Faxes from Uncle Dale

Category: Hockey

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

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

    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.

    Previous Team Previews

    Carolina

    Columbus

    New Jersey

    New York Islanders

    New York Rangers

    Philadelphia 

    Pittsburgh

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

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

    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

    Slater Koekkoek

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

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

    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 

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

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

    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

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

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

    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.

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

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

    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

     

     

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

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

    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.

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

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

    There was no bigger surprise team than the Islanders last season, as Barry Trotz took a contract dispute from DC up the Acela and then proved he can turn just about anything into a useful team. But his boss, Nosferatu, blames free agency for the global warming he assuredly doesn’t believe in, and the Isles look like they’re just going to count on running it back again. Will it work? It’s hard to think a Trotz team will ever be bad, but catching lightning twice has eluded just about everyone in history. Let’s learn about the Islanders.

    2018-2019

    48-27-7  103 points (2nd in Metro)

    Won 1st round over PIT, lost second round to Carolina

    2.72 GF/G (22nd)  2.33 GA/G (1st)

    47.8 CF% (26th)  51.2 xGF% (12th)

    14.5 PP% (29th)  79.9 PK% (19th)

    Goalies: The Islanders lost one half of their tandem that anchored this team last year, as Robin Lehner toddled off here in July. The Islanders are going to attempt to take the whispers of Trotz and Mitch Korn and apply them to Semyon Varlamov. Varlamov was very up and down in Colorado last season, eventually losing his job to Philip Grubauer. That was kind of his whole career in Denver, where he flashed Vezina form at times and then was one of Jack’s French girls at others. But overall, he’s got a career .915 SV%, and considering how all Trotz teams make it easier on goalies, it would be reasonable to expect some good numbers from him.

    He’ll pair with Thomas Greiss, who flourished behind this team last year at .927. He and Lehner had high expected-save-percentages thanks to the ultra defensive system, but both exceeded that in actual save-percentages. Greiss has done this before, but hasn’t been able to back it up. He won’t be asked to carry the load here though, and again, goalies under Trotz rarely shit a chicken unless their hip falls off.

    Defense: Again, the exact same crew you remember from last year, though this time with a full season from the promising Devon Toews. They’ll hope for another step from Ryan Pulock, as Nick Leddy really struggled for most of the year to push the play. Scott Mayfield and Adam Pelech are about as solid as you can ask for without doing much you’ll remember. Johnny Boychuck will pair with Leddy as he has for the past five seasons, but time seemed to catch up to him last year. As we cannot hammer enough, this defense gets a lot of support from the forwards, but was somewhat exposed by the speed and possession of the Hurricanes last year. Both Trotz and Lamoriello don’t want much to do with puck-moving d-men here, so they’re lucky in that they don’t have a prime one. Still, in a conference that requires you to get past Carolina or Toronto or Boston or Tampa, it probably takes more than obstinance to do so. Maybe Noah Dobson gets a look? That would be a real stretch.

    Forwards: Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but it’s the exact same crew as last year. The only addition to it has been Derick Brassard, or whatever pod person is occupying his body now as he hasn’t been productive in the last three seasons at least. Which leaves Mathew Barzal and his missing T to carry the mail on the top line next to Anders Lee and Josh Bailey. Brock Nelson anchors the second line, and after that it’s a whole bunch of grunts and agriculture. Only one Islander forward managed more than 60 points last year (Barzal) and only three had 20 goals or more. And one of those was Casey Cizikas, who shot nearly 20%, and that’s not going to happen again. The Isles will hope to smother and bore their way to a playoff spot again.

    Prediction: It’s not wise to go against a Trotz-led team, but the margins are so thin for this bunch. They limit good chances, even if they don’t limit attempts. There’s just so little scoring here, and if they don’t get water-tight defense, the percentages are going to go against them. Neither Varlamov or Greiss is really capable of taking a full starter’s load at this point, so if one falters the whole system might sink underneath them.

    Luckily for the Isles, the division blows hardcore. The Caps and Pens are on the downsides of their cycles, with only the Canes looking like their pivoting up beyond the Isles. The Devils day may yet come, but not this season you wouldn’t think. And you can catch a lot of teams cold in January and February when they can’t locate the fucks to give to work hard enough to deal with a Trotz trap. Still looks short to me, but I said that last year too.

  • Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Erik Gustafsson

    Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Erik Gustafsson

    Sixty points. First-pairing minutes. A league-leading power play from middle December onward. A $1.2 million cap hit. These are some of the statistics that surround Erik Gustafsson. He’s the center of gravity that draws analytics nerds, construction-working meatballs, GMs, coaches, and agents alike to ask, “Just what the fuck are we looking at here?” Is Gus the future bedrock on the backend or is he a bum in a talented man’s clothes?

