Hockey

What’s So Scary About Jay Bouwmeester

By Sam Fels 1908 0

This post will pretty much mirror one I wrote years ago on my defunct Liverpool site on SB Nation, now lost to the annals thanks to SB Nation asking me to do a Liverpool blog after they’d already hired The Offside to be their Liverpool blog and leaving me firmly in the lurch…but that’s not why you called. Anyway, then I wrote most of what will follow after Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the field at White Hart Lane, though like Jay Bouwmeester, he eventually was ok. But he was very close to very much not being so.

I always struggle with sports as “escape.” I mean, they are, but we’re never totally disconnected from everything else. Sports play a big role in society, and I quarrel with anyone who tries to ignore that. That’s becoming a bigger and bigger aspect of it these days. Still, there are always times when we watch or attend sporting events simply to enjoy ourselves, to enter this sort of alternate reality where our emotions are tied into something we have no control over. Every one of us has used a trip to Wrigley, or The Rate, or the UC as an excuse to forget our problems and just enjoy the day. It’s not always that, and maybe not even often anymore, but it is that at times. And when it’s not fully that, it’s still an element.

Whatever you or I use sports for, it is not to witness death. We are not the Romans. People may say that those who watch racing watch to see accidents and eventually someone die, but there is something of a separation from it with them inside a car. No one knew at the moment that Dale Earnhardt had died. Or Ayrton Senna. It wasn’t on our cameras. And that’s probably a separate discussion. MMA or boxing an enter the discussion too here I suppose, but I’ve never come across anyone who genuinely watches either in the hopes someone dies. If there are we need to find those people and weed them out. Everyone accepts it could happen, but no one reasonable wants that.

Because if you’ve seen someone die, in whatever forum and whatever relationship to you, you know it’s not something you’d ever want to repeat if you don’t have to. It never leaves you. You carry it forever. If it does, maybe I envy you or maybe I fear you, or maybe both. It’s certainly not something we want out of an experience that is meant to be enjoyed.

But it’s more than that. As loathe as I am to quote or reference Heath Ledger’s Joker, he had a point. It’s not part of the plan.

One of the reasons people watch sports is to watch people do things that almost all of us can’t. In hockey, a lot of hockey fans still play hockey, or played a lot of it at a younger age. And almost none of them can dance through three guys at high speed and go top cheese when reaching the goalie (though most around here will tell you they did just that on Al Montoya at some local rink). I still play soccer and tennis, and I can’t kill a ball out of the air dead and then rifle it in the top corner (I can barely keep from falling over when even trying the first part). I can’t rip a forehand on the run through a foot-and-a-half window down the line at 90 MPH (same as before). I enjoy watching the pros because they can do that, and I have a semblance of a feeling of just how hard that is and even more so how easy they make it look. And they do it against others who can do the same. And even better than that is when they do things that I can’t even fathom being able to do.

These guys, and gals, are the top of the top. They’re in a condition none of us could ever reach. As much fun as we’ve made of him over the years, Jay Bouwmeester is among the top 1% of athletes in the world. Actually, he’s in the top 0.01%. He plays hockey at the top level possible, has for over a decade, which means his conditioning, his reflexes, his reaction time, his instincts, are almost immeasurable. They’re certainly not anything most of us could even dream of having even for a day. It’s the rarest of combinations.

Guys like that aren’t supposed to just drop dead in front of us in the peak of their lives, which he nearly did. It doesn’t add up to what we’ve come here for.

It’s hard to think of a more stark reminder of just how fragile and how nonsensical it all is. If that can happen, or almost happen as it was, to Bouwmeester, there’s no protection for the rest of us. And for most of our lives, most of us shut that out most of the time. You have to, otherwise how the fuck would you ever leave the house? Deep down, you know when your number is up it’s up, and some physical condition that you didn’t know about and couldn’t be easily detected or a truck having its brakes shear or whatever it is can pop up any moment. Quite frankly, I don’t know how those of you who have kids do it, because not only do you have yourself to navigate through all that and cognitive dissonance that takes but then adding others’ you’re responsible for on top of that seems utter torture to me.

