Hockey

Traverse City…Traverse City Lights

By Sam Fels 1666 0

I’m sure Traverse City is lovelier in the fall than I would guess or think, but it’s more fun to make fun of. Anyway, wouldn’t it be great if the NHL just combined all of these rookie tournaments somehow into one big one? Had their own Vegas Summer League thing? Probably makes too much sense.

Anyway, we’re only a week away, if you can believe it, from the 2019 Traverse City Tournament, which once again will feature the Hawks, as well as Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, the Rangers, and St. Louis. The Leafs are something of a new addition to this, thus making it THE MOST IMPORTANT PROSPECT TOURNAMENT EVER and definitely a harbinger of the four Cups in a row the Leafs are going to win in the next decade, minimum.

The Hawks announced their roster for it today, which is:

23 F Bignell, Luke***
54 F Coughlin, Liam*
77 F Dach, Kirby
55 F Element, Shawn***
58 F Entwistle, Mackenzie
38 F Hagel, Brandon
59 F Hakkarainen, Mikael
52 F Johnson, Reese
71 F Kurashev, Philipp
42 F McKay, Riley***
45 F McLaughlin, Dylan*
25 F Nurse, Isaac***
76 F Soderlund, Tim
53 F Teply, Michal
74 D Beaudin, Nicolas
27 D Boqvist, Adam
39 D Gilbert, Dennis
43 D Krys, Chad
62 D Moberg, Cole
85 D Ramsey, Jack*
75 D Ryczek, Jake
49 G Daws, Nico***
33 G Gravel, Alexis
80 G Marchand, Chase**

So, notes: Obviously, the names to watch here are Boqvist and Dach. The hope is that both completely dominate this thing (Boqvist should easily), and vault themselves into serious contention for roster spots in training camp. You get the feeling the last thing the Hawks want is for either or both of these players to make things tough on them and have to shelve a veteran (*cough* Seabrook *cough*) to put them on the ice. But it’s not like the Hawks haven’t been open to that in the past, as Alex DeBrincat just two years ago took a plus performance in Traverse City to training camp and essentially forced himself onto the Opening Night roster.

It feels like Dach has the much higher mountain to climb–imagine being so fixed on keeping Zack Smith on your team–but if he plays well enough, he’ll be harder to ignore. The floor for Boqvist seems to be he’ll end up in Rockford and just a phone call away, but either can start to change that next week.

-As you probably know, I’ll be keeping an eye on Philipp Kurashev. He’s not going to make the team out of camp but could be one of the first call-ups during the season with a couple steps. He’s got straight-ahead speed, which the Hawks still don’t have enough of even if they think they do.

-Feels like it could be a big tournament for Nicolas Beaudin. He doesn’t get mentioned like Boqvist or Ian Mitchell, but is still a first-round pick. He’s definitely headed for Rockford, and after playing in the Q his defensive game might need a total overhaul. And we’ve seen d-men start in Rockford and never get out alive. But still, if Boqvist blazes a path, Murphy and de Haan remain ouchy, Koekkoek continues to suck. and Gustafsson becomes deadline bait (which he should), there’s a way for him. Yeah, it’s a lot, and he’s got heads to turn, but it’s there.

-Entwhistle is another one who probably at least needs to make people notice a play or two. He’s not imminent of the big roster yet, but we know the Hawks love a big body (barf) and they don’t have too many who can actually play.

Hockey

Watch Winnipeg, Even Though It Hurts

By Sam Fels 1779 0

As you can tell with the swing of our content over the past couple weeks, it’s hockey dead season. Training camps are still weeks away, even the prospects tournaments aren’t all that close, and everything off the ice has come to a standstill (except for Bill Guerin’s face slowly melting off his skull, apparently).

Still, there’s some intrigue, and even for Hawks fans. Except that nothing will move before camp starts likely, and maybe right on the eve of the season. And that’s in Winnipeg, and to a lesser extent Denver.

The Jets currently have Kyle Connor and Patrik Laine unsigned as restricted free agents. And though both would seem to be as important to the Jets, the atmosphere around those negotiations (if they’re even taking place) are very differently. Connor seems to want to be locked down for a good long time at a high salary, whereas the Jets and Laine seem to view things differently. Laine is coming off what was a disappointing seasons, though his disappointing season would look great to about 75% of the players in the league.

The funny thing is that even with Laine’s apparent downturn and Connor establishing himself as a top line player (at least for the Jets), their numbers the last two seasons are remarkably similar. Connor has gone 65G-58A-123P the past two seasons, and Laine is at 74G-46A-120P. And Laine has another 36-goal campaign in front of that. It’s funny how differently their contract talks are viewed by both player and team and media, when overall they’ve been the same player. It’s humorous that Connor could end up with $8M or more, while the Jets would love to lock in Laine at $6M or thereabouts and only for a couple years if possible.

Now, if the Jets are looking at such things, and I would heavily doubt they are but if it saves them money I won’t rule it out, Laine’s metrics are much worse than Connor’s last year. Whatever role that plays in talks, I leave to you.

It’s pertinent to the Hawks because Alex DeBrincat is going to find himself in this position a year from now. Top Cat’s numbers are 69G-59A-128P, which looks an awful lot like Connor’s and Laine’s, don’t they? Unless he has an injury or completely falls in the tank or some other indignity befalls him (Weather Girl-itis, let’s call it), it’s pretty easy to picture DeBrincat meeting or exceeding Laine’s three-year total. Which, because it won’t come after a disappointing and somewhat mysterious season, probably nets him more money than Laine is going to get from the Jets.

