Baseball

Digging Through The Scrap Heap

By Sam Fels 1553 0

As the Cubs continue to emulate that “C’mon, do something” meme in real life this offseason, there was a charge of excitement, I don’t know why, when the non-tender list came out. Some of that was from Addison Russell being told to do one, which is understandable. Most of it though is from wannabe GMs who see no problem with the raft of pretty good players being cut simply because they were do a lot of money and want to do everything with the first aim being saving money and looking economical. Welcome to baseball before the 2020 season. Isn’t it grand?

But that’s life these days, so it’s probably a good idea to sift through a couple names that are making the rounds in greater Cubdom that could be help not so expensively.

Blake Treinen – The appeal of getting to make a lot of “Les Weinen” Sideshow Bob jokes is a big one, but that doesn’t really help the Cubs on the field. And Treinen might not either. What gets people’s pants to tighten is that Treinen is only one year removed from being the most dominant closer in the game, with the theory being he can’t completely have lost that. Oh, but he could have!

It’s vital to understand that Treinen’s 2018 had some clearly unsustainable numbers. Namely a .230 BABIP and a 4.4% HR/FB ratio. These are things that are simply not going to happen again. 2019 saw a violent market correction (BABIP is violence, Perry Farrell), with those numbers rebounding to .306 and 16.4%. And Treinen’s ERA went with it, to nearly five with a FIP that was over five.

More worryingly, Treinen’s strikeouts shrank from 31% to 22% while his walks more than doubled. That’s not just bad luck, that’s bad stuff. And that is born out by his fastball losing nearly a mile an hour of velocity and his slider losing both vertical and horizontal movement. It led Treinen to go away from it to a cutter that didn’t do all that much except make his outfielders run a lot.

The hope with Treinen would be that you could rediscover how he could regain some of the movement he lost in his slider or cutter, as well as maybe rediscovering the ways his sinker can turn into grounders again (51.2% ground-ball rate in 2018). And maybe that’s what the pitching lab is for, but it doesn’t appear that his arm angle or release point changed all that much. Remember, 2018 is really the outlier in his career, and though 2019 was excessively bad it more accurately reflects what he had been in DC. If he can find more ground-balls he can be effective again, but he maxes out at a Brandon Kintzler and you already have a Brandon Kintzler. Or you did. Could again.

Kevin Pillar – Oh goodie, an older Albert Almora. Just what I always wanted.

Charlie Culberson – You see how people got here, as he also is only a year removed from a 108 wRC+. But he strikes out a ton without providing much pop, and his infield defense grades out as “Haunted House Prop in May.” The Cubs don’t need him in the outfield, so this is going to be another hard pass.

Cesar Hernandez – Probably still expensive even after getting non-tendered, and his offense has been trending the wrong way for a couple seasons. Hernandez used to be able to get buy a little bit with speed, but was down to nine stolen bases last year which dropped his BABIP to .317 from the heights of the .330s before. He does make a ton of contact, though not much of it is hard. Both his walks and strikeout fell off a cliff last year, which is just weird, but he never struck out much before and you can expect that to continue. Still, he can only play second, and the Cubs at the moment have Bote and Happ who can do that and likely Hoerner at some point. Move along.

Steven Souza Jr. – Intriguing, given that he’ll be dirt cheap after missing all of last year with knee problems and having 2018 basically ruined by a couple injuries. In 2017 he hit 30 homers for the Rays, though that’s getting a bit in the rearview now. He couldn’t buy a bucket in 2018, and might as well put the glove on his head when in right field. He also saw a quarter of his fly-balls leave the park in ’17, which isn’t sustainable. Though his career-rate is 19.6%, so it’s not as outlandish as it might normally be. On the plus side, even in his ravaged ’18 season he managed a 44% hard-contact rate, before it became de rigeur. You have no idea what you’d be getting after a year out, but the dream scenario is he’s Castellanos on the cheap. But if you want that…just sign Castellanos because I know and you know and they know they have the money to do that.

