Hockey

Game #46 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1040 0

Ducks

Notes: Lot of kids in the lineup these days for the Ducks, as they look to move on to the next generation. Seven players 25 or under in the lineup…Gibson has had a rough start to January with an .885…Getzlaf has one goal since December 6th…That top line has been utterly dominant in their brief time together…but good lord those bottom six metrics…

Hawks

Notes: Here we are with this dumbass lineup again. David Kampf is not a winger, much less a scoring winger. Qunneville on the top line. Erasing all the confidence Sikura might have gained from his first goal by sitting him behind Nylander, Quenneville, and Highmore who are all terrible. Kane trying to make something with Carpenter and Nylander. You can say the Hawks are injured, and they are. You can say the roster wasn’t good enough to begin with, and it wasn’t. But this is absolutely the worst way to deploy it and not giving it its best chance.

Hockey

Boqvist, Nylander, Colliton, And Other Thoughts On A Dreary Day

By Sam Fels 2180 0

Not much more to discuss after last night’s loss, as Rose summed it up pretty well. So we’ll clean through what we can.

-The Hawks will run to the stronghold of the excuse of injuries, and that has some validity. Without Saad and Strome, this team is missing two of a top six that never really had a six until Kubalik proved he was worthy of it (and you could probably still argue on a good team Kubalik is a great third-liner). That’s going to be too much for this team to overcome. Until they return, you’re probably going to see a few more two-goal games or four-shot periods and the like.

Still, I won’t hear much about adding Andrew Shaw to that list, because that’s pining for the idea of Andrew Shaw and not what was reality. You could do that when he was healthy. He didn’t provide much forecheck, hardly any scoring, and basically the only thing you got above a “meh” level was dumb offensive zone penalties.

That doesn’t mean it’s not somewhat embarrassing to get clowned by a coach who has had one practice with his new team. John Hynes might fall on the “Moron” side of our binary Moron/Not A Moron coach rating system, but his Devils teams were a nightmare for the Hawks the past couple seasons. And that’s because they had enough speed for Hynes to simply let them loose on the forecheck and there’s nothing the Hawks can do about it. Or they won’t.

Most teams don’t have to worry about leaving a third man high on the forecheck or not, because if they send two forwards aggressively they will likely cause a turnover. The Hawks have never been instructed to A. move the puck along quickly and B. have their forwards in spots to aid that if they have been. They’re either too far deep along the boards where one forechecker can get to both he and the d-man or they’re floating somewhere out in the neutral zone, stationary. The Hawks don’t time this well. What the good teams are doing is flipping pucks into the neutral zone as the forwards are charging out of the defensive end. They’re leading them.

The Hawks, because their players demanded they play this way and the front office went along with it to basically cut Colliton off at the knees, send their forwards early. So even if the d-men have time to get the puck out there, everything is a jump-ball. Hynes knows enough to know this and harasses the Hawks d-men below the goal line with all of his d-men and third forward “above” the Hawks forwards, or closer to the puck. So when there is a turnover, they’re better positioned and it’s ya-ha time.

Secondly, Hynes is yet another coach who knows the Hawks “system” in their zone is still easily pierced by a simple weave either by the circle or out at the line, where a forward carries the puck from down low to out high and a d-man switches spots with him. You saw it last night on the first goal, where Boqvist has to go chasing Filip Forsberg all the way out to the line, and hence ends up running an incidental screen on Kane chasing Josi, leaving the latter a free lane to the net. Seeing as how Forsberg’s back is to the goal and he’s moving in the wrong direction, it would seem prudent for Boqvist to pass him off to whatever forward is there because there’s time to do so without providing a four-lane high way to the slot. But no, we continue to see this.

-Speaking of Boqvist, he had a rough one last night. On the ice for the first two goals, flailing wildly on the first and caught flat-footed after Keith was stripped on the second. And then he couldn’t out-skate Nick Bonino for the first empty-netter, though he might have gotten confused whether it was Bonino or the puck he was supposed to chase. And he was at the end of a shift, so maybe judging his speed then isn’t the fairest. There were always going to be nights like this, and you’d dismiss them as just that if you thought it was part of a proper learning curve.