    2018–19 Stats

    79 GP – 17 G, 43 A, 60 P

    50.24 CF% (2.1 CF% Rel), 60.8 oZS%

    53.24 GF% (5.37 Rel GF%), 45.5 xGF% (0.64 Rel xGF% )

    Avg. TOI 22:35

    FFUD Review of 2018–19 Erik Gustafsson

    A Brief History: Erik Gustafsson led all Blackhawks D-men in goals, assists, and points, both at even strength and on the PP. Of Hawks D-men who played at least 41 games (so, minus Jokiharju and Koekkoek), he led in CF% and CF% Rel. Only five D-men in the NHL scored more points than Gustafsson last year. And of course, upon his insertion as the #1 PP unit’s quarterback on December 18, 2018, no team had a higher PP% than the Blackhawks.

    No matter how you slice it, Erik Gustafsson was an offensive force last year. You don’t need a map to find that.

    But his offensiveness extended to his defense—you know, the very title of his position—because he was a botched graveside burial in his own zone. This is where we need a couple maps to understand just how fucking awful Gus was on the defensive side of the puck.

    A3Z tool from Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) and CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

    This tool is fairly forgiving to Gus. The offense and own-zone exit ability are on full display. Now, look at the ENTRY DEFENSE section.

    The only thing objectively bad about it is his breakups per 60 minutes. What this means is that when opposing skaters go directly at Gus with the puck, more likely than not, he won’t break the entry up. On the plus side, Gus doesn’t allow too many opposing skaters to skate into the zone with possession (i.e., not dumping it in), in terms of both raw possession entries (PossEntriesAllowed60) and the percentage of entries with possession allowed (PossEntry% Allowed).

    We can’t say the same about his partner, Duncan Keith. Last year, teams tended to attack Keith on the entry with better success. This means that generally, opponents got into the zone with possession on Keith’s side rather than Gus’s.

    Why talk about Keith though? Does that mean that Gus is better on defense than we give him credit for? Are we deflecting by using Keith as a comp? Do you think I’d be doing all this if that were the case, dear reader?

    Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

    So, we’ve established that Keith is more of a hole in terms of possession entries than Gus. It’s what happens after Gus gets stuck in his own zone that’s the menace.

    These two heatmaps compare opponent shot rates with Gus on the ice (left) vs. without Gus on the ice (right). More red means more opponent shots in that area.

    Both are really red, because the Blackhawks defense—and I cannot and will not ever stress this enough—is more embarrassing than having your first period in white pants. But it somehow got worse with Gus on the ice.

    With Gus on defense, you’re looking at a higher concentration of high-danger shots AND more shots from the top of the circle on the side Gus plays on. Recall too that the only D-man on the ice for more high-danger goals than Gus last year was his partner, Duncan Keith. And though Keith’s heatmaps were bad, they weren’t this bad. (You can guess whose were worst on the team overall.)

    In short, last year saw opponents enter the zone on Keith’s side and do a ton of damage on Gus’s side. This is their top pairing. Very good, very conducive to winning.

    This is what we’ve been saying about Gus for a while. The offense and creativity are all there, but he’s stagnant ditch water in his own zone. The question is, which side of the coin has more weight?

    It Was the Best of Times: Gustafsson pairs with Connor Murphy and continues his incredible offensive output. He vastly outpaces his xGF% just like last year, and the PP ranks in the top five based on Gustafsson’s vision and creativity at the point—both of which are direct results of playing with Patrick Kane more than everyone, just like last year. Murphy cancels out Gustafsson’s complete lack of ability in his own zone, and Gus’s offense far outweighs his poor defense. He scores 55 points. Essentially, the Hawks get Brent Burns lite.

    It Was the BLURST of Times: Gus doesn’t spend most of his time with Patrick Kane, and he regresses to the mean. Opponents wait just a second longer to catch Gus on some of his ill-advised own-zone dangles and exploit his John Wayne tendencies. He and Keith continue to get buried in their own zone. The power play flattens out, but this time, it isn’t a result of Patrick Kane running on fumes.

    Prediction: Gustafsson is an offensive powerhouse. He continues to outperform his xGF% and doesn’t see an offensive regression. The same power play unit that came to life after Gus became THE GUY continues to run roughshod, finishing in the top 10 on the year. (There’s a concern that it won’t produce, based on how the PP finished last year. I think that’s a valid concern, but I also think that it was more a result of Kane running on fumes than anything.)

    There’s one huge caveat to this: Patrick Kane must stay healthy. Kane has the same sort of gap between GF% and xGF% throughout his career that we saw from Gus last year. And Gus’s performance correlates with whether he’s playing with Kane.

    • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his GF% is 57.69. Without Kane, it’s 46.09.
    • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his SCGF% is 56.34. Without, it’s 47.17.
    • Of Gus’s 60 points last year, his breakdown was:
      • 60 total points. 42 of them (70%) came playing with Kane
      • 42 even-strength points. 25 of them (59.5%) came playing with Kane
      • 18 PP points. 17 of them (94%) came playing with Kane

    You can see similar performance tracks when Gus plays with Toews, DeBrincat, and Strome in similar situations, but they aren’t quite as extreme. All this is to say that Gus doesn’t carry it by himself. When he plays with top-tier talent, he looks like a top-tier player. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. What’s that worth to you?