Jimmy Nelson – It would help if he weren’t made of boogers and wish fulfillment. Still, you remember him being utterly dominant in 2017 until his shoulder turned to cheese. Nelson missed all of 2018 and might as well have missed all of last year, starting just three games. He might not be able to even pick up a baseball. Still, he was hesitant to use his fastball last year which had lost some steam, but that could be simply because of the time off. Could be worth a spring training invite just to see if you can regain his downward tilt on pitches, but you wouldn’t be counting on anything here.

 

Hockey

Arrested Development

By Sam Fels 2148 0

As the Hawks call up yet another d-man who isn’t Adam Boqvist, for some reason I’m thinking about Kris Versteeg.

I know that sounds strange, but come with me. When Versteeg “retired” from the Icehogs a couple weeks ago, he cited the far more physical nature of the AHL. Because it is filled with guys trying to get noticed, and there are far too many people on both sides of the discussion who think getting noticed means throwing your body and fists around like you’re caught in the Oz tornado, it simply was too much for Versteeg. He said it was in a lot of ways “easier” to play in the NHL. We’ve heard this about the A for eternity.

Well…why?

If the idea of the AHL is as a developmental league, why wouldn’t more teams want their farm teams to play the way those players will play when they’re called up? This was a big question in the last years of Joel Quenneville‘s reign here, as the Hawks prospects and fill-ins were playing one system in Rockford and it was little secret why they looked a touch lost up here.

The only comparison is baseball, which has its own established developmental system (I recognized the NBA does too but that is for more fringe players). And yet I don’t believe Dylan Cease was being instructed to throw at everyone’s head when in Charlotte or Javy Baez was told to take any shortstop out at the knee trying to break up a double-play (don’t tell me Sox fans wouldn’t have loved it if he was though). Both baseball front offices in town have talked endlessly about instilling a way to play throughout the entire organization. Why do you never hear this in hockey? Is it because a lot of players don’t even enter it, coming from college or Europe? That would seem a tad flimsy.

I ask this because the I don’t get the impression that Adam Boqvist is going to learn much about the NHL game in Winnebago County. I’m not sure anyone does. And the longer the Hawks keep him there, either they’re souring on him, or they’re putting off any Seabrook decision as long as they can, or he’s going to just plateau in a game that doesn’t reflect the one the Hawks eventually want him to flourish within.

While there’s certainly a physical element to the NHL game, teams are much more concentrated these days on being fast and carrying the puck in whenever possible. The real skills Boqvist needs are gap control and angles, things which he actually already is pretty decent. Yes, there are times he’s going to have to learn how to retrieve a puck in the corner and not get massacred, but he also can’t emulate NHL speed at the AHL either. And he has to do that far more often in a league that seems only to care about hitting and grinding. It’s just not the NHL game.

I ask these questions, not because the Hawks called up another plodder in Dennis Gilbert (though that’s part of it), but look around at any good d-man under the age of 25 and see how many games they played in the AHL. I was watching Carolina last night, and Brett Pesce and Jakob Slavin–the anchors of that blue line on a very good team–played a combined 21 games in the AHL. We know the current two best rookies, Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes, never stepped foot there. The argument is that Makar had two years of college and Hughes one, while Boqvist only had one year of juniors. College probably is a touch higher, and maybe even more so, which would lead one to wonder why more teams don’t steer their prospects to college but that’s another discussion.

Jacob Trouba never played in the AHL. Hampus Lindholm half of a season. Seth Jones came out of junior and never stepped foot there. Neither did Ivan Provorov, who came from juniors as well. Brandon Carlo played seven games there. Mikhail Sergachev never played there either. Neither did Miro Heiskanen. Samuel Girard played six games. The Hawks might say that Jokiharju spent a half season there and now he’s flourishing with the Sabres, or at least playing well, but that won’t make you or me feel any better.