Still, we haven’t seen Boqvist move through the gears at all except for brief flashes in the offensive zone. What’s been frustrating for me is that as soon as he gets the puck in the defensive zone, his feet stop moving. What’s supposed to make Boqvist special is that he can squirt out of trouble with the puck and move the Hawks up the ice with a couple opposing forwards caught. He’s supposed to a risk-taker, just like Josi is and always has been. Sure, there will be some ugly turnovers that way but this is a team that desperately needs to play in space and can’t always hail mary its way to that. It needs a quick turn or spin out from behind the net and suddenly it has possession with speed and teams backing off of them.

I don’t know if this has been an organizational treatise to Boqvist, and they’ve been lording over him for a year and a half now, or just a teenager still trying to come to terms with the top division. But if he’s just going to immediately become a statue when in possession in his own end, then all you’ve got is a more skilled Erik Gustafsson. That’s not nearly enough.

-I can’t call Alex Nylander the dumbest Hawk I’ve ever seen, because that’s a hell of a competition. But man is he making a case. We’ve seen the repeated failure to gain the red line for a dump-in to change. Or the blind chases to find space when it was detrimental. He added a new one last night on the power play in the 3rd when Kubalik (I think) had the puck on the right half-wall and Nylander simply skated right at him motioning for him to switch spots like they were messing up a dance routine and they were told to take five. Doofus, he had the puck, maybe play off of him and naturally get to your spot instead of ruling yourself out as an option?

The too many men he forced was the capper though. Everyone in the arena and on TV could see the Hawks were changing and he had the puck on the opposite side of the ice under no pressure. So there’s no way he couldn’t see it. A simple shovel into the Preds zone and everything was fine. Instead, he passed it into a sea of red jerseys, where the absolute best result would have been for every Hawk to avoid the puck until the change was complete and probably result in the Preds grabbing it. And that’s if everyone was looking at him, which no one was because they were changing and just expecting a dump-in.

This might go down as one of Stan’s worst moves, which is saying something because Jokiharju maxes out as a nice, second-pairing player. But Nylander simply has no feel for the game, no instincts, and it’s getting worse. How do players like this get taken in the first round at all?

Hockey

#45: Predators 5, Hawks 2 – Knowing Better but Choosing to Fail

By Rose Rankin 2280 0

It was a game they had to win, so of course they lost. I don’t want to hear anything from the organ-I-zation about how there’s a lot of hockey left, and there’s still half a season to go. Fuck that noise. If they actually wanted to do anything about the playoffs then literally every game from here on out matters, and their record needs to be absurdly good to have a chance. Instead we get absurdly bad shit like this one, where a first period in which the Hawks completely shat the bed was enough to sink the entire night. And then to really give us the finger, Pekka fucking Rinne scores a goal. You read that right. Let’s get through it:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–So as mentioned, in the first the Hawks were disjointed, messy and seemingly confused about what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to be. And I don’t mean that in the existential sense of, “oh they suck at hockey,” although a lot of tonight’s roster certainly does. I mean it quite literally, in that there were defensive breakdowns everywhere and guys just looking at each other not knowing what to do. What’s really bizarre is they were barely beaten in shots in that period (12-10), and they led in possession at 5-v-5 (55 CF%, lots of 5s right there). This may lead you to say that it was Corey Crawford‘s fault, and I can assure it wasn’t, although I would have liked to have seen his glove side a little tighter. On the second goal, Adam Boqvist just got out-muscled and that’s the one Crawford needed to stop, but it’s not exactly his fault that his diminutive defenseman got drop kicked by an oaf, and said oaf was then left completely alone just above the crease. John Quenneville also demonstrated why he’s completely useless on Matt Duchene‘s goal, where he basically just watched the puck go by him like a spun Phish fan watching a glowstick (trust me, I know). All the way around it was exactly the opposite of what the Hawks needed to do.

–To cap off that terrible period, the Hawks took yet another too many men penalty, which I could have sworn was their 15th of the year. Mark Lazarus on Twitter had the actual data and it’s in fact 7 total for the Hawks, which isn’t worst in the league as I snarkily opined, but it’s the 3rd such penalty in basically the last week. I can’t think of anything that sums up poor coaching and a tuned-out team better than that. I get it, math is hard, but even I can count to 5.

