Everything you need to prep for tonight’s what-have-ya against the Oil.
vs 
Game Time: 7:30PM CDT
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network, SportsNet 1, WGN-AM 720
Royal Oil: Copper ‘n Blue, Oilers Nation
As the homestand nears its halfway point the Hawks still find themselves winless on the season, and the schedule has done them zero favors with a very early season tilt against the suddenly shit-hot Oilers and arguably the fastest player in the history of the game.
Due to the decade-plus-long streak of Red Wings exceptionalism, it was just a given that Ken Holland was a genius who prolonged the mid-90s dominance constructed by Jimmy Devellano by unearthing gems like Nicklas Lidstrom and Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. And yeah, that’s quite a foursome to back up the free-spending ways of the Bowman Years.
As time went along, it appeared more and more that Holland simply kept Forrest Gump’ing his way into great players, and as the cap took more and more hold of the league, he simply couldn’t adjust. There were some hideous contracts handed out (Frans Nielsen and Trevor Daley, hello!), while the pipeline went dry for years (remember when Tomas Jurco was going to change the sport forever?). That core that ran the league in the mid-to-late 2000s got old and had not support. And then it all collapsed, and the Wings are still trying to get out from under it. Some began to wonder what Holland’s actual legacy was. Was he just born on third in Detroit?
We’ll find out now, because for some reason Holland decided to take on one of the few bigger messes than Detroit in the NHL, and that’s the Edmonton Oilers.
Perhaps like a couple coaches have, the allure and glow of Connor McDavid is just too strong to ignore. Perhaps the name-recognition of Holland in the sport delays any inklings McDavid might have of demanding out (they have to be there, right?). Or maybe it’s just the truckload of cash dropped at his door. Whatever the reason, Holland is certainly up to the knee in it now.
One thing Holland might be hoping is that simply not being Peter Chiarelli buys him a season or two to assemble a couple more draft picks. The Oilers only hope is to get production out of players on minimal deals to offset the shovelful of horseshit they’re getting from some of their higher-paid players.
Salvation might not be as far away as everyone likes to joke. The Oilers only have McDavid, RNH, Draisaitl, Neal, Chiasson, Klefbom, Russell, Koskinen signed for next year, though they only have $23M in space to fill some 13-14 spaces. The only player they are likely to want to keep is Darnell Nurse, but his play has hardly warranted paying him like the angry Seth Jones we thought he might become a year or two ago. Perhaps Phillip Broberg and Evan Bouchard can join the blue line for cheap help in the next couple seasons. Then again, Broberg was Holland’s first pick and was widely panned. Tigers can’t change their stripes, after all.
Which continued the tradition of what Holland had done in Detroit. Over his last nine drafts in Motor City, after they had stopped picking in the high-20s due to on-ice success, Holland provided only Anathasiou. Mantha, Larkin, and (if we squint) Tyler Bertuzzi. There’s some hope for Svechnikov and Hronek, but needless to say no jury is anywhere close to being back from lunch on them. Without reinforcements from within, all the while swearing that they were just overcooking in Grand Rapids, the Red Wings main roster aged and expensed its way out of competence.
One way to goose the process would be to find a trade, but the Oilers don’t have much to make a splash with. Draisaitl and McDavid are immovable and you’d never get fair value for them anyway. The window to move Ryan Nugent-Hopkins along might very well have passed. He has one more year on his deal after this one before hitting unrestricted free agency, and he’ll only be 27, so the time would be at this deadline. Waiting until the offseason will only lower his value. But then the Oilers would have to find another center or winger to make up for Draisaitl moving back to his natural pivot spot. It’s going to have to be more than Kailer Yamomoto, that’s for sure.
While it would be un-hockey-like, there must be a ticking clock hanging over McDavid as well. If any player could pull an NBA-style “Get Me The Fuck Outta Here” power move, it’s Run CMD. He’s seen the playoffs once in five seasons and patience must be thin. If Holland hasn’t presented something of a plan to his captain, he’s going to have to soon.
