Hockey

Game #54 – Bruins vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 976 0

Bruins

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Notes: Tuke Nuke ‘Em started last night against Vancouver, so it’ll be Halak tonight. He had a rough January as he put up an .886 in the month…Pasta is on another heater, with nine points in his last six games…Krejci also has seven points in his last six, and Debrusk is coming along with him…

Notes: We missed our guess last night, so it’ll be Lehner tonight for sure. Had a rough start his last time out so he should be raring to go…Koekkoek got awfully Koekkoek-y last night so maybe we’ll see Seeler sooner on the road trip than we thought…the Saad-Dach-Kane line had a bad night last night but hopefully they stick with it longer…so did Keith and Boqvist, despite the latter scoring. Those have been piling up for them, and while we’d like to see Boqvist with Murphy at some point there just isn’t a way to lineup the rest of the defense to work along with it…

Hockey

Game #53 – Sometimes It Snows in April. Sometimes I Feel So Bad – Hawks 2, Wild 2 (Wild Win Anime-Drawing Contest)

By John Pullega 1816 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Since Prince’s untimely death, there hasn’t been a redeeming quality to speak of regarding Minnesota. And for the first 50 minutes tonight, all was as it has ever been since then. But a flutter puck and bad-angle goal later, the Hawks were on the brink of being one point back for the second wild card spot. They managed a point from it all, and they were fortunate to get even that. Let’s clean it up.

– Bruce Boudreau has made a career out of winning games that his opponents can’t be bothered to play during the doldrums of the season. Tonight’s first 50 minutes was a master class in that style. The thing is, the Hawks don’t have the luxury of falling prey to a team that’s playing like it’s the last week in April with a spot on the line. But there they were, dragging ass and just hoping that Crawford would pull them out of the sling, which he almost did. It’s hard to find an excuse for it.

Through the first two periods in fact, just two Blackhawks had CF%s that weren’t in the negatives: Gustafsson and Murphy. The Wild kept the Hawks on the perimeter as is their wont, and the Hawks 10,000-pass setups were even more useless than they usually were.

– If the Hawks are going to rat fuck their way into the playoffs—and I still think they will—it’s going to take the kind of small miracles we saw from Boqvist and Maatta. Adam Boqvist was having a putrid game until his goal. He and Keith got clobbered in possession, but more worrying was how tentative Boqvist looked on the power play again. After the Koivu trip on Kane, Boqvist looked like he was going to charge through the neutral zone ass ablaze, only to just stop along the far boards in the neutral zone and nearly turn it over. When the Hawks finally got the puck in, Boqvist did end up turning it over anyway.

Boqvist occasionally flashes a charge only to curl back, and you have to imagine it’s by design. But we’ve seen what happens when he’s tentative, and it’s not pretty. When he just says “fuck it,” like he did on his wrist-shot goal, good things tend to happen. His wrister was more of a floater than a snapper, but he’s got a real weapon with it regardless.

– Olli Maatta was also having a terrible, terrible game prior to his goal, which is one of the more absurd goals we’ve seen this year. He was on the far boards and managed to pot the shot far side. Sometimes it doesn’t need to make sense.

– Alex DeBrincat needs a fucking hug. He had two or three quality chances snuffed or overshot, and you can see it’s really taking a toll on him. On his near breakaway off the Donato turnover in the first, Top Cat had a couple of steps on Donato. But as the play developed, it looked like DeBrincat was skating through sand. Donato managed to catch up and bother DeBrincat while he shot, ruining the chance. Him coming around in these last two months is going to be crucial to any playoff hopes the Hawks will have.

– Kirby Dach makes me forget about Bowan Byram sometimes. He was a beacon light in the third period, and nearly scored a highlight-reel goal after completely breaking Jonas Brodin’s ankles in the near circle. There’s such fluidity to his skating and puck handling. Plus, he’s now on a four-game scoring streak (1 G, 4 A) after going 12 games without. He’s going to be special; it’s just a question of whether it’ll be here when it all comes together and whether it will matter when it does.

– Connor Murphy was outstanding tonight. He broke up a Foligno breakaway halfway through the first and should have had a primary assist late in the second, if not for Brandon Saad passing up a gaping net to pass to a heavily covered Patrick Kane in the crease.

– Erik Gustafsson had a stereotypical Erik Gustafsson game. His fancy stats were nice (65+ CF%, 75+ xGF%), he tallied an assist, and then he turned the puck over in OT, leading to the loss. He hasn’t been an open sore lately, but we also had 10 days off, so that’s probably factoring into the memory of him.