I’m not saying Boqvist has already missed the boat here. A couple of these guys played 30-40 games in the AHL. And even if the Hawks keep him there all season simply because they’re too scared to sit Seabrook long term, or Maatta, or are waiting to buy either of them out in the summer, it doesn’t mean Boqvist will have turned. The Hawks could get away with it.

It would simply be a waste of time. He’s not learning that much there, and a lot of what he could be learning doesn’t apply to the NHL. And that’s if you trust the Hawks developmental system in North America, which in recent seasons has given them…um…hang on I’ll get this….Phillip Danault? Yeah…that was four seasons ago. If you want to find the last defenseman…well, we’ve had that talk and you didn’t like it the first time.

It seems the Hawks are still counting on their Niklas Hjalmarsson and Nick Leddy path (something about guys named Nick). As we know, Hammer spent about half or more of the 08-09 season with the Hogs after getting a brief look in 2008 before coming up, pairing with Brian Campbell on the Hawks run to the conference final and was entrenched therein. The Hawks gave Leddy a sampling in the AHL after bringing him straight from The U., but he got a bonus half-season there thanks to the lockout and was something of a different player when he returned to the ’13 team.

But that was an awfully long time ago, and though the Hawks’ front office hasn’t changed, the game has. Remember all this when Dennis Gilbert is staring down David Pastrnak tomorrow.

Remember to hit those share buttons! We need all the help we can get!

Football

Week #14 – Cowboys vs. Bears The Vault: 1996

By Tony Martin 2353 0

Happy Thursday and welcome back to THE VAULT, my weekly sermon where my pulpit is a Dave Wannstedt-run sideline and my scripture is just whatever relevant pages and boxscores I can find on Pro Football Reference.

Today’s Vault is a deep dive into the Monday Night Football tilt between the Bears and a visiting, defending Super Bowl Champ Dallas Cowboys team that took place on September 2nd, 1996. It was a Week 1 surprise Bears victory over a Michael Irvin-less Cowboys team where Deion Sanders had twice as many passing targets as any Bears player, and seven more targets than anyone else on the Cowboys. Of Deion’s 67 passing targets in 1996, 15 of them came in this Monday night opener. What a weird fucking timeline.

How weird was this game? Take a look at some of these goofy ass stats:
-The only passing TD thrown in the game was from Curtis Conway to Raymont Harris
-Bears punter Todd Sauerbrun had more passing yards than Curtis Conway, also from a pass that was completed to Raymont Harris.
–Bryan Cox was responsible for as many points (6) as the entire Cowboys team
–Herschel Walker caught two passes for some reason

This Cowboys team was still stacked with declining talent left over from their time as the dominant team in the NFL: Aikman, Irvin, Smith, Sanders, Moose Johnston, Leon Lett, Charles Haley, Darren Woodson. The Bears had Curtis Conway, Raymont Harris, Erik Kramer, Walt Harris, and Mark Carrier. Yet somehow, they came out on top.

I was looking back on the 1996 NFL Draft because I love second-guessing Bears drafts from the past, and aside from the amazing players they passed on, it should be noted that current Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri came out in the 1996 NFL Draft. Surreal.

The Bears were overmatched in this game, but they pulled out all the stops and got a W. A ton of trick plays and some key turnovers were the difference, so with that I’d like to take a second and praise Raymont Harris, or as you may know him, THE ULTRABACK (emphasis mine).

It’s hard as hell to find any good Raymont Harris tape on Youtube, and it’s a damn shame. By comparison, I found dozens of Jason McKie videos, and he wasn’t nearly as cool and certainly didn’t have a dope nickname. Raymont Harris has a fan page on Facebook with 39 likes and no profile picture. Players from the 90s that weren’t superstars will always get a raw deal in my eyes because they’re young enough to still know how to open a PDF but don’t have their middling highlight tapes available for me to peruse when I’m avoiding lesson planning. Like, they know they’re missing out, you know? Think about the fact that Donnell Woolford doesn’t have a sick Youtube compilation. I guess I’m really just hoping to watch old Bears videos and see if these players were actually good or fun to watch, and while there’s no good Curtis Conway videos there’s a Marcus Robinson 2000 highlight tape that I could watch if I so choose. It should be noted that I chose to watch that Marcus Robinson hype video and they spend half of the time talking about Dez White, Bobby Engram, Marty Booker, and Kaseem Sinceno.