Mikko Rantanen‘s stalled talks in Denver add to this as well, though he’s got better numbers than Top Cat is probably going to be able to reach. Basically it feels like Rantanen’s number and Laine’s number will give the Hawks and DeBrincat a good bracket to find an answer within. If DeBrincat were to manage an 80-point season he’ll get up around where Rantanen is now points-wise, and should easily pass his 80 goals in three seasons (Top Cat has 69 and fuck you). So a Rantanen number might be closer to what the Hawks have to shell out than a Laine one.

As of now, the Hawks will have $20-$22 million to play with, and we know that they almost never shortchange one of their guys. Other than like Marcus Kruger, who was happy to be that for them. So it would seem $9M or so for DeBrincat is on the way, though maybe they can get him in at around $8. Still, the Hawks will have to sign at least one goalie, and hopefully Dylan Strome proves worth an investment, and that’s basically all the space the Hawks will have.

Basically, Kirby Dach is going to have to be good and in a hurry, because the Hawks are going to have to compete while he’s still cheap if at all possible.

 

 

Hockey

Here They Come With This Happy Horses**t Again

By Sam Fels 1894 0

Y’know, I thought we were done with this kind of story about the Hawks. It had at least been a while since the Hawks came out to proclaim they’re ahead of the curve when it comes to analytics, even though I’m fairly sure they can’t even spell “analytics.” And then everyone would lap that up while they continue to run their team in almost purposeful spite of what analytics would say. And then we would spend the season screaming until your eyes bled about how what they’re doing makes no sense. Then they would come out and say they’re ahead of the curve on analytics and just trust them, and the whole cycle would start again.

I guess I missed it.

First of all, if you were so “ahead of the curve,” you would boast about how big your analytics department is. That you had a team of people working on this and presenting it to the GM and coach. You would show off your computer room or something. Fuck, look at the Cubs and all the bleating and boasting they did about their “pitching lab,” which still has produced dick when it comes to pitchers but hey, they’re at least showing you they’re working on it.

The best part of this article, a deep focus on the Hawks trying to blow themselves, is that the counterpoint to it is right in the goddamn middle. The Hawks have one guy, ONE, listed under “Hockey Analytics” on their website. Their department that’s so fucking cutting edge has one dude, and like, maybe an intern or two. Al MacIsaac, who’s basically been a fucking plague in this front office for a decade, mentions “young people.” You know what that means, right? Kids they don’t pay who also get lunch and help the marketing people stuff the blimps that drop t-shirts or whatever. This is not a department. It’s a dude in a dark room with some students sentenced to go visit him once a week for credit.

“Everybody is at a certain place right now,” MacIsaac said, “but they don’t know if they’re in front or they’re way behind.”

They sure don’t, Al.

If the Hawks paid any attention to analytics, they wouldn’t have traded for Olli Maatta. They wouldn’t have thrown in Teuvo Teravainen merely to get Bryan Bickell off the books. They wouldn’t have traded for Andrew Ladd. As mentioned in the article, they wouldn’t have given Brent Seabrook a million years on a contract. They wouldn’t have spiked Q with Brandon Manning (well, knowing the dysfunction in this front office, that still might have happened). They wouldn’t have traded Henri Jokiharju. Good god do you know how long this list could go on? I’m not going to do that you with so little summer left.

Still, the Hawks were one of the worst expected goal teams in the league last year, and the year before that, and yet all they’ve tried to do to turn that around is acquire road-graters on the blue line to block more shots. They just traded one of their d-men who can, supposedly, transition the team from defense to offense, which is what they don’t do well at all and the analytics tell you that. Their hopes to turn that around are pinned to Adam Boqvist and basically Adam Boqvist alone. They will try and sell you that Duncan Keith can still do it, even though he has been declining in possession for a while now. And you expect us to believe they actually pay attention this?

Of course, all this is topped by MacIsaac pretty much dismissing player-tracking. Now, he can get away with this, barely, for now because no one is quite sure when player tracking is actually going to be ready. And when it does roll out, it of course will have some kinks.

But if you’re so far ahead of the game, as the Hawks want you to believe without actually doing anything to back it up, why wouldn’t you gobble up all the data you can? Try and get out ahead and figure out where the kinks are first, but more importantly glean what is viable from it before anyone else? Wouldn’t that be your attitude instead of waving your grandpappy hand and dismissing it at gobbledygook, as MacIsaac does here? How can you be that advanced when you’re not even paying attention?

Once again, the best thing the Hawks front office does is telling you how great they are at something, without actually doing it. They’ve been doing Trump’s act longer than he has. “Oh we’re the best at this, you can’t believe how good we are at it and we really are the envy of the league when it comes to this.” And then you don’t actually do that thing.

McDonough is going to be president in like 2024.

 

Hockey

Only In The NHL

By Sam Fels 2402 0

Maybe it took me a week to really come to terms with this breakdown of Paul Fenton’s firing in Minnesota. Maybe I needed a week to remember why I should care about the Minnesota Wild (and I still don’t). Maybe it was just the time of year and things are moving more slowly. But if you haven’t read Michael Russo’s article here, you really should. Just not for the hilarity or schadenfreude of it–and there’s plenty–but then come to realize that it’s probably hardly unique in the NHL.