You’ll take the one point because they really didn’t deserve any. A win tomorrow could put them within one point of the second wild card spot. What a world.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Michter’s Small Batch

Line of the Night: You best believe this was a Mute Lounge Game.

Hockey

Game #53 – Hawks vs. Wild Preview: At Least We’ve Got You Beat

By Sam Fels 1626 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 25-21-6   Wild 23-22-6

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN

ONE GOOD DOSE OF THUNDER: Hockey Wilderness

The Hawks will conclude their mini-trip out of the bye week in St. Paul tonight, before returning home for all of one game and then heading back out where they came from for another five games. That’s some brilliant scheduling if you ask me! You can feel Toews’s rage without much effort. But the Hawks won’t have a lot of time or cause to bitch, because every point is valuable and though the travel schedule might not make much sense the opponents on offer are certainly gettable. That for sure describes the Minnesota Wild these days.

While the Hawks are certainly in the thick of the playoff race, mostly because it came back to them, they aren’t really away from anyone. The Preds and Jets are right there with them. The rest of the division is pretty much out of touch out ahead in the distance. Except for the Wild, whom the Hawks can kind of put out of their misery tonight. That sounds silly to say with 29 games left after this one, but a regulation win would put the Wild five points in arrears and that’s a massive gap. Not that it’s one the Hawks couldn’t cough up, but let’s say it’s unlikely. And the more teams you can cull from the chase the better off you are.

It’s not hard to pinpoint where it’s gone wrong for the Wild. While Bruce Boudreau continues to conjure up his magic potion of not really being a great Coris team but an excellent expected goals team – i.e. the Wild are content to give up attempts but don’t give up good chances–that doesn’t really matter if your goalies can’t stop a sloth in the sand. The Wild give up the least amount of xGA/60 and scoring chances per game in the league, but their SV% is bottom-10 with both Alex Stalock and Devan Dubnyk especially facing the wrong way and identifying cloud shapes most of the time. That’ll torpedo most teams, and so it has done with the Wild.

Which might just be enough to torpedo Boudreau out of a job come April.  It would be a second-straight playoff-less season, and the team probably needs an overhaul, and there’s a new GM on board these days in Bill Guerin and his weird face. It might not be totally fair to Gabby, but dem’s da breaks. The Wild certainly score enough to be better than this, at 3.06 per game, and their defensive structure has kept the task to a minimum for the goalies. But they haven’t been up to it, and if you were to swap goalies with the Hawks the Wild most definitely would be in the playoff picture if not up among the top three in the Central. Also when your goalies suck it’s hard to have anything near a decent penalty kill, and the Wild very much don’t, second-worst in the league. They’re not good enough to outscore teams by two or three at evens.

Which is saying something for Gabby, because the Wild feel like they’re short on frontline talent once again. Zach Parise these days is a tweener between a first and second line player, and the advanced age of Eric Staal might make him that as well. Mats Zuccarello has always been that, as has Jason Zucker (and he’s missed a fair amount of time this year as well). Kevin Fiala might actually be proving to be something more than sarcophagus filling with 28 points, but he’s not providing what Mikhail Granlund used to (but certainly isn’t now). That Rask-for-Nino trade was such a disaster that Rask is a healthy scratch tonight. There isn’t a lot here, and you can’t say Boudreau isn’t maximizing it.

The blue line is still very solid and finally healthy, as you can do a hell of a lot worse on a top-four than Suter, Spurgeon, Brodin, and Dumba. That’s how the Wild keep things pretty limited in their end, even if it is all getting undone by the men in the mask.

No changes for the Hawks other than it looks like Lehner will get the start with Crow getting the slightly tougher assignment of Patrice And The Pips tomorrow night. New boy Nick Seeler, who is neither loose nor tight, won’t make his debut against his former team tonight and let’s just hope he’s ballast for the rest of the season. You don’t want this rockhead taking regular minutes, believe us.

The key tonight for the Hawks is getting to the middle of the offensive zone. The Wild are more than happy to let you putter around the perimeter and try and thread a needle through to the net from there. Suter and Brodin especially play economical defensive games where they let things come to them and simply prod you back outside the dots or behind the net. So players like Kane and Dach and Strome and Top Cat, the ones who can conjure something out of nowhere will have to, and players like Toews, Kubalik, and Saad who can get to the middle through power will need to do some of that as well. If you can get the shots, the Wild goalies will give you goals.

