Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1067 0

Oilers

Notes: McDavid returned on Sunday, so the Hawks won’t get to dodge that bullet again. Then again, they got whacked by this outfit without him so…Yamamoto has been a point-per-game since called up around the new year, and that line has been a major problem for everyone…At some point they’ll pair Athanasiou and McDavid, and a d-man will pass out from trying to keep up…Smith’s been .917 since the turn of the year…

Hawks

Notes: Maatta wasn’t at the skate this morning but there’s been on word that he won’t play as of yet…Amazing what happens when Strome is moved back to center, no?…More garbage time points for Nylander. At least he’s got a specialty…Crow has the fifth-highest SV% at evens in the league…

Hockey

What Is Dominik Kubalik?

By Sam Fels 2453 0

This isn’t some existential question, though I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m not sure everything isn’t one. Anyway, for the Hawks going forward, it’s important to identify what Dominik Kubalik is going forward, not only for what his next contract will be but for what the Hawks think they need to bolster the roster.

Because, thanks to the supernova genius of the past offseason, the Hawks don’t have a lot of wiggle room. We’ve been over and over what the Hawks can, and really have to, do to open up cap space. Even with today’s announcement from scratch-muppet Bill Daly that next year’s cap will be between $84-$88M (which means $84M), the Hawks don’t have much to work with. If they’re really planning on having Andrew Shaw and Brent Seabrook return to this team next year, at best they could have $15M to play with and that’s with a buyout of Olli Maatta. They can’t buy out Zack Smith until he’s medically cleared, and who knows when that would be. And this the Hawks, so they might not even be considering buying out Maatta, which means only $12M in space. And that would be pretty much gobbled up by Kubalik, Strome, and the two goalies they’ll need to bring in (even if one of those is a kid from the system).

So yeah, nailing the Kubalik contract is just about paramount.

The Hawks catch something of a break with Kubalik’s birthday being in August, as he won’t hit unrestricted free agency for three years instead of two. You can bet whatever contract comes next will be for three years for that exact reason, and it would behooved the Hawks to keep it there. Coming off a possible 35-goal season, buying out unrestricted free agent years could get expensive, unless Kubalik and his agent are just the nicest people in the world.

So let’s try and figure out what Kubalik is on the ice before we try and diagnose what he is going to get paid off of it. First off, he’s almost certainly not a 35-goal scorer consistently. He was a point-per-game in Switzerland, and did score one in every two there, but that didn’t project to what the Hawks have gotten so far.

As we’ve noted, Kubalik is shooting 19.1%, which just isn’t sustainable. The highest career-mark this century is Alex Tanguay’s 18.3. Currently, Draisaitl has the highest current career mark at 16.9%. Maybe Kubalik can keep it around there, but we don’t know that yet.

At the moment, Kubalik is leading the league in goals/60 at even-strength. Right behind him is Alex Ovechkin. Auston Matthews is fourth. David Pastrnak is fifth. This isn’t to say Kubalik is these guys, just the rarified air he’s keeping. Kubalik is currently doubling his expected goals per 60, which none of the other top-five are. All except Pastrnak have a higher expected goals per 60, and Pasta has the same rate.

Kubalik leads the league in difference between his actual goal-rate and his expected one, tied with Andre Burakovsky. You might say that talented shooters/finishers outshoot their expected rates all the time, and that’s what makes them special players, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Just not at this level of doing so. Currently Alex Ovechkin has a difference in those marks of 0.72, which is still someway lower than Kubalik’s 0.88, and by far the highest difference of his career. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more gifted finisher than Ovie.

If you look at simply Kubalik’s expected number of 0.86/60, that ranks him 29th, again even with Pastrnak and Aho and William Nylander, all encouraging names to be around to be sure. And Kubalik produced that while spending a good portion of the first half of the season on the bottom six and such. Toews may be his most common teammate, but the next forward on that list is David Kampf. Tells you a lot.

Kubalik’s attempts per game rank him 39th among forwards, which isn’t bad but doesn’t really make him a volume shooter. So he’s more of his find-his-spots guy, which is fine.

The worrying thing for the Hawks is that everyone around Kubalik’s ixG/60 makes some coin, like Aho or Stastny or Atkinson or Marchessault or Stone. What the Hawks will be harping on pretty hard you’d have to think is track record.