You read that right, during a Marcus Robinson highlight video, the name Kaseem Sinceno was said.

I digress. Obviously fullbacks don’t have much room in today’s NFL so it’s not really that interesting of a thought experiment to ponder how well he’d do in the modern league, but he had a rare size/speed combo that looks good in the videos I can find of his time at Ohio State and various Sportscenter clips of Bears games from this era (I miss your voice so much, Stu Scott). He was apparently named the “toughest running back in the NFL” by a poll hosted by the Denver Post in 1997, and signed a one-year tender to compete for lead back duties that season with Rashaan Salaam, another player I loved.

To really wrap this Vault, I should mention that while Rashaan Salaam has a couple dope highlight videos of his on-field play, all the videos you can find of him came after his tragic death on December 5th, 2016; I’m not complaining but in an age where I’m so used to watching highlight tapes where players are making huge plays with like a Lil Wayne track as the backing music, it’s surreal to watch Salaam run through people at Colorado while Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1” plays in the background.

Bears won in 1996, Bears win in 2019. Go watch some obscure Bears on Youtube if you can. Or just settle for watching Raymont Harris do a cameo on Married With Children.

Football

Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 13: We Still Don’t Know If This Is Anything

By Sam Fels 1201 0

Back to .500, Mitch had a decent game and actually bailed out the defense a bit, game against a rocky Dallas team at home…any reason for optimism now?

Tony Martin: I think there’s a little bit of room for optimism, but only that they’ll finish the season looking somewhat competent. There is no chance at the postseason in my mind, but looking back at some of the games the Bears could’ve won earlier in the year is a heartbreaker, because this team could be in the thick of it. They won’t win out, but with a break or two here or there they wouldn’t have had to.

The offense looked good and the defense wasn’t perfect but it’s still incredible to reflect on how badly they’ve played on offense all season and how close all their games were. This team still has a championship window next year, and I’m hoping the rest of the schedule gives the Bears something to build on, assuming nobody misses a field goal in these last few games and Nagy obsesses over it for another offseason.

I think Dallas sees the Bears game as a get right game, but this one could go either way.

Brian Schmitz: As poorly as this team has played pretty much over the course of the entire season, it’s crazy to think they are in a position to actually make the playoffs. But this week represents a far more capable opponent that the Bears have seen over the past month or more. The Cowboys are struggling, but they are certainly better than the Lions, Giants, and Chargers. I’m concerned the Bears May provide a “get right” week for the Cowboys, much like the Lions defense was a “get right” game for Mitch. 

Wes Frenh: There’s a case to be made for optimism, but not one I’d subscribe to. We’ve been waiting for this team to rise up and put away the dregs of the NFC the last few weeks, and each game has been anything but smooth. Seeing some potential for improvement from Mitch was nice this week, but it really does just make me irrationally angry at Nagy for trying to force his offense to do things it clearly wasn’t capable of/ready to do early in the season. 

Dallas presents a difficult matchup on Thursday night, mostly in that the fire is cranked up under Jason Garrett’s seat. The Cowboys are still in the best position to represent the NFC East in the playoffs and they’re going to try to do all they can to fix their own running game and likely build some defensive confidence. I think the biggest thing going for the Bears in this game is getting to play at home, and that the weather on Thursday night (low in the 20s) could make things difficult for all involved.

 

Obviously it’s only the Lions. And Matt Patricia was dumb enough to keep playing man coverage. But why does Mitch look so much better when not seeing zone coverage? This comes after he pretty much told the coaching staff through the press what he wanted to do after the Giants game? Are they actually listening?

