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You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Minnesota Wild

By Sam Fels October 1, 2019 1589 0

There are few teams around that I can definitely say the Hawks will finish ahead of. And there’s only one in the division I can be certain of, and it’s this outfit. Or. to put it more accurately, if the Hawks don’t finish ahead of this collection of used rags and grill scrapings, everyone is fired. Let’s look in on this fine mess…

20180-2019

37-36-9 83 (!) points

2.56 GF/G (27th) 2.84 GA/G (12th) -23 GD

50.9 CF% (11th) 54.1 xGF% (5th)

20.3 PP% (14th) 81.7 PK% (7th)

Goalies: So here’s a thing that Minnesota can’t seem to wrap their frozen brains around — their goalies were bad last year, and Devan Dubnyk has been kinda bad for a while now. Sure, .913 doesn’t look all that bad from Doobie on the surface. Except he had the best expected SV% in the league thanks to Bruce Boudreau trying to do everything he can to shield him. And he had the third worst difference at evens between his expected save-percentage and actual, behind Jonathan Quick and Martin Jones. That’s not a neighborhood you want to be putting down roots. It was the same the season before, and Dubnyk is 33 so he’s probably not going to jump forward at this point. The Wild got the best out of him, and now they’re going to have to smoke the resin.

Stalock wasn’t any better, and if the Wild are hoping for a .915-.920 that he’s spasmed out a couple times as a backup in Minny and San Jose, they might be looking down the tracks for a very long time. What’s so weird about the Wild is that even with this roster, Boudreau was able to keep them getting the majority of attempts and chances and severely limit what their goalies had to do. And they couldn’t do it. And there’s little reason to think they will now. Combine that with a distinct lack of finish and you get…well, make your own whoopee cushion sound.

Defense: It’s the same crew as it’s been, though they will get Matt Dumba back after he missed more than half the season last year. That’s not insignificant, and along with Jared Spurgeon that’s all the Wild’s get-up-and-go from the back. Dumba was on pace for his second-straight 50+ point season before a torn pectoral ended things prematurely. Spurgeon’s influence started to slip a bit last season. He was still ahead of the team rate on his metrics, but not by the wide margins he used to be. Perhaps having to cover for Dumba hurt him and they can set that right now. Ryan Suter is getting up there but can still economize his game to remain effective. Once again, Jonas Brodin will be solid but not much more. The third pairing will be some concoction they pull out of a steaming cauldron of Nick Seeler and Greg Pateryn and Brad Hunt and whatever other eye of newt they find on the ground.

Forwards: And here’s your big problem. There isn’t a first-liner anywhere to be found, so they’ll have to shove Eric Staal, the eight minutes Zach Parise‘s back isn’t a puppet show, and Mats Zuccarello up there. Or Jason Zucker and however he’s decided to pronounce his name this season. Or they’ll have to force-feed Kevin Fiala, the first version of Eli Tolvanen, trying to prove the Preds wrong in that he can be a genuine top six forward in the league. Can they conjure another miracle out of Ryan Donato? His 16 points in 22 games after being acquired for Charlie Coyle suggest there might be something there. But doing it in 20 games that don’t matter and over a full 82 are different matters. Mikko Koivu is 187 years old and wasn’t good enough when he was 27 to do the things the Wild needed him to. Ryan Hartman somehow has ended up here, though St. Paul tends to be the last stop for the bewildered and lost. No matter what kind of magic and voodoo Gabby cooks up to keep the Wild in the right end of the ice, there’s not nearly enough here to make it really count unless a couple players get some spirits to conjure shooting-percentage spikes.

Prediction: It’s funny how the Hawks season is being viewed as some springboard to better and the Wild seem truly and deeply boned, and there was one point between them. Yet the Hawks do have some youth and growth on the roster and in the system. The Wild have lottery tickets like Fiala or Donato. With the goaltending heading south, there just isn’t enough scoring, or close to it, for the Wild to get around a playoff spot. Maybe if it’s truly awful they can start over, which they’ve needed to do for about two seasons.

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It’s Probably Time For Pat Foley To Go

By Sam Fels October 1, 2019 6098 0

Let me contrast two organizations in this town. A month or so ago, a brilliantly researched and written piece about the Bears’ throwback jerseys by Jack Silverstein at Windy City Grid Iron pointed out the problems with said jerseys. That would be that they came from a time when black players were banned from the NFL, and how awkward it seemed that the Bears would not be wearing it. This caused the Bears themselves to address it head on in the week leading up to the game, releasing a video with several players commenting on the debate, problem, and why they felt it was important for them to wear the jerseys. For it being staged, I actually thought it was pretty well done. It certainly wasn’t the Bears hiding or skirting the issue, we can say that.

