Hockey

Game #68 – Hawks vs. Red Wings: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1004

Hawks

Notes: Carlsson left the game early last night after taking a shot to the ear, and you would think in the name of precaution and also this being the fucking Wings the Hawks could get away with sitting him for a night. Then again, Nick Seeler might be just that bad…Both Keith and Murphy played over 25 minutes last night. Some of that is being down to five d-men for half the game, but some of that is keeping Boqvist far too sheltered. He’s playing well…If you can’t give Subban a start against this collection of nitwits, then what’s even the point?

Red Wings

Notes: WHO?!…The Wings went with seven d-men last game so we’re assuming they’ll do so again…even if six of these guys suck to high heaven…Lindstrom is not Nicklas’s kid, but you can be sure the Wings drafted him to fool their fans into think he was…Larkin has nine points in his last seven games, and that’s the only line on this outfit that has any pulse whatsoever…

Hockey

High On The Hog: The Big Three

By Jon Fromi 1194

The Rockford IceHogs are about to begin a three-game weekend with big-time playoff implications. Chicago’s AHL affiliate kicks things off with a home-and-home with Grand Rapids before paying a visit to Rosemont and the Chicago Wolves.

Here’s a quick look at what’s waiting for the IceHogs this weekend.

Both the Griffins and Wolves are ahead of Rockford in the Central Division standings. The Hogs have split the season series with Grand Rapids. Their rivals from Michigan have taken ten points out of the first eight games between the teams, compared to Rockford’s eight.

Both teams have won twice on the road in the season series, though in recent years the trend has favored the home team in the rivalry. Over the last five seasons, Rockford is 15-8 against the Griffins at the BMO Harris Bank Center. Grand Rapids owns a 15-4-2-2 mark against the Hogs at Van Andel Arena.

Things get started in Rockford Friday night. A split just isn’t going to be good enough with the Griffins. The piglets need points in regulation, especially against a team battling with them for the postseason.

Back on February 18, Grand Rapids beat the Hogs 2-1 in Rockford. Three of this season’s tilts have been decided by that score. The next two games should also be hotly contested.

Veteran Chris Terry is pacing the Griffins in scoring, with 20 goals and 30 assists on the season. Grand Rapids also gets offense from familiar faces like Matthew Ford (10 G, 16 A) and Matt Puempel (15 G, 22 A). Goalies Calvin Pickard and Pat Nagle have been excellent against Rockford, giving up just seven goals in five games between them.

Rockford enters the weekend with John Quenneville (13 G, 9 A) still out with a strained neck. Joseph Cramarossa’s phyiscal game would be a welcome addition to the Hogs lineup. However, he also may not be ready to play this weekend.

The big injury news comes with Rockford’s announcement Thursday that goalie Kevin Lankinen is finished for the season after undergoing shoulder surgery. Things may not have ended like Lankinen had hoped this year, but the net is still in the capable hands of Collin Delia and Matt Tomkins.

Could Delia play in three straight games this weekend? He’s been the primary man in goal since Lankinen left a February 13 game after the first period. It would probably make sense to use Tomkins on Saturday in Grand Rapids and give the net to Delia Friday and Sunday, when Rockford visits the Wolves.

Chicago has lost four straight, including Thursday’s 4-2 decision to Tucson. The Roadrunners are at Allstate Arena Saturday night before Rockford comes a calling on Sunday.

The Wolves have been a little undermanned of late. They did, however, knock off the Hogs 5-1 in Rosemont on February 23 and made the piglets look pretty bad in doing so. Rockford is 6-2 against Chicago this season. They can wrap up the vaunted Illinois Lottery Cup for the first time in three years with a win in any of the last four meetings with the Wolves.

What’s really important, of course, is overtaking Chicago in the standings. That means getting the job done Sunday afternoon.

Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for my thoughts on the IceHogs throughout the season.

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers 3, Hawks 4 – On And On The Clouds Have Fought For Control Over The Sky

By Adam Hess 1786

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

It got a little more itchy than it needed to, but the Hawks were ultimately able to hang onto what was a comfortable lead tonight against the Oilers, and grab their fourth win a row to keep their minuscule-but-still-existent playoff chances alive. Let’s discuss:

ADAM BOQVIST AND KIRBY DACH ARE GOOD

– The first period was an encouraging and entertaining frame, as the Hawks did a nice job trading possession and chances with the Oilers, and ultimately netting the first goal of the game. While I loathe agreeing with anything Pat Foley ever has to say at this point, he was correct in pointing out after that period that the shot total from the two teams was a lot lower than it felt it should have been. But with that said, the Hawks were able to escape with a lead after a beautiful play by Dylan Strome set up Patrick Kane for a great scoring chance that he converted after showing some nice patience.