I can’t decide what my favorite part was. The immediate dismissal of a pretty impressive analytics team that’s so NHL it seems too scripted to work. The never actually scouting Viktor Rask before trading one of your best players for him. The being at the Pats Super Bowl parade mere weeks before the trade deadline while the Wild were self-immolating. The constant fear of leaks. The fascination with players who suck, and have clearly proven they suck.

And it’s easy to point and laugh…but can’t you see some elements happening here? Especially the fascination with certain players, i.e. ones that have played for them before. While I don’t think the Hawks just skip the due diligence part of players they trade for…Kimmo Timonen would like a word. Yeah, that was a long time ago, and recent trades like Caggiula have worked out ok (though they seem to have soured on Perlini pretty quickly, but he was the throw-in in that deal). Still, their fascination with players they already know has a very familiar ring to it.

Also you could probably make a link to the dismissal of analytics here as well, as there’s simply no way the Hawks have paid any attention to it, otherwise you wouldn’t be trading for Olli Maatta.

What’s kind of amazing is how bad Fenton was allowed to be at his job. Can you imagine some of this going on in any other sport? I mean, maybe with the Pirates or Knicks or Raiders or something, but those are known basketcase organizations. The Wild aren’t supposed to be that. They’re not the model franchise or anything–even though they loved to tell people that–but they haven’t been moronic. They just haven’t been all that noticeable. This is noticeable.

And this was hardly Fenton’s first job, and you can easily see where he’ll get another because this is the NHL. No one ever dies in the NHL, they’re just moved to a different office…or wherever Bob Pulford is now.

I suppose the question I have to ask is where was any of this when it was actually going on? I know the answer is that people are way more willing to talk when the dude has already been canned and there’s no fear of repercussions, but surely someone or someones knew about some of this while it was happening. Wouldn’t an outing and reporting of it had a chance of stopping the idiocy to come?

The protection of information is hardly germane to the Wild and Fenton. We see it with every team in hockey, and increasingly sports. These days, when teams have their own bullhorns–website, twitter, instagram, facebook, all with their own staff and writers–there’s little need to get anything to the press unwillingly. You can spin anything how you want before anyone even knows it’s a thing. Still, you have to feel that Fenton’s trip to the Pats’ parade from his job in St. Paul is something that should have been a big deal at the moment. What happened there?

You can’t help but think of the dysfunction in the Hawks’ front office, and yet we’ve had to (get ready Fifth Feather) read tea leaves to even suss that out. It was clear that Q and Stan Bowman couldn’t get along at the end, and were only getting along before because the team in place was winning. But we had to put it all together. Somehow, they were able to keep that all in house, and only after Stan basically admitted to spiking Q with Brandon Manning did we get official confirmation of how deep the dysfunction went. Five or ten years from now, the tell-all book is going to be comedy on a Python-esque level.

We know that the consolidation and shrinking of media is bad in a lot more important areas than sports. We know that everyone having an Insta or Twitter means players or anyone else can talk directly to fans with whatever message they want (that sometimes ends up way worse). We know teams have gotten better and better about keeping everything under wraps, even with all the avenues we have now.

I guess that’s how some of this patently ridiculous shit can go on with a team like the Wild even over as short of a span as a year. But I can’t imagine this level of mismanagement is unique to St. Paul. And you wonder how goons keep getting jobs…

Hockey

The Scorpion Poses Are Out For Seabrook

By Sam Fels 2612 0

It’s the dead time for Hawks coverage now. There’s almost no chance of a deal or signing now. The convention is over, so we sit and wait six weeks for training camp. Or five weeks for Travers City, depending on how thirst the desert of hockey summer has made you. So it’s these human interest-like stories on Brent Seabrook that you’re going to get before we basically adjourn.

The thing is, we’ve read this story before. Seabrook already got the best-shape-of-his-life treatment last training camp, and now everyone is trying to walk that one back saying a second summer with Paul Goodman will lead to the shape he was supposedly in last fall. It’s getting harder and harder to keep track. We’ll circle back to this.

Mark Lazerus goes to talk to Seabrook (a risk in itself), and Jeremy Colliton, and Paul Goodman, and Stan Bowman. And all of that is reasonable. It’s what they say that I quarrel with.

First Colliton.

“It looked to me like it was difficult for him,” Colliton said to me during a quiet moment at the convention. “You play one way for so long, and you’re just used to a certain style of coach, of system, all those things. It’s hard to change your habits on the fly. You end up thinking instead of reacting. And we just didn’t have enough practice time. You need a week or two weeks to get things in, or even just three days of practice. And we just didn’t have it. Once the schedule lightened up (the Blackhawks played 33 games in Colliton’s first 66 days as head coach), you saw the change in our play. We were much better. We’ve just got to spend time on it. And now we have that time.”

Some of that may in fact be true. But the overriding factor here is that no matter what shape Seabrook finds himself in, the “system” Colliton wants to employ is never going to suit him. If indeed Colliton wants his guys chasing forwards all over the zone instead of passing them off when they go high or leaving them be in the corner and boards, Seabrook is never going to be able to do that. In fact, neither will de Haan or Maatta, come to think of it. Seabrook can know and be as comfortable with the system as he likes, it will never mean he’s built for it. Unless Colliton is going to tweak this and let Seabrook play a game where things more come to him, it’s just not going to work. It’s not what Seabrook can do. I’m not sure it was ever what Seabrook could do.

