Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brent Seabrook

By John Pullega 2105 0

Five more years.

2018–19 Stats

78 GP – 5 G, 23 A, 28 P

46.77 CF% (-3.5 CF% Rel), 49.8 oZS%

46.46 GF% (-5.92 Rel GF%), 45.32 xGF% (0.45 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 19:06

A Brief History: There are so many ways to measure what a negative effect Seabrook had when he was on the ice last year. Let’s start at the most obvious, which is his defense.

All Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

On the left is WITH Seabrook. On the right is WITHOUT. Both are bad. But it’s somehow and exceedingly worse when he’s out there. The analysis here is simple: Seabrook gets mauled when he’s forced to play in his own end.

The only Blackhawk D-man whose threat percentage while on the ice was higher than Seabrook’s (higher is worse on defense) was Gustav Forsling, and he won’t ever see the ice inside PNC Arena, barring a glut of Hurricanes injuries. Defensively, Seabrook is slightly better than Gustav Forsling. Ringing endorsement.

Worse than being bad by yourself is making your teammates worse. Seabrook excels at this aspect of the game.

This chart shows score-adjusted shots per 60 minutes, both against (inverted y-axis) and for (x-axis). That red diagonal line is the 50% point for shots for and shots against (i.e., the breakeven point). The blob of blue in the middle is Seabrook on his own, which leans toward bad. The black squares are a given player WITH Seabrook. The red squares are the given player WITHOUT Seabrook.

Aside from reiterating how bad this team is at defense as a whole, this shows that when Seabrook is on the ice, opponents take more shots than give up. When you take Seabrook off the ice, literally every single Blackhawk ends up facing fewer shots.

In short, Seabrook is a black hole for defensive performance, and there’s nowhere to hide him. He sucks so much that he has his own fucking event horizon. That’s fucking something.

You bet your sweet crimson ass there is. Perhaps the worst part of Seabrook’s game is his penalty killing.

Jesus Christ, just look at how bad the PK is when Seabrook is on the ice (left). He played just 21 seconds fewer than the Hawks’s leading PK time getter, Duncan Keith, on by far the worst PK in the league. This is an utter dereliction of duty on Colliton’s part. There might not be a worse regular-time-getting penalty killer in the league than Brent Seabrook, and yet there he is, almost leading the team in playing time out there.

Maybe you’re sitting there buying the myth that he’s still useful on offense. But guess what?

That’s not really true. In terms of shots at 5v5, Seabrook is entirely replaceable. The offensive threat (higher is better on offense) is the same whether he’s on the ice or not. Combine this with his GF%, and it’s even worse. Of Hawks who played at least 41 games, only Gustav Forsling (there’s that name again) had a worse GF% among Hawks D-men.

“Well, he’s still got a booming shot and can be useful on the power play,” you might say.

Pretty much any power play with Seabrook on it dies on this “still useful, booming” shot of his. This shot directly produced AT BEST 10 power play goals if you want to include the possibility of tips (two goals, three first assists, five second assists). That’s not nearly useful enough to make up for everything else he makes bad.

The only positive thing that happened with him last year is that he played under 20 minutes per game on average. That’s a start, but he really should be playing about 20 games per year.

It Was the Best of Times: Boqvist breaks camp and takes Seabrook’s spot. Seabrook plays 20 games all year as a 7th D-man, along with Dahlstrom.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Seabrook plays more than 20 games.

Prediction: Seabrook’s gonna get second-pairing minutes and look terrible doing it. Everyone’s gonna keep going back to the undefinable “leadership” he brings, saying, “You just can’t understand it unless you’re in the locker room.” Everyone will make excuse after excuse for his performance. It will be agony because none of this is really Seabrook’s fault.

This is just what he is now: a bad all-around hockey player. As much as I want to hem and haw about how a real leader would take himself off the ice, that’s not fair. It’s stupid, in fact. Instead, that’s a decision his coach—a man who likely has the same sort of respectability in Seabrook’s eyes as a soiled diaper—needs the stones to make. But Colliton probably doesn’t have the stones to do what anyone with even a cursory understanding of hockey would do: scratch Seabrook more often than not.

The only thing that Colliton, Bowman, and every other decision maker should be afraid of regarding Seabrook is how much damage he does to the Hawks as a direct result of playing ice hockey. It doesn’t matter how you slice it. Brent Seabrook is not a good hockey player anymore. He’s a sunk cost. You get nothing for continuing to ice him, except a below-replacement-level performance.

They’ll retire his number one day because he deserves it. We’ll revere him as a cornerstone of the Hawks revival, because he is, was, and always will be. The first time he comes back after his retirement, he will get the raucous standing ovation he’s owed. That’s what makes watching him be quite possibly the worst regularly playing defenseman in the NHL today as agonizing as it is.

We’re just as tired of this as you are. And it really doesn’t have to be this way.

Five more years.

Stats from HockeyViz.com, hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.

Previous Previews

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Adam Boqvist

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Calvin de Haan

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Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews – Boston Bruins

By Matt McClure 1862 0

Perhaps it was always too big of an a request to be rescued by the Bruins again, first in 2011 from a revolting Canucks team, no one from whom has gone on to have his name etched in silver, and this past summer from quite possibly the most underwhelming assemblage of players to ever end up having hoisted the Cup in the moldering St. Louis Blues. It was a true exhibition in monkey paw wish fulfillment, or at the very least a real life tale of punishing Irish Catholic irony worthy of Sean O’Casey, that Brad Marchand would finally be exposed as the absolute fraud of a player that he is only to give the Blues their first ever Cup. There are sins going on here both big and small that will never, ever be forgiven.