Holland needs at least one more year of high picks though, and maybe collecting a few more by selling off whatever’s not tied down. Except there isn’t anything. What would be worth anything at the deadline? Kassian? Maybe Benning? Those are worth low-round picks at best. RNH to someone desperate might be his only hope.
Does Holland have the patience for a slow burn that he didn’t show in Detroit until it was too late? Does he have the luxury considering what McDavid’s mood might be? We’ll see what he’s made of now.
Zack Kassian – To be fair to Big Kass here, he’s actually been a decent forechecker and possession player the past couple years. He’ll just never justify the uproar over what everyone thought he should be and he’ll still take some Lucic-like penalties for you. God, they were on the same team for so long!
Mike Smith – It’s always someone else’s fault.
Ethan Bear – BEAR!
Notes: EdMo hasn’t lost but come in with a 103 PDO, which is sure to last…as you might have guessed, the Oilers have scored twice as many goals with Draisaitl and McDavid on the ice as they’ve given up, but have given up more than they’ve scored when they’re not…the Klefbom-Persson pairing has actually been highly effective, so watch out for them…Nurse is getting top pairing assignments that we thought he was always destined for. Is it finally time for him?…Yes, you read that right. Neal has seven goals. Three of which came in one game, and he’s shooting near 40%. That’s sure to continue…
Notes: Perlini was actually effective on the fourth-line against Winnipeg, but only got eight minutes and the Hawks are going to do everything they can to give Nylander a chance to prove he’s something other than a tomato can…The Kampf line had their first rough night on Saturday, even if Saad produced the shorty. It’s still not clear how Colliton wants to use them…On the plus side, Keith and Murphy actually looked like a real pairing for the first time…
Well, it’s a point? When you don’t have any, a point is like, better than nothing? I’m trying here.
The Hawks started well, then got blitzed in the middle, and then spent the third period playing awfully safe. Which didn’t work. Stop me if you’ve heard all this before. Well you can’t now, because I’ve said it all, but you get the idea. What the Hawks can do about it, I’m not sure. And I’m not even sure it’s a thing, but the Hawks seem to think it’s a thing.
Anyway, let’s clean it up.
The Two Obs
-Slo my colleague Matt McClure has said that this seven game homestand is an excellent time to really evaluate Jeremy Colliton. Because he’ll get seven games to pick his matchups and where he wants players and have the best chance to put his players in their best places to give the Hawks a chance to win. So far…ehhhhhh.
The Hawks definitely were matching up their D against certain lines of the Jets last night. Murphy and Keith drew the Scheifele line assignment. Seabrook and Maatta drew the Andrew Copp line. But the forwards didn’t really have any pattern like that, which is strange. Which means Scheifele got some shifts against David Kampf’s line, which didn’t work out all that well for the Jets. But then they got some shifts against the Dylan Strome line, which very much did. You can’t have Strome out there against top centers. It’s just not going to work right now.
-Whatever, that’s kind of nitpicking. Maybe Colliton is still figuring out who does what. What his team does though is still have massive defensive breakdowns in their own zone. And I don’t know if that’s mistakes or by design. Frequently, you’ll catch the Hawks with both d-men on the same side of the ice, and sometimes even in the same corner. Which just can’t be right. One of Lehner’s big saves on Scheifele came when Murphy tailed Wheeler behind the net all the way to the other circle, and Keith was on his post as he’s supposed to be. So who covers the other side? Is it Strome? Because no one did much of anything here:
For the tying goal, where are de Haan and Toews going exactly here?
These are obviously cherry-picked, but you see these things all the time. It still feels like guys are guessing where to be, or simply don’t care. This shouldn’t be happening this early in the season after MAGIC TRAINING CAMP.
-The Hawks made a big deal of struggling in the second period, as they did against San Jose. I’m not really sure this is a thing, but they seem to think it is. It could just be that San Jose and Winnipeg are that much better and just needed a period to wake up for a game on the road. Obviously, the only difference in the second is the long change, where the Hawks possession problems become exacerbated. It’s even harder for them to escape their zone, guys get stuck out longer, etc. I’m not sure it’s got that much to do with the second period itself.
