Faxes from Uncle Dale

Category: Hockey

  • Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

    Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

    Meat Train – It’s somehow escaped hockey observers for at least the past five seasons that Wayne Simmonds is perhaps the dumbest player in the league and much more apt to take a penalty that will kill you in a game that matters rather than score from two feet. Many thought he would be a key pickup for the Predators last year, and then watched him gasp for air barely cracking their fourth line in a first round loss to the Stars. The Devils have him properly slotted on their fourth line where he can still be effective, and he’s only on a one-year $5M contract in some sort of bid to prove it. He won’t prove much, other than the rocks are still in his head.

    Kyle Palmieri – Does he ever not score against the Hawks? This has gone on with two teams now on both coasts.

    Jesper Bratt and Boqvist – Larry Horse say too Jesper-y.

  • Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

  • Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: Lineups & How They Were Built

    Game #29 – Hawks vs. Devils: Lineups & How They Were Built

    Hawks

    Notes: Maatta missed last night with the flu but an extra day’s rest might have him back in the lineup tonight. Which is good, because we don’t need to see Dennis Gilbert ever again…Crawford will rotate back in…Kubalik, Wedin, and Dach were among the best Hawks forwards in terms of possession, but also saw the least amount of time…Strome is on a 65-point pace, did you know that?

    Devils

    Notes: It’s hard to know what the Devils will look like tonight as it will be their first game under interim coach Alain Nassredine. So this is our best guess…Jack Hughes has missed the past couple but will return tonight. One big complaint about former coach John Hynes was his deploying Hughes down the lineup, so you might see him in the top six tonight…Hall hasn’t scored in his last five and has two goals since Nov.1, shooting 4.1% on the season…Palmieri has 14 points in 18 career games against the Hawks…

  • High On The Hog: Keep It Rollin’

    High On The Hog: Keep It Rollin’

    The Rockford IceHogs, the Blackhawks affiliate in the American Hockey League, hope to continue their strong play into the month of December. The piglets got the month started right with a 4-2 win over Manitoba Tuesday. Another big Central Division weekend looms for the IceHogs. Friday sees Rockford in Grand Rapids. The first meeting of the season with Western Conference-leading Milwaukee is Saturday.

     

    Roster Activity

    On Tuesday, D Dennis Gilbert was recalled to the Blackhawks. Rockford has seven defenseman on its current roster. However, Philip Holm has been out the last couple of games and Lucas Carlsson took a puck in the face late in Tuesday’s game with the Moose. No one has been brought up from Indy this week, so I’d guess one or both players should be ready to play.

     

    Weekday Recap

    Tuesday, December 3-Rockford 4, Manitoba 2

    Rockford won its third straight game behind a strong performance from goalie Collin Delia, who posted a 37-save performance in his first action since November 3.

    The Hogs drew cord on the power play 4:15 into the contest. The play was set up with a long pass by Delia to Dylan Sikura. Sikura maneuvered to the high slot and drew three defenders before sliding the puck to MacKenzie Entwistle. The rookie forward went forehand-backhand on Manitoba goalie Mikhail Berdin, striking through the five-hole to put Rockford up 1-0.

    The Moose quickly responded with a Seth Griffith goal. However, the piglets regained the lead on a point blast by Joni Tuulola. Tyler Sikura picked up the apple with some deft stick work along the half boards and the IceHogs held a 2-1 advantage at the 8:53 mark.

    Manitoba came back with a power play goal by Skylar McKenzie 14:48 into the first. Delia, who was having trouble securing the puck at times, made a nice pair of saves late in the period to send the teams to intermission even at two goals.

    Both teams had a couple of power play chances in the second period. Brandon Hagel had recently come out of the penalty box for hooking when Matthew Highmore slid a pass his way in front of the Rockford net. Hagel did the rest, streaking past the Moose defense to buzz the goal mouth and backhand the puck into the Manitoba cage. The IceHogs led 3-2 at the 16:48 mark and held that advantage as the teams skated to the second intermission.

    Delia held off the charging Moose in the third period. The Hogs goalie stopped twelve shots, including an outstanding pad save on a back door attempt midway through the period. Nick Moutrey added an empty net goal with 32 seconds remaining in regulation to put a topper on the win.