Still, Colliton’s assertion that Seabrook got better in the back half of the season holds some truth. Both shots against and goals-against per 60 were down for Seabrook in the second half of the season from the first. But the attempts against and expected goals against were up, and by bigger margins than the others were down. Essentially he got bailed out by better goaltending and worse marksmanship. Colliton may have a nugget here, but he does not have a foothold.

The next section goes to Goodman, and even I would have to admit that working with one guy your whole life another can be an adjustment, as Seabrook did with his trainers. Still, we were remarking as far back as 2013 and especially ’13-’14 how sluggish Seabrook looked. We blamed the former on not playing during the lockout. We really bent over backwards (just wheel posed) to explain the following campaign away by citing the shortest summer possible, though as the Kings were slicing and dicing him into paste even that felt hollow. Still, it’s been at least three seasons where Seabrook has looked off the pace, and one summer just isn’t going to change that in his mid-30s. I mean, Goodman seems pretty sure it will, and I guess he knows more about it than anyone.

But that won’t fix a system meant for the exact opposite of Seabrook’s game.

Even Bowman was getting in on Seabrook’s physical condition, which tells you just how much of a problem everyone thought it was. From there we get all the normal rigamarole about leadership and his voice in the room, and that’s not to be totally discounted.

But what they really mean is that they need Seabrook on Colliton’s side, which we’ve already labored. Duncan Keith has already declared Colliton an idiot. Jonathan Toews will always try and make anything work because he’s the captain. Patrick Kane is harder to read, but is at least somewhat placated by getting 25 minutes per night. It’s not that Kane doesn’t care about whether the Hawks win or lose, but that’s a salve either way. It almost feels like Seabrook is a deciding vote. They have to have his back. Because even Toews isn’t going to try and swim against everyone else in the dressing room.

And then where would they be?

Hockey

You Want Original In-Game Experience Ideas? I Got Them Right Here!

By Sam Fels 2723 0

I had a good hearty laugh and mock at John McDonough’s claims that the Hawks were on the cutting edge in-game experience at the United Center. After all, everything about their arena experience is lifted from other places. But they’re hardly alone in that, as you most hockey/basketball arenas look exactly the same, and aside from base coloring in the seats and scoreboards you could virtually switch them all and you wouldn’t know which is which. That doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to tailor what goes on at the United Center in a way you don’t see too many other places.

Now, it would be easy to sit here and just suggest all wrestling themes to eliminate my jealousy of Verizon Center in DC using Becky Lynch’s theme for power plays or Nashville and their constant playing of various ones. But I can do better than that, so let’s try. And full disclosure, none of these are terribly original, but expansions on other places’ ideas or at least something new for Chicago. And none of it will happen.

“Ultras” Section: I spent a good portion of my editorials in the old CI program lamenting that almost all American sports do not sound like soccer, and if you think that doesn’t matter you need to know the unique noise and atmosphere of soccer, even just bleeding through a TV, is what drew us to the sport in the first place.

Nashville somewhat has this with Cellblock 303, and the Canes do with Section 328, though the latter is more of a tailgate thing. The former lead the Bridgestone Arena crowd in all those chants you hear that are variations of “you suck.” Again, it’s not exactly the terraces of Bilbao here, but it’s a start.

You can’t get more generic than the Hawks at the UC, at least after the anthem. It’s either the scoreboard coercing everyone or Tommy Hawk and his tambourine into a “Let’s Go Hawks!” chant. We can do better.

Take one section of the 300 Level, preferably behind the goal the Hawks attack twice. Dedicate it to your biggest fans, a la supporters sections you see in MLS. Charge a certain few with coming up with unique chants and songs tailored to the Hawks and their players specifically. Give them a couple months to get everyone in the arena to learn them and get on board.

Yes, you’ll have a problem with season ticket holders there. Give them the option to stay or move them to better seats. But constant noise and songs throughout a hockey game would be different that most every arena in the league.

Local artists: At this point, if you’ve had season tickets you can recall the UC playlist from heart. The Hawks have come out from intermission to Foo Fighters and “Riding The Storm Out” for all 11 seasons I’ve had seasons. Just put a modicum of effort into this one.

Music during stoppages and TV timeouts should slant, though not be entirely, from local bands and musicians. There should be more Chance, Lala Lala, Vic Mensa, Pelican, Lupe Fiasco…fuck this list could go on forever.

And it’s not just music. Though it might be next to impossible considering any available wallspace in the concourses is gobbled up by ads, you could probably make space for local painters and sculptors pretty easily. Just a few on the 100 and 300 Levels. Make it a Chicago experience, not one you can just drop in anywhere around the country.

Have a sense of humor: Look, I love that Denver plays the Mario Bros. power up sound when a penalty to the Avs is over. Stuff like that really plays. Right now you the most amount of personality the UC shows is a look-a-like thing with the crowd during a TV timeout. Or “Oblivious Cam” which is really stretching. Also the Kiss Cam is played out and we’ve seen that old couple make out enough. Try something else. Play Mutombo waving his finger after a great save (or Jordan waving his finger at Mutomob0). Flash “HEAVY METAL” after a post-shot. Give me the EA Sports checking sound after a big hit. Something quick, something memorable. Hell, I could have a list of 50 of these if they asked. Also the power play dance is evil because you took it from St. Louis and is pretty funny when the Hawks power play sucks, which it usually has over the past decade. When it’s a particular dead spot, have fun with that.

Italian Beef Gun: Need I say more?