Brian: The reason why Mitch looks like a serviceable NFL QB against man coverage is fairly simple to see. During man reads, you see what your target is doing and if he’s open you throw the ball to him. Against Cover 1, 2, 3 or any man up or man over coverages, your target may look open, but you can’t see who else is defending their area. For an offense, Man reads are simply personnel reactions – if your guy is better than theirs, you are going to be successful. But when you are going against zone reads, it’s up to your system and scheme to get guys open, it’s not all on the players.

Tony: This Dallas game is like performing a litmus test when acid is already eating away at your legs, but shit we might as well try to put the strip on the festering remains of this Bears season so that next year will keep the fire out of the dumpster.

Baseball

Cubs Release Addison Russell, Proving It Was All About Baseball After All

By Sam Fels 1739 0

Remember “Quiz Show?” Pretty brilliant Robert Redford-directed film. Great cast. Maybe the one time Hank Azaria played an unrepentant asshole. David Paymer and John Turturro are just awesome, and pretty much showcase the entire Jewish spectrum. Somehow it starred Rob Morrow, which gets funnier and funnier the more you think about it.

Anyway, the climactic scene is when Ralph Fiennes’s Charles Van Doren sits before Congress and admits he got the answers before the shows. And senator after senator compliment him for his statement, until the surly, frumpy one from New York (of course he’d be from New York) finally says that his colleagues are full of shit and that he shouldn’t be commended for doing what’s right. Which earns standing applause from the gallery.

That’s kind of how I feel about the Cubs non-tendering Addison Russell yesterday. It really deserves no more applause than getting a vaccination. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Except in one light…is it?

I’ve always been a shade toward the middle on the whole thing when it started last year. Obviously, Addison Russell is a giant piece of shit and I would have been sated had they tossed him in the same dumpster as the giant Wrigley cake from years ago. But, and I could just be drinking the Kool-Aid, I believed Theo when he said they were genuinely interested in his rehabilitation and what was best for Melisa Reidy, who they said had requested that Russell not be released. Multiple times when they announced they were not letting Russell go last year, Theo stressed that Melisa and their child’s well-being and wishes came first.

Sure, deep down I knew it was about not losing an “asset” for nothing, and the hope would be that he would hit for at least a month or two and not spend the season shoving his cleats up his ass every which way so they could trade him and get something in return. But it seemed a pretty good cover story at least.

Of course, Russell sucked all year and proved to be an inattentive dope as well. And the first paragraph of the statement tells you everything: If you haven’t seen it in full:

The first thing they mention is that his contribution on the field would not be anywhere near what he would have to be paid. And normally that would be enough. But Addison Russell isn’t normal.

Last year, they said they were keeping him because they wanted to be on the frontline for his rehabilitation, to make sure everything was being done for Melisa and their child, because they didn’t want to simply wash their hands. They wanted to be involved. They wanted to be on the front-line. They wanted to be at the head of change throughout the league. They wanted you to believe then that his performance didn’t really matter.

And now it’s top of mind.

Of course, they say that his adherence to whatever they set out for him off the field has been up to the standards they set. No one knows really what this has been, and I’m not sure anyone should, although some idea of how intensive it’s been would certainly help. Whatever it is, it certainly can’t have been “completed” in just a year. But now the Cubs aren’t really worried about it, because he’s not their player anymore.

They also didn’t miss the chance to trumpet their own horn, but at least they didn’t lead off with it, so they’re one step ahead of John McDonough. Still, using this at best uncomfortable situation and at worst abhorrent as a platform to boast about your accomplishments and changes, ones we can’t really put a finger on, doesn’t really scan fully either.

Clearly, the Cubs had no choice in the public’s eyes, and no one is going to criticize this move. It’ll be on Addison’s new team to make sure he keeps adhering to his growth and change as a person. Except if there is no new team, what then? What if it’s just on him until April or May? Or longer?