2018-2019

49-24-9 107 Points, 2nd in Atlantic
3.13 GF/G (11th), 2.59 GA/G (3rd), +44 GD
53.04 CF% (6th), 52.77% xGF (7th)
25.9% PP (3rd), 79.9% PK (17th)

Goalies: Last year was a bit of a resurgence for longtime B’s netminder Tuukka Rask, mostly due to the fact that the rest of the league seemed to drop down to the rate Tuukka had been playing at for the past couple of years, at least in the regular season. His .912 overall is about league average, but the underlying numbers suggest that at evens he was as solid as could be expected with a .925 against. The problems came during special teams, where Bruce Cassidy’s more uptempo, more loosely structured system came with its own risks and rewards. The Bruins had a top flight power play, but with only a single high defenseman, and that defenseman being either Tory Krug or Charlie McAvoy, that left Tuukka on an island, and the B’s allowed a league worst 15 shorties against. Similarly, their PK wasn’t as tightly structured behind the obvious top manned unit of Patrice Bergeron, and their kill was decidedly middle of the road, a serious dropoff from the Julien era. All of this is a longwinded way of saying that Tuukka may not be an absolute brick wall anymore, but he’s still in the upper echelon of goalies, as he proved by turning in a Smythe worthy performance with a .934 overall in the post season. He’ll once again be spelled by Jaro Halak, who always seems to fare better as a 1B or a backup, and was more than acceptable with a .922 overall and .934 at evens last year in 37 starts. He’s more than capable of providing Rask with a break to preserve him for the post-season or even stepping up in the event of injury. Overall, the Bruins have one of the better goaltending situations in both the conference and the league.

Defense: One of the big, and stupid misconceptions about the Cup final matchup was that both of these teams were huge, lumbering, rough and tumble heavyweight teams, based solely on reputation and the fact that Regis “Pierre” McGuire is a moronic pecker who never shuts up. The fact of the matter is that while Zdeno Chara is still lurching around Fangorn Forest at 42 years old (43 in March), this blue line is built to get up and go, and is somewhat undersized, Charlie McAvoy’s absolutely huge face notwithstanding. Chara played center field for McAvoy for the majority of the year, but they weren’t taking the toughest assignments or zone starts. McAvoy is still unsigned and was on pace for 40+ points at age 21-22, so it’s likely the B’s opt for longer term instead of a bridge deal because the offensive upside is clearly there, but he’s still a dervish in his own end. Brandon Carlo also remains unsigned, and was tasked with some of the tougher assignments in the post season, as he certainly has the 6’5″, 220lb frame to take that on. John Moore is here for another three years much to the delight of all the Devils fans who hate him, and Tory Krug still needs to be kept as far away from the offensive zone as possible. There’s not a lot in the Bruins’ system on the blue line that they’re waiting with baited breath for, so assuming that McAvoy and Carlo eventually get signed, as both are restricted and have no leverage, they’re basically running back the same unit as last year.

Forwards: This is well worn territory yet again, but it always bears repeating. The Bruins boast arguably the best line in the game with Patrice Bergeron centering David Pastrnak and the detestable Brad Marchand. Bergeron is an absolute legend, and is doing things at both ends of the still when his contemporaries in Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Toews have basically had to choose offense or defense at this point and just stick to one of them. Bergeron is a possession dynamo, one of the smartest players in the game, and will take an absolute pounding night in and night out, he is an instantaneous hall of famer. David Pastrnak is young, dynamic, and has an elite set of hands even if his skating stride isn’t necessarily the prettiest. He has a top flight release on his shot, but isn’t afraid of the corners. Brad Marchand is a slightly more talented Andrew Shaw who has failed miserably every time Patrice Bergeron has been injured or seriously limited by injuries on the ice, and has built his whole career on Bergeron’s back. He showed his ass in the above highlight by doing his best Roger Dorn OLE at the blue line, and still ended up going for a change as the Blues entered the zone. Mites are taught to never change on a back check, let alone after allowing free zone entry while flatfooted. He is an unrepentant dickhead who intends to injure opponents, and if the NHLPA were an actual union invested in the well being of its labor force instead of a loose conglomeration of millionaire 7th-grade-educated hillrods with CTE and coke hangovers, they’d railroad Marchand’s ass right out for endangering the rest of the union’s ability to earn. The day he inevitable wraps his sports car around a tree in Dorchester at 4AM (as is hockey player tradition) cannot come soon enough.

Elsewhere, David Backes getting double-owned by losing a Game 7 Cup final, and to his former team the Blues would be pretty hilarious, again, if it hadn’t been the Blues winning. Charlie Coyle came home in a curious trade and somehow turned into a playoff dynamo, but it remains to be seen if he can provide consistent second-tier scoring behind the top line for a full 82. David Krejci remains under appreciated, but at 33 his production has begun to slip. Danton Heinen, Jake DeBrusk, and Sean Kuraly will all be expected to take the next step in their respective developments, with DeBrusk’s ceiling being the highest. It’s not a bad group to try throw out there again, but the B’s are far from capped out and have always been top heavy with this group, so it’s curious why they haven’t tried to augment their scoring a little bit on the margins. But it’s doubtful any of the 29 other fanbases are going to be heartbroken if throwing this same group out there again just isn’t quite good enough to win in June.

Outlook: The Atlantic is a far tougher draw than whatever the Metro is right now, and that’s even with the Leafs still thumb-blasting themselves in the Mitch Marner situation and having a bad blue line. What happened to Tampa was a fluke, and they’re certainly not going anywhere and could have a sizeable chip on their shoulder. The Panthers may finally get it together, but that’s a big if, and the rest of the division is willfully shitty. It’s basically a given that the Bruins will have one of the three guaranteed spots, it’s just a matter of seeding, and in which round they inevitably beat the Leafs, and then in which subsequent round they implode.

