Everything you need for today’s matinee in Raleigh.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 2-4-2 6-3-1
PUCK DROP: 12pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
HE HIT THE FUCKIN’ BULL: Canes Country
Well now that the coach has laid down the gauntlet, how will his players respond? That’s the question facing the Hawks this weekend, as they face their first back-to-back of the year. They could have picked better opponents than the Carolina Hurricanes. You’ll recall that Jeremy Colliton‘s first game was against the Canes. It was 4-0 after one period. Colliton appears to be trying to reset his team’s focus. Here come the Canes again…falling on our head like a memory…
We’ll start with the Hawks, who were called out by their coach after their totally limp-dick performance against the Flyers. That saw them get one shot in the second period (but man what a shot it was!). The Hawks never created much outside Saad’s goal, and though they didn’t give up an avalanche of shots or chances, they gave away something like 143 odd-man rushes with shoddy puck management and some wayward positioning. It was ugly, and not the kind of thing the Hawks wanted to cap off their homestand with.
And the problem here is they only got one regulation win in seven games at home. That’s simply not good enough. They can argue hey were unlucky against the Caps and especially the Knights, but at the end of the day it’s about the points you got and the ones you didn’t. And the Hawks didn’t get enough of them, and now they’ll face eight of the next 12 on the road.
The most likely scenario here is the Hawks will look to have a little more verve this weekend, but that could just as easily be professional pride as much as responding to their coach whom they have debatable respect for. The real fear is that after going to the “Air Them Out In The Press” lever, what if the Hawks don’t respond at all? Well, there wouldn’t be anywhere left to go for coach Kelvin Gemstone, would there?
Because Colliton made it clear he didn’t think there was a problem with the lines, we can expect the same look to start, along with Corey Crawford in net. That doesn’t mean the lines will finish that way, because quite simply the top two lines haven’t produced enough. In the third period on Thursday we saw Brandon Saad and Dominik Kubalik shifted up to try and give both the top six lines a forecheck and puck-winner. It had some effect but not total.
One change you might see is Erik Gustafsson‘s ass seated in the pressbox for Dennis Gilbert. Gustafsson not only has been awful all season, but he’s a low-hanging target for the coach who can make an example of him without angering anyone on the team who really matters. But he might give Gus a chance to come good after a public peepee slapping.
To the Canes, who have hit something of a skid. They started the year with five straight wins, though only two were in regulation. But they’ve lost four of their last five, including to the Jackets twice and the Ducks once. Some of that is goaltending, as Petr Mrazek hasn’t given them too many saves and James Reimer has been ok.
System-wise, this is still the possession and metric monster it’s been for years, ranking second in the first category and on top in the second. You would have thought losing Justin Faulk would have harmed their possession ways, but Dougie Hamilton has been on one and Brett Pesce has used the free safety of Joel Edmundson to really accent his transition game. The Canes have been using seven D of late, with Jake Gardiner rotating in with Haydn Fleury and his missing letter along with TVR. Whoever they toss out there in the back has some serious get up and go, as they always have.
Sebastien Aho might be their only true top-liner, but as you know by now there’s a fleet of nifty, fast forwards here who don’t need a map in either end. Erik Haula has really taken to Carolina’s ways and has seven goals already. Teuvo Teravainen and Jordan Staal have been doing the same things as Kampf and Saad here, barely getting any offensive zone starts hut having metrics in the 60% range. They play fast and smart… all the things the Hawks can’t do.
The kind of effort the Hawks put forth against the Knights is going to be needed here. Which means short shifts, and your ass hair on fire when you’re on the ice. The Hawks have to be smart with the puck, which means getting it up and out of the zone as quickly as possible. Any dawdling or considering options is going to see the puck-carrier swallowed up by the quick and irritating forwards. Move it forward and move it quick.
Jeremy Colliton has played the biggest card he’s got. Let’s see if it wins him the hand.