Red Lights In The Partitions: This is the land of the exploding scoreboard, after all. Everything should go off when the Hawks score. This is lifted from Vancouver, but you know, fuck Vancouver.

Scoreboard Info: I’ll reserve judgement on this one to see what they do with the new one. But it used to be after the first period you couldn’t see who was on the ice for the opposition, replaced by in-game stats for whoever was currently on the ice for the Hawks. With greater space you can probably do both, and hopefully they won’t be afraid to include an analytic tint to it, listing each players attempts and shots for and against while on the ice as well as individually. It wouldn’t be that hard to do, honestly.

This is all off the top of my head. Feel free to tweet us your suggestions, and we’ll round up some of the best ideas next week.

 

 

Hockey

Hey Everybody! An Old Man Full Of Himself Is Talking!

By Sam Fels 2537 0

I suppose it will be a real sign of growth and maturity (or I’ve just gone on to do something real with my life instead of playing in this sandbox in adulthood) when I just let an interview with John McDonough slide by. But I’m not there yet, not by a damn sight. McDonough loves to talk, especially when the subject is himself, and these days he’s got a lot of figurative ass to cover. Especially if he’s going to survive a third-straight playoff-less season, or justify that season without the major changes the front office looks more and more like it needs. So he’s already starting, and as always we will stand as the gatekeeper. We can’t go through the whole thing, as his interview with The Athletic’s Scott Powers goes for two parts. But we’ll go through some of the “highlights.”

“We don’t compensate the players. The players come in. Because our players, like the Cubs’ players, they get it.”

Yes, well, I’m sure there’s no benefit to getting free suites in a five-star hotel for young men in their primes of their lives. Can’t imagine what it would be. Maybe it has to do with the reason Sox players used to call SoxFest “SexFest.”

Powers: Have you had a chance to reflect on that season, what that Cup team means to the city?

Well, I think that was kind of the lightning strike.

Yeah ok, there’s a lot to unpack here, or a lot to unpack to find all the ways McDonough is trying to give himself credit for when he was mostly along for the ride. I’ll do my best.

First off, the 2010 nostalgia tour that you’re going to see a ton of this season is understandable, but also extremely awkward. Because most of the core of that team is still here, and if you asked them they would tell you they’re not done trying to win Cups. If Marian Hossa didn’t have that skin condition, he would almost certainly be still playing as well. He probably isn’t comfy looking at his career in the past tense yet either. So it’s an odd celebration when in some ways, you’re still in that window.

I get it. 10 years is a nice round number. And it’s rare that the core of a championship team is so young (except the Penguins were too) so that they would still all be playing in the same place 10 years later. And hey, the Hawks very well might have to be selling something come February and March if this defense is as bad as it could very well be and the goaltending isn’t as good as we think it will be.

As for McDonough’s “lightning strike” comment, that’s a load of shit and he goes on to contradict himself like five sentences later. As McD points out literally in the next sentence, the Hawks did manage to go to the conference final the year before, were just about everyone’s pick to win, and even the year before that had barely missed out on the playoffs, which was the true lightning strike.

While it happened fast, the Hawks had sucked for six seasons or so and had accrued draft picks like Keith, Seabrook, Crawford, Bolland, Brouwer, Hjalmarsson, etc. Even before Toews and Kane capped it off, and they’re the most important picks no question, people were starting to notice the Hawks had a fair amount of prospects coming through.

And the regular season in our sport doesn’t even resemble the postseason.

This is a continuing theme throughout the interview, and it’s really frightening for what’s happening to the team now. Yes, the NHL playoffs are different, if only because of structure, but to say they have nothing to do with the regular season is false. Two of the three Cup wins for the Hawks were as division champs, one Presidents’ Trophy winners. The other they were a 100+ point team that watched Kane miss the last quarter of the season through injury in his first MVP-level performance. Generally, the best teams in the regular season kind of remain the best teams in June.

The Hawks seem to be banking on the notion that the Blues have somehow disproved all of this, because they keep saying it. Jonathan Toews gets it, because he’s the only one in the organization who has rightly pointed out that the Blues first half was nothing more than a massive underachievement. After their ’18 summer, the Blues were picked by many to be near or at the top of the Central, which they would have been had they gotten their head out of their ass before January. And thanks to the Jets and Predators, they were anyway.

The Hawks keep making it clear they’ve learned all the wrong lessons from what they think the Blues did or are, and this idea that they have to be heavy to get through the playoffs they very well might not make is going to take everyone down. Which it probably should.

I think one of the events that helped changed the course of the franchise was the outdoor game at Wrigley Field.

Oh do you now? You mean the event you strong-armed and pleaded with the commissioner to get?  You think getting that game had tangible, on-ice results later? Look, it was a fun day and a definite marker that the organization was finally taking itself seriously and the team was on the rise, but it’s a marker, not a direction-changer. How many ribs did you have removed for this one?

The importance of hiring Joel (Quenneville), how he was the perfect fit for all this. Bringing in Marian Hossa, that in my opinion, we don’t win three Stanley Cups without Marian Hossa. I don’t know if you win any. But you got Marian Hossa come in and Brian Campbell and other free agents that played a role, and other players that just emerged in the 2010 Cup team. It wasn’t just your primary players, you think back now and you had Andrew Ladd and you had Dustin Byfuglien and Colin Fraser and Adam Burish and all these guys who played a role, it was a significant role.