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Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Connor Murphy

By John Pullega 1816 0

Since that fateful day when Stan Bowman pulled Quenneville’s heart of out his ass and made him sniff it with the Hjalmarsson trade, Connor Murphy’s performance has been a consistent curiosity. He’s often looked like the best Hawks D-man on the ice when he’s healthy. But when you pan out for a longer view of the defense, it’s always felt like being the best of this bunch is like beating a two-legged dog at a digging contest. This year, Murphy will likely need to shoulder the burden of being the only passable defensive defenseman on the Hawks, at least until de Haan gets back.

2018–19 Stats

52 GP – 5 G, 8 A, 13 P

48.63 CF% (-0.4 CF% Rel), 38.8 oZS%

54.67 GF% (1.29 Rel GF%), 44.44 xGF% (-1.08 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 19:29

A Brief History: We’ve always liked Connor Murphy around here, and we all thought we were getting a younger, cheaper Hjalmarsson in him. In some ways, that’s been true. Over the last two years, each has missed extended time due to injury (Murphy last year, Hjalmarsson in 18). They’ve been fairly comparable in those two years, though Hjalmarsson has had an overall edge in defensive play.

But last year wasn’t particularly kind to our Large Irish Son. He missed 30 games due to a back injury, which is never good for a 6’4” skater. We saw him skating up at the blue line at times as Colliton’s man defense went through what we can only pray is growing pains. His possession metrics, both vanilla (48.63%) and high-danger varieties (39.34%), were underwater on the year, though you might expect that given his zone starts.

And yet, Murphy was relatively fine next to Carl Dahlstrom. They were the “shutdown pair” for a time, and compared to everyone else on the Hawks’s blue line, the ice was least dangerous when Murphy was out there. Maybe the most interesting stat about Murphy last year is that despite starting in his own zone about 62% of the time, his GF% was second among Hawks D-men who played at least 41 games, second only to Duncan Keith (58 oZS%).

It Was the Best of Times: Murphy stays healthy and jumps into the top-pairing role with Gustafsson. Hell, you can play them both on their off sides and see what happens. Gus scored 60 on his off side, and Murphy never looked too out of place on his, so whatever. Fuck it. Putting Murphy and Gus together hedges Gus’s awfulness in his own zone. Might as well try it, since the only other true shutdown guy on this team, Calvin de Haan, won’t be around for a month or so.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Murphy’s back keeps him off the ice for 40% of the year. For all the bitching we’ve done about Murphy’s use since his arrival, Colliton has upped the time we see Murphy on the ice consistently. It’s unlikely we’ll see him with any less than second-pairing minutes. So, aside from injury—which is still a distinct possibility for a man of his significant vertical carriage—the worst scenario is that Murphy can’t adapt to whatever it is that Colliton’s defensive scheme wants him to do, which, based on last year, seems to ask defensemen to skate around the blue line in their own zone.

Prediction: Murphy continues to toil in the dungeon shifts. When de Haan comes back healthy, he finally gets to play with a worthwhile partner, and the Hawks have a true shutdown pairing. He and de Haan also round out the PK1 unit, which is a vast improvement over Keith–Seabrook. The PK still finishes toward the top of the bottom half of the league (say, 18th), but not because of anything Murphy does. Murphy continues to go underappreciated for the cardinal sin of not being Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Murphy’s never going to give you sexy numbers, unless, like, a 69 dZS% tickles you. He’s about as representative a defenseman as you’ll find. But with the offensive threats the Hawks have, that’s really all they need.

Stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.

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Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

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You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Washington Capitals

By Sam Fels 1999 0

The old standby. The last four seasons, no matter what happens, there the Caps are, finishing first in the Metro. There’s always a portion of the season where it feels like it’s gone on them, that this is finally where they’ve gotten too old and too predictable and too comfortable, and yet the season ends and here we are. Coaching change doesn’t seem to matter much. Whatever player turnover doesn’t seem to matter much. There seems to be things you can always count on. Alex Ovechkin will lead the league in goals, he’ll score from his post-up spot, and the Caps will finish first.

Will it be true again? There are a couple challengers, but maybe we’ve gotten to the point where we just take the Caps as a given until they say they’re not.

2018-2019

48-26-8  102 points (1st in Metro, lost in 1st round)

3.34 GF/G (5th)  3.02 GA/G (17th)

49.1 CF% (18th)  47.1 xGF% (25th)

20.8 PP% (12th)  79.9 PK% (24th)

Goalies: You think of Braden Holtby as another given for the Caps, along with Ovie and Backstrom. Still, the past two seasons he’s only been ok, and you’ll recall the Caps’ Cup run started with Philip Grubauer in net in the playoffs before he gave way to Holtby. Holts put up a .911 last year, which was only a touch above league average. He hasn’t been near his Vezina form for two seasons now, but this is his final one before hitting free agency. Tends to motivate some players. He’ll be 30 when the season starts, which means whatever comes after this is probably the last big contract he’ll sign, wherever that might be. There’s no reason to think the .908s and .911s of the past two seasons are now the norm. If the Caps get another .920+ out of Holtby, then they’ll almost certainly be near the top of the standings again.

He’ll be backed up by Pheonix Copley and his misspelled first name, who was your run of the mill backup last year. The Caps can’t afford an injury to Holtby, that’s for sure. Then again, do the Caps want Holtby to prove he’s worth $8M or $9M for the next few years?