–There are plenty of issues with personnel on this team, which have only been exacerbated by injuries, meaning there isn’t a huge pool of talent to work with right now. However, that makes decent coaching and decision-making even more important, and again Colliton isn’t even close to getting a passing grade. For example, why is John Quenneville on the top line? One could ask why he’s playing at all, while Dylan Sikura sits in the press box (and I will ask that–why the fuck is Sikura in the press box? Did he run over Colliton’s dog or something? It’s ridiculous at this point). For god’s sake Quenneville was on the power play–what does that tell you about where this team is at?

Another example: if you’re missing key players and working with less, why put two of your best centers on the same line? Having David Kampf on a wing is just foolish, since he’s the best defensive center they have, and Kirby Dach can hold his own as the 2C no problem. And if you’re not going to put Toews and Kane on a line, even though all logic says they should play with Kubalik, then at least get Patrick Kane OFF THE FUCKING THIRD LINE where he’s centered by Ryan Carpenter who is OK but not actually good, and Alex Nylander who can’t pass, shoot or do anything that plays to Kane’s strengths (or anyone else’s, for that matter). For what it’s worth, Kubalik-Toews-Kane did finally get a look in the later stages of the game (and had an 83 CF%, by the way), but the fact it took nearly the whole game, and the fact that they still only got under 5 minutes of ice time together when it was woefully obvious his first concoctions weren’t working, shows how clueless Colliton really is.

–So what did work? Well, for one, Dominik Kubalik. His goal was off a beautiful wrister and he was showing off his speed, which we know is a rare thing around here. He finished the night with an 58 CF% at evens, yet remains Colliton’s most hated player aside from Dylan Sikura. Alex DeBrincat scored on the power play, so that was nice too.

–And to be honest, the Hawks played better in the third period. I would hesitate to say “well” because they fucked up about three odd-man rushes that should have resulted in at least one goal. However, they certainly made a game of it and piled up 14 shots in the third, but this is also what’s maddening about this team. Flip the first and third periods and the outcome may have been different. It’s definitely a give-a-shit meter thing, but also the general confusion and poor coaching mixed with the lack of enough good players. Quite a situation.

–And ‘Ole Shit Hip not only gets the win, he got a fucking goal. What a time to be alive. Yes it was an empty netter, but still…

The game was closer than the score, but in the end it doesn’t matter. They had to have two points here and couldn’t even keep it even. I can only hope that every one of these types of losses brings Jeremy Colliton‘s tenure closer to its end. Onward…

Line of the Night: “Zack Smith needs help from Olli Maatta.” –What you hear from the broadcast when your team is composed of bad players.

Beer du jour: Moon Man by New Glarus Brewing

Hockey

Game #45 – Predators vs. Hawks Spotlight: Poile’s Last Stand?

By Sam Fels 1448 0

One of the things people marvel about the Nashville Predators is their stability. John Hynes, hired this week, is only their third coach in the 20 years of their history. They’ve only had one GM, and that’s David Poile. Something about southern loyalty or whatever. One might have to ask though…why?

Because when you total it up, the Preds record of success doesn’t really justify keeping things the same this long. There are two division titles, both in the past two years, and one Final appearance. The latter was their only journey even beyond the second round. It’s always spurious to judge a team merely on playoff success, because the sport itself and the playoff structure can be so random. But we’re talking about 20 years here.

On regular season parameters, the division titles could be a touch misleading. There have been regular 100+ point seasons, including three of the last five. If you’re gobbling up over 100 points, where you finish in the division is again, sort of random, basically however many overtime or shootout points you or the teams you’re competing with have gathered.

Still, this isn’t like the Lightning who kept losing to the eventual champion. The Preds lost to those same Hawks in ’15 that the Lightning did, and outplayed those Hawks for at least three of those six games and saw Pekka Rinne undo all that work. But last year they lost to the ultra-boring Stars and the year before that it was the Jets, and each of those then bit it in the next round.

Still, after 20 years, you’d think more than one Western Conference championship would be required to keep David Poile in the GM chair. And he may be out over it now.