I’m certainly not unhappy he’s gone, though I bet I see even more #27 jerseys in the stands from jackasses who have to prove just how uncaring and menacing they can be simply because. But if it was all about his change and growth, and you were so involved, wouldn’t the Cubs have to keep him so they could as closely monitor it as possible?

That would have been an impossible choice to make. This was certainly easier. But if you take them at their word, always a bad idea when it comes to front offices in any sport, it might not actually have been the right one.

Hockey

In The Policy Of Truth

By Sam Fels 2588 0

Ok, so as if the Hawks week can’t get any better as they get routinely thwacked by real-ass teams in their own division (oh, and they see a potential 60-goal scorer Thursday), evidence that they actually have no idea what they’re doing in the front office continues to mount. And I don’t mean getting capped out last night to the extreme of 17 skaters.

At the top, we should say that the Hawks are just in the same net with the rest of hockey, and their actions or behavior is more just a symptom of the whole damn culture than they being unique. What it does do is tear down this idea, that they are the biggest promoters of, that they are somehow the gold standard organization.

It started last week or so, when Akim Aliu said that he had been racially abused by Bill Peters while both were in Rockford. Now we know pretty much the whole story, and it involves team captain at the time Jake Dowell having a sit-down with Peters over what he had said to Aliu.

This is hockey, and if there is any sport where this kind of thing can somehow not make its way up the food chain, it’s here. Players are afraid to cause waves, organizations are terrified of media distractions, everyone else is in the middle. However, your AHL captain meeting with your AHL coach over this, it’s nearly impossible to think that this doesn’t set off alarm bells for everyone both in Rockford and Chicago.

And as friend of the program Chris Block has pointed out, there are other people in and out of AHL dressing rooms all the time. Agents, families, team personnel, some media, so the idea that this was completely contained in the dressing room and the coach’s office, there’s just no way to buy that. Peters was gone a year later to join Mike Babcock’s staff, so maybe the Hawks just thought everything was taken care of with that. Maybe they thought the gloss of a newly contending team washed away all. Maybe they were afraid of dulling that in any way. Whatever the answer, it isn’t enough.

And now they have to investigate their own assistant coach, one they brought in to babysit their struggling young coach/take over when that young coach finally drowned. Again, I wasn’t really aware of Marc Crawford’s past, but it wasn’t really my job to be. When doing due diligence on a new hire, you’d have to believe if you scraped anywhere beneath the surface you’d find his record of abuse. Y’know, because it was in a former player’s book and all? I didn’t read O’Sullivan’s book, but someone somewhere did and might have mentioned this kind of thing. Call me crazy.

It’s kind of amazing how recently this shit has gone on. We are 40 year beyond Woody Hayes punching an opposing player, which ended his famous career, and that’s in football which is the only sport that has a bigger attitude amongst its coaches of how tough they are due to how saggy their balls are and whatnot. We’re over 20 years since Bobby Knight was kicking and choking his own players (and son) at Indiana. All this in hockey is in the last five to ten years. Amazing what happens in this dark corner.

Again, on the other side, some would tell you that hockey’s culture of “just take it and shut up” handicaps them from acting. But we know that the Hurricanes went up the chain to Ron Francis. We know the Red Wings did the same to Ken Holland about Babcock. We know Dowell confronted Peters at the very least. So while there’s certainly an element of players afraid to speak up, it’s not like they’ve been totally silent either. The problem is that when they have spoken up, they’ve faced an indifferent or callous organization looking in the opposite direction.

If you’ve paid any attention, you know the way the Hawks paint themselves isn’t anywhere near reality. Any crisis they’ve faced they’ve royally fucked up, and combined with their current fucking up the on-ice product (what only anyone really cares about at the end of the day) they’ve been revealed to be one of the more balloon-handed organizations around.