Defense: The Caps mostly return the same outfit on the blue line, except they’ve swapped out Matt Niskanen for Radko Gudas. At first that sounds like a major downgrade. It’s still something of one, but Gudas is actually effective when none of the bullshit is on display. Sadly, there’s always some bullshit on display, so the Caps will be killing off some dumbass penalties. John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, and Michal Kempny (sigh) will be doing the heavy lifting here, They’ll hope for development from both Christian Djoos and Jonas Siegenthaler, and both were good in sheltered roles last year. If they get that, they can reduce what they need out of Gudas, which should always be the idea. They may get minutes from prospect Lucas Johansen as well, but they shouldn’t need it.

Forwards: Along with Holtby, Nicklas Backstrom is going into his free agent year at 31. Just like the goalie, this is probably his last big contract, and it’s a question if he’ll get it from the Caps with Evgeny Kuznetsov pretty much taking the #1 center role, or poised to. Backstrom is a lock for 70 or more points every year, and that should get him a deal nearing eight figures next summer, even at 32. Kuznetsov and him down the middle is just about as good as it gets. Lars Eller does the dirty work, and you know what Ovechkin is going to do no matter how old he is. He’ll be scoring 45 when he is 45. Beyond that there’s TJ Oshie, who if healthy he’s probably good f0r 30 goals again. Big if, though.

Beyond that, the Caps might be a touch short on scoring forwards. If they get a step forward from Jakub Vrana and his 24 goals last year, they’ll be ok. Carl Hagelin is around for a full season this time, and though he’s getting up there he still that brain and those feet. If the top six do top six things, the Caps are fine as they have plenty of foot soldiers in the bottom six to carry through. They always do, don’t they?

Prediction: You know what the floor is with the Caps. It’s incredibly hard to envision them slipping out of the playoffs unless Holtby goes full poltergeist in net or getting hurt. Ovie will score. So will Kuznetsov and Backstrom and Oshie. They’ll get contributions from elsewhere. The defense is solid if not spectacular, though it could start to approach that if the two kids become things. They have the Penguins and Hurricanes to outlast, but they always seem to. Maybe they’ll fall all the way to second. It’s hard to see anything worse.

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Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Olli Maatta

By Adam Hess 2103 0

For going on damn near three years now, it’s been obvious to anyone with a brain that the Blackhawks have had lacked a lot on the blue line. We knew that good ol’ Duncan Keith would never be able to keep up his cowboy ways at the elite level he had played at before, and there seemed to be little to-no-help on the way. Last year the Hawks desperately lacked an effective puck mover on the backend who could also defend well. Going into the offseason, they needed to find someone who could shut down the opponent in the defensive zone. Who could, ideally, take away half the ice the way Keith used to, even if not quite as well. They needed someone who could do all that while also being able to get the puck out of the zone once he had it, either by skating or passing. And if they could get all of that in one guy, that’d be ideal.

So they traded for Olli Maatta, who can do none of that.

2018-19 Stats (w/ Penguins)

60 GP – 1 G, 13 A, 14 P

46.51 CF% (-4.42 CF% Rel), 43.36 oZS%

53.75 GF% (-0.08 GF% Rel), 51.53 xGF% (-0.27 xGF% Rel)

15:27 Avg. TOI

A Brief History: At one point Maatta was considered one of the better prospects in the NHL, but due to a series of injuries both on and off the ice, including an unfortunate battle with cancer, he never fully delivered on all the promise. Once considered someone with high offensive upside, especially after having 9 goals and 29 points in 78 games during his rookie season, Maatta has struggled to produce since and has never topped either of those numbers, though he did have 29 points again in 2017-18 when he played all 82 games for the only time in his career. Last year he failed to match that scoring pace and ended up going on IR with yet another injury in March, this one an upper-body injury after taking an uncomfortable hit. He missed all but 5 games from that point on.

Maatta has settled somewhat nicely into your typically “defensive defenseman” role, as despite missing 22 games last year, he finished third on the Penguins in blocked shots and hits. If that sentence sounded positive, it was not meant to. Basically what that means is that despite being a quarter of the season, Maatta spent so much fucking time in his own defensive zone that he had no choice but to throw his dumb body in front of pucks, likely because he was tired of skating around, because that isn’t exactly a strength of his. Blocking a lot of shots is good when you’re Niklas Hjalmarsson, who is good at both preventing shots and getting in front of them, but when you’re getting face-fucked by the opponents at a near-54% clip and 4% below your own team rate, blocking those shots is less impressive skill and more necessary duty.

It Was the Best of Times: Just staying healthy for the full 82 would be a best-case scenario for Maatta as an individual, because again, he’s only done that once. As a player and contributor to the Hawks, it would be ideal if he can return to his scoring pace from ’17-’18 and could end up somewhere in that 23-29 point range. Expecting more than that is foolhardy, but it’s not unrealistic to think he could do that. Moreover, it’d be nice if he cleans up his shit in the defensive zone and is able to fight above the 50% mark on shot attempts. If he can do all of that and be a steady presence on the back end, this could end up being a not-terrible acquisition. On the other hand….

It Was the BLURST of Times: If Maatta plays like he did last year – getting brained by the other team and playing well below team rate on shot attempts, and getting by-and-large lucky on the overall goal differential, while also providing little to nothing of note from a production standpoint, Maatta runs the risk of compounding the issues that ailed the Hawks’ blue line last year rather than offering himself as a solution. If that does end up being the case, him getting injured – which he probably will – would not be such a bad outcome, as bad is that is to say and as harsh as that sounds.

Prediction: Maatta deals with some minor injury stuff but nothing too major, and plays more than 65 but less than 75 games for the Hawks. He makes a modest improvement in the CF% but still finishes below team rate and probably leads the team in blocked shots, which will earn him praise even though it probably shouldn’t. He won’t get back to 2017-18 production but will score 5 goals and 15 points, which will be fine but not make much of a difference.