Poile fired Peter Laviolette, because the Preds have been amongst the favorites for a few years  and are currently out of the playoff picture. The pressure is clearly being felt, and expectations are clearly not being met. This isn’t just a good time for home and visiting fans alike anymore. The feeling that the Preds might miss their window is starting to get palpable in Tennessee.

How much responsibility does Poile take for this season? Or last? Well, last year is a mixed record. The pickup of Mikael Granlund made all the sense in the world on paper. Is it Poile’s fault that Granlund completely flattened out upon arrival? You could make the argument either way. The acquisitions of Brian Boyle and Wayne Simmonds only made the Preds slower and dumber, and harkened back to the 1st round pick given away for Paul Gaustad. It’s something that Poile has had a weakness for during his entire tenure. They certainly didn’t provide enough dash to get through the blockade the Stars were putting up in the first round.

This year? Again, Granlund not adapting to a team and style that should have hit him between the eyes isn’t totally on Poile. He sacrificed PK Subban because they had depth on the blue line, which they always seem to have, so they could sign Matt Duchene. And yet even with Duchene, no forward is scoring at a top-tier, first-line forward rate. Forsberg leads with 30 points in 36 games. Duchene has 29 in 39, which is kind of what he’s always been. This has been a bugaboo of the Preds for a while, no true game-breaker up front other than maybe Forsberg, and you still have to do some back-bends to call him that.

But then, most GMs’ and coaches’ fortunes simply hinge on PDO, and mostly on their goalies. The Preds do everything mostly right. They’re top-ten in Corsi and expected goals percentages. They have the puck most of the time. What they can’t get is a save, and especially on the penalty kill. The Preds have a .798 SV% on the kill, which has sunk both Rinne’s and Juuse Saros’s overall SV% below .900. Is that on Poile? Because if you go by the chances their PK is giving up, the Preds actually have a good kill. But it doesn’t matter if the goalies let every chance in. Certainly no one was advocating for the Preds to make changes in the crease in the offseason, if Rinne is turning into dust now.

But it’s never that simple in these calculations. If the Preds miss out, you have to feel there will be a house-cleaning. One wonders what Poile thinks he’s going to get out of John Hynes, who only had a good season in New Jersey when Taylor Hall said so. It reeked of a desperate move without a plan. Was Hynes really in the wings all the time to replace Laviolette? If so, why? Lavvy certainly has a shelf-life, but is it his fault that Rinne nor Saros couldn’t stop a sloth on the penalty kill? Did Poile only pull the trigger when Hynes became available?

Maybe Hynes knows how to get Ryan Johansen away from the postgame spread and playing like a top line center again. Maybe he can juice Viktor Arvidsson. But what’s clear is that the Predators aren’t content to be everyone’s cute little getaway anymore, and perhaps for the first time since they actually played games, they might be on the lookout for a new GM.

 

Hockey

Game #45 – Predators vs Hawks – Ain’t A Sin To Win

By Matt McClure 1338 0

vs

Game Time: 7:30PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN, NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
David Poile Is A Scumbag: On The Forecheck

If the Hawks record and stagnant roster weren’t a self evident indication of how rudderless and sclerotic this Organ-I-Zation has been since its most recent playoff ouster at the hands of tonight’s vistors, the Nashville Predators, then the fact that the Preds fired Peter Laviolette earlier this week while remaining ahead of the Hawks in the standings should drive the point home. But it remains unchanged that the Hawks are still outwardly holding the product on-ice to a playoff standard, and tonight poses yet another opportunity to gain points on a team they are currently (on paper) battling for a playoff spot, an opportunity which will surely end up being pissed away in creative fashion as so many others have the past two seasons.

Hockey

Game #45 – Predators vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1035 0

Ryan Johansen – Treat Boy here always gets labeled as one of the top centers in the game, and we still can’t figure out why. His numbers the past two seasons mirror that of Jonathan Toews, and everyone’s relatively sure he looks like the host of “Tales From The Crypt.” RyJo Sen played his ass off just long enough in 2017 to get a fat new deal from the Preds, and then he became a fat new deal. The dude has one 70+ point season. When the Preds get bounced early again, it’ll probably be because Ryan O’Reilly or Nathan MacKinnon hand him his considerable lunch.

Matt Duchene – Rich kid face with an Oakland booty!