If you’ve been following the NHL closely for the past few years, and especially the analytics of the league, you’ve known that the Carolina Hurricanes have been at the front of most of the rankings for a while. They’ve been a great possession team since Bill Peters took over as coach, and that hasn’t stopped under Rod Brind’Amour. They’ve been one of the better expected-goal teams too through that time. They just couldn’t get the results to match, because A. they didn’t have any goaltending whatsoever as Scott Darling flamed out and B. they didn’t have a lot of finish. So while they may never give up any chances and get a lot, at the end of the day you still have to make all that count. The Canes didn’t have the sharp end of the stick at either point.
But if you were to design what a perfect Cane player would look like, you’d come up with a fast forward with good hands who was busy at both ends of the ice. They would be smart and under-appreciated by their own team, not realizing all the good work they did and only noticing the neanderthal, outdated things they didn’t that said dunderheaded organization was fixated on.
We give you Nino Neiderreiter an the Minnesota Wild.
For years, Nino has been an analytic darling, and a darling of this blog. He has routinely put up Corsi-shares in the 55% range, and was routinely around five or more points higher than his teammates in attempts-share or expected goals. Nino simply always had the puck in the right end of the ice, and when there he was creating chances better than whatever the opposition could come up with.
And yet Mike Yeo hated him because…well, we don’t know. Didn’t hit or something? Bruce Boudreau only had marginally more use for him, even though he seemed to be perfectly suited for Gabby’s ways.
Nino has never been a prolific scorer, maxing out at 25 two years ago but consistently putting up 20-25 goals. You don’t find those kinds of players just hanging out in the drug store parking lot. Nino was bugged early last year by some rotten luck where he couldn’t get anything to go in. That was the last straw for the Wild, who moved him to Carolina before the deadline for clinically dead Victor Rask. It was a lopsided trade to anyone who was paying attention, which definitely wasn’t Chuck Fletcher in the GM chair.
You can guess where it went from there…he definitely fixed the cable.
Nino popped off for 30 points in 36 games in Raleigh, playing for a coach and team that knew exactly what they had. His attempts per game went up nearly 50%. His expected goals per game doubled. Along with that his shooting-percentage went up 50% as well with the better chances he was getting. That might have something to do with Brind’Amour immediately realizing his skill-set belonged with Sebastien Aho instead of some plug on Minny’s third line. The results are the results. It’s what Nino has always been capable of.
Something has gone off the boil so far this year. Nino and Aho have not been the dominant force they were, with their combined metrics down a ton. It continues a pattern for Nino, who wasn’t very effective in the playoffs as he was in the regular season, though that might have something to do with shooting just 3.8% in the Canes’ run to the conference final. Still, that line’s possession marks are still exemplary, and it should be expected that Nino’s individual marks will round back to where they were.
And like a lot of Canes, Nino has a perfect contract for them. His $5.25M hit is hardly unjust for a player who does the things that Nino does, and it takes him until he’s 31 when you’d expect him to decline and the Canes to move on. They’ve got the rest of his prime years.
It’s the kind of shrewd move that the Canes always seem to make to now be competitive with a limited budget (which could be self-imposed or not). Erik Haula is another one, and he’s got seven goals as he also fits perfectly into what the Canes do. Must be nice.
Erik Haula – Because he should have been a Hawk.
Nino Neiderreiter – Because he should have been a Hawk.
Teuvo Teravainen – Because he should still be a Hawk.
Hawks
Notes: We’re guessing after Coach Gemstone specifically said the lines weren’t the problems, it would look awfully stupid for him to then change the lines. So you’ll get what you’ve been getting…Could save Crow for the easier assignment of the Kings at home, but we think they’ll just go with a straight rotation here…would not be a huge shock to see Erik Gustafsson scratched, as he’s been terrible and an easy whipping boy…
HURRICANES
Notes: Canes have been dressing seven d-men for the past few games, so hence the goofy lineup…boy those seven goals from Haula would have looked nice here, huh?…There was talk at practice yesterday of switching Nino up with Staal and putting Our Special Boy back with Aho, but we’ll have to see today…Reimer has been bette than Mrazek so far and they have split the starts so it would be Reimer’s turn today…
Dear Jeremy Colliton,
We don’t know each other. Likely won’t. That’s cool. Anyway, I was at the game last night. Surely wasn’t inspirational. Truly impotent, in fact. I came home to find you bus-tossing your players in the press. Interesting move. We’ll get to why in a sec.