What’s kind of weird is that Kubalik has an outside shot at putting together the second-most goals for a rookie in the past 10 years. Matthews’s 40 is not going to happen, but Laine’s 36 could happen with just another heater for two or three weeks. He’s going to top Panarin’s 30 from 2016, which helped get him a $7M contract that the Hawks were too terrified to actually pay him and traded him before it kicked in. You can bet Kubalik’s agent is going to have this in mind.

Panarin shot 16% that year, a mark he didn’t match until this campaign in New York. Laine shot over 17% his first two years but hasn’t come close to that since. This is probably what the Hawks have in mind. Laine signed a two-year bridge deal coming out of his entry-level for $6.7M, and you can argue whether or not he’s been worth it or not.

Jonathan Marchessault on that list makes for an interesting comp, because both he and Kubalik feel like solid 25-30 goal-scorers. Marchessault signed his deal at 28, which marks him out from Laine, Nylander, Pastrnak who signed their current deals at younger ages than Kubalik will be this summer. The projection for them would be that they would get better, whereas the Knights were signing what Marchessault was and will be. He’s at $5M per year, which you’d have to say is a bargain, especially as he was UFA aged. The Hawks are probably pegging (not like that) this season as the absolute height of what Kubalik can be.

All of that suggests the Hawks are going to be up against it to get Kubalik in for under $5M a year, even with his restricted status. It’s also hard to find a comp for a player who comes from Europe and in his first year kicks ass and then is ready for a new deal. Panarin is about as close as you’d get and he had a second year before getting his deal. Anything under $5M per year should be considered a steal.

The Hawks do have all the leverage here, as it’s unlikely that someone is going to swoop in with an offer sheet north of $7M for a player with just one year in the NHL, and that’s the amount that would definitely make the Hawks pass. But then again, the Hawks have never used that leverage with anyone not named Marcus Kruger, and he didn’t seem to care.

And I’m not sure anything between $4.5M-$5.5M would ever be a bad deal for the Hawks. Given what his underlying numbers say, it’s easy to peg Kubalik as hovering around 25 goals, give or take, for the next few years. That’s about what they cost.

Hockey

Game #66: Ducks 2, Hawks 6 – The Best of a Bad Situation

By Rose Rankin 1874 0

The Ducks aren’t a good team, the Hawks aren’t a good team, and there was plenty of dumb bullshit to go around. But, if the Hawks want to at least have a semblance of dignity (and are willing to not worry about the draft pick ramifications), they need to beat these teams that are even worse than they are. And that’s what happened so we’ll go with it:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–In the spirit of not burying the lede, Adam Boqvist and Dylan Strome both had a very good night. Let’s start with Boqvist: his pass to set up Caligula’s goal in the first was spot on and was an identical repeat of a play he had against the Panthers. So yes, let’s have this pass for a tap-in become a habit of his. He also had the secondary assist on Strome’s first goal, and at the other side of the ice, it was his defensive play that set up Nylander’s goal in the second. That may sound like yeah, a good defensive play, that’s your job description, but that goal was the point where the game broke open, so that particular stop carries some weight. As for Dylan Strome, he’s been in a weird limbo since coming back from his ankle injury, and being marooned as a winger wasn’t really working. Tonight he was back at center and having Patrick Kane on the wing will always make you look good. But Strome took full advantage of the situation and had a three-point period in the second (2 goals, 1 assist).

–Corey Crawford was outstanding again and then fucking Ryan Getzlaf had to go jumping up to knee him in the head in the third. This shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point, but Crow finished the night with a .949 SV%, and at key moments before the Hawks piled up a bunch of goals, he was keeping them in the game. To wit, the first period was mostly a dull back-and-forth until Crawford had to make a flurry of saves in the last 5 minutes, and he withstood a 5-on-3 in the second. Danton Heinen‘s goal in the second was your typical defensive breakdown and can’t be chalked up to a mistake on Crawford’s part. Carter Rowney‘s was a bit soft but also seemed to be a redirect. Getzlaf’s stupid ass could have avoided leaping into him, but he clearly couldn’t be bothered to avoid kneeing the opposing goalie in the head. What a piece of shit. But, the other part of this is whether Coach Pete should have just kept Crow out the rest of the game. The Hawks were up 5-1 with almost half the third period over…was it really necessary to send him back out there? I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Either way, let it be known that Corey Crawford is the hero we need but don’t deserve.