Austin Watson – Any day now, David Poile is going to yell, “I’m so fucking glad we have Austin Watson” at some female reporter. Except it’s Nashville, so that’s probably like an every day thing there.

Hockey

Game #45 – Predators vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1054 0

Predators

Notes: Preds didn’t skate this morning so this is how it looked against Boston. The injured don’t figure to return other than maybe Fabbro, so it’s probably the same lineup again…Rinne had an .885 in December, but Saros wasn’t much better and has probably missed the boat to take over the starter’s job at any point in Music City…The Preds have gotten rolled in their past two games possession-wise, which is fine against the Bruins but against the Ducks?…Josi has an 11-game point-streak, in which he’s amassed 19 points…

Hawks

Notes: Hawks only had an optional skate, so we don’t know exactly how they’ll align without Strome. One would think Kane would slide up, but that makes for an absolutely barren bottom six. Then again, it was always going to be that if this team suffered injuries…Caggiula has said he’s been ready to play but the coaches told him the shitter’s full. Strome’s injury puts paid to that, but they might want to slide Highmore back in instead…Crawford will start for the third straight game…After putting the Hawks down two men twice on Tuesday, maybe Smith sits instead…

Hockey

Don’t Speak, I Know Just What You’re Sayin’

By Sam Fels 1980 0

I should admit right at the top I always had a distaste for No Doubt, which is saying something as I was 13 when Gwen Stefani hit the scene and that really should have been enough for any boy that age. It wasn’t. I guess I’ve never been happy.

Anyway…

I won’t be the first to point out that it’s awfully curious, or perfect in another sense, that the first time Stan Bowman was publicly available to the media is halfway through the season and when the Hawks had gone 7-3-0 during a 10-game stretch. Something about GMs in this town. You can’t find Ryan Pace with a strike team during the season. I’m not sure GarPax knows where the media room is. Only Hahn and Epstein seem to be around for you whenever, but maybe that’s just the nature of baseball and being there every goddamn day.

Whatever Stan had to say, and we’ll get to it, should be couched by this fact: though the Hawks had won 7 of 10, they were still six points out of a playoff spot before last night’s game with three teams to leap. The current last wildcard holder (Winnipeg) is on pace for 95 points. The Hawks would have to amass 51 points in their last 38 games to get to that mark, if that’s even enough by the time we get to April. Or like, 23-10-5. Basically at a 30% higher pace of points-per-game than they are managing now, and that’s with the added injuries.

The Hawks are wedged in the standings between two teams that fired their coaches. Two teams that think where they are is unacceptable. It’s important to remember all of this.

“I think we’ve played our best hockey, probably over the last couple weeks, looking at our record,” Bowman said. “It did take a little bit of time to get everything together. We did have spurts of it earlier in the year where we played well, but we couldn’t sustain it enough probably to get enough wins on the board. We’ve played better lately and now we’ve got to build on that, so consistency is probably the hardest part to nail for this team so far. Because we show when we play the way we want to play …”

I’ve been harping on this all season, but it’s infuriating to hear the team still fucking cling to this. The Hawks are not bad because they are inconsistent. They are inconsistent because they’re bad. There seems to be this delusion around the whole organization that some devine force is going to descend from the heavens and bestow them consistency. I hate to keep pulling out this GIF and repeat myself but it seems to still apply wholly…

Either the vets are simply too old to give you 82 games of dominance (Keith, Toews, Crawford), or the kids are still learning (Dach, Boqvist) or are simply not that good (everyone else). The way this team is constructed, they basically have the equal amount of players who will improve and grow and those who will continue to decline, which is a great way to remain right where you are.

“…we’ve had pretty strong goaltending all year, so that’s been the bright spot for our team, given us a chance even some nights when we didn’t play well at all we would have a chance to come back and win some games.”

Here is something that should be keeping Bowman up at nights, if not gotten him fired already. It’s the SV%s of the teams around the Hawks in the standings:

San Jose – .889

Nashville – .887

Minnesota – .895

Over in the East…

Montreal – .897

Buffalo – .900

HAWKS – .911

Here are some teams that have gotten similar goaltending to the Hawks…

St. Louis – 1st in West

Colorado – 2nd in West

Islanders – 2nd in Metro

What this should mean to Stan, or any right-thinking human getting the requisite amount of oxygen, is that the rest of the team is an utter disaster when you’re getting contender-level goaltending. In the NHL, that’s really supposed to be about 75% of the battle. If you fuck that up, you’ve really accomplished something wondrous. Stan talking about the goaltending isn’t him extolling the virtues of his team. It’s providing rope they should have hanged him with long ago.