But to restrict this as a Hawks problem would be unfair and silly. I’ve thought a lot about this lately and why hockey is so far behind everything else. And it’s mostly that it operated in the dark for so long, anything could go on because no one knew except for those in it. There was no one around to point out all the things wrong, because the only ones who knew were the ones in the culture and they could behave however they saw fit. Hell, the reason some of us became fans was because no one else was. So it’s not that hockey is upset that it’s being scrutinized now, it’s upset that anyone is looking at all. It doesn’t want to jibe with the wider world because the wider world was never aware of its existence for so long. But that’s not a justification, and far from it.

I don’t know why these GMs like Holland or Treveling or Francis or whoever knew here or whoever was Crawford’s boss just tried to shoo it away. The easy answer is callousness, and that might be it. I think it’s at least part laziness too. Because if they had taken action, that would only lead to more questions they would have to answer. Questions they aren’t equipped to handle. And we know how much they hate the media and questions. It’s just easier to say “man up” even though we’ve eliminated that term as a qualified answer years ago. It’s easier to hope that things just go away, which they did.

Well, they won’t now, and it’s a bigger mess. Who’s around who is actually equipped to deal with it?

Hockey

Atop The Sugar Pile – 12/3: Your True Face

By Sam Fels 1846 0

The Dizzying Highs

Brandon Saad – It would be easy to put Patrick Kane here, thanks to his point-streak, but I don’t do easy. But Saad is the only forward I notice every night, and I know I’m not alone. He scored against Dallas in their only win the past week, and got the opener shorthanded against the Avs on Saturday. Whereas Kane can go missing when games have been close and occasionally has been cherry-picking to benefit the point-streak he’s probably all too aware of, Saad just gets on with it. And he’s been the Hawks best forward the whole season whether you like it or not. He’s piled up 18 shots in the four games here, and he’s on his best expected goal per game of his career, and he’s top-25 in relative Corsi and xG percentage among forwards in the league. He’s played so well, it probably makes sense to explore trades for him in the way they didn’t for Erik Gustafsson last year. He’ll have one more year after this left on his deal, and he’s a difference-maker on a good team’s second line. That is if he’s not part of the long-term vision here, which no one knows. He’s been good enough where you probably can’t go wrong either trading him or keeping him, but if anyone can it’ll be the Hawks.

The Terrifying Lows

The Front Office – Boy there were a lot of candidates for this. But let’s just review, and there will be more on this later, but the Hawks organization has been part of two of the current abuse/racists scandals this week in hockey (Peters and Crawford) and have turned their palms up at both with the, “Me no speaka da English” defense. Either the front office is that willfully ignorant that their AHL captain having to confront their AHL coach about his racist remarks doesn’t send alarm lights to the main office, and their assistant hire’s past abuse of players being documented in a book or two, which means they’re just about the clueless bunch of dopes around (could be!). Or they knew all this stuff…and they just didn’t care.

Much less important, but worth mentioning, is that they’ve built a team that again, is one point off the bottom of the West more than a quarter through the season, and is capped out to the point they couldn’t ice a full team last night. This collection of ne’er-do-wells and the truly bewildered costs as much as any team in the league. Your four offseason acquisitions that make significant money total  which cost $15.6M (Smith, Shaw, de Haan, and Maatta) have got you one fourth-liner who’s slow, a bottom-six winger they keep trying to play into the top six even though all he’s done this year is take o-zone penalties and wave to the crowd, a middle-pairing d-man who also can’t move, and a barely-third pairing d-man. This is how you get capped out, because all these positions are supposed to cost a fuckton less than this.

But hey…ONE GOAL.

The Creamy Middles

Patrick Kane – It’s really not surprising when he keeps scoring. He might fire in some garbage time (symmetry) goals to keep his streak alive, and he may be trying to do that too many times, but he’s also the only other threat besides Saad these days. Without either, the Hawks get clubbed 4-1 every night.

Hockey

Game #27 – I Don’t Wanna Talk About It, Want to Forget About It, Wanna Be Intoxicated With That Special Brew – Blues 4, Hawks 0

By John Pullega 1960 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Terrible.