It’s a big ask to get four of four with the Bruins waiting tomorrow, though they’ll also be on the second of a back-to-back, on the road, the Hawks have been great with those all season, and they’ve caught the Bruins napping before this season. Still, these two points seem pretty vital before that road trip that is going to determine the rest of the season. They’re right there, so take them.

Hockey

Game #53 – Hawks vs. Wild Spotlight: After The Gold Rush

By Sam Fels 1439 0

You may not want to hear that it was over seven years ago that Ryan Suter and Zach Parise shook the hockey world, or at least tried to, by signing matching 13-year contracts, worth $98M. What’s even funnier is that they still have five more years to run, though one wonders if they’ll actually finish them out. Parise especially could be an LTIR ghost one day, given that something falls off of him getting the paper every morning. Sometimes that thing is his coach.

As these things tend to do though, what once seemed outlandish cap hits have come back to be more than reasonable. It could be argued that the first pairing minutes Suter still supplies at a $7.5M hit is something of a bargain. Sure, Suter isn’t going to score at what first pairing d-men do now, but he’s going to be in the tier right below that. And his defensive metrics are still pretty glittering. His style of game should last for as long as he wants it to, because of its efficiency. Suter only has the 11th-highest cap hit among blue liners now, and you’d certainly rather pay him that Byguflien’s bloated ass (when he’s actually playing) or Brent Burns or even OEL and you could have a lengthy debate about Subban and Trouba.

Parise is a harder case. Health was always going to be a problem for a winger that plays a power forward game with bantamweight size. Parise has missed 98 games in the eight seasons he’s spent in St. Paul, which is hard to hold against him. He’s only scored more than 30 goals once as a member of the Wild, but has produced 25 or more three times. Is $7.5M for a second-line winger justifiable? Yeah, probably now, if on the high end. Though at 35 now, it’s unclear how long he can keep putting up 25 goals. To be fair to him, he’s on pace for that this year.

The question for the Wild isn’t what they got from Parise and Suter, because they got pretty much what they paid for. It’s what having them on the roster has cost them or kept them from getting. The Wild were never able to pair Parise with a #1 center. Some of that is a failing of their system, whether it was being too infatuated with Mikko Koivu, Mikail Granlund’s inability to be anything, or Eric Staal showing up on the scene too late.

It’s not Parise’s fault that the Wild haven’t been able to draft and develop much more than Jason Zucker or under-appreciating Nino Niederreiter.

Suter on the other hand has been part of good blue lines. Most teams would swap out their top pairing for Suter and Jared Spurgeon, and Matt Dumba has been an excellent second-pairing guy for a few years when healthy. Maybe they needed one more, but it’s not been nearly the most glaring hole on the Wild for this stretch.

And it’s neither Parise’s or Suter’s fault that Devan Dubnyk’s short spasm of brilliance either ran into the Hawks at the peak of their powers or came apart in the playoffs. And even when he was good, they didn’t have enough firepower.

It seems the Wild are definitely headed backwards now. They’re last in the division, and there isn’t really anything on the way to juice the team. After flogging Neiderreiter and Granlund last year, there isn’t much for the Wild to throw overboard now for futures. Especially as they were basically traded for nothing, depending on what you value Kevin Fiala as. And if you spend anytime thinking about Kevin Fiala, it’s probably time to have a hard look at your life.

Which makes it a question what the legacies of Suter and Parise will be. Certainly they probably did enough themselves, but the idea was that they would bring the Wild to prominence. They’ve won two games beyond the first round so far. It’s probably important to remember that at the time of the signing, the Wild were still struggling to come to terms with the post-Lemaire era. They hadn’t made the playoffs in four seasons and hadn’t won a series in eight. They needed something to get back on the map again, and to give their fans some reason to watch them over the Gophers, which most of them would rather be doing anyway.

It was probably worth taking the shot. But if you don’t do anything other than that, you end up with this.

Hockey

Game #53 – Hawks vs. Wild: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1338 0

Bruce Boudreau – He’s been around longer than we have, which says something as even Quenneville had a break in there, and he actually won something. It would appear Gabby has run out of magic, as even his structure-less, got get ’em scouts ways can’t conjure anything with this squad. But that won’t keep people from bleating on about what a coach he is, given his….(checks notes) one conference final appearance as a head coach. Maybe it’s not fair to judge him solely on his playoff record, but when you’ve had so many kicks at the can, what else is there? But he’s always willing to give a quote, he looks like a muppet, so everyone loves him.