So, do you think the Hawks will be addressing this?

“Ortega, sounds like he should be a shortstop” instead of hockey

Fantastic subtle racism by @NHLBlackhawks and @NHLonNBCSports play by play Pat foley.
Cause we Latinos don’t hear this enough on the ice already
Now On #latinoheritagemonth @NHL workin hard to be inclusive again pic.twitter.com/iqgqVSX226

— Ghostchant (@ItsPronotRetail) September 30, 2019

I wouldn’t try to tell you this is the exact same thing. One is directly from the organization and one is something of an offhand remark by an announcer. But they come from the same place, and carry some of the same issues, and both can be damaging.

Believe me, I know all the arguments that are coming from the people who I would bet good money own a pair of Zubas or six. “It was just a joke.” “It’s Pat Foley, he’s old.” “Well, that does sound like a shortstops name!” Heard it all before, will hear it all again.

At the base of it, however innocent or off the cuff it was, it reinforces that if you have a Hispanic last name, hockey isn’t for you. You don’t belong. However softly it might do that, it still does that. Which seems like maybe not the best method of carrying out, “Hockey is for everyone.” Certainly, participation in hockey faces what we’ll call an uncertain future if they don’t engage with and get Hispanic kids involved. Also, the best player on the league’s signature team is Hispanic (Auston Matthews). Hockey is already seen, and often is, as a whites-only-and-keep-it-that-way. That doesn’t fly in this day and age.

Now, is this alone a fireable offense from Foley? I struggle to get there, but I could see where people might. I think an earnest apology on the next game broadcast would suffice, along with an acknowledgment from the Hawks themselves. The Hawks do a fair amount of outreach with minority communities here in town, and this would run counter to that and something they definitely should want to get out in front of to not undo any of that work. Though man would I want to be a fly on the wall with whatever team employee has to tell Foley to do this.

This would be an opportunity for the Hawks to stand out from the league again, on a very important issue. It could reinforce the work they’ve already done, if they handle it correctly.

While it may not warrant a dismissal on its own, as yet another piece of evidence in the case against Foley, it’s getting pretty pretty mountainous. And I reiterate, I grew up with Foley and Tallon on my headphones way past my bedtime broadcasting from Chicago Stadium. I know exactly what he means to Hawks fans, because he means that to me. Doesn’t mean I can ignore what’s gone on here the past few years.

The biggest complaint you get from everywhere is that Foley hasn’t been able to hide his displeasure with the team. Which is fine. We don’t want simple water-carriers in the booth (though that hasn’t stopped him and Edzo from doing just that in regards to certain players). Criticism is welcome and vital. But it goes beyond that when Foley makes it clear how much he’d rather be doing something else and how hard it is to watch this team.

Sure, we do that here, but it isn’t our job to sell the product at all. We’re supposed to tell you what we think. It’s all we do. And while that has a place in a broadcast, it can’t be all of it. Ask Len Kasper or Jason Benetti how you present a team that sucks in a fun way for the viewer. And they either do it or had to do it every damn day.

Add to that Foley is usually behind the play, or misidentifying everyone, or just grab-assing it with Olczyk, and you get a pretty unlistenable broadcast. This is the Hawks, it’s a job most every up-and-coming play-by-play guy would remove a digit or two for.

Everyone loses the fastball. Throw some casual racism on this pile, and what you’re left with is something the Hawks simply don’t need anymore, and could enhance. It’s time.

Hockey

Pictures Of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Preview: Jonathan Toews

By Sam Fels October 1, 2019 1464 0

We’ll end our player previews with the captain, Captain Marvel as we dubbed him 11 years ago, whom most folks are taking as a sure bet. I’m not quite so convinced, but he’s the one player of the “the core” whose aging is being planned for, through the drafting of Kirby Dach. Toews was able to shut the critics down last year, with his biggest point- and goal-total of his career at age 3o. Maybe there is life after 30? We try and prove it every day (well, some of us). Can Toews keep the wheel in the sky turning? The variables on his team may hold the answer.