Stats from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

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You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Pittsburgh Penguins

By Sam Fels 5641 0

The other dynasty. And one that might be heading the way of the Hawks more than they’d like to admit. It was something of a nothing season in The Burgh, if a 100-point season can be described that way. Maybe it can after the Pittsburgh Penguins turned out to be not much more than cannon fodder for the Islanders in the first round, and promptly rolled over for a team that rolled over to the next one to a team that rolled over for the next one. There doesn’t seem to be much forward momentum with this bunch, and it seems to be about hanging on to what they have. We know how that goes. Will it go that way for the Pens this term?

2018-2019

44-26-12  100 points (3rd in Metro, lost in 1st round to NYI)

3.30 GF/G (6th)  2.90 GA/G (14th)

49.6 CF% (15th)  51.5 xGF% (11th)

24.6 PP% (5th)  79.7 PK% (19th)

Goalies: As it has been, as it will be, the Penguins will trust Matt Murray with the crease. He’s been just about everything in just four seasons, barely, at the top level. He’s been a playoff hero, nothing more than tissue paper, hurt, and then revitalized and he’s barely had time to learn the street (they’re difficult there). He ended last season with a .919, which is more than acceptable, but he went the roundabout way in that he was woeful in October and November last year, then brilliant in December (.950), before evening out in the season’s second half. At 25 and his fourth full season in the NHL, this should be when he enters his prime, and if he does a lot of the other questions about the Penguins seem less daunting. Still, he’s got a clunky month or two in his locker, and this Penguins outfit probably can’t as easily survive those as past ones.

He’ll be backed up by Casey DeSmith, who is a raging piece of shit, but a capable backup as he provided a .916 last year.

Defense: And here is where things get sticky. The Pens will still count on Kris Letang and Brian Dumoulin for their top pairing, but Letang has managed a full season of work in one season out of the last eight. He’s 32 now, which is just about the time things turn for a d-man whose game was built on mobility. When he did play last year, he was nearly a point-per-game, and his metrics were glittering again, so it’s unlikely he’s going to fall off a cliff here. But the end does come quickly, as we know around these parts.

Beyond that pairing, they seem serious about running it back with Jack Johnson and Erik Gudbranson, quite pleased with themselves they got away with using the latter after the trade deadline last season without sending the entire city into the combination of rivers. That won’t work a second time. The kid who could start to take more and more responsibility–and helped pave the way for Olli Maatta‘s immobile ass out of town–Marcus Pettersson, remains unsigned. The Zach Werenski contract should help with that, but the Penguins need him because they can’t seriously give the two monoliths in front of him second pairing minutes.

Justin Schultz is still here, or at least is when everything is attached to him, which isn’t often. He only played 29 games last year, and 63 the year before that. He’s a power play weapon when actually dressed, and provides more swiftness to cover for Johnson or Gudbranson.

If Pettersson and Schultz are healthy, there is a chance for some real spice to this blue line. If they aren’t or Pettersson takes a step back, then Guddy and JJ are going to play far too often and there are going to be guys in Hazmat suits patrolling the Penguins’ defensive zone, no matter how well Murray plays.

Forwards: Interesting group here. It’s always a boon to start with two Hall of Famers in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but the latter threw up a….well, he just threw up last year. 72 points in 68 games, which is still really good but below what you associate with him. Just 21 goals. the lowest per game mark since the Season In A Can. His metrics also took a hit, and there were a lot of nights where he was either petulant, or too lazy to even be that. He’s 33 now, and while that’s starting to age it shouldn’t be the mark where he turns into something a raccoon gets drunk off of.

The top line will still be Crosby and Jake Guentzel, with other forward to be determined. Phil Kessel and his continual mush of sadness has been shipped off to Arizona, with Alex Galchenyuk coming in return. Neither Montreal or Arizona were able to unlock what seems to be within the American with the Russian name who used to play for the Canadiens, and now it’s a question if it’s there at all (or serious questions about what is).

Another question mark is getting a full season of Nick Bjugstad. All the tools are there to be a dominant power forward, either at center or wing, and yet it’s never happened. Jared McCann seemed to fair a little better in Pittsburgh from Florida, but they’re going to need both of these guys to be more than they’ve been. Dominik Kahun could play himself into top line minutes at times, but is certainly more than enough on a bottom six. Brandon Tanev arrived in the summer to shore up that part of the roster as well. With just a couple pops from guys who haven’t popped before, this could be the usual deep crop of Penguins forwards who never stop that you’re accustomed to. But if guys like Bjugstad and McCann don’t make a move forward and Galchenyuk can’t get his face out of a mirror, then suddenly they look awfully top-heavy again.

Prediction: With Murray, Letang, Dumoulin, Crosby, and Malkin, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the Penguins being bad. And if they get some luck in the health department with Schultz, Letang, and get Pettersson in the fold, you could see where they could be really good again. They need guys to do things they’ve never done before up front, but that has happened before in Pittsburgh. Then again, Derick Brassard also happened there, as did others. This is a team that seemingly could be anything. It could win the division, it could slide down into a wildcard fight with a couple injuries and stall-outs in development. They’re Cup-winning days just might be over, but they still might get a say in who does.