–Also, for the record, I’d like to see what Malcolm Subban can really do and if he can be a decent/reliable backup or 1B. I just don’t want to see it because Crawford took a head injury from a stupid asshole play, obviously. But this may have been the moment to just leave Subban out there to close out a game that was damn close to blow-out status

–Oh Alex Nylander…don’t for a minute think he’s anything other than a bust. He had a couple good plays (I for one was surprised he scored on his goal and wanted him to pass instead, so that shows what I know). So we’ll have to keep watching them try to make Fetch happen.

–In general though, I didn’t hate the lines tonight. The Nylander-Strome-Kane line obviously was a scoring juggernaut, but overall I was glad to see Toews, Strome and Dach as the first three centers. Kubalik-Toews-Saad is also just a sensible top line (finally). They didn’t score but still managed six shots and had a 66 CF% at evens.

–If you need more evidence that Ryan Getzlaf sucks, he let Matthew Highmore steal the puck and get past him for a short-handed opportunity in the third. Luckily for him Highmore sucks too and didn’t convert, but he would later have a nice pass to David Kampf for the sixth goal, thanks to Getzlaf’s lazy-ass effort. Ya hate to see it.

Tonight was a win they had to have, and historically they’ve blown those opportunities. So we’ll take what we can get and just be glad they didn’t cough up a hairball against this half-assed excuse for a team on their home ice. Onward and upward…

 

 

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Preview: You Were Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off

By Sam Fels 1281 0

vs.

RECORDS: Ducks 26-31-8   Hawks 29-28-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

MUSKETEERS? ON GUARD?: Anaheim Calling

Whenever the Hawks were mapping out a road back to the playoffs–be it before the season, or in the depths of the fall, or when they looked barely competent around the new year and trying to place a final charge–they must have looked at March and thought this was where it would happen. Because looking at this month’s slate, even in their current state the Hawks could pile up some points here.

It starts tonight with the Ducks, who blow. The Wings are on Friday, and they blow. The Sharks and Sentators at home next week. They blow chunks, too. Minnesota in a home-and-home and then Buffalo, and both of those teams blow a fair amount as well. The Kings and Canadiens at the end of the month, and yep, there’s some definite blowage there as well. That’s nine games that you’d expect the Hawks to win, no matter their makeup. Which means if  the Hawks were to goof a couple of results out of the Oilers, Blues, Caps, Penguins, or Stars…they could have 86 or 88 points, or even more at denouement of the season.

Except that probably only worsens their draft position. And makes you wonder what if. And that’s if you think the Hawks will take all 18 points from the games they should. Which they won’t. There’ll be no shelter here.

Either way, it kicks off tonight with the visit of the Ducks, who have backed up all season themselves after backing up all last season and have never really recovered since a playoff loss to the Predators in 2017. Boy, that sounds familiar. The Ducks might still be in Step 1 of turning from the Getzlaf-Perry generation to the next that will be led by…well, they don’t really know who yet and that’s the problem.

Getzlaf is still here of course, but his can’t-be-bothered, I’ll-float-out-here style has now aged into a I-can’t-get-there-if-I-wanted-to-but-still-don’t morass. Getz is headed for his lowest point-total since 2012 or worse, and he’s still the #1 center around these parts. What kids he’s turning the torch over to, I can’t tell you. The Ducks seemed to have missed a generation, just like the Hawks have. Rickard Rakell is 27 soon. Jakob Silfverberg is 29. Adam Henrique is 30. Cam Fowler is 28. Josh Manson too. That’s not really anyone in their prime or approaching it who’s ready to be the centerpiece of this team. When your important players are either over 30 or under 24, you get this.

The younger ducklings (so clever) like Sam Steel or Max Jones or Max Comtois (Larry Horse say Ducks too Max-y) or Jacob Larsson haven’t seized the greater opportunities. There’s still time of course, but Ducks observers would probably like to see a little more flash and less talk. The Ducks have taken on a couple projects in the hopes of finding plutonium by accident like Danton Heinen or Sonny Milano or Christian Djoos. Something’s got to work soon, right?

There’s still a few kids who haven’t even gotten a full go yet, and that’s where the hope lies. But this being a Bob Murray team, they’re going to struggle to find room for them thanks to contracts like Ryan Kesler’s if he doesn’t want to retire, or Erik Gudbranson’s, or David Backes’s for one more year. It’s a project in Anaheim, that’s for sure. The hockey team matches the area around it. There’s a lot of trash just lying around with nothing to stand out from the background.