2018-2019

82 GP – 35 G – 46 A – 81 P

50.1 CF% (+1.32 Rel) 55.5% OZS

44.4 xGF% (-0.75 Rel)

21:00 Average TOI

A Brief History: After the previous season, it was popularly thought that Toews was most definitely on the back nine of his career. A measly 52 points and 20 goals, the third straight season he hadn’t cracked 60 points, and we all at least wondered if he had finally moved into the final phase of his career as something of just a checking center. But if you looked a little deeper, you noticed that his SH% had cratered for two years, and his metrics were actually some of the best in recent memory. It wasn’t a huge leap to conclude that with a couple more bounces he still had songs to sing offensively. And he did, with a return to his career SH%, a little more tilt of his use to the offensive zone, and a newish, ready-fire-aim slant to his game that saw him put up a career-high in shots (new goalie pad rules probably didn’t hurt either). Tazer proved that he wasn’t ready to be taken out back quite yet, and there were some games that made you remember what it used to be like when he just decided the Hawks were going to win that night. Of course, it wasn’t enough, but that was more about the help than Toews.

It Was The Best Of Times: This can actually go one of two ways to be the best outcome, though sadly neither of them is the most likely. One is that David Kampf and some combo of Ryan Carpenter or Anton Wedin prove they can handle the defensive, harder shifts and assignments and Toews can continue to slant more offensively than he had previously in his career. His SH% stays around his career norm or even spikes, and the Hawks get another 30-35 goals again. Also, he finally remembers the “jam play” from the corner when he gets the puck down there on the power play, not that he shouldn’t always be somewhere else with the man-advantage.

Or, Kirby Dach balls out in the five games he’s given and sticks, Dylan Strome takes another step forward, and Toews can merely concentrate on the defensive side of the puck and what you get from him offensively is something of a bonus. Stick him with Saad and Kubalik or the like and having a checking line-plus. Were that to happen it might only be 20-25 goals and 50 points again, but from a center who is second or third on the offensive pecking order that would actually be a bonanza. Think of him as older, non-fuckstick Nazem Kadri.

It Was The BLURST Of Times: Strome stalls out, Dach is sent back to beat up on children for another season (and to stave off his contract for another year) and Toews is asked to both check and score at age 31. He can’t quite find the juice in his legs every night, which sees his defensive game suffer while needing more help in the offensive end, at least forechecking, than he did in the past. Because he is starting more in his defensive zone, the metrics continue to slide and he can’t push the play himself to get the chances he needs. His SH% slides because he’s getting worse chances, and we’re left with yet another mirroring of Anze Kopitar‘s current cycle. And once again fans and writers begin to lament that he has three years left on still one of the biggest contracts in the league.

Prediction: I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as the latter section. I’m also highly skeptical that Dach is going to be given a proper chances to stick, which means the Hawks will absolutely need #1 center production from Toews again. They will try and cover for him defensively by having Kampf and Carpenter take those shifts on to start. But the lack of spark, and Jeremy Colliton‘s lack of slotting players for their shifts, is probably going to see Toews take on more shifts out of his own zone, slightly. Toews benefitted from the power play’s midseason nuclear streak, and I also remain unconvinced that will happen again.

I also feel like Toews is a good barometer for what this season is supposed to be in the Hawks’ plans, because the front office would not leave him in the dark about what their intentions were. If this is still another “rebuild” season, we probably won’t see the eat-your-heart-in-front-of-you Toews that we did get on select nights last year. We’ll get more of a professorial Toews, guiding Strome and possibly Dach through the waters. If they told him this is playoffs-or-else, we’ll probably see that fire in his pupils on occasion again.

Toews also is the barometer on the coach. Because he’s the captain, he will give every effort to hold the ship together. It’s what he does. But if Toews starts rolling his eyes or not believing in what he’s being sold, you’re going to know instantly. It happened with Quenneville, so you best believe it can happen with Beto O’Colliton.

Still seeing Toews clear 30 goals and 70 points. How he does it will go a long way to telling you what kind of team you have here.

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You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Dallas Stars

By Sam Fels September 30, 2019 1861 0

There seems to be this misconception that the Stars made it back to the playoffs and to the second round of the playoffs last year because of a dynamic young roster playing entertaining hockey. This couldn’t be farther from the truth, as coach Jim Montgomery authored a second-half charge by boring the utter shit out of everyone and trying to copy what Barry Trotz was doing with the Isles. They got a Vezina-finalist worthy season out of Ben Bishop, which was the main catalyst. So which way does Montgomery play this now? Stick with the effective but limited, and coma-inducing, style that got the Stars into the playoffs? Or retry finding something more expansive that might be harder to pull off but leads to bigger rewards down the line?