I want to be fair to you, Jeremy. So I’d like to list the obstacles put in front of you that either aren’t your fault or have nothing to do with you. It’s actually pretty long. So your job is hard. Very hard, in fact. Perhaps too hard for someone with your experience. You might never have had a chance. But again, let’s get to that a little later. So here they are.
-You’re not the GM. So hence, you didn’t put together this blue line that simply has no one with plus-speed. And other than one doofus who has completely reversed, it doesn’t have anyone who can actually handle the puck all that well (though Maatta has been better at that than anticipated). You have no transition game because of this. Not much you can do.
-You’re not the GM, so you didn’t put together a forward grouping that also simply isn’t fast enough and is a bit mismatched. It doesn’t really have enough forecheckers. You didn’t bring back Andrew Shaw to sell tickets (even though they’re also all sold? Weird that, no?) when what you really needed was an Erik Haula-type (he’s got seven goals already, by the way), A whole lot more speed to go with his puck-winning abilities.
-You’ll never convince me that even your entrenched veterans didn’t know it was time for a change behind the bench and actually welcomed it. But you still followed a legend, which means you had little chance of winning over the fanbase and your leash with the “Core Four” was always going to be short. They were open to new ideas and new ways, but they also weren’t going to be all that patient given what they’d known. That’s hard.
-Your best d-man is made of duct tape and boogers.
That’s a lot actually, Jeremy. You probably have every right to be frustrated, because in your first NHL job you shouldn’t have to deal with that. Especially when you were shotgunned into the position before you could have reasonably expected to be so. So…okay fine.
But Jeremy, you’re not doing anywhere near enough with what you can control, and your play of putting it on your players has little chance of working.
Here’s the thing, JC: this isn’t the doldrums of February. This isn’t when any regular season gets boring, long, and repetitive. Last season, your front office and even some of your players (almost certainly at the front office’s behest) wheel-posed to make it clear how hard it is to make changes without a training camp. This ignored that you had five months, and also ignored that this is hockey and you’re not trying to switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4 or something like that. But that was what everyone wanted the fans to know. You needed a training camp.
Well, you got one. It was only three weeks ago, in fact. Should still be pretty fresh. And that’s when you’re supposed to instill belief, get guys to see what it is you’re trying to do, and get them to believe it will take them where they want to go. Make it clear that it will work if they are fully committed to it and get them to do that. That excitement should be clearly evident a mere eight games into the season. It should still be fresh in their minds. These new ways and ideas will work and they should be excited about it, if for nothing else that it’s still top of mind.
If they already think it’s bullshit, that’s on you, friendo. You had your chance to make it clear why this is the way forward without any distraction. Judging by introducing your players to the bus bumper eight games in, you borked it.
And is effort really the problem here? It can look like that, sure. But are you putting your players in the best spots to succeed?
This Strome-Dach-Kane line…what’s that supposed to do exactly? First of all, there’s nothing about Strome’s game that suggests it will adapt well to a wing. And he hadn’t really played bad enough to be “demoted,” and yet he’s been moved from his favored spot and off the first power play for Alex Fucking Nylander. You really expect him to play with verve after that? Or maybe play like he has no confidence?
Second, that line has no puck-winner, isn’t fast at all, and has three guys who all probably need the puck. Nothing about any of their games suggest they can flourish playing away from it and seek out space for the others. So what’s it supposed to do?
Your first line…again, you’re hampered by the fact that Andrew Shaw is a half-step slower than he was and also doesn’t seem clear on what it is he does that actually helps a team. You’re probably not helped either by the fact that it looks like Jonathan Toews when from 30 to 38 on his last birthday so far. But you still seem to think Toews is a do-it-all center. He’s not. And if there’s one set of skills that’s definitely at the bottom for him, it’s playmaking. He’s not going to get the puck to DeBrincat. He’s not a set-up guy, never really has been. So how does that work? Toews and DeBrincat worked ok last year at times, but they had a hard-worker next to them like Kahun when they did. And Toews’s most goals came with Kane and Caggiula. Now, I know that a team with real aspirations would never have Drake Caggiula on the top six. But hey, he knows what he is and does what he does, which is open up space for those who need it. You can’t seem to get Andrew Shaw to do that.