-On the plus side, I’ve been surprised by Ryan Carpenter in the first three games, and he was excellent last night. The 4th line was actually the best for the Hawks in terms of attempts-share and second best in expected-goals. Carpenter is quick and just gets up the ice, which is how he created the shorthanded goal (the Jets defense being just about as slow as the Hawks’ didn’t hurt either). I think you could make an excellent checking unit out of him and Kampf to make room for Dach. Just sayin’.
-Rough night for Kampf’s line, as they get clocked in possession and chances. But it’s still unclear what they’re being set out to do. Yet, they’re still the only line that plays fast, i.e. just gets the puck and goes. That might be because Saad is the only winger other than Kane comfortable carrying the puck a long way (sometimes to his detriment), but the top two lines don’t play that way. Yet. They need to.
-Seen some people wondering if the Hawks are actually intentionally not clogging shooting lanes on the penalty kill. Ehlers goal was a touch strange:
Again, I can’t tell you if this is systematic or human error. Maatta is there, he knows where Ehlers is, I think, he seems to anticipate the pass to him, but he takes a weird angle, either wrongly trying to cut off the pass he’ll never get to or he thinks Ehlers is somewhere else. He’s certainly available to get in the lane for the shot. He just didn’t.
-Don’t look now but the power play is clown shoes again.
-Ok, so my first trip into the UC this season. That scoreboard is…let’s say garish? It’s not this weird screens on top of screens thing, so from certain angles, including mine, there are ads and graphics that get cut off by other screens. It kind of looks like he Pritzker Pavillon, but made of video screens. It’ll take some getting used to.
Onwards…
Everything you need for tonight’s tussle with the Thrashers…
vs. 
RECORDS: Jets 3-2-0 Hawks 0-2-0
PUCK DROP: 6pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
LOOKING FOR AN AIRPORT: Arctic Ice Hockey
The Hawks will try and get their first points of the season in the second of seven straight at home, and they’ll do it in their first division game of the nascent season. The Winnipeg Jets roll in having won their last two, steamrolling both the Penguins and Wild after opening the season being looser defensively than the current bond on my windshield wipers (minor car repair is not my thing).
In their first three games, Winnipeg surrendered 14 goals in the three-game New York swing. They’ve tightened up to only let in three in the last two, but this blue line is a mess either way. Jacob Trouba and Ben Chiarot are gone, Dustin Byfuglien is off looking for answers, and what’s left is a shallow and brackish pool. Or Poolman (KARROOOOOGGGAA!). When your top pairing has Dmitri Kulikov on it, you know you have issues. Neal Pionk and Josh Morrissey aren’t doing much to help, which is why the Jets are surrendering the third most shots per game at a touch over 36. That’s even worse than the Hawks! It can happen!
But, as you know after all these years with the Jets as division foes, if there’s any team that can outshoot its defensive waywardness and lack of possession, it’s this outfit. Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor have switched places on the top two lines, which hasn’t stopped the top one from scoring even though they have some truly whiff-tastic metrics. Bryan Little hasn’t started the season yet due to brain injury, but Andrew Copp has filled in admirably. The Jets still have that hybrid checking line of Mathieu Perreault, Adam Lowry, and now Mark Letestu. They can do just about whatever you ask.
Because the Jets’ defense is a whatever is hopping cargo trains into town, Connor Hellebuyck is going to need to have a stellar season. So far so good on that one, as he’s up at .927 in three starts. The Jets do play tomorrow, hosting the Penguins this time, so the Hawks might get a look at Laurent Brossoit, one of the league’s better backups last year.
For the Hawks, it took two games for the lineup that shook out of Magic Training Camp to be blown up. To be fair to coach Kelvin Gemstone, the new look lines do make some sense, with the top three having the Puck-Winner-Playmaker-Finisher combos that Quenneville favored. Alex DeBrincat will shuffle up to play with Toews and Caggiula, and Kane will slot down to play with Dylan Strome and Andrew Shaw. The third unit that started so brightly against San Jose before being broken up and torpedoing the whole arrangement remains intact of Saad-Kampf-Kubalik (A little bit of the Kubbly!)