Funny how all the moves he was a part of are at the top here, where all the players that were drafted were here when he got here. And what did Fraser and Burish do again, exactly? I’ll hang up and listen for my answer.

That we’ve seen the game go in the last 10 years from being a heavier game, more physical game, fighting played a role in the game before, now it’s speed and skill, and it will probably at some point spin back again. 

No, it won’t, and you need to stop building a team that acts like it will.

So, you’ve got to make real good decisions, prudent decisions on the complimentary players, people that you know may not show up on the scoresheet every night, but they add a lot to your culture.

How’s that gone the past few years? The Russian judge just asphyxiated.

But we recognized, and we did recognize a few years ago, the conference is tougher.

You did? What have you done about it, then? You said a lot of things, we’re still waiting.

We talk about our process and our system every day, and I’m a real big believer that if you do have a good process and a good decision-making system, the wins are going to come, the results are going to come.

Here we go with this happy horseshit again…

It was difficult last year where obviously our penalty kill … we had a very poor season on the penalty kill. It was almost indescribable that we would be ahead in a game and relinquish that lead in many instances within 60-90 seconds or two minutes, and that kind of became a trend. And our penalty kill was just ineffective.

Y’know, all offseason the Hawks have addressed their problems on the kill as something that just happened to them, instead of rightly pinpointing that they had the worst defensive corps in the league and really haven’t improved it that much. Get better players, and you’d be amazed at how much better the kill would be. They think they can solve this systematically, and they can’t.

the St. Louis Blues had the worst record in the NHL on Jan. 1. That’s just the reality of our game. The L.A. Kings won the Stanley Cup a few years ago as the eighth seed in the conference. So, those things can happen.

Per my last email…

Over a period of time, he (Jeremy Collitoin  did a terrific job of earning the respect of our players.

Oh, I think I could find one that might disagree on that one…

I’m not even going to get into the soliloquy about the new scoreboard, but man is he taking credit for that like it’s a new signing.

The fact that we are able to tap into our season-ticket waiting list and they can fill that back up, I think that is remarkable and great credit to Jay Blunk and Chris Werner and their respective staffs to be able to come up with creative ways to do that.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, folks. They didn’t just tap into it. They burned through almost all of it, and another season missing the playoffs and you’re going to see some shit.

I don’t want to emulate other franchises. I want us to be inventors. I want us to be trailblazers.

This might be my favorite part. He’s talking about game presentation here, the arena experience. And anyone who is even close to the Hawks knows that when McDonough took over, in order to improve the in-game experience at the United Center all he did was follow the Hawks on the road and lift what he liked from other arenas. Even the new scoreboard is following a trend, as Tampa, Denver, and a few other places have brought it the Tyrana-scoreboard years before. McD doesn’t have an original idea anywhere in his body nor within arm’s reach.

When I mentioned to you earlier, what I’m seeing now more than ever before and it’s been an eye opener I think for everyone in our sport, the regular season and the postseason, they don’t resemble each other. The Tampa Bay Lightning were tied for the best record in the history of the NHL. They were swept. There’s a cautionary tale there. You almost need to have two different teams, two different styles, and that’s not easy. 

Again with this. It’s simply not the case. Playoffs are different but they’re hardly uncoordinated to the team you’ve built to get through the 82. What you need is a flexible team, especially when you’re really good, because in a series teams are going to try specific things to beat you that they’re not concerned with in February. The Hawks didn’t fundamentally change their ways when they won in the playoffs, they just turned it up. They could wade through trapping teams because of their skill and they could out-run-n-gun anyone who tried that (except for the Kings that one time) They never out-heavy’d teams. If you tried to be the Blues against them, and the Blues tried it once in that run, they just skated around you, got the puck up the ice quicker, and took advantage of all the odd-man rushes they had.

It feels like this organization’s brain broke when it comes to building a team, and McDonough is all too happy to showcase that.

Ok I’m tired now. Enough.

 

 

 

Hockey

Friday Foofaraw: Our Famous Blackhawks Convention Primer

By Sam Fels 1897 0

It’s that time of year again, when John McDonough tries to neuralize the past three or four seasons from Hawks fans’ brains and make them buy stuff! If you’re heading to the Convention, here’s our handy guide to what’s really going on downtown all weekend. 

Friday

5pm – Opening Ceremonies: Hey, do you love championship parades, but without the actual cathartic journey of a season, or actual success, or the actual parade, but just the rally at the end where players stand awkwardly in their jerseys in the heat? Well then this is for you! They’ll even sing the national anthem for no reason!

8pm – Blackhawks Variety Show: Do you like what the Cubs have done with Ryan Dempster, where middling comedians feed him lines he half-delivers (I can say that because I’m friends with them)? Well watch us try it with even dumber Canadians! Except Adam Burish, who is from Wisconsin, which is probably worse. Enjoy the journey of Burish and Dempster one day becoming Chicago’s Statler and Waldorf on all sports.

Saturday

8am – Blackhawks Fitness Presents Pure Barre: Wasn’t Barre like the trend five years ago? How hockey is this that even at a gimmick convention they’re still behind the times? What would be contemporary? OrangeTheory? That nutcase Mark Lazerus just went to work out with? Whatever.

9am – “On The Clock” With Kirby Dach: Follow Dach’s and the Hawks’ journey to what could be a franchise turning moment with the #3 pick…or all the ways he’s not Bowen Byram.