I feel like that’s why when these things happen, even though Bouwmeester looks like he’ll be ok and Rich Peverly was ok and so was Jiri Fischer (though there are others who weren’t in other sports), games get postponed. Everything is broken at that point.There is no curtain. I mean, seeing Alex Smith’s leg injury wasn’t that much less disturbing, and many others like it, but that’s part of the game. We and he signed on for that, basically. Seeing Martin Havlat’s eyes roll in the back of his head in 2009 thanks to Niklas Kronwall was pretty damn scary. Ditto Marian Hossa three years later. We knew at the time their lives could be very different after that, though thankfully it doesn’t appear that it was for those two. But, in a sick sense, that’s part of the game. We let in that doubt and fear somewhat when those happened, but it doesn’t take over.

It does when something like what happened to Bouwmeester happens. There’s no “part of the game” to hide behind or use as protection to keep our experience together, and separate from the rest of life.

Maybe this will all break down one day when a player isn’t ok, especially in hockey or in the NFL when someone could not get up forever from something that just happens in game. But for now, we can keep up the facade.

 

Hockey

Now It Is About What You’re Selling, Not What You’re Buying

By Sam Fels 1929 0

Fair warning, everything that comes next in this post is almost certainly fantasy. It’s what the Hawks should do, but almost certainly what they won’t. You know the truth, I know the truth, but the truth hasn’t found purchase in the barren wasteland of the Hawks’ braintrust in a long time. While the Hawks have lost five straight, they will use their effort last night–which was very good–and the unlucky nature of the defeats to Boston and arguably Minnesota as justification that the results will turn around sharpish and they’ll be back in it.

And on the surface, the Hawks can make that argument. They’re six points back with two games in hand on the Yotes and one on the Flames, who just happen to be next up on the schedule. And with as bad as the West is, and with the amount of teams in this jumble, it’s kind of hard to just fall out of it. It’s also nearly impossible to climb into it.

But you don’t need an archeological team to get beneath the surface to see the truth. The Hawks are in last, and they’re two points behind the Wild who very well may be giving up in that they’ve already traded Jason Zucker. This is a team that had to go 12-6-0 just get to get back into the bottom of the conversation of the playoffs. But this isn’t a team that wins 12 of 18. This is a team that wins 12 of 23, as they now have done. That’s who they are.

Right now, the Coyotes are on pace for 89 points. The Hawks are on pace for 83 (EIGHTY-THREE). The Hawks would have to play at a 101-point pace to get to 89, which might not be enough. And I guess, if you were the most cock-eyed of cock-eyed optimist, you could say they already played at a 101-point once for six weeks there. Do you honestly think they have it in them again?

And by every metric, the Hawks are where they should be. They’re one of the worst defensive teams in the league. They’ve outscored what they have created, though they’re built to do that. What’s going to get better here? Certainly not the goaltending. It can’t. Maybe DeBrincat has a two- to three-week binge in him. Maybe the power play binges for no reason other than the sense of humor of the gods. But how much can that rise above the horrific defense? How is this team going to leap over four teams?

So here’s the question the Hawks’ front office has to answer, though we know how they will: While there is value for the younger players to play in games that matter and have stakes, does that matter more than what they can gather long term by selling at the deadline? It’s clear it would not. Long-term, the Hawks are still at least a winger short (likely two) and two d-men short. If they want to say Ian Mitchell is one of those d-men, I’ll take it, but you still need one more. And none of those answers are in the system. The pipeline…she be dry.

So what can the Hawks do here? If you were to separate out Erik Gustafsson, Robin Lehner, possibly Corey Crawford, maybe Drake Caggiula, maybe Olli Maatta and think what you could collectively for all of them…maybe a 1st round pick, a 3rd or 4th round pick, and a prospect or two. The last of which probably won’t amount to more than a couple lottery tickets, but you need lottery tickets. And an additional 1st rounder could be combined with the Hawks’ 1st rounder to acquire an actual piece at the draft. You never know how that will shake out. Or you just use your two first rounders and maybe you get something for 2021-2022. Or maybe you package your first rounders to get into the top five. I don’t know, but what I do know is it gives you options you need.