And it’s still your defensive system, Colly. You’re bottom five in the amount of attempts, shots, and expected goals you surrender. Again, that has something to do with talent on hand. But just last night, I counted at least three times where one of your d-men was just standing in between the circles not doing anything in particular. Either that’s the way you want it, which doesn’t make any sense, or your players still don’t get what it is you want. What happened to MAGIC TRAINING CAMP?
How many odd-man rushes did you give up last night? Eleventy-billion? That’s being shitty with the puck, and also a result of your forwards having to do everything, the latter of which isn’t on you. But still, being focused and smart with the puck…that comes from you. And why are you still trying to play a high-pressure game with a blue line that can’t move?
Oh sure, you can hang out Erik Gustafsson to dry again. That’s easy. That doesn’t impress anyone. That doesn’t grab anyone’s attention. He’s a third-pairing player who’s gone in a year at most anyway. So who are you talking about? Are you talking about Toews and Kane? No one’s really questioned their desire in a very long time, and only the latter’s which was some eight years ago. Anyone who’s seen what his offseason training program looks like would be hard-pressed to claim he doesn’t care.
Seabook? We’ve been down this road. You know what you have to do but are terrified of doing it. And it doesn’t matter until Boqvist is here anyway. You really want to do something impressive? March upstairs and tell Stan to get his tiny Swedish ass up here so you can have at least one d-man who can initiate a transition game.
Keith? He looked pretty inspired next to Murphy, and he’s been your biggest critic. So whom are you aiming at?
Your team looks like it’s not working hard because other teams know they just have to clog the neutral zone a bit and prevent your forwards from carrying the puck the whole way, which they have to. It’s why only your third line looks good because it’s the only one that can do it at what is now NHL speed. Force the Hawks to dump it in, and they simply don’t have the forecheckers or speed to get it back. That’s not about effort, and that’s not really on you.
Who looks like they’ve improved from last year? Kubalik wasn’t here. This is what Kampf has been and is. Anyone? Maybe Maatta? That’s on you too, bud. Ask Matt Nagy about players not improving and who gets blamed for that.
But if you think they’re uninspired, well…you’re supposed to do the inspiring. And you’re not supposed to use the press to do it until you’ve tried everything else. This is kind of the last chord to pull. If it doesn’t work, where are you?
Sincerely,
A Functional Alcoholic in Section 320
The Rockford IceHogs head into the weekend looking to build on a two-game winning streak. Rockford is in Cleveland, where the piglets will play a pair with the Monsters.
The Blackhawks made some roster moves this week; here’s a quick look at the activity.
Wednesday, the Blackhawks recalled Dennis Gilbert and assigned newly acquired defenseman Ian McCoshen to Rockford.
McCoshen comes to the Hogs from Florida, who dealt him to Chicago in exchange for forward Aleksi Saarela. Saarela, who had 30 goals for Charlotte last season and is now with his fourth organization in four seasons, picked up his first point of the season with an assist in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Chicago.
The trade accomplishes two things on the AHL level. First, it lessens the bottleneck currently keeping several young forward prospects out of the lineup on a nightly basis. With Kris Versteeg and John Quenneville out for this weekend and Mikael Hakkarainen not back from his opening-night injury, there could be as few as 13 forwards for Derek King to choose from against Cleveland.
The swap also gives the IceHogs another solid defensive option in McCoshen, who has NHL experience. He has good size (6’3″, 218), skates pretty well and is should pair well with more offensive-minded players like Adam Boqvist and Chad Krys.
Kevin Lankinen, who has been out of the lineup following the season opener with an upper body injury, began practicing with the team this week. It’s possible that he’ll see action in Cleveland.
Cleveland Monsters
Cleveland is 3-3-1 to start the season. They are coming off of back-to-back losses to Toronto last weekend after a win in Rochester Friday night. The Monsters won three of the four games in last season’s series with Rockford. Cleveland is 11-3 at Quicken Loans Arena against the IceHogs over the last five seasons. They swept Rockford in Cleveland last October.