The shuffling doesn’t stop at forward, as Calvin de Haan‘s season debut has rejiggered the d-pairs as well. After being the low-hanging target that Colliton could call out, Erik Gustaffson is dropped to the third pairing with de Haan, as Colliton was shocked to find out that Gus can’t actually play any defense. Connor Murphy will join Duncan Keith, a pairing that just hasn’t worked as well as you’d think in the past. Still, Murphy is just about the only d-man on the roster with the mobility to cover for Keith’s wanderings and meanderings at his own line and down low. Maybe this time it will be different.
Robin Lehner will make his Hawks debut so Corey Crawford can get some air.
There are no must-wins in October, but it would behoove the Hawks to get off the schneid tonight. 0-2 is nothing more than a blip, whatever worrying signs contained within. But 0-3 starts to border on a whole thing, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before the Hawks have to play catch-up for the whole season. There’s already a strain and pressure on the players and coach and front office, and another biffed start to the season is only going to make it worse. Maybe this time there will be real consequences.
As if.
Considering the state of each teams’ defenses here, this one should have some goals. Entertainment is all we ask, and should get it to kick off a Saturday night.
For most of the summer, it looked like the Jets might struggle to get either of Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor into the fold by the season’s opening. Getting both seemed just east of Oz on the possibility scale. And yet they managed it. The strange thing was that they chose to lock up Connor long-term, while Laine only got a two-year bridge deal that won’t even take him into unrestricted free agency. But was it that strange, really?
At this point, it’s pretty well-documented how much Laine ran into the rock wall painted to look like a tunnel by Wile E. Coyote last year. From 44 goals to 30, from 70 points to 50, a 33% drop in shooting percentage, and some metrics that were truly horrifying. Meanwhile, Connor racked up his second straight 30+ goal season on the Jets’ top line, although his metrics weren’t all that impressive either. But when you’re skating with Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler, you’re probably always going to outscore what your metrics say.
Still, the thought that Connor was a product of his linemates and Laine had to do it himself was a popular one. It was even one Laine felt necessary to voice himself during the summer. If they switched spots, would Laine be the one the Jets felt they had to keep, and Connor the one they would wait-and-see on?
Connor actually spent as much time away from those other two forwards as he did with them last year. His attempts and shots per 60 percentage do go down without them, but the team’s goals-percentage when he was on the ice without them went up. More worryingly, the expected-goals count when down about five percentage points. The only thing that went up significantly was Connor’s shooting percentage, which appears to be blind luck thanks to the expected goals mark, and thus would explain the goals going up without Wheeler and Scheifele.
On the other side, Laine only got about 200 minutes last year with Wheeler and Scheifele, though that’s just about 15 games worth or so. Laine’s numbers hold steady whether he was skating with them or not. But what’s worth noting is how much worse the whole line’s numbers were than they were when Connor was on the top line. It’s four to five percentage points across the board. Quite simply, Laine was dragging them down.
So in that sense, it makes sense to see what Laine does for a further two seasons, and that’s both on the top line and away from it, to see who’s a product of whom. Laine’s bitching has got him on the top line this year to start though, where he’s put up 10 points in five games. And while the points are nice, once again the metrics say this line doesn’t work at all. Their Corsi % together is 29.7%. xGF % is 37.3%. Laine is outscoring it for now, but that can’t last much longer.
Meanwhile. Connor has been put on the second line with Nikolaj Ehlers and Andrew Copp, though that will be Bryan Little‘s spot again when he recovers from concussion. Their metrics still aren’t in the black, but they’re far better than what Laine is doing on the top line, though not with the end-product (three goals between them).
So it would appear that Connor is the more all-around player, capable of doing work anywhere, though we’ll obviously need a much bigger sample size. Laine is going to have to continue to shoot the lights out to outrun the fact that his line almost never has the puck. He’s done it before, but if he wants bigger numbers on his paycheck when these two years are up, he’s can’t stop.