9:30 – Colliton’s Command: You’ll get the chance to make Colliton cry just like Chris Block did in Rockford. Don’t bother asking any questions, because every answer (including during the season) is just going to be…

10:30 – “My Next Guest Is…” with Patrick Kane: Can’t we give Bob Verdi something better to do? Can we get him writing for the Trib again? God knows they could fucking use it. I didn’t realize how good we had it with him and Bernie Lincicome as columnists when I was a kid. And then Bernie went off the goddamn deep end himself.

11:30 – Blackhawks Leadership: Do you want to see a bunch of entrenched white guys who’ll never lose their job but can’t afford to visit Congress? Well, here ya go. Come watch McDonough, Rocky, and Seabrook point at three banners the entire time.

12:30pm – Kids Only Press Conference: You can apparently ask Tommy Hawk a question, even though I’m fairly sure birds don’t talk. Why it’s called “birdwatching” not “bird discussion.” Some parent is going to try and get their child to ask Connor Murphy what it will be like to be traded to Vancouver because of cap concerns though, I’m sure.

2pm – Blackhawks Family Feud: By holding it this early the Hawks are hopeful, just, that Jeremy Roenick won’t be drunk enough to spout something stupid/racist. Why did we continue this show after Richard Dawson was pawing at everything on set before falling down in his own vomit? Have you ever watched Steve Harvey zombie his way through the real thing? The man almost literally cashes his check on camera. But hey, more power to him.

2pm – Hockey Operations: Is it a coincidence they’re having this panel directly opposite the fun and light gameshow one with Hawks legends? Of course it’s not fucko! How dare you think such a thing! Get a look inside the front office as they stare blankly at scouting reports before asking each other, “Hey who was that guy who played on our third line fiveyears ago? Let’s get him back. No way he’ll be worse because he’s older now.”

3:30 – Welcome Back Andrew Shaw: Do not be shocked if they have him come out and beat up one of those dolls the Hanson Brothers do when they make appearances. In fact, maybe Shaw will be dressed as a Hanson brother. I mean, that’s essentially what we’re doing here, right?

4pm – Blackhawks Top Prospects: After answering a fan’s question with, “Yeah, I think I should be on the team this year, I mean, have you seen this oil spill that wears #7? Boqvist is traded to Tampa on Sunday.

4:30 – Reliving The 2010 Stanley Cup: Hooo boy, get ready for this all the time. When you don’t have anything going on presently, nothing sates the people like pumping as many CCs of nostalgia straight into their veins, even if 10 years barely counts as nostalgia. The look on Duncan Keith’s face during all of this next season is going to be priceless. Come hear Adam Burish talk about the one thing that makes anyone know who he is, even though Chris Pronger should have rightly killed him directly afterward. And maybe Dave Bolland can get his wheelchair up the dais!

6:15 – Team Hochberg Shoot The Puck Challenge: Can we get this Hochberg guy to fight that Ankin guy to the death at an intermission some time?

6:30 – The Second City: It’s like the Variety Show but worse! I do this rant every year, but I can never say it enough. Second City is a goddamn scam. While it has produced some very talented people, it has used those names to create an assembly line of incomprehensibly mediocre talents who simply kept paying their money to the name and were moved along simply due to that. But hey, no better way to learn how to be funny to tourist and rubes!

Sunday

10am – “Blackhawks Talk” with Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat: Watch Pat Boyle (how is this guy still involved, really?) lob softballs at no-way hungover Strome and DeBrincat. They’ll talk about heading out of their entry-level deals, with Top Cat trying to refrain from yelling, “I’M RICH BIATCH!” and Strome trying to convince everyone he’s not Schmaltz II.

11am – Storytelling With Hockey Hall of Famers: Boy, you have to love a segment that’s called “storytelling” with a bunch of people who took blows to the head for a living. That’s it’s own storytelling right there, people.

Hockey

Would Signing Jake Gardiner Actually Have Made Sense Now?

By Sam Fels 1772 0

When you’e watching Olli Maatta excel at the Chris Hudson trail technique behind Mikko Rantanen streaking to the net for his second of the night in January, you’re going to know the answer to this question more than you ever did.

When free agency started, Jake Gardiner was a no-go. We figured he would be too expensive and have to sign for too many years for what was only ok to good production. There were bigger fish (though he re-signed in San Jose), there were cheaper fits (the Hawks found them), and he didn’t seem to provide enough of what the Hawks needed, though some, for the expected investment.

But after the Hawks acquired Maatta and Calvin de Haan, which ups maybe only their professional experience and none of the mobility and skill problems, one has to ask if the Hawks wouldn’t have been better off waiting out the market on Gardiner.

That’s also completely unfair, because very few if any thought Gardiner would be left twisting in the wind. This isn’t baseball, where everyone now knows teams are just going to wait and wait and you can kind of set your price on the player you want and simply tap your foot and look at your watch until they accept it. Most business is done on July 1 (and before), and so if most teams expected Gardiner to sign on that day, it’s understandable.

Gardiner made $4M last year, and is probably still looking in the range of $6M or more to get pen to paper. That’s more than the Hawks have space for, though if they’d left Maatta alone they’d be right there. And Gardiner would come with something that Maatta or de Haan or really anyone on the roster right now cannot provide. That’s the first pass to the forwards, and the ability to open himself up to do so.