Previous Team Previews

Carolina

Columbus

New Jersey

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia 

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-20 Player Previews – Slater Koekkoek

By Rose Rankin 1924 0

The fact that we are still talking about Slater Koekkoek having actual playing time on this team shows you how far the defense has to go to get away from being called putrid. Let’s get through this:

2018-19 Stats (TB and CHI)

31 GP – 2 G – 4 A – 6 PTS

49.8 CF% (-0.71 CF Rel) — 51.6 xGF% (1.5 xGF% Rel)

52.4 oZS% – 47.6 dZS% – 15:50 Avg. TOI

A Brief History: Fun fact—last season we here at the lab forgot to review Koekkoek. Just completely forgot. It was an honest mistake but it said more than our words ever could. And we all had a good laugh. Anyway, the stats above are Koekkoek’s combined between Tampa Bay and the Hawks, since he didn’t actually have all that much playing time in either place—only nine of those games took place in Tampa, and he played all of 22 here. While with the Hawks he was essentially useless, pissing everyone off by getting more NHL playing time that Jokiharju (skypoint). Seeing as I just said how few games this jamoke played that should REALLY piss you off about Harju’s usage but we’ve covered that and I’m angry again now and THAT’S NOT WHY YOU’RE HERE.

It Was the Best of Times: The best-case scenario with Koekkoek is that he doesn’t play. OK, that sounds a little harsh but what I mean is that on a team with so many (supposedly) talented youngsters in the defensive pipeline, the ideal situation would be seeing any one of them be good enough to earn regular playing time over a journeyman (I’m being generous here) like Koekkoek.

In a realistic best-case, Koekkoek plays for the first few weeks while de Haan’s shoulder heals and/or the younglings make enough progress and the organ-I-zation decides they don’t want to see one of them decapitated in the AHL. Koekkoek could be on a bum-slaying third pairing, but not taking dungeon shifts since he’s really used to being more sheltered—that’s a thing that happens when you suck. I shudder to think of him with Brent Seabrook on a second pairing, but if he can just not do too much harm while he’s filling holes in the lineup, then hopefully Maata and de Haan, plus some of the kids and/or Carl Dahlstrom, will be enough to get Koekkoek demoted to 7th or even 8th defenseman. And, maybe he even becomes a throwaway trade piece for someone more useful.

It Was the Blurst of Times: Conversely, the worst thing would be if—whether through poor personnel choices, injuries, lack of talent development, or all of the above—we’re stuck with Koekkoek all season. He could float through pairings; maybe he’s with Keith for a while, maybe stuck as a bum-slayer with Dahlstrom, really no combination sounds promising. And I don’t want to think of him on the PK, after how bad it was last year. Please, don’t make me do it.

Prediction: I think that Slater Koekkoek is going to be kinda like having your period—you know it’s coming even if you can’t pinpoint the time, and you just hope it’s not a total mess but you know it will definitely involve discomfort and aggravation that you’d rather not have to deal with for days on end. If the Hawks can keep it to a week here and there while the youngins catch up and no one gets hurt, then we can handle it and move on easily enough.

All stats from Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick and Corsica Hockey

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Philadelphia Flyers

By Sam Fels 2273 0

Gritty means clicks. Everyone knows this.

For the past seven years, the Flyers have been bouncing back and forth between a rebuild that never seems to get past the blueprint stage or a love affair with the #7 seed that always ends in a quick first-round exit that you have to be reminded happened in the first place. The Flyers don’t even generate nearly the amount of empty noise they used to, where they would get coverage and media love simply because it was a natural reflex from the past. Suddenly, the Flyers have become a team that’s just kind of there. And it looks like they’re going to be that again this year. Philadelphia never sinks into irrelevance in anything, simply due to the look-at-me obnoxious and yelling of any of their fanbases. But if any team can manage it, it just might be the Flyers. Let’s take a walk…

2018-2019

37-37-8  82 points (6th in Metro)

2.94 GF/G (18th)  3.41 GA/G (29th)

48.2 CF% (21st)  48.7 xGF% (18th)

17.1 PP% (23rd)  78.5 PK% (26th)

Goalies: If nothing else, the Flyers actually might have stability in net for the first time in a generation or six. Last year, the Flyers used eight goalies. Eight. Ocho. Acht. Huit. Their crease was almost literally a clown car, and definitely clown shoes. Things smoothed out when top prospect Carter Hart got the call, simply because he was a life-preserver in a rollicking sea of incompetence and silliness, and now he gets the con full time. And hopefully for the foreseeable future.

Hart put up a .917 while seeing almost 32 shots per game behind an porous defense, and he might have to do the same again. Still, at evens he was behind his expected SV% (.917 to .923), a difference that was only a touch better than Mike Smith‘s. If you’re in Mike Smith’s neighborhood on anything, baby you gotta move. But Hart did manage a .906 on the kill, even with the Flyers defensive problems, so that’s where they’ll hope roots grow out from. Clearly all the promise in the world, but life with young goalies can be treacherous. Remember they nearly chased Carey Price out of Montreal once upon a time, though in Montreal they chase just about everyone out of town in between drags of filterless cigarettes and a disdain for life.

Backing him up will be Brian Elliot, who’s been a backup for at least five years now but kept I Dream Of Genie’ing coaches and GMs into thinking he was a starter. Elliot has been pretty mediocre for three seasons now, but with a reduced workload and expectation, he probably can get the Flyers out of 20-25 starts. They’ll take it, considering what they’ve been through.

Defense: Clearly an issue last year as it feels like Shayne Gostisbehere has stalled out and to a lesser extent Ivan Provorov has too. Though Provorov is still only 22, and still needs re-signing as an RFA. The Flyers added Matt Niskanen and Justin Braun (who would have looked pretty all right here, but I digest) to smooth out things and provide an easier runway for their kids like Ghost Bear (if he’s a kid anymore), Provorov, Hagg, Sanheim, Morin, and Myers. Not all of them can play obviously, but all will probably get a look.