    So, what the fuck are we looking at with Gus? An outstanding complementary player. A good, creative play maker. Good enough to score 60 points with the right teammates, but not good enough to create by himself. Reliant on a generational talent. A farce in his own zone. Probably most valuable as a trade piece.

    In other words, we’re looking at the Blackhawks’s next 6 x $6 million man.

    Stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, Corsica.hockey, NHL.com, HockeyViz.com, and the Sznajder–Turtoro A3Z Player Comp Tool

    Previous Previews

    Robin Lehner

    Corey Crawford

    Adam Boqvist

    Carl Dahlstrom

    Calvin de Haan

  • You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: New Jersey Devils

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

    Perhaps the biggest movers of the offseason, the Devils put themselves in a position to be paid attention to for basically the first time in their history. Even when they were winning Cups, we all pretended it didn’t happen or went about our day doing something else. Is it enough to make them a playoff team? Probably not. But it’s a world where the Devils are fast and interesting, which is the surest sign we’re all imminently doomed. Let’s hop to it.

    2018-2019

    31-41-10 72 points (8th in the Metro)

    2.67 GF/G (25th)  3.30 GA/G (26th)

    46.8 CF% (28th)  48.4 xGF% (19th)

    17.7 PP% (21st)  84.3 PK% (4th)

    Goalies: It would seem just at the precipice of watching his career dispatched off to the Phantom Zone, Cory Schneider might have played his way back into the starter’s role. He was brilliant after returning from yet another injury in February, where he went for a .921 SV% in 17 games. 17 games doesn’t make for a season, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than the utter disaster he had been for the previous two seasons.

    If it’s not him the Devils have been hoping to turn things over to fiendishly named MacKenzie Blackwood, who put up a .918 in his rookie campaign. Not bad for a kid who was 21 when the season started. He’s clearly the goalie of the future, but for now the Devils are probably going to have the two split starts. At least in the season’s first half, until one of them takes it.

    Defense: It used to be you couldn’t name any Devils d-man unless you wanted to make it clear to anyone around you had outlived your usefulness to society, if you’d ever had any to begin with. That’s not the case anymore, thanks to the guy attached to Lindsey Vonn. The Devils brought in PK Subban for essentially nothing, and he’ll juice a unit that tried to approach solid but was in desperate need of any dynamism. PK and Sam Vatanen will make for a hell of a power play if nothing else. Andy Greene is somehow still here, because nothing ever dies in New Jersey, it just gets left in a swamp. I’m supposed to say Damon Severson is dependable, except I’m fairly sure he’s just a conspiracy and doesn’t actually exist. Also a joke about Mirco Mueller‘s neck goes somewhere around here, though he was surprisingly effective from a third pairing (+3.22 relative xGF%).

    Past Subban there isn’t much here, but he should improve it from the top. That is if he isn’t on the decline, which a lot of experts seem to think he is, because he’s not white. And now he’s motivated, and having a PK that’s determined to fuck the world is a weapon you want to have. The joker card here is if Ty Smith, the Devils best prospect before they took Jack Hughes makes the team or not. He dominated the WHL last year, and most think he can skip the AHL and head straight to the Devils. With Subban, Smith, and Vatanen, that’s a lot of get-up-and-go for a team that wants to play that way.

    Forwards: Clearly, all eyes will be on Jack Hughes, who will step right into the #1 center role and hopefully can bat his eyelashes at Taylor Hall enough, and pass him the puck enough, to keep Hall in town past this season. With Nico Hischier being bumped down to the #2 center role, the Devils hope they are set down the middle for the next decade. They were also able to pick up the scraps from Vegas and their unnoticed cap idiocy for Nikita Gusev, whom the Knights had been pumping for a couple years but apparently sucks now that they traded him. If he slots in behind Hall the Devils might have a find here. The two Jespers–Bratt and Boqvist–will bring even more speed to a lineup that was already kind of dripping with it. The Devils have filled their lineup with nippy forwards you don’t necessarily know but are getting past people constantly. You know it because you’ve seen them torch the Hawks the past two seasons.

    Prediction: Most seem to think the playoffs are going to be just out of reach for the Devils. It might be, but they’re going to get pretty damn close. Hughes is going to step right in and won’t need much of an adjustment period. They’re likely to get no worse than representative goaltending. And they’re in a division where more teams are heading the wrong way or are just confusing as all hell. Adding 23 points seems like a big ask, but it’s been done before. Of course, the drama over Hall could be a distraction, and if they’re not in the thick of it come February the Devils might decide to cash in on what they can with Hall instead of watching him head for the exit in July. Still, the top line is going to be must-see TV, Smith and PK on the blue line could be a blast. There’s a lot to like here, even if it might need another year to really come together.