– Jeremy Colliton is not a fucking NHL coach. Bring on Sheldon Brookbank, I do not give a fuck. Jeremy Colliton is a smarmy asshole who made friends with other smarmy assholes and got a seven-figure job out of it, which is about as on brand as you can get for this fucking team now. He managed to coax a rigor mortis erection out of this fucking team for a few consecutive games in November, but tonight has once again hammered home the fact that he doesn’t know how to coach this team whatsoever, poor roster construction be damned. We could go on and on about his decision to put Carpenter between DeBrincat and Kane instead of Dach, but we won’t because you’ve heard that song before. But look at this goddamn clitoral sty:

David Perron leaves the puck in an area that Toews can’t be bothered to cover, giving Ryan O’Reilly all the time and space in world to pick it up. He demurs to Perron, and not one, not two, but yes, three fucking Blackhawks go out to the far boards—which is a very low-danger area, in case, like me, you were wondering—to cover Perron. This leaves O’Reilly whatever is beyond wide open right in front of Crawford. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an opponent get so wide open on a designed play since five games ago.

This is what the HIGH-OCTANE DEFENSE this mead-drinking bozo farts out produces. This is by fucking design. It is time to fire Jeremy Colliton. It’s brutally clear his team doesn’t want to play for him, and his designed system produces garbage like this. All we ask for is fun. This isn’t fun. Utterly embarrassing.

– They told us that Olli Maatta was an improvement. Olli Maatta, in fact, fucking sucks. His turnover at the end of the third was a travesty. Under absolutely no pressure, he threw a pass directly onto Tyler Bozak’s stick in the slot. Bozak, in what we can only assume was a reaction to such a bald-faced insult, pounded a shot past Crawford.

– But that wasn’t the only instance of the Hawks clearly giving up. On the very first goal, Seabrook and Nylander got caught floating back on defense, which gave MacKenzie MacEachern an open lane to swat a funky end-board bounce past Crawford. If you want to argue that there’s no way they could have predicted that bounce, fuck you. A bare minimum effort would have clogged up the slot and at least made that shot a little bit of a challenge. Glad to see Seabrook still has something to give and that we got this fucking Nylander loser for the mere price of an effective 20-year-old defenseman who was traded because his stupid fucking dweeb-ass moron coach didn’t like his attitude or whatever. Can’t wait to read the tell-all book where we learn that Jokiharju’s response to everything Colliton said was “Fuck off, nerd, you suck at this.”

– And we haven’t even touched the real shit. Stan Bowman should be fired immediately for not doing his due diligence on Marc Crawford. It’s clear that they brought Marc Crawford in to take over for Colliton if he shat the bed (and not only has Colliton shat the bed but also rolled around in it). But now, three separate players have accused Marc Crawford of physical abuse and regular use of homophobic language throughout his career. If you’re the kind of person that isn’t bothered by this, fuck you. This was a Stan Bowman decision. If his shitty off-seasons over the last two years weren’t enough to show you that he’s a total goddamn moron (Brandon Manning, Olli Maatta, Andrew Shaw, Slater Koekkoek), this should.

– It’s getting more obvious that Jonathan Toews wants nothing to do with any of this. He dragged around all night, such as in that clip we had earlier. But he was also aloof on the Blues’s third goal. After Kane’s pass for Toews got intercepted in the Hawks’s oZ, Toews couldn’t be bothered to get back to defend. This left Connor Murphy to cover Schwartz on the far boards, DeBrincat to cover Walker in the slot, and no one to cover the eventual goal scorer Brayden Schenn, because Olli Maatta was busy being too slow and shitty to adjust.

I can’t blame Toews, but if you’ve lost him, you’re fucked.

– On the plus side, Brandon Saad did what he does best: everything but score. He split a couple defenders in the third for a good chance that he couldn’t finish. He was one of only three Hawks who were noticeably good tonight.

–The others were Dominik Kubalik—who will undoubtