustafsson needs a GPS and a guide-dog in the defensive zone.

Let’s get nuts!

I suppose when you’ve lost seven in a row you have license to try anything. Consider that license used. Cam Ward will get the start in his return to Carolina, and hopefully doesn’t decide to relive the old days by giving up four or five as he so frequently did while adorned in the warning flags of Raleigh.

As for the Hurricanes, they’re coming off blowing a two-goal lead to the Red Wings and losing in overtime, somehow. Not that anything could have changed all that much from last Thursday, so you know the drill here. They have great possession numbers, they generally maul teams at even-strength, but there’s no one around here to finish all those chances consistently and Scott Darling (unless he’s playing the Hawks, obvi) can’t make enough saves to let them get by with their sneeze-like finishing. This is why they’re the leading contender for William Nylander, should the Leafs decide they don’t need a dynamically talented forward.

This will sound stupid, and it very well may be. The Hawks have rolled both the Canes and Flyers in the first period of Colliton’s two games. They got stoned by goalies who are supposed to be nothing much more than construction horses. Then they do something stupid to get behind and they lose all their zest. But that luck should turn. If the Hawks can get the same kind of start they’ve gotten, even with this pile of goo lineup, they will get goals. Get a lead, start to relax, get your feet under you, and maybe we can see what this team could look like with Colliton.

Then again, given the defense, the chance of doing something stupid to undo all your good work at the other end is always extremely high. But let’s hope for the best, because there’s not much else to do.

Game #18 Preview Suite

Everything Else

Game #18 – Hawks vs. Hurricanes Spotlight: Dougie Caine

By Sam Fels November 12, 2018 1730 0

Let’s start with the raw numbers right at the top. Since he came into the league in the season-in-a-can of ’13, Dougie Hamilton is 4th in CF%. He’s third in relative-Corsi. The names ahead of him are Erik Karlsson and Mark Giordano. The names behind him are Hampus Lindholm and Kris Letang. He’s seventh in that time (min. 5,000 minutes played) in relative expected-goals percentage, ahead of names like Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic. If you go by straight points, Hamilton is 17th among d-men who have played 400 games in that time. Clearly, Dougie Hamilton has been one of the best d-men in the league for six seasons now.

When you look at the list of d-men around him in any of these categories, you’ll notice that none of them have been traded twice. Most haven’t even once. Anton Stralman is an under-the-radar player that signed as a free agent in Tampa. Brent Burns was a forward when he got traded. Karlsson was traded because his former team is A). going through a rebuild and B.) is an asylum for the truly confused. Quite simply, everyone treats a d-man of this class like a precious stone. Because they are. The amount of game-changing, right-handed d-men who turn the ice over is a list you could compile on barely two plies of toilet paper. It’s Drew Doughty, Hamilton, Karlsson, Burns, supposedly Dustin Byfuglien (we’re skeptical), PK Subban, and that’s about it. Throw John Carlson on there if you must.

So why has Dougie Hamilton been traded twice?

The Bruins and Flames both tried to throw Hamilton under the bus after they traded him, mostly to justify to a fanbase why they made silly trades that ended up with them getting, at best, 75 cents on the dollar. You’ve heard the jokes about Hamilton going to museums while teammates went to movies or holding farting competitions. You’ve heard he’s just kind of out there as a guy.

Most of this is utter garbage, as might suspect. These days, with media being everywhere, a problem in the dressing room would not be able to be kept a secret for very long. And yet you never hear about problems with Hamilton until he’s already been jettisoned. Then it just becomes justification to questions they don’t have answers to for real.

Is Hamilton something of a free thinker? Yeah, seems that way. Is he interested in himself more than others? Probably. So’s PK Subban and it got him dealt to Nashville. They’ve basically been the best team in the Western Conference since and Montreal, whatever the start to this season, has spent a majority of the time with its collective dick in its hand (and this year’s start has taken place without Shea Weber anyway). The Preds sure don’t seem to mind whatever it is Subban is as a person.

Hockey certainly isn’t the only sport that has looked suspiciously on a player that doesn’t seem fully invested in being “one of the guys.” Football has long had this problem, where any player who reads something else other than his playbook is to be regarded with suspicion. Baseball sees some of this as well.

But the fears with Hamilton have gone overboard, considering the rare production a team gets from him every season. What’s more important, that he’s seen as a drinking buddy by everyone or he is one fo the best d-men in the league? While team chemistry is important, it’s not like things happen on the ice because Hamilton was hanging out by himself one night and not out at the local with a couple of other wingers. Sure, if he was an actual disruption or raging asshole, we’d know. And that would be a problem. No one’s saying that he is or has been.

The Hurricanes don’t seem to care, and we’re all too happy to plug him into their top-pairing and watch him kick everyone’s ass on a nightly basis. This is another brilliant example of hockey’s outright terror of “the individual” ahead of the team. Anything that doesn’t fall uniformly in line and indistinguishable from everyone else is to be killed or eliminated as quickly as possible. Mostly because hockey is run by old drunks with a lot of head injuries who can’t remember anything but their way.

Perhaps one day it will change. Until it does, teams and front offices like Carolina’s that rightly swipe it away as nothing more than a slight nuisance will be be a half-step ahead.

Game #18 Preview Suite