– The second period was all Blackhawks, as they notched a 76.67 (!!!) CF% in the middle frame and out-chanced the Oilers 12-4. It all started right away when Drake Caggiula went into full on hustle-play mode to win a rush and gain possession before a little kerfuffle in front of the net led to a Jonathan Toews wraparound chance that went in off a skate. Later on, Alex DeBrincat was able to cash in on two excellent chances with a little help from Caggiula parking his husky ass in front of Mike Smith, who was promptly pulled from the game after DeBrincat’s second and the Hawks fourth, only to throw a huge pissbaby tantrum while his paraded down the tunnel. In other news, I will be uploading the video of that tantrum to every adult video site known to man for your pleasure. I am a man of the people, after all.

– Let’s talk a bit about DeBrincat’s two goals, as I don’t have much to say about it but do want to touch on it specifically. Mostly I just want to say, damn it felt good to see the man get a pair tonight. It’s been a rough season for Top Cat due to getting hockey BABIP’d to high hell all year, but having those two go in had to feel good for the kid. If the Hawks do have any chance of going on a miracle run and making the playoffs, he is gonna have to get off his shnide a bit, so hopefully this was just the start to that.

– Staying with Top Cat but for a different reason, I cannot figure out for the life of me why he is still standing in front of the net on the PP1 unit. There is no way that is effective in the way it is intended to be, if Coach Smooth Brain is hoping that a few pucks bouncing off his legs and into the net are going to unlock his scoring touch, well that just confirms that his brain is smooth like a half melted piece of ice.

However, I have done Colliton’s job for him (someone has to) and developed a solution to this that is quite simple – swap Top Cat and Kirby Dach‘s respective roles on the PP1 and PP2 units. Put Dach on PP1 with Kane, Toews, Kubbly, and Keith, and let him park his big ass in front of the net where his size is actually useful but he still has the skill to actually make something of it. Then put DeBrincat on PP2 with Saad, Strome, Boqvist and whoever else, and let him work a half wall where is actually a legitimate threat with his quick release. Yes, I know this is too logical for Coach Gemstone, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t brilliant. You know it is.

– Overall, despite the itchiness of the third period, this was an encouraging performance from the Hawks against a team that is more than likely to be in the playoffs. Now all they have to do is string 10-12 more performances like this over their final 15 games. Easy enough, right?

– Hawks go next tomorrow night in Detroit, which should be a layup win. In some ways, that could be the real litmus test here – if they lose that one, you know they’re pretenders and should just pack it in for the draft pick. But winning, while it should be expected, would still mean they can be in because they are at least completing the bare minimum task of actually beating the teams they should. Until then.

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks Preview: Fully Operational

By Sam Fels 1427

vs.

RECORDS: Oilers 36-23-8   Hawks 30-28-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

SO VERY COLD: Oilers Nation

I suppose this is something of the pivot game for the Hawks. You would assume, though that could be a very silly thing to do, that they’ll get the win in Detroit tomorrow night that’s on offer for everyone. Another embarrassing effort against the Blues waits on Sunday (there’s been three already). But the Hawks can turn that into something of a free hit with a win over the Oilers tonight. That would also be four wins in row, with a chance of five in Michigan, which would allow the Hawks to say they’re “charging.” That’s if you buy into all this.

Also, the Oilers aren’t a flu-ridden Ducks team missing its top three d-men (who then went on to beat the Avs in Denver last night, because hockey is here to prove your rules are for shit).

That doesn’t mean we can tell you what the Oilers are. We have no idea. We were sure they would have collapsed by now. We thought Mike Smith would sink them. Or McDavid’s injury. Or a complete lack of forwards. Or just being the Oilers. And yet here they are, not only entrenched in the playoff race but only two points behind the Knights for the Pacific lead with a game in hand. Perhaps it’s just the Pacific Division that makes you question the rules you followed.

So what are they doing here. Special teams, special teams, and special teams again. The Oilers power play is clicking at 30%. They have the second-best penalty kill in the league. They have 56 power play goals, and 30 power play goals against. When you win the special teams battle pretty much every night, you don’t have to be that good at even-strength. And don’t you worry, the Oilers aren’t really.

Then again, it also helps to have two MVP-worthy players centering your top two lines.

The Oilers finally separated Draisaitl and McDavid this year, and have watched Draisaitl carry the team in McDavid’s absence and become the front-runner for the Hart himself. He leads the league in scoring by 13 points…over McDavid. He’s on pace to blow by Kucherov’s 128 last year, which we thought was a number that came from the moon then. And McDavid is McDavid. Seeing as how they’re going to the playoffs, you’d be hard-pressed to find an opposing blue line that would be looking forward to this challenge.

The Oilers sought to shore up their pretty sad forward situation at the deadline by bringing in Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Ennis, who apparently that guy who plays for all teams at pickup games in any sport. Raise your hand if you knew Ennis was still in the league. He wasn’t, he was in Ottawa. Anyway, he’s currently getting the sweetheart spot of playing alongside McDavid.