Ryan Hartman – Seems a long time ago that the Hawks tried to sell this guy as part of the future. And now he’s on his third team’s fourth line trying to impress with his half-assed pest ways. Feels more and more that the Hawks drafted him simply because he was from here. Here’s a fun game, Adam Erne, Jacob de la Rose, and J.T. Compher were all taken right behind Hartman in the 2nd round that year. How many goals against the Hawks could we have saved if the Hawks had just taken Compher?

Nick Seeler – Doesn’t play much, but earned himself permanent pressbox duty with a litany of dumbass penalties and…wait, what happened?

Hockey

Game #53 – Hawks vs. Wild: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1182 0

Hawks

Notes: Lehner was at the morning skate, Crow was not, so we think that means Lehner takes this one…we’re pretty excited to see more of The Pootie Tang Line (Saad-Dach-Kane my damies!)…Seeler will probably get in during the Western Canada swing next week but wouldn’t count on seeing him until then unless someone gets hurt tonight…

Wild

Notes: Dubnyk was lit up by the Bruins for a touchdown on the weekend in their last game, so we’d expect Stalock to get this one that the Wild need more than the Hawks do…Hunt draws in for Pateryn…Staal has a five-game point-streak but only has one goal in his last nine and two in his last 12…Parise is on a heater thought, with five goals in his last seven…

Hockey

Hawks Claim Nick Seeler, Just Go Ahead And Call Him Louise

By Sam Fels 1797 0

Minor note here, but the Hawks today claimed Nick Seeler on waivers from the Wild, who they play tomorrow as luck would have it.

This isn’t some monumental shift and it barely registers a level worth talking about. Basically, the Hawks don’t want to keep Dennis Gilbert in a suit full-time, which they would have to at the top level because he sucks. The IceHogs are also incredibly beat up, so they could use him playing minutes down there in his never-ending journey to not suck.

Seeler isn’t much better. He surprised the Wild out of camp last year and played 71 games, but has some serious, rock-headed tendencies, which we know the Hawks love for some reason. Think of Seeler as an older Gilbert, really. But he can easily replace Gilbert as the extra hand on deck in case someone gets injured.

In truth, Slater Koekkoek has earned his time above whatever swamp thing is taking up the #7 role, be it Gilbert or Seeler. Yeah, he had that cock-up on Saturday, but that will happen. What Koekkoek has that the other two don’t is mobility, and the Hawks need as much as they can get right now.

At least the Hawks seem to realize what Gilbert is, even if they just go the older version. This rates a whatever.

Hockey

High On The Hog: Ever Descending

By Jon Fromi 1206 0

It was another disappointing weekend for the Rockford IceHogs. Rockford’s current losing streak reached six games with home losses to Manitoba and Milwaukee.

The Hogs managed a point against the Moose before falling 4-3 in a shootout Friday. The following evening, the Admirals cleaned Rockford’s clock, scoring the game’s first three goals before cruising to a 7-1 rout of the IceHogs.

Rockford, now 20-24-1-2, is in the midst of a stone-like decent into the depths of the AHL’s Central Division. The IceHogs sit in seventh place, just a point above Manitoba with a game in hand on the Moose.

As I prepared to dig into the week that was for Rockford, I took a quick scan of the Facebook group of IceHogs season ticket holders. It isn’t surprising to see a lot of angst in the tone of the comments; not with Rockford owning a 3-15-1-1 record over the last six weeks of play.

Several theories were being tossed out over the weekend. Most involved leveling blame at Hogs coach Derek King. To paraphrase the sentiments, King doesn’t coach the players during the game. King isn’t utilizing the wealth of talent in Rockford. King isn’t developing the players. King should be fired.

Usually, when I run across comments I don’t necessarily agree with, I just move on with my life. On rare occasions, when I disagree strongly enough, I will post my thoughts. Yesterday was one of those occasions.

What follows is the post I created in response to the torch and pitchfork set that seem to be ignoring the makeup of the current roster and calling for the head of King on a platter. As the topic of the IceHogs woes was basically what I had planned to discuss here this week, I’ve elaborated on the original post via italics.

 

My Facebook Post-Sunday, February 2, 10:45 a.m.