    Lines (Starters in italics)

    John Quenneville-Tyler Sikura (C)-Matthew Highmore

    Dylan Sikura-Phillipp Kurashev-Tim Soderlund

    Brandon Hagel-Jacob Nilsson (A)-MacKenzie Entwistle

    Nick Moutrey-Reese Johnson-Joseph Cramarossa

    Joni Tuulola-Adam Boqvist

    Lucas Carlsson-Dennis Gilbert (A)

    Nicolas Beaudin-Ian McCoshen

    Collin Delia

    Matt Tomkins

    Power Play (1-4)

    Boqvist-Quenneville-Hagel-Nilsson-Kurashev

    Carlsson-Beaudin-Sikura-Entwistle-Soderlund

    Penalty Kill (Moose were 1-5)

    Forwards-T. Sikura-Soderlund-Nilsson-Entwistle-Moutrey-Cramarossa

    Defense-Gilbert-McCoshen-Tuulola-Beaudin

     

    Previewing The Weekend

    Friday night, Rockford is in Grand Rapids. The Griffins have lost six straight, including a 3-1 loss to the Hogs at the BMO last Saturday.

    Saturday night is the IceHogs first look at the Milwaukee Admirals. It’s also the team’s annual Teddy Bear Toss Night. The Ads had a 13-game win streak snapped by Texas on Monday night but still lead the Central Division with a 17-4-1-2 mark.

    Admirals center Yakov Trenin is second in the AHL with 14 goals this season. Daniel Carr (11 G, 10 A) was a 30-goal scorer with the Wolves last year but has been out of the Milwaukee lineup for a couple of weeks. The Admirals are bolstered by the scoring of Cole Schneider (6 G, 14 A), Colin Blackwell (6 G, 13 A) as well as defensemen Alexandre Carrier (3 G, 13 A) and Matt Donovan (1 G, 13 A). Former IceHogs forward Laurent Dauphin (5 G, 5 A) will also be facing off against Rockford.

    It’s been a true tandem in goal for Milwaukee. Veterans Connor Ingram and Troy Grosenick have split the workload and together boast a 2.36 goals against average and a .921 save percentage. The Admirals are the stingiest defensive team in the AHL despite giving up over 31 shots a game, so the goalies are getting it done big time.

    I would speculate that the Hogs will be facing Grosenick Saturday, as Ingram will likely play Friday when Milwaukee hosts Iowa. Regardless, getting pucks in the Ads net could prove challenging.

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

     

     

     

     

  • Game #28: Hawks 3, Bruins 3 (Hawks win toilet seat toss): Breathing Deeply, Walking Backwards

    Game #28: Hawks 3, Bruins 3 (Hawks win toilet seat toss): Breathing Deeply, Walking Backwards

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    It was a weird night for the Blackhawks, who got out to a nice lead, managed to piss it away, and then still won* in overtime in spite of themselves. The Bears are also on, and let’s admit we all care about that more, so let’s hit the basics:

    I HAD THE BEARS ON AT THE SAME TIME

    – Strange first period for the Hawks, as they were really getting dominated until they scored two goals in quick fashion. First, Ryan Carpenter tallied his first goal as a Blackhawk on a shorthanded effort following a really nice takeaway and rush. We knew that Carpenter wasn’t anything special when the Hawks signed him, but he’s proven to be a worthwhile addition as a botton-six, penalty killing puck winner for this team, and has played both the pivot and wing. His play here was just great all around, as he forced the turnover in the defensive zone, took it up the ice before making a nice pass to Connor Murphy, and then filled the proper lane to get to the front of the net for Murphy’s rebound, which popped right to him.

    Shortly there after, David Pastrnak (who is one ugly motherfucker, by the way) took a penalty, and the Hawks struck quickly. Dylan Strome had a nice screen out front and deflected an Erik Gustafsson shot right in front of the net, making a quick impact in his return from concussion protocol. Good to see from him. Those two goals came just 37 seconds apart.

    – Those two quick goals on opposite special teams were the only real bright spot of that first period for the Hawks though, as they got shelled in shot attempts with a paltry 41.38 CF% at evens.

    – Second period was better for the Hawks from a possession standpoint (53.33 CF%) but they were largely lucky to still be up in the game after giving the Bruins PP 4 total tries in the game in the first two period. Lehner stood on his head and the PK-ers made some nice plays, but it was pretty sloppy from the Hawks overall.

    – Alex DeBrincat finally was able to break out of his shnide and found the back of the net for the first time in forever. That goal came #17seconds into the third period, and put the Hawks up 3-0. It did not go well from there.

    – No doubt in large part to score effects, the Bruins ended up with a 62.16 CF% in the third period, and it ended up costing the Hawks in a big way. They ended up coughing up the lead, and while it’s easy to point out some bad plays from Gustafsson (which is beating a dead horse) or others, in reality it was just the Bruins getting some hockey justice for all of the domination earlier in the game. It also was the better team finally getting their payoff for being the better team.

    – Jonathan Toews legitimately has ice water in his veins. The guy just has a knack for big goals in OT, especially on breakaways. I wonder if any goalies have nightmares about him coming at them alone in OT or on the shootout. I probably would.

    – BEAR DOWN MY FRENTS.

  • Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: Gamenight Convocation

    Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: Gamenight Convocation

    Everything you need for tonight’s get together with the Bruins. 

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Hedley Lamarr

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How They Were Built

     

  • Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Preview: I’d Like To Fly But My Wings Have Been So Denied

    Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Preview: I’d Like To Fly But My Wings Have Been So Denied

    vs.

    RECORDS: Hawks 10-12-5   Bruins 20-3-5

    PUCK DROP: 6pm

    TV: NBCSN Chicago

    FRUSTRATED WOMEN: Stanley Cup Of Chowder

    So you’ve just been fustigated by the West’s leader at home. What’s the best follow-up to that? Why, one of the East’s best on the road of course! Where they haven’t actually lost a game all year! Where they’ve collected 28 of 32 points! Sounds fun, no? Who’s excited?

    Whether the Hawks like it or not, that’s the task they face. And they’ve brought their moms along with them to…Boston and Newark? What the fuck did their moms ever do to them? Don’t they go to Arizona and Vegas next week? That seems an oversight. Or were they afraid they wouldn’t be able to pry too many moms away from the craps table to go watch their sons trail in the Knights’ wake? We’ll discuss this another time. THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

    Anyway, the Hawks wash up on Causeway St. to find everything pretty much humming for the Bruins, even with Patrice Bergeron missing the past few games. They have the league’s fourth and fifth-leading scorer in Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, and the Hawks didn’t seem to be able to do much about the third-leading scorer in Nathan MacKinnon last weekend. The Bs have two goalies in the Vezina discussion, as both Jaroslav Halak and Tuukka Rask have save-percentages north of .930. So if you’ve got one line that no one can stop, and a goalie every night no team can get past, what the fuck else do you need? The answer is not much, because the Bruins don’t have much beyond that and yet they’re 14 points up on what was thought to be the league’s toughest division. Some guys have all the luck.

    Is there some air in the Bruins start so far? Maybe a little. They’re pretty middle of the pack in most metrics, and they certainly don’t create a host of chances and shots for themselves. They just have two guys burying them at ridiculous rates. They’re top-10 when it comes to allowing expected goals or scoring chances, which looks a lot better when Halak and Rask have combined for a .936 at evens. As you might expect, giving the Perfection Line a look with an extra man has led to pretty much instant death for any opponent, as the power play is clicking at 30.9%. That’s enough to get it done most nights right there.

    And with this cushion in the Atlantic, the Bs don’t really have to fear a flattening out or market correction. 14 points even at this stage is a gargantuan lead, and unless both Halak’s and Rask’s head fall off and roll into the Charles, they’re not losing that. So they can look forward to at least the first two rounds with home ice. Their season is almost accomplished and we’re weeks away from Christmas.

    In the big picture, you have to feel like the Bs need to find secondary scoring somewhere. Only Krejci below the top line has more than 20 points, and some of that is boosted by getting to play with Pastrnak in Bergeron’s absence. Then again, this was enough to push to the absolute limit last year, and it may just be no one ever figures out how to stop that line until Marchand decides to do it himself (which he always does). I wouldn’t trust any team that has Danton Heinen or Jake DeBrusk on the second line either, but they have 45 points and all I have is shit in my pants. So there.

    The underlying cause to the Bruins is that they have three d-men who can really move the play in Charlie McAvoy (the mouth-breathing loser TM Fifth Feather), Torey Krug, and Matt Grzelcyk. The latter’s absence is last year’s Final was massive, and it deprived the Black and Gold from having a puck-mover on the ice at all times. Krug still has no idea what he’s doing defensively, but as he gets to play with Brandon Carlo most of the messes get cleaned up. The Bruins can play at pace.

    Which is a problem for the Hawks, who can’t. Duncan Keith will miss both of these games, which means the Hawks are going to try and combat this unholy beast with five slow d-men and the moderate mobility of Connor Murphy. My eyes are bleeding too. Anyway, Dylan Strome sounds like he might make the bell, but Andrew Shaw and Drake Caggiula won’t.

    I can’t sugarcoat this one for you. It has every chance of being ugly. The Hawks can try and leak out and maybe cherrypick their way to some odd-mans, but that will only leave them more exposed in their own zone. The Bruins aren’t a great possession team, but they have more than enough forwards who can hold the puck long enough and carry it low-to-high or the other way which always sends the Hawks into hysterics defensively. And even if you get out against the Bruins, you have one of two goalies who have been a wall to get past.

    Stranger things have happened? That’s going to replace “One Goal” as the motto soon.

  • Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Spotlight: Pastrnakamura

    Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins Spotlight: Pastrnakamura

    These are the kinds of posts we like, even if it’s about the Bruins. Or Bruin, in this case. Because goals are fun. It’s the name of the game, after all. And lots of goals are lots of fun. Which means David Pastrnak is having the most fun of anyone, causing the most fun for others, and might do so at a rate never seen before. His linemate Brad Marchand might be a total fraud, but Pastrnak is the real deal, folks.

    At the moment, Pastrnak has 25 goals in 28 games. After tonight’s 29th game for Boston against the Hawks, he should have at least 32. We’re kidding. We hope. Anyway, 25 goals in 28 games puts him on track for 73 goals this year, which would obviously be ridiculous. Only two players in the past twenty years have managed 60 goals. Alex Ovechkin’s 65 in ’07-’08 and Steven Stamkos’s 60 in ’11-’12. Ovechkin’s year is considered the greatest goal-scoring year by anyone ever when you adjust for the time or era of the NHL. And Ovie is the only one to get past 50 in the past five seasons aside from Leon Draisaitl’s 50 last season. Clearly, Pastrnak has a chance to do something we just haven’t seen and didn’t think we would.

    Scoring is up a tick from last year so far, but the gap from 3.03 to 3.01 per team per game is small enough that it could be washed away as things tighten up over the season, as they tend to do. Pastrnak at this point is averaging 0.89 goals per game, or about 29% of his team’s goals per game. When Ovechkin put up 65, that was 0.79 goals per game while the average goals per team then was just 2.78 per game. Still, that totaled only 28.5% of his team’s goals per game, so if you go by that, Pastrnak is on a pace never seen.

    For comparison’s sake, when Gretzky scored 92 goals (that actually happened and you really need to take a moment to think about it) in ’81-’82, teams were averaging 4.01 goals per game. So his per game average still only accounted for 28.6% of his team’s goals per game. So Pastrnak is ahead of that. By this measure, admittedly not exactly all that scientific, Brett Hull’s 86 in ’90-’91 is better, coming in at 30.3%. And Pastrnak isn’t too far off that pace, though he’s unlikely to get much past where he is already.

    So the question would be can Pastrnak keep this up? The 22.5% shooting-percentage is awfully ambitious, and eight points above his career average. His SH% has climbed the past three seasons, but that was at a steady-rate, not at this six-point jump from last year to this. So he can easily stay above his 14.5% career-rate, but staying over having one-fifth of his shots go in is probably pushing it.

    It’s probably even less likely when you get metric with it (it’s like getting giggy with it, we think). Pasta is generating the exact same individual expected-goals as he did last year, which suggests he’s getting the same amount and types of chances. However, he’s firing three more attempts per game at the net at evens, and as we know the more you fling rubber somewhere toward the net the more chances you get for something to go right. He is averaging one more shot on goal per game as well, and if you go by strictly scoring-chances (a little different than expected goals) he’s getting three more per game than last year, which is a massive jump. So maybe?

    Pastrnak’s work on the power play has remained steady from last year and the past few, so any jump is probably going to have to come at evens. By the scoring chances, it is.

    There are some factors out of his control. You would think if Patrice Bergeron were out an extended period of time, that would hurt his chances. Except that in his first game without Bergeron this year he lit up the Canadiens for a hat trick, and has tacked on two more goals in the four games since. Small samples and all that. He could get hurt himself.

    Still, you get into this sort of thing to see things you hadn’t seen before, and Pastrnak taking a run at 70 goals would certainly qualify. There’s probably a cold snap coming, so we might as well enjoy the heat now. He’s going to light up the Hawks either way, so you decide how to interpret it for yourself.

  • Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

    Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

    Brad Marchand – As always. And really, these days we’ve thrown our hands up at his antics, because he can’t help himself. He’s going to score enough for everyone to find a way to justify it, so whatever. But it’s his el foldo against the Blues last spring that we’ll never forgive him for. He says he’ll never get over losing Game 7 at home. We won’t either, asshole. Maybe if you’d reported for duty you wouldn’t have this heartbreak to worry about. Or would you rather just go for a change when things get hard?

    The Bias Against Tuukka Rask – Tuke Nuke’em is the leading candidate for the Vezina right now. And yet you’ll find plenty in the Boston media who want Jaro Halak made the starter. It’s been this way for years. If you think Crawford doesn’t get his due here, you should see this nonsense. But hey, it’s Boston, he’s not from Quincy, so is anyone else surprised?

    David Backes – The one plus of last spring was Backes having to watch his former team celebrate while he was in the pressbox or trying to be a goon or something. There aren’t many contracts as bad as Seabrook’s around. There’s a kind of symbolism that this is one of them. Maybe more went on in that corner in St. Louis in 2014 than we thought.

  • Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Game #28 – Hawks vs. Bruins: I Make A Lot Of Graphs