“Well, we’re right there,” Bowman said. “We’re a little bit behind the pack — a couple points. But it’s a pretty tight pack that are fighting to get into that spot. It’s been basically half a season. We’ve got a lot of hockey left…”

I understand that the Hawks have to sell the rest of the season, even though they have the sellout streak and there are good seats still available every game (still working that one out). So Stan can’t come out and declare that they’re toast. Still, six points out of the playoffs is miles away. MILES. Three teams to leap, and you just lost another game to a direct competitor (which I guess the Flames are right now). The Hawks have more regulation wins than seven teams. Seven. Right there? Where is right there? If this were a woman telling you you were right there you’d know for sure she was faking.

“There’s a lot of teams that are going through injury troubles,” Bowman said. “The encouraging thing is seeing how our guys have responded with having a lot of established veteran players (out). They play a pretty big role on our team and they’re all out, but our team’s found a way with a different group, a different mixture here, to get some wins. That’s a good sign.”

Or could it be that your veterans just sucked? de Haan is certainly a miss, and so is Saad, but the latter’s only been out a couple weeks. Andrew Shaw provided you nothing. Drake Caggiula provided you nothing. Brent Seabrook provided you nothing. I’ll have some patience for the injury-angle, more when we know what Strome is dealing with, but only so much.

““We’re not focused on past years,” Bowman said. “We’re looking at this year where we are right now. We’ve had a pretty good stretch recently. We’ve got to continue to do that. If we’re able to build on the way we’ve played the last few weeks I think we’ll put ourselves in a nice spot over the next month.”

Not focused on past years, eh? I don’t even know what to do with this, so I’m just going to leave it alone. And you’re not going to build on how you’ve played the past few weeks, because your team has spent the past two seasons proving that it can’t.

“The focus right now is to just stay in the present and look where we are and build on these next few games and keep going.”

And here’s the big problem. The Hawks can’t focus on the right now. Focusing on merely the right now, and not even correctly, is how you get the slapdash offseason of throwing de Haan, Maatta, and Lehner to the wall, trading Jokiharju and then ending up with the playing time he would have needed and deserved but not having him here to take it. Having no sense of a long-term plan is how you end up continuing to kowtow to Seabrook until you have no choice but to send him to a farm upstate to avoid further embarrassment. You can’t just keep focusing on now, because it’s your job to map out how the Hawks get back to the top in the future. And they’ve done exactly none of that.

This blog is over.

 

Hockey

Game #44 – That Silent Sense of Content That Everyone Gets Just Disappears Soon as the Sun Sets – Flames 2, Hawks 1

By John Pullega 1662 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

What a perfect microcosm of the 2019–20 Blackhawks. An early lead generated by (what better be) the New Core followed by 40 minutes of pants shitting, entirely avoidable penalties, and a flat refusal to shoot the puck while trailing. We’d love to know if this is an example of what Bowman called Colliton’s “great approach to things,” because losing to teams directly ahead of his in the wild card standings seems to be his approach. There’s a cheesy gordida crunch waiting for me, so let’s.

– This was the most dominant game Adam Boqvist has played thus far. His first period was astoundingly strong: a primary assist, a 66+ CF%, an 82+ xGF%, two shot attempts, a ton of ice time, and—the cherry on top—two excellent defensive plays. Let’s start there.

About mid-way through the first, the Flames’s fourth line had just finished a strong shift. After a shift change, Jonathan Hockey ended up with the puck behind the net. Boqvist shadowed him from behind the net up around the far boards and never let Gaudreau shake him. In fact, Boqvist nearly caused Jonathan Hockey to cough the puck up. Boqvist is precisely the kind of defenseman the Hawks would need to run Colliton’s man system. He showed quickness and strong positioning on this play.