Veteran forward Nathan Gerbe (0 G, 6 A) will be a factor at both ends for the Monsters. Former Hogs defenseman Adam Clendening had 37 points for Cleveland in 45 games a season ago and has started 2019-20 with a goal and five helpers.
Zac Dalpe posted a career-high with 33 goals for the Monsters last season. In his eleventh AHL season, Dalpe has three goals and two assists in seven games. Dalpe had four goals against Rockford in 2018-19.
Long-time AHL agitator Stefan Matteau, most recently with the Wolves, has three goals so far this month. Fourth-year pro Justin Scott has five points (2 G, 3 A) for Cleveland.
Rockford will likely see both third-year goalie Matiss Kivlenieks (2.89 GAA, .895 save percentage) and rookie Veini Vehvilainen (3.04, .904) between the pipes.
I’ll be back on Monday to recap the Hogs dealings in Ohio. Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for updates and thoughts on the action this weekend and throughout the season.
The fact that the score isn’t two goals worse for the Hawks should be cold comfort. They got the benefit of the hockey version of VAR thanks to Captain Stairwell being offsides not once but twice and having goals called back for it, but make no mistake, the Hawks played like shit. And they got the result they deserved.
–I wouldn’t necessarily say that the Hawks’ defense has been GOOD thus far, but over these last few games they were much less awful than what we’d become accustomed to. Tonight that all fell apart, with our Large Irish Son out with a broken crotch, Calvin de Haan taking his place with Duncan Keith, and Fetch Koekkoek back in because REASONS. With Adam Boqvist still putting his face back together we can’t be surprised that Koekkoek and Gilbert were the best the Hawks could come up with, but that doesn’t make tonight’s performance any easier to take. On the first goal (that counted), Keith got completely pantsed by Travis Konecny, and then de Haan just watched as Oskar Lindblom skated past him and scored. Seabrook did Seabrook things, including getting completely burned by Captain Stairwell on the third goal after Saad turned it over. Gustafsson had an atrocious turnover that led to van Riemsdyk’s goal—it was a hot mess.
And let’s be clear, just defensively in general the team was piss poor. Obviously the actual defensemen were shit but the forwards weren’t doing anything better, and the abject failure to handle their own blue line was remarkable. In a bad way.
–I wanted to say that the bright spot was Brandon Saad, and in a way it was because his goal was really good. Kirby Dach created the chance and Saad found the perfect opening, and he finally finished. He’d had another point-blank chance in the second but missed the net badly, so it was good to see him score and overall he played well. His line with Kampf and Kubalik even came out strong. But then his turnover that led to Hayes’ goal was pretty much the backbreaker. So even that silver lining has a cloud.
–Beto O’Colliton hit the blender pretty hard but it didn’t matter and it didn’t even make much sense. I think at some point Shaw was with Dach and Kane? 20-64-8 got split up, which, OK maybe we’ll need to do that but let’s think it through, not just plop Kubalik on the left side suddenly. Also can we never see Drake Caggiula and Patrick Kane together again? It wasn’t meant to be that way but it was still frustrating and sad. Tonight was all process and no plan.
–Robin Lehner deserved better. His .826 SV% looks terrible but it’s hard to pin any of the goals on him (I’m trying to decide on one and failing to do so). It’s too bad that after an excellent performance against Vegas on Tuesday and making some highlight reel stops again tonight on oh so many breakaways, he’s 0-2. At times he was visibly pissed and honestly I would have been too.
–Erik Gustafsson sucks. Get this, he had a 71 CF% at evens tonight and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because I saw how badly he played, so why are numbers lying to me? Once Boqvist gets his teeth glued back in his head he needs to replace Gus and this bullshit needs to stop. Maybe we can still find a moron to give us something more than a bag of pucks for him since it’s still early?
Overall it was a flat, shitty performance and we have to hope that maybe getting the hell out of town for Saturday’s game will help. I’m not too convinced, but we’ve all got to tell ourselves something, right? Onward and upward…
Everything you need for tonight’s tilt against Philly.