Gardiner has a 34-assist and 47-assist season to his name, and was on that pace again this past season but missed 20 games through injury. No, he’s not a top-pairing guy, but he has discernible skillset, which is more than we can say for Maatta. He’s been above the team rate in possession and expected-goals the last three years, and that was for some go-go Leafs teams. One would hope the Hawks would like to score lots of goals too.

Is it possible now? No, pretty much not. The Hawks would have to jettison Murphy on the blue line to make it work financially, and that would just be running place. Could they try and wheel Maatta out of town? Doesn’t seem like it’s in the plans, though you’ll be wishing it was soon enough.

Even if the market continued to drop on Gardiner, whatever spot you’d dream up for him probably should go to Boqvist with the cheaper rate, less years, better wheels, obviously more skill, even with the bigger questions. But hey, plans change, just as they did when the Hawks went with the impulse buy on Robin Lehner. But that was late in the day on July 1. Gardiner still wasn’t signed. Was that the call they should have made?

Again, we’ll lament this after trail-technique.

Hockey

If Lucic And Neal Can Be Traded…

By Sam Fels 2084 0

It is kind of amazing that in the NHL, that no matter how stupid and bad a contract, it always ends up getting moved somehow. We just saw it last week when the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers, adding a level of farce to their longstanding rivalry, decided to swap headaches in Milan Lucic and James Neal. We’ve seen Patrick Marleau moved along this year, though his deal was only for three years and only turned bad for one. The list goes on for a bit, though it generally ends with someone being LTIR’d into death.

Still, it was harder to find worse deals than Milan Lucic’s and James Neal’s. If you’re the Oilers, you must be delighted, because there’s a small chance that at least for a season or two, Neal can just stand still and shoot and get you 15-20 goals. He shot just 5% last year, which is less than half of his career mark, and again, if he does nothing else that should rebound. He might get buried possession-wise, he might cost you more goals that way, but at least they can point to something and say, “Well he’s doing something. Is that oaf we traded for him?”

As for the Flames, they can…well I haven’t any idea what they can do. It’s just an inexplicable decision from them, especially for a team that got exposed as not fast enough when Nathan MacKinnon Sherman March’d their ass to the golf course over five games.

But it leads one to ask, if these two contracts can be moved, could Brent Seabrook’s?

No. No it can’t. And the differences are why.

For one, there’s a difference from having $5.2M and $5.7M on your deal, as Lucic and Neal do, and fucking $6.8M on it (you’d think I’d have developed some sort of mental scar tissue to protect myself when reading or writing that, but no, still wince and get queasy every time). Second, Seabrook was 32 when this public health crisis kicked in, and Lucic and Neal signed their deals either at 30 or even younger, when they were at least somewhere near whatever their “prime” was. Both Neal and Lucic are now 31, which is a hell of a lot different than 34 in hockey, as Seabrook is. Seabrook also has five years left on his, whereas Neal and Lucic only have four. So not only did he sign it older, it takes him to an older age.

But most of all, the Hawks haven’t poisoned the water around Seabrook, even if that is an underhanded tactic when done on purpose. Neal was a healthy scratch for the Flames in the playoffs for a game. He was scratched a few times during the season. He was deployed on the third and fourth lines. The same applies for Lucic. He has been healthy scratched, demoted to the fourth line and back again.

In both cases, the teams made it clear those players no longer had a fit on their teams. While still collecting a big check, these are still proud athletes with little wish to be on a team where it’s clear they weren’t wanted or would not be used. In Neal’s case more so, he still feels like he can contribute. After all, he’s only a season removed from being a 25-goal scorer on a Cup finalist. He didn’t feel the need to clean up whatever scraps Bill Peters deigns to toss off the table to him.

The Hawks have done no such thing to Seabrook. He’s only been healthy scratched once in the last two seasons, and that was by Joel Quenneville who’s no longer here. In fact, they’ve bent over backwards in some cases to make sure he doesn’t turn on their new an very fragile coach (or the coach’s very fragile hold on the team, to be more accurate). Seabrook has rarely lost playing time, still getting time with Duncan Keith and taking the top assignments at various points. It was only this past season that Seabrook’s average ice time dipped below 20 minutes per game, even though his play warranted that for a couple seasons, and even then it was still 19:04. At worst, that’s solidly second-pairing minutes. Among the d-men it ranked fourth behind Keith, Gustafsson, and Murphy.

Hell, the Hawks just moved out a kid who reasonably should have been taking most if not all his minutes to avoid upsetting the applecart…er, nacho-cart. Considering he was punted for nothing (GET THAT TASTE OUT YO MOUF, FEATHER!), if Jokiharju’s value was so low a properly run organization not still trying to cash in on nostalgia would have let him play on the third pairing all season if only to build his trade value.

So Seabrook hasn’t lost any playing time or influence, so why should he agitate for a move? Every mistake in the NHL gets cleared up somehow, but the Hawks haven’t really prepared the ground for that. He still gets to play, and he still gets power play time, and he still gets to feel like he wields the axe in the dressing room and organizationally, because he does. Brent Seabrook can get their coach fired if he wants, and if they fire that coach then you’d have to believe the GM has to go to, which might mean the president does as well, and it could be a total house-cleaning.

Perhaps this is only for another season. Perhaps Ian Mitchell and Adam Boqvist force the Hawks into some tough discussions and decisions, and Seabrook can only handle the pressbox for so long. Maybe they figure out something with retirement, who knows? But seeing those two contracts moved, you wonder if the Hawks couldn’t as well if they really wanted to.