Not too long after this sequence, Boqvist got to show off his defense again. Following a terrible cross-ice pass attempt by Keith that was easily intercepted, Boqvist picked up Monahan one-on-one and prevented a shot. These are the kinds of things everyone has worried about with Boqvist, and he showed that he can hold his own.

You can safely assume that the good defensive plays were a result of his obvious confidence with the puck tonight. He had two shot attempts early in the first and finished with at least five by my count in addition to one official shot on goal. We got to see that wicked wrister on Kubalik’s tip, which was as powerful as advertised.

Boqvist finished the game with the most TOI, the best CF%, and the best xGF% of Hawks players with more than 10 minutes of ice time at 5v5. A statement game for him if there ever was one.

– Corey Crawford would be your second star after Boqvist tonight. He played a big part in the Hawks killing off their second 5-on-3 of the night, with two huge saves to keep it close. You can probably argue that he should have had Lindholm’s second goal, but other than that, it was another good start for the least respected athlete in Chicago sports history. Killing off two 5-on-3s and posting a .929 should get you a win every day. Alas.

– It’s painfully ironic how the Hawks’s PK manages to be pretty good despite the fact that their defense is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. But you can thank Jonathan Toews for the Hawks’s first 5-on-3 kill. After losing a faceoff in his own zone to start it, it was Toews alone who managed to clear the puck from his own zone twice in a row. He may only be able to do one or the other, and tonight he chose defense (though he had a few offensive flashes late), which was a treat.

– Dylan Strome has a right ankle injury. No word yet on the severity, but it looked kind of like Saad’s. If he misses any extended time, the Hawks intermittently woeful offensive will be much more consistently awful.

– It’s really confidence inspiring when John Quenneville appears on the power play over Alex Nylander. Not that anyone wants Nylander on the ice at all, but it’s a true testament to the Hawks’s “No Plan, All Process” approach to . . . whatever it is they’re approaching here (a third straight year of no playoffs, most likely).

– Down a goal in the third, the Hawks managed to fart out a measly six shots on goal. Through 11+ minutes, they had exactly two shots. Either this is the Hawks actively trying to get Jeremy Colliton fired or Jeremy Colliton just doing what he does, which is beg to get fired. You can take the tram or you can take the donkey. It’s the same price.

– I’ll stop bitching and moaning about it when the mouthpieces for the Hawks stop doing it: Pat Foley’s unmitigated slobbering over Marc Crawford prior to the third period was gross. I truly like how Marc Crawford has handled himself after being revealed as a gigantic shithead in his past. He apologized, reached out to many of the players he wronged, got therapy long before his shitheadedness became public, and has been contrite about his situation. Having Pat Foley Cheshire grin his way through calling Crawford “a great guy” is so perfectly in tune for this tone-deaf organization, and yet, I can’t help but be surprised by the awfulness. Crawford went out of his way to call his second chance a privilege, and kudos to him for that, but Foley should fucking know better. Righting a ton of huge wrongs doesn’t make you a “great guy.” It just makes you less of a shithead.

But it didn’t stop there. Foley then proceeded to cite Dennis Gilbert (just can’t get away from this fucker, can we?) and Kirby Dach as guys who stated that they love Crawford while completely disregarding the proven and constantly unearthed power gap between players and coaches. They can love Crawford all they want. That doesn’t serve as adequate evidence to support Foley’s “neener neener, he’s actually a great guy” horseshit. It’s getting awfully old. I want Marc Crawford to keep getting better and succeed. I don’t want to hear Pat Foley use his pulpit to try and speed that along just because he doesn’t get it. It’s Foley’s literal job to represent the Blackhawks well, and he did a terrible job of it tonight, much like his bosses that one summer at Notre Dame. I digress.

The Hawks are a mediocre team whose stars can occasionally put them over the top against better teams taking the night off and Detroit. When the chips are down, like they were tonight, they hermit crab. But hey, Bowman thinks Colliton’s approach is great, what with yet another too many men penalty and six fucking shots on goal during crunch time.

Go back to bed, Blackhawks fans. Your Brain Trust has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, Blackhawks fans. Your Brain Trust is in control again.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Zombie Dust

Line of the Night: Pat Foley calling Marc Crawford a “great guy,” which embarrassed even Marc Crawford