To the Hawks, it’s basically the same again as it was in Florida. Corey Crawford will start, and the rest of the lineup will remain the same. And really, why would you change anything at this point? How would you? It kind of picks itself.

Toews, Keith, Kane, and Crow have been sounding the bell about making a serious run this month, and they’ll probably be doing the same in the room. They have to. Players want to win, and there are wins here to be had. And hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Who knows what it would tell the front office though. Look, we’ve got to come up with some reason to electively watch the Hawks play teams like this, right?

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Dallas Eakins And The Curse Of The Marlies

By Sam Fels 1221 0

You won’t believe this, but everything being overblown and exaggerated just because it takes place in Toronto spreads beyond its NHL team. You probably knew that, because no Leafs fan every shuts the fuck up about what’s going on with the AHL’s Marlies. Remember when Mark Arcobello was all that was needed to get the Leafs from merely playoff attendant to Cup winner? The Rays don’t talk about their AAA team an eighth as much and that actually produces shit for the big club!

It’s like that every goddamn year with them, because everyone in T.O is under the delusion that everyone else cares about their entire system. He’s in Germany now, by the way. It was the same with Josh Leivo or T.J. Brennan or Carter Ashton or a host of others Leafs fans were convinced were NHL-worthy simply because they were in the Toronto system/area code who turned out to be tomato cans.

It’s apparently the same with with coaches. Except the Leafs have somehow exported that blurred vision of the world elsewhere.

Dallas Eakins is on his second job, and it’s hard to get a good read on what he is. The Ducks roster he has here is shit, John Gibson hasn’t played well, but it’s not like this team is overachieving or anything. Metrically, they’re about the same as the Hawks, and we know what a problem that is. But unlike the Hawks, there really isn’t a star on the roster besides Gibson, at least one that can stay healthy. Getzlaf is past it, Lindholm is just under that border, and the rest have flattered to deceive or are mere seat-fillers to plus seat-fillers.

But it wasn’t so long ago that you simply had to have Eakins as coach. He was the hot name because…he took the Marlies to the Calder Cup Final once? So it seems. Every second intermission on Hockey Night in Canada had some hockey wag breathlessly reporting that one of a dozen teams was all over Eakin’s ass. Most of the current crop of players that make the Leafs what they are now came after him, and/or skipped the Marlies altogether. Still, that was in the bloodstream, and the Oilers axed Ralph Kreuger to get Eakins even though the former had a surprising season with the dish-water talent that usually exists in EdMo. Well, Eakins won 36 of his 113 games in charge up there and was out on his ass in 18 months.

Of course, he’s not alone. Paul Maurice was able to parlay one season behind the Toronto bench to a job with the big club, which went exactly nowhere. He’s still getting work despite clearly demonstrating his head is filled with barf. Sheldon Keefe followed that same path as Maurice, just 15 years later or so, and he’s currently struggling to make the the playoffs with one of the more gifted sets of forwards in the league. Good stuff there. Clearly the Marlies are the start of a golden road. Or shower.

Eakins recovered to take a job with the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego, where he worked with some of the kids they hope will turn this ugly-ass ship around sometime soon. The Ducks and their fans have been bleating about Sam Steel and Max Jones and Max Comtois for a while now, without actual tangible results at the top level. Trevor Zegras was picked last draft and Isac Lundestrom came up for air briefly this season. Maybe they’ll be the ones who the Ducks got right.

Still, this is where Eakins is now, watching this dreck every night. Eakins did all right work with the Gulls for a couple seasons, taking them to the conference final last year with Steel, Jones, and others. But he never proved to be the genius that Toronto fans told everyone he was. Which is how things work around there all the time.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1062 0

Ryan Getzlaf – He’s the only shit-eater left now that Corey Perry and slinked off to Dallas to do pretty much nothing except elbow anyone who fell asleep for seven seconds to not see him coming. Getzlaf’s skills seems to have matched his attitude now, as he hasn’t given a shit in years and now he can’t just use his hands to get out of it. He’ll be 35 next season and in the last year of his contract, so this could be one of his last visits to the United Center. Which is fine, the fumigation costs after he leaves are absurd.

Erik Gudbranson – He’s hurt and won’t play tonight, but someone always seems to sign or trade for this cinderblock and he hasn’t been able to do anything since he came into the league. But if you’re big and hairy the NHL will always find a place for you for some reason.