Don’t often post on here, but here goes…

I’m as frustrated at the current state of the IceHogs as the next fan. That said, a lot of that frustration is being channeled away from the main issues with this team.

Rockford was set up this fall with very inexperienced skaters. Ones with potential, but nearly completely untested in the professional ranks. This group was not supplemented with veteran talent to speak of. A healthy Versteeg wasn’t going to be enough.

This was an issue of concern throughout the summer when the Hawks organization left the cupboard bare in terms of stocking the Hogs with a few solid veterans.

The Hogs showed decent chemistry early and were winning at a pretty impressive rate. Then several top scorers were recalled. Other top scorers were injured. Add more injuries and a slew of games with the league studs and this is the result.

Rockford has been defeated by Milwaukee six times in the last three weeks. 

How would the roster of mid-November have fared with the Ads? Would have been fun to watch, but that hasn’t been possible. The depleted roster currently on hand has been fairly whipped.

That Milwaukee roster, btw, is the polar opposite of Rockford’s. Lots of experienced players with 4-5 years of AHL experience sprinkled in with some impressive youngsters. Stick tap for what that group has done so far this season. I think I gushed enough about the Admirals in last week’s post. 

The only remedy for the Hogs even hoping to reach a level we saw earlier this year is:

A. Getting completely healthy (Wedin, Nilsson, Kurashev, etc.) Nilsson was injured Friday night, along with Nick Moutrey, continuing the theme of players missing in action this season. Also missing for a lengthy stretch are Mikael Hakkarainen and AHL signing Matthew Thompson.

B. The Blackhawks obtaining 2-3 AHL veterans to bolster this lineup in trades (don’t hold your breath).

C. Derek King breaking multiple clipboards and screaming incessantly at the rookies and ECHL call-ups.

Hold up. “C” isn’t going to do a darn thing. Neither will firing King. Or any of the other coaches/team staff. Or imploring the piglets to try harder.

This isn’t Derek King’s fault. It’s his mess with which to deal, but he certainly did not create said mess. The Hogs organization has been scrambling to bring in pieces, but it’s hard for the AHL contracts to collectively raise Rockford’s fortunes.

The talent the fire-King contingent point to has been hurt or called up. Guys like Tyler Sikura and Brandon Hagel have been playing well, but all the emergency call-ups have left the Hogs coach with a slew of new faces that have been thrown into the mix. It stands to reason that such a group would have trouble meshing on the ice.

All we can do as fans is hope things get straightened out in terms of team health and that the Hogs can start winning games again. I know most of you follow the roster movements. This is extreme, but typical of an AHL season as far as players going in and out of the lineup.

Again, frustrating as all get out; unfortunately, that where the IceHogs are heading into the last three months of the season.

 

Looking Back At A Couple Of Trades

Earlier this season, the Blackhawks sent forward Aleksi Saarela to the Florida Panthers in exchange for defensemen Ian McCoshen. At the time, Rockford was bursting with forwards and needed some help stabilizing the back end.

Since the deal occurred October 23, Saarela has logged 38 games with Springfield, with 26 points (11 G, 15 A).  Those numbers would be good enough for second among IceHogs scorers this season. Tyler Sikura leads the club with 28 points (12 G, 16 A).

McCoshen has been a constant on the Rockford blueline, but hasn’t been particularly impressive in his 40 games with the IceHogs. He has six assists for Rockford this season.

Another player obtained by trade for the IceHogs was F Joseph Cramarossa, who arrived in exchange for Graham Knott back on November 20 in a trade between Chicago and Pittsburg. Cramarossa isn’t a prolific scorer by any means, but has chipped in with three goals and six helpers in his 32 games for Rockford.

Knott is scoreless in three games with Pittsburg’s AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He has played 13 games for the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers with two goals and five assists.

 

Roster Moves

Dennis Gilbert was recalled by Chicago on Wednesday last week. In the corresponding move, Rockford brought up D Jack Ramsey from the Indy Fuel. Ramsey did not play in either game for the Hogs this weekend.

On Saturday, the IceHogs recalled F Dylan Coughlin from the Fuel after Jacob Nilsson and Nick Moutrey left Friday’s game with injuries.

 

This Week

Rockford holds court at the BMO Harris Bank Center this week, hosting the Texas Stars on Tuesday night. Texas has won seven of its last ten and beat the IceHogs 1-0 in the last meeting between the two teams on January 22. The piglets will wrap up the home stand this weekend, with games with San Antonio on Friday and Saturday.

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