Which puts McDavid in the strange spot of being the line you don’t worry about as much. Since RNH-Draisaitl-Yamamoto have been put together they’ve kicked a hole it he world. Athanasiou is currently being used to give the bottom six anything resembling a pulse, so it’s a stronger outfit than the Hawks couldn’t overcome last time they met. And that one didn’t have McDavid, which kicked off that horror show Western Canada swing.

No changes for the Hawks tonight, and nor should there be. CCYP is making noise about starting Crawford in both halves of this back-to-back, but you’d think there couldn’t possibly be a softer landing for Malcolm Subban to make his Hawks debut than against former-Scum.

The Hawks couldn’t deal with the Oilers power play last time, so it will be imperative to stay out of the box as much as possible tonight. No one can deal with this power play. But hey, the Preds stayed out of the box pretty much against this team on Monday, and they gave up seven even-strength goals. So yeah.

But if the Hawks want to claim they have one last charge in them, and they’re on it now, they have to get this one.

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks Spotlight: Greece Lightning

By Sam Fels 1240

When news broke on deadline day that Andreas Athanasiou had finally been traded from Detroit, our hearts sank a little. We had dreamed of Athanasiou on Madison, if only for the localized Cheap Trick jokes. In earnest, Athanasiou is the kind of player the Hawks paid lip service to trying to get and find and develop a couple years ago, but never did. The Hawks aren’t fast enough, they only acquire or produce players that aren’t fast enough, and Athanasiou is the kind of speed they need to find more of. We especially were hurt by the seemingly light price-tag that Athanasiou cost the Oilers. Sam Gagner is merely a collection of organs now, and two second-rounders is not nothing but it’s hardly a chest full of gold either. Especially as the Oilers picks will be in the back half of the round, at least this year.

And because it happened in Detroit last year, which is now hockey’s tree-falling-in-the-forest, most don’t remember that Athanasiou went for 30 goals and 54 points last year while mostly playing with the charred ends of Frans Nielsen and Luke Glendening. How could he only be worth two seconds and a youth-coach-in-waiting?

It also seemed curious that Ken Holland is the one who came in for Athanasiou, as it felt like he was leading the charge of under-appreciation for him. It was Holland who stonewalled the player as a restricted free agent in 2017, nearly sending him to Europe and not signing him until three weeks into that season. But then it was Holland who didn’t make that mistake twice, handing him the contract he has now that expires after this season immediately. Maybe Holland has come around.

Still, if you wanted to, you could make the argument that Athanasiou is a glorified Tony Salmaleinen. Because that 30-goal campaign looks a long way off this season.

Athanasiou has only put up 11 goals this term, though playing most of his time in Detroit with yet another cadaver in Valttieri Filppula didn’t help matters. But all of Athansiou’s metrics are way down. He shot 13% last year, but it is just 8.,7 so far this season. His career mark is 12.7%, so this could be unlucky.

But his individual expected goals are down. So are his attempts. So are his scoring chances. And shots. He used to pile up over nine shots per 60 minutes. This year it’s below eight. He’s scoring a touch below what he “should” be, according to his ixG, but hardly enough to consider him hard done by.

Even upon arrival in Edmonton, he wasn’t immediately put in the top six where one would assume he would go. He’s behind Tyler Ennis, for christ’s sake. He’s got a chance to make an impact in the playoffs for the first time, and maybe playing against third pairings will give him the chance to really open things up.

It might be his last chance at a raise. Athanasiou is still a restricted free agent after this year. But he can earn another bridge deal before heading to free agency. It’s clear Holland wants a clear look here in a new place.

Because it feels like Athanasiou should be more than this. That could be simply because his prime skill, his speed, is so easy to notice by anyone. It can look like he’s having more of an effect than he is. Still, at some point he’s going to get a look with Draisaitl or McDavid, for the first time with a prime center, and we’ll find out just what he could be. If Zack Kassian can pile up 15 goals riding shotgun, and he can’t move or think or talk, what could someone with these gifts do?

Hockey

Game #67 – Oilers vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1120 0

Mike Smith – For some reason, the Oilers seem intent on making Smith their unquestioned #1 goalie even though his numbers are worse than Koskinen’s. And what’s worse, with the Oilers looking locked-on for the playoffs, is he probably will play well once they arrive. Smith has only been to the playoffs twice, though that being such a low numbers is partially on him being less than stellar in the regular season, but has been excellent when there. It wasn’t his fault that the Flames got pulverized by Nathan MacKinnon last year. And you know what he did in 2012. Gonna piss the shit out of us.

Zack Kassian – Watch all the Wolves fans come down tonight to cheer their former hero. Just kidding, no Wolves fan ever gets over the fear of entering the city because people of color live here.

Andreas Athanasiou – Just because he’s someone we’ve wanted on the Hawks for a while and it hurts when Ken Holland is the one to make the jump.

Hockey

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

By Sam Fels 1098 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 2493 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 1915 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…