Michael Del Zotto – There’s no coming back from publicly blowing it with a porn star, dude.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 990 0

Ducks

Notes: Here is a mash unit of sorts. If Hampus! Hampus! plays it’s kind of different animal, but it’s not expected…Henrique has nine points in his last eight games…Gibson has had a rough season, but was good against the Devils last out. He has to start as Miller is still just out of an illness, though the Hawks might see Anthony Stolarz tonight with the Ducks playing the Avs tomorrow…

Hawks

Hockey

Atop The Sugar Pile – 3/2: Kuba’s Korner

By Sam Fels 1587 0

The Dizzying Highs

Dominik Kubalik – First career hat trick in Tampa, which he had taken a run at before but didn’t quite complete, and five points in three games. Kubalik has had a rookie season beyond anyone’s dreams, and has been a genuinely fun thing to watch night in and night out. The power play has been revitalized with him on the right side and Kane switching to the left, though one might worry that teams will eventually cut off the one pass that has led to all this. But that’s for another time. Kubalik’s policy on the power play of just firing all the time is working for now.

Of course, the discussion will turn soon to whether if this is what Kubalik actually is going forward. It most certainly isn’t, because he’s not going to shoot damn near 20% for his whole career. No one does. Draisaitl and Oshie are right above and below him now, and their career marks are much lower. This is a spike, and we know that from how much he’s outperforming his expected marks. Still, his 0.86 individual xG/60 ranks in the top-30 in the league, which means that Kubalik could be viewed as a 20-25 goal from here on out with the occasional spike that will land him at 30 and above (he’s only 24 so you’d like to think he’ll have some years to play with). He also might always outperform his metrics given that he’s a good finisher.

Given Kubalik’s nose for space and finishing ability, you sort of wonder what he could do with a gifted passer. It’s not that Jonathan Toews is a bad passer or playmaker, but it’s not his specialty. Perhaps in the future, when the Hawks add another forward or two, Kubalik could find space for Kane or Dach on a full-time basis (even Strome is probably better passer than Toews) and keep his goal-totals inflated.

Again, discussion for another time. Sometimes you just have to enjoy what’s right in front of you.

The Terrifying Lows

Jeremy Colliton – It seems unfair to kick the guy after the Hawks got wins over two good teams competing for things right after they had one of the bigger stomach-punch losses in St. Louis, given all that went on before that one as well. The Hawks showed fight and pride, which isn’t always easy with a team going nowhere for a third year in a row.

But it’s hard to track Colliton’s comments that he’s proud of the way the Hawks have played hard all season and never given in, and then think about his comments after the losses to the Rangers and such where he claims that they didn’t care enough to start well or play the right way. What message do you want to send there, chief?

I would imagine that when this team plays hard it’s doing so for Toews and Co., and seeing as how Toews and Keith have made it pretty damn clear what they think of the steward of this ship, he’s probably trying to scramble to keep his job. Something tells me he’s going to keep it through the summer, but the leash in the fall is going to be awfully short.

This was also the week that down a goal to the Blues, Colliton sent his top power play plus Saad out for the final 2:51 of the game without a timeout. There isn’t any player on Earth that can keep his starch for 2:50, no matter how many stoppages. Needless to say, the Hawks didn’t really come close to finding a tying goal.

When the Hawks drew that power play with nearly three to go, the move was to send out the second unit, even for just 30 seconds if that’s what it was, and then send out the first unit with the goalie pulled for the rest of the game. Sure, you’re never guaranteed a stoppage when you need one to change, but you’re also not going anywhere with players out there for three minutes.

When anyone can point to what Colliton does well or who is a better player today than when he took over, I’ll think about removing the label “Worst Coach In The League” from around his neck. I’ll be waiting.

The Creamy Middles

Corey Crawford – Crow had a rough one in St. Louis, as everyone did. And maybe Crow’s pattern at this point in his career is just going to have a semi-regular clunker that keeps him more in the .915 range now instead of above .920 (though give him an improved defense and we’ll see). With nothing on the table, there would be no questions if that struggle had continued against two high-powered offenses in Florida (though the Bolts were hampered by injury). Instead, Crow turned away 74 of the 78 shots he saw in two games from teams loaded with finishers, and got the Hawks four points.

Never leave us.