Ghost Bear had something of a strange year, struggling defensively and not totaling anywhere near the power play assists he had in the 60+ point season he had the year previous. His metrics were ok, though he gives up better chances than he creates, which might be a reason his name came up in trade rumors over the summer. That is if the Flyers were an organization that paid attention this kind of thing, not one that makes prospects fight to the death in a dark room to decide whom to draft.

Sanheim might be the real treasure here, as he put up the same points as Ghost Bear with glittering metrics and worse zone starts. Niskanen and Braun are clearly around to shield him, and with that sort of assistance this could be a real breakout season for him.

Forwards: The Flyers, in the most Flyers thing ever, traded for the negotiating rights to Captain Stairwell, then handed him $7M a year from here until Global Heat Death to watch him pile up 47-point seasons. The fascination with the younger and quite possibly dumber Hayes has always eluded this blog, though as a #2 or #3 center he probably doesn’t completely murder you.

The headliners are still Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier, who will always pile up the points and the latter can still mark any opposing center out of the game (Toews only sees him twice a year and probably wants to murder him). Jakub Voracek will continue to bounce between the first and second lines and continue to pile up secondary assists, leaving it a mystery to what he actually does. As is their way, the Flyers are paying premium for James van Riemsdyk‘s decline.

What they need is a leap forward from any of Scott Laughton, Travis Konecny, or Nolan Patrick (or Patrick Nolan, I’m not sure it matters), to lessen their dependence on the Garbage Bag Warrior. Konecny has taken a run at 50 points the past two seasons, and with just a nudge and better teammates he could probably get over 60. Though one or two of them might have to move to wing to accommodate Hayes. Konecny, like Provorov, still needs re-signing (we keep writing that. What a strange league).

There’s also Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Isaac Ratcliffe, all candidates to make the team out of camp though more than likely to start in Allentown (what a fate) and perhaps be midseason reinforcements. All of huge promise, and perhaps as soon as next season make the Flyers really dangerous.

Prediction: Niskanen and Braun aren’t dead yet, but are getting up there so depending on them for shutdown or top-pairing roles is a stretch. However, if they can provide shelter for Sanheim and Provorov, and Ghost Bear can find the scoring touch again he has flashed, suddenly this blue line looks pretty tasty. The forward corps looks short, though a leap from one of the kids and a contribution from one of the trio mentioned above and suddenly it might not, even with Claude Giroux definitely on the back nine of his career. They need a full season from Carter Hart, and the Philly crease has swallowed many a kid before and spit back out a smoldering husk of an indistinguishable form.

It’s a lot of ifs, but none are complete fantasy. As stated before, this is a funny division with no truly dominant teams and a few teams that could be just about anything. They would need a 10+ point improvement to make the playoffs, but that’s not asking for the moon given the conditions stated. They’re highly unlikely to grab one of the automatic spots, but fighting for a wildcard down to the season’s last is hardly beyond them.

But again, this is the Flyers. Logic and reason died here long ago, and all we’re left with is a surreal and vulgar landscape. Your guess is as good as mine.

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-20 Player Previews – Duncan Keith

By Rose Rankin 1868 0

You don’t need me to remind you of the excitement around possibly-just-maybe this defense having young, fast additions this year, but no matter how optimistic anyone wants to be, the story of the Hawks’ defense will be as much about the stalwart veterans as it will be about the youngins. And who better exemplifies that than Duncan Keith? Let’s do this:

2018-19 Stats

82 GP – 6 G – 34 A – 40 PTS

49.8 CF% (0.92 CF Rel) – 45 xGF%  (-0.05 xGF Rel)

58.0 oZS% – 42.0 dZS% – 23.01 Avg. TOI

A Brief History: In case you don’t recall—or if you blocked it out which no one would blame you for if you did—Duncan Keith had a bit of a problematic season. As I said in my player review last spring, he certainly had decent aspects to his game, such as a 50 CF% and a slight bounce back in points, and he was by no means the most painful defenseman to watch.

However, it was clear Keith was thoroughly not giving half a shit about his new coach’s defensive system, nor did he really appear to have much respect for the coach in general. Now, I’m not going to bother passing judgement on whether Jeremy Colliton deserves or has earned his players’ respect (I mean, come on, we call the guy “Coach Cool Youth Pastor,” among other names). Yet, you would think that it just isn’t a good look to be bad-mouthing your coach in the press. It can’t be likely to solve any of your issues.

So it should be quite interesting to see what frame of mind he shows up in this year and how that translates to the on-ice results.

It Was the Best of Times: In an ideal world, Keith would make some adjustments to his game for the greater good. This would require him to recognize he doesn’t have the speed or mobility he once had, and that he needs to act as more of a free safety when paired with a faster partner. And of course that’s the other factor, right? Who would best fit that role? If Erik Gustafsson learns to play defense and would stop running around like a coked-up gerbil, then fine, maybe him, but I highly doubt he’ll figure that out. Regardless, they’re sure to be paired together and we’ll watch it like a bad car crash.

Maybe put Calvin de Haan with Keith, albeit on de Haan’s off side? Or, let’s be overly optimistic and say Adam Boqvist or Nicholas Beaudin make the team and Keith acts as the elder statesman, cleaning up messes they’ll inevitably make, while whichever one(s) he’s paired with can get to the corners and make he moves Keith himself no longer can. Any of the youngins will need to be sheltered in terms of zone starts, which would be right in Keith’s wheelhouse, since he’s been starting in the offensive zone well over 50% of the time for the past few seasons.