Because if one summer trade and one free agent signing get you another winger and d-man, and you can solve your goaltending without breaking the bank (i.e. some combo of Talbot, Markstrom, Crawford, Halak, Murray, Greiss, Khudobin, who are all free agents and not all will be ewxpensive), now you’re ready to do more than just scrape in as a wildcard and get your brains beaten in by the Blues.

Maybe if Colliton finally has the mobile blue line–which it would be with Boqvist, Mitchell, Murphy, Keith, and acquisition to come–his high-pressure system has a chance, if you’re determined to stick with it. That’s a discussion for another time.

The biggest frustration with the Hawks over the past couple seasons, distilled down to its essence, is a complete lack of vision. Everything is made up on the fly. In the summer of 2017 it was we have to get younger and faster. So in came Saad and Murphy, out went Panarin and Hjalmarsson. And then that just stopped. Strome isn’t fast. de Haan isn’t fast. Maatta isn’t fast. Gustafsson isn’t fast. Koekkoek isn’t fast. And suddenly it was about blocking shots and being gritty. And all of it has left the Hawks spinning their wheels.

Now’s the time to show you have vision. Yeah, the playoff spot is visible, if you squint. But trust your fans to see the big picture, because they do. They’re dying for the Hawks to see it as well.

If Keith gets pissed off at another lost season, so be it. Is he really going to be a part of your next very good team at 38? Would Kane? Well, there’s your chance to really reset everything. There is opportunity here, if you only see it that way instead of the end.

Where does the vision come from, though? Do you trust Stan to do the sell-off much less the final touches of a rebuild which he hasn’t gotten right yet? Does McDonough know this? Does he have the balls to fire Stan now and get someone in to do this job? Is it too late? Will Stan follow instruction? Will he even get it?

This is the frustration, because we’re pretty damn sure these questions aren’t even being asked in those offices, much less being answered. But it’s time now. You’re done.

Or you can continue to chase this playoff spot you won’t get. Lehner and Crawford can both walk. Seabrook wants back in. You have no prospects. Maybe Mitchell doesn’t want any part of this. Where are you then?

The answer is clear to us. It’s time they see it.

Hockey

Game #57 – An Ache in Your Soul, It’s Everybody’s Goal to Get What They Can’t Have – Hawks 0, Canucks 3

By John Pullega 1653 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

They had 49 shots. They had the puck for almost 70% of the game. They scored zero goals.

They were two points out of a playoff spot just a couple of weeks ago. They have now lost five in a row and have next to no shot.

They aren’t bad because they’re inconsistent. They’re inconsistent because they’re bad.

– At the beginning of the year, the Hawks were an at-best bubble team whose only real shot at a playoff run was the offense bailing out the defense. Tonight was a microcosm of what happens when it can’t. Despite allowing just 19 shots on goal, it was the hideous combination of lack of blue line talent and quite possibly the worst system in the NHL that did the Blackhawks in. Look at what the system shat out on the Canucks’s first goal.

That’s Slater Koekkoek, a defenseman, above the dot covering J.T. Miller on the penalty kill. This is by design. Having a D-man on the PK going up to cover an obscenely low-chance shot instead of the motherfucking slot is what Jeremy Colliton is asking him to do. Holy shit, look at how much space Sutter and Horvat have. It lost them the game.

Here’s another coverage play following Caggiula getting leveled and turning the puck over. Once again, Slater Koekkoek leaves a high-danger area to cover a man in a low-danger spot. Just look at this.

Why? Why are you pointing in this direction instead of sagging back? Because this is what Jeremy Colliton wants him to do. It’s absurd, and it lost them the game. We all know that Slater Koekkoek sucks in general. But a system that accentuates his suck (and the general suckage on the blue line) is something Colliton has direct control over. And he just keeps fucking it up. Over and over again.

We can go on about how Zach Smith and Ryan Carpenter each got more time than Brandon Saad—the Hawks’s hottest scorer over the last eight games, mind you—on the power play. In fact, Saad had no power play time at all. But it really doesn’t matter.

This blue line is too bad, the system is too fucked, and Jeremy Colliton is too blockheaded to fix anything. The best thing he’s done all year is scratch Seabrook, and the shelf life on that accomplishment has passed. He’s walking whiskey dick: a constant tease buried under a mountain of failed deliveries and broken promises. We all saw it coming, and it somehow still stings.

– Corey Crawford did what he could, and that’s all he can do. It’s going to suck watching him leave on these terms.

– Kirby Dach’s hands are still excellent. Once he learns that he can’t make that one extra move he could in juniors, he’s going to score more. He’s a small bright spot to look forward to for the rest of the year.

– Dominik Kubalik is getting first unit power play time thanks to DeBrincat’s struggles, apparently. Though Colliton may not realize it, he IS allowed to put Kubalik and DeBrincat on the same unit, if only he could find a place for Zach Smith and Ryan Carpenter. Kubalik didn’t score, but he wasn’t afraid to shoot, at least.

– Adam Boqvist looked more confident bringing the puck up the ice tonight. He made a few juke moves that ought to make the drop pass obsolete. But until this pretty lunkhead gets the heave-ho, it won’t matter.

What had looked like a relatively weak schedule and a chance to squeak into a weak Conference’s last wild card spot now looks like a month and a half of agony; a slow, painful death rattle that’ll deliver enough slop to let these fucking pigs in the front office think they can still compete. But they can’t, because their coach is a bonafide moron who—despite efforts to convince myself otherwise—really is as bad as we all thought.

Fucking 49 shots. Nearly 70% possession. No goals, and two systemic defensive flaws leading to a loss.

Ya blew it, Jeremy. Ya blew it.

Beer du Jour: Death by King Cake

Line of the Night: “But it was floppin’ around on him.” -Foley on a DeBrincat dump pass.

Hockey

Game #57 – Hawks at Canucks Preview – Seaward With The C-Words

By Matt McClure 1252 0

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Game Time: 9:30PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, SportsNet+, SN360, WGN-AM 720
Slaying The Dragon: Nucks Misconduct, Canucks Army

After a thoroughly embarrassing performance in Edmonton last night, the Hawks have no time to regroup as they continue their Western Canadian tour in Vancouver tonight against the Canucks, and just in time for Sedin Twin Night as 22 and 33 go into the rafters at Rogers Arena.

Hockey

Game #57 – Hawks vs. Canucks Spotlight: Children Of The Corn

By Sam Fels 1330 0

We didn’t ask for this. The Canucks made it so. One, they have such a nondescript team that we’ve already highlighted Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson so who gives a fuck about anyone else now? We didn’t pick this fight.

So the Canucks are having the Sedin Twins jersey retirement against the Hawks. Bet they think that’s pretty cute. Better yet, we’re pretty sure if you asked them, the Canucks brass would tell you they picked this date because the greatest Canucks victory ever came against the Hawks. Let’s review, shall we?

That victory, the dragon-slaying as it’s known up there, was merely the Presidents’ Trophy winner avoiding blowing a 3-0 lead to an overmatched, exhausted, and undermanned Hawks team. It should have only been relief, not a marker. Jake Dowell and Fernando Pisani got serious run for that team. Ryan Johnson did too. This was hardly the juggernaut that had gone upside the Canucks head the previous two seasons.

And that’s the thing about the Canucks and the Sedins. They can look back and try and claim how much those series with the Hawks meant, but it doesn’t mean the same here. Sure, the Canucks were part of it, but as Hawks fans and they cherish the one series win over Detroit (kind of the same thing as ’11 for the Canucks, except it resulted in a Cup win and had much more history to it) far more than anything then happened with Vancouver. Or the win over the Bruins. Or the two battles with the Kings. Hell, the Hawks have the same playoff history with the Predators.

If the Canucks and Sedins wanted to be truly apt, they would stand in the shadows during the ceremony tonight, because that’s all they did when it mattered. Especially Daniel, or Shooty-Twin. Are they the greatest Canucks of all-time? Absolutely. Should they walk into the Hall of Fame? Of course. Their numbers should have been retired immediately upon retirement. But they can’t ever shake the legacy that they couldn’t bring Vancouver what it doesn’t have, and were some of the biggest reasons they don’t.

2009 against the Hawks: Daniel had two goals, both in Game 6 when his team forgot to play defense.

2010 against the Hawks: Daniel didn’t score once.

2011 against the Bruins: One goal.

Daniel would go on to score one playoff goal in 11 more playoff games as the Canucks still look for their first series victory since going to the Final in ’11. Haven’t managed one yet. Henrik continued to put up assists through all this, as he Getzlaf’d his way through games on the outside while watching it all pretty much pass him by. And it’s not like they found success before this in the postseason. Daniel had two goals in 12 games in 2007 and the record will read 25 goals total in 102 playoff games. Henrik managed 78 points in just about the same amount of playoff games, but ask Canucks fans if they remember any.

Sometimes it’s not fair to judge players on what happens just in the playoffs. The competition kicks up, teams are focused on stopping you, and in a handful of games the percentages and bounces can just abandon you even if you’re doing everything right. But at some point, when you’re the top line players and the biggest reason your team is there in the first place, you have to stand up and be counted. It didn’t stop Toews. Or Kane, Or Crosby. Or Malkin. Or Ovechkin. Or Kopitar. But it stopped the Sedins, multiple times.

Vancouver can ignore it for a night. Maybe even a lifetime. But it’s part of the record in the rest of the hockey world. So have your ceremony against the Hawks if it makes you feel good. No fanbase or team knows the truth better.

Hockey

Game #57 – Hawks vs. Canucks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1162 0

Antoine Roussel: Honestly, we kind of miss having him out of the division. While the marriage of him and Vancouver is perfect, and even more so as they grossly overpaid him, now that he’s on the West Coast, never on our TV, and has got his money his antics don’t even really exist. And this dude tried so hard to be considered annoying. Like he tried harder than Springstreen tries to convince you just how hard it is to play his shit-ass songs. That’s so hard! Ah well, nothing lasts forever, especially the truly wonderful.

Alex Edler: The elbows still work.

Adam Gaudette: Isn’t it weird that given a chance, Dylan Sikura’s running buddy at Northeastern has carved himself out a role on a third line for a team basically running a 3+1 model? Isn’t that strange? Wonder where else that could happen?

Hockey

Game #57 – Hawks vs. Canucks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 914 0

Hawks

Notes: We’re assuming this bullshit with Strome is over after one game and he’ll slot back in for a game the Hawks simply have to have. Then again, they had to have last night and here we are. Fuck, maybe he’ll even be put back at center which is, y’know, the position he plays!…It’s funny that the same day the Sun-Times wrote an article about how Dach has earned Colliton’s trust, his line continues to get clocked possession-wise as Tippett was able to get Draisaitl out against him a ton. That’s no knock on Dach (HA!), because he’s a goddamn teenager and the learning curve is steep. It’s a knock on Colliton and what he’s looking for…

Canucks

Notes: Pretty long injury list for the Canucks, as Boeser won’t make the bell tonight along with other depth forwards. But then McDavid not playing didn’t fucking matter, so whatever…Miller is on a real heater right now, with 20 points in his last 17 games and a strong case for the Selke…Horvat has killed the Hawks lately, with six points against them in the last five games between the teams…

Hockey

Game #56: Hawks 3, Oilers 5 – Death Knell

By Adam Hess 1654 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Ooooooh boy. Jeremy Colliton has done it this time. You want your thoughts buddy? I got your thoughts. Let’s get right into it:

LAUNCH JEREMY COLLITON TO PLUTO

– The Blackhawks failing to beat the Oilers without Connor McDavid is embarrassing, but the reality is that this truly is not on the roster of players on the ice tonight. Sure, the typical characters had their typical characteristic moments – Adam Boqvist got a little floaty in his own zone, Erik Gustafsson got caught out of position, Alex Nylander failed at competency, etc. You get it. But at this point, those things are somewhat expected, and they’re also things you can live with because none of them are true killers (well, Gustafsson’s shit can be, but it wasn’t tonight). No, this all comes back to Jeremy Colliton. What is about to follow is my somewhat raw feelings on this sad excuse for a hockey coach.

– Let’s start with Jeremy Ventura’s first mistake of the day, which was healthy scratching Dylan Strome. In a game that the Hawks needed to win to keep themselves in a spitting distance of the playoff hunt, he scratches one of his three best centers to play Alex Nylander *and* Matthew Highmore. Because when you have the chance to scratch a guy with 30 points in 44 games this season in favor of two guys who don’t know which net they’re supposed to be shooting at, you gotta do it. This man couldn’t coach a high school team.

– Now let’s get to the power play, which was complete ass cheeks for the second straight game that also resulted in an embarrassing loss in Western Canada when you needed a win. And hey, I am no scientist, but maybe the fact that Zack Smith and Erik Gustafsson are on your PP1 while Alex DeBrincat and Adam Boqvist are on your PP2 has something to do with that? Maybe because that PP1 with Smith and Gustafsson also features three other lefties so you’re cutting yourself off from a whole fucking side of the ice? Who’s to say really? Certainly not Coach Mayor Pete. This man’s couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper sack with scissors.

– And then there was just the flat out lack of preparation. The Oilers took the lead in this game just 73 seconds after puck drop, and that was because the only time the puck left their offensive zone after puck drop was when the Oilers made an errant pass and sent it back down the ice themselves. It had nothing to do with the Blackhawks generating any sort of defensive pressure or offensive transition. And that is because Jeremy Smooth Brain’s system is such a mess that even the McDavid-less Oilers know that all you need to do is skate fast around them and the system collapses because you have forwards deep and defensemen near the blue line. Seriously, the Oilers scored their goal on a transition that started with Alex DeBrincat getting burned at the point of the Hawks offensive zone (not that they were doing anything worthwhile in there) because he was the last man recovering after being behind the net defending. That is a system that makes absolutely no fucking sense, constructed by a man who’s brain is so smooth you could bowl with it.

The players might share a small part of the burden for not just coming out with a sense of urgency in a game that was clearly must win, but it’s still the coach’s job to motivate his team to get up for these kinds of games. To convince them that they are important and why. And he clearly didn’t because he clearly cannot. He is a dead man walking.

– The only player in this game who does get a portion of the blame though is Robin Lehner, who had a rough first 40 with some truly mind-numbingly stupid moments. Playing goalie is very hard, and Lehner has been fine this year so I don’t want to make more of it than is necessary, but there were a few times where he thought he had the puck and he just didn’t, and it cost the Hawks at least one goal if not more. Again, it doesn’t need to be a big issue, but it was a problem tonight.

– Hawks go next tomorrow in Vancouver, and lucky me, I don’t have to watch that one.

– Fire Jeremy Colliton!!!!

Hockey

Game #56 – Hawks at Oilers Preview – Phantom Limb

By Matt McClure 1346 0

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Game Time: 8:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago+, WGN-AM 720
Church Of McJesus Christ and Leon-Day Saints: Oilers Nation, Copper n Blue

Well, the Hawks certainly won’t be able to say that they weren’t the beneficiaries of a bit of good fortune during whatever this so-called playoff push might become, as word just before press time leaked out that Connor McDavid will miss 2-3 weeks with a thigh bruise, which certainly puts him out for tonight’s tilt in Edmonton, and may very well keep him out of the lineup for the UC rematch the first week of March.