2018-2019

43-32-7 93 points (4th in Central, out in 2nd round)

2.55 GF/G (29th) 2.44 GA/G (2nd)

48.1 CF% (23rd) 50.2 xGF% (15th)

21.0 PP% (11th) 82.8 PK% (5th)

Goalies: The Stars get to return both halves of their duo this year, and it starts with THE BISHOP! Whenever Bishop is healthy, you get Vezina-level play from him. The problem is that remains a huge “if.” Bishop only made it to the post 45 times last year, and the Stars probably are going to need more from him this time around. Even if he is healthy, they’re probably not going to get .934 from him again, though they can still expect mid-.920s.

Anton Khudobin finally found success outside Boston last year, flourishing behind the heavy shielding he got from the Stars and their system (expected save-percentage of .925 at evens). Still, Khudobin’s .923 SV% was by far the best he’d managed in five seasons, and to expect him to get back to that, no matter the defensive shielding, is kind of pie-eyed. He’s also 33, so going up from where he was last campaign is probably not a probability either.

The goalies will be good. Bishop always has potential to be great. They definitely provide a floor for the Stars that they can’t fall through, which is around the bottom of the playoff picture.

Defense: Perhaps the reason Montgomery opted for the Mourinho approach to hockey was that he ended up pairing his only two puck-movers in John Klingbergy and Miro Heiskanen. That left him with only pluggers and punters on the next two pairings, so better to just ask them to do what they do best, i.e. roadblocks. The two Finns are wonderful players and really do push around most everyone they come across when together.

It’s pretty much the same crew now, though they added Andrej Sekera just in case he isn’t clinically dead (he is). Stephen Johns started camp with the Stars but started feeling his post-concussion problems again, and one might have to suggest his career is over. Jamie Oleksiak will sink to the third pairing where he belongs, to make room for any Esa Lindell growth. But it feels like we’ve been hearing about that one for a while now and still haven’t seen it. At 25 and in his fourth season, it’s definitely a “shit-now” kind of season.

It’s a fine collection even if it’s really only the two Norris candidates in Klingberg and Heikanen at the top. If Montgomery wants to show any adventure in the team, he’ll split those two up. If they’re together, we can probably guess it’s going to be more three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust hockey, if we can keep mixing our sports metaphors (and I can, it’s my fucking blog).

Forwards: The name in lights here is Joe Pavelski, whom Dough Wilson deemed surplus to requirements at the price and age he was. Which should give everyone a second of pause. At 35, Pavelski’s days in the middle probably should be over, but it’s hard to spot a center who can maximize his still top-tier finishing ability other than Tyler Seguin, who already has his wingers. Or Pavelski could play there and Jamie Benn can not-munch his way to 50 points on the second line, but again, same problem.

As it always is with the Stars, the rest of the lineup is littered with products of the system who serve merely as foot-soldiers and insurance-carriers. It would be hard to convince me that Jason Dickinson, Roope Hintz, Radek Faksa, Mattias Janmark aren’t all the same person that the Stars have just cleaved in half a few times and watched them regenerate into two. They’re also throwing Cory Perry to the wall to see if the slime he’s made of sticks, which it won’t. Between him and Sekera the level of zombification in the dressing room is certainly over quota.

But everyone below the top line are capable of carrying out the specific tasks that Montgomery sets out, which is keeping things tight and preventing goals. It feels like they’ll be doing that again.

Prediction: You could roll out Bishop and Khudobin by themselves and probably guarantee 85 points. So the question is whether the Stars can add much to it. Pavelski adds some juice to the offense, but there’s no Logan Couture or Tomas Hertil for him to play off as there was in San Jose. If he plays on the top line, it’s probably a little more offense than Benn would get you there now but the problem of support scoring is still there. There’s just not a lot of goals here, although there doesn’t have to be considering the goalies and defensive ways. The division hasn’t taken too many steps forward. If the Hawks had made improvements, I would say the Stars’ spot is the one they can aim for. But they haven’t. Around the 8th seed is more than possible for them again.

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You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Colorado Avalanche

By Sam Fels September 30, 2019 1631 0

There probably isn’t a team that will be checked in on Gamecenter by non-partisans more than the Colorado Avalanche. After sneaking into the playoffs and then pulling out the Flames’ organs one-by-one in alphabetical order before giving the Sharks everything they wanted, the Avs have added a genuine center and are going to have a full season of Cale Makar. But they’ve also lost Tyson Barrie, and Bowen Byram won’t get his audition until at least March or April, though likely next season. They seem poised to rise among the top of the Central. But are they?