If Keith gave even half a shit, he could play Colliton’s man-to-man system well enough, assuming CCYP sticks with it (and there’s no reason to think he won’t). In this rosy picture (GET IT?), Keith gets advantageous starts, ends up with around 45 points on the season, and helps the younger generation all at the same time.

It Was the Blurst of Times: I think we all know what this would look like: Keith continues to give no fucks whatsoever and makes mistakes everywhere. The turnovers will be insane both in terms of quantity and ridiculousness. We’ll see coverage blown all over the place as Keith ignores the defensive system, and Gustafsson, his likely partner for at least a sizeable period until he’s hopefully traded, goes full-on cokefiend gerbil and they get smoked constantly by opposing offenses. Last year Keith had the second-worst xGA on the team with 67.7. Guess who had the worst? That’s right, Gustafsson (68.3). And, when that shit goes sideways and/or Gus is shipped off, CCYP will pair Keith with Nachos and it’ll get worse. Keith will be in all the wrong places and Seabrook will just be falling on his ass. It’ll be a hot mess.

Prediction: This may sound pessimistic but Keith will likely be mostly frustrating to watch with some flashes of brilliance thrown in—just enough to make the other dumb shit and stubbornness that much more aggravating to see. He’ll do whatever he wants, play outside Colliton’s system, and no one will have the balls to bench him or leave him in the press box because 1) come on, that’s disproportional to the crime and 2) there aren’t other good options to replace him, at least right now. But, occasionally he’ll pull something incredible—break up a play at exactly the right time, get somewhere you swore he couldn’t get to in time, and all will be forgiven for a little while.

He’ll finish the season with under 40 points and we’ll all be left trying to figure out if he wants to be traded, and if it’s a good idea or even workable, and it’ll hurt. But there’s probably a lot about this season that’s going to hurt, so get ready.

All stats from Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, and Corsica Hockey

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

 

 

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: New York Rangers

By Sam Fels 1967 0

The Rangers attempted to hit warp-speed on their rebuild with a couple big signings and one big draft pick. That’s all it takes in the NHL. And thanks to a mediocre division, the Rangers could be poised to make a big move. They’re not there yet, as far as being in the glitterati, but they are suddenly worth watching again. Where the lights shine bright and all that.

2018-2019

32-36-14  78 points (7th in Metro Division)

2.70 GF/G (24th)  3.26 GA/G (23rd)

46.0 CF% (30th)  47.1 xGF% (24th)

19.4 PP% (17th)  78.2 PK% (27th)

Goalies: Whatever excitement is surrounding the Rangers has to be tempered by questions about how much Henrik Lundqvist has left. He will turn 38 at the end of the season, and his .907 SV% last year was the worst mark of his career. The year before he was at .915, which would probably be good enough for the Rangers team to take a step forward. His Vezina-contending days are almost certainly over, so the Rangers have to calibrate if he can just be league average or a tick above. This was not a good team in front of him, and he saw a ton of rubber, but Lundqvist is going to have to be better if the Rangers are going to turn things around.

If he doesn’t, it’s going to back David Quinn into a corner, as he’ll be the first coach to have to deal with whether or not to cede some of King Henrik’s starts to a kid. Alexander Georgiev was pretty good last year at .914. There is some hope that he can take over when Lundqvist decides to move on, but the Rangers and Quinn in particular do not want the headache of expediting that process. Henrik isn’t the type to cause a stir, but his position has also never been under question.

Defense: The big splash was trading for Jacob Trouba in the offseason. Trouba seemed to shrink from a top pairing role on a genuine Cup contender in Winnipeg, though some of that could be attributed to hating the city and coach he played for. This is where Trouba wants to be, and he certainly has the capability of being a top-pairing guy, certainly more than anyone else here.

The Rangers blue line is starting to skew pretty young, with Adam Fox, Libor Hajek, and Brady Skjei all poised for roles on this team. The hope would be they can start to steal minutes from Marc Staal, who is absolute toast these days, and Brendan Smith, who remains the worst player in the league. Anthony DeAngelo still needs re-signing, but he would be more youthful zest on this team, and would make the Rangers pretty dynamic going forward along the blue line. The question is if any of these guys can play defense, and no one has the answer for that one.

Forwards: It’s not often you can add two-thirds of a real top line in the NHL, but that was the summer for the Rangers. They signed Artemi Panarin and got to draft (Boers voice) Kaapo Kakko. There are your wingers on the top of the roster for years. Do they have a center to play between them? Mika Zibanejad is going to get a shot, and there have been times in the past when he’s flashed that capability. He had 74 points last year playing with nothing like Kakko and Panarin. That bumps Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich to the second line, where they almost certainly belong. That is until Kreider is traded, which most in the know on Broadway seem to think is an inevitability. It’s after that where things get icky.

Ryan Strome is the wrong Strome. Vladimir Namestnikov has yet to prove to be much of anything other than a guy in both New York and Tampa. Filip Chytil has a lot of growing to do. Matt Beleskey is here, which is always an indication that your forwards have been hauled out of the back of the storage room. One line and two thirds of another one is not really enough to be a playoff team. They will hope Lias Andersson helps out with this, but is that enough?

Prediction: There is enough here to be way better than 78 points. But way better can be 88 points, which won’t be close to a playoff team. Even with the additions of Panarin and Kakko, there doesn’t feel like there’s enough scoring here, especially if Kreider is going in midseason (depending on return). The defense has a chance to be really exciting, in both senses of the word. They can’t say the goalie is a sure thing either, given Henrik’s age and creakiness. There is a lot of hope and anticipation here, but that doesn’t mean it translates into an avalanche of points. They’ll make a run at a playoff spot, but probably run out of gas in March and come up comfortably short. But with another move or two after that, they’re set up to be a real thing quite soon.