2018-2019

38-30-14 90 points (5th in Central, out in 2nd round)

3.15 GF/G (10th) 2.98 GA/G (16th) +14 GD

50.0 CF% (13th) 49.8 xGF% (16th)

22.0 PP% (7th) 78.7 PK% (25th)

Goalies: Once again the reins will be handed to Phillip Grubauer, only this time the Avs are a little more sure of what they have. The first half of last year saw both Grubs and the now-departed Semyon Varlamov stake a claim to the job, and then hand it back about seven minutes later to the other one, and then the whole cycle would start all over again. But the second half saw Grubauer take the job by the throat and keep it. Grubs went .929 in February, .955 in March, .937 in April, and a .925 in the playoffs. It’s what the Avs had wanted from the get-go, and had they gotten it they wouldn’t have been messing around with the rabble like the Hawks until the season’s final week.

He’d better be good and healthy, because his backup is some Vaudevillian named Pavel Francouz, which is clearly a mash-up of the things the unwashed hate most to make a cartoon villain, and that’s the French and Russians. This sounds like something out of Bullwinkle. Needless to say, the Avs do not want to have to be counting on a 29-year-old journeyman with two games in the NHL for any length of time. It’s Grubauer, live without a net!

Defense: The headline here is a full season of Cale Makar, who stepped into the playoffs for the Avs and not only didn’t look out of place but ran the show at parts. He was clearly college hockey’s best player and the mind reels at what he can do behind MacKinnon’s line. Still, it’s a lot to ask for a rookie d-man to come in and dominate from jump street, so at least at the start of the season he’ll be sheltered somewhat with Golf Cart Titan Erik Johnson and others taking the more dungeon shifts.

And after the way it’s shaken out, this actually isn’t that impressive of a unit. There was a moment when they looked like they would roll with Barrie, Makar, and Byram on three different pairs to be able to push the play every minute of every game. Well, Barrie went to Toronto and Byram didn’t make the team, so now it’s only Makar as a genuine puck-mover here. That’s never been Erik Johnson’s game. Maybe Samuel Girard has more to show in that category, but it doesn’t really look like his game either.Maybe you keep Makar and Mac K separate and let the latter do it himself for the 20-25 he’s on the ice anyway. Maybe fellow neophyte Connor Timmins has it in him from a third-pairing spot? We know for sure it ain’t Ian Cole (bay-bay!).

This outfit could have had a lot of verve. Now it really doesn’t. Feels like they missed out on something here.

Forwards: But I can’t argue with the Tyson Barrie trade too much, because it brought back Nazem Kadri who is just about perfect for this team. Yes, he’s a raging penis at times who is a danger to himself and his team at his worst moments. He’s also a unique center in that he can take on the toughest assignments while still scoring 50-60 points. The Avs had nothing behind Mac K last year down the middle, and now they have one of the rare Swiss Army knives in the league.

That should leave Tyson Jost with some of the cushier shifts around, which he’ll need to produce more than the 25-odd points he got last year. They’ve also brought in Andre Burakovsky and Joonas Donskoi to try and bolster the support scoring, which they were badly in need of. Donskoi always seemed like he flattered to deceive in San Jose, and probably isn’t much more than a water-carrier. Still, they bolster the ranks.

J.T. Compher will still score 17 goals against the Hawks this year.

They’re taking a flier on Valeri Nichushkin, who just could never get quite right in Dallas but seems to have all the physical tools to be a contributor. But no goals last year is no goals last year.

As always, it’ll come down to just how much of a star destroyer the top line can be, and they just brought Mikko Rantanen back into the fold for a cool $9.25M per year (Alex DeBrincat just passed out). They were among, if not the, best lines in hockey last year and there’s no reason to think they can’t match that. MacKinnon will benefit from having Kadri around to take the other teams’ top lines on, so he could produce even more if you can believe it. As if the 99 points last year weren’t enough or something.

The Avs will remain top-heavy, but not quite as much as they were. ;

Prediction: Even with just a full year of Grubauer playing well, this team would move on from the 90 points it delivered last season. I’m skeptical of the defense but if they can find someone other than Makar to move the play, they should be fine. Otherwise they’re basically what they were last year in this spot. Kadri is a big boost, and if a youngster like Jost pops or they can shake something out of Burakovsky the Caps never could, so much the better. They could have three lines instead of one and a half. Are they ready to roll out of the West? That might be a bridge too far, but then again the West doesn’t have an overwhelming favorite anymore. And the Central has its own issues. Easily can see them at least asking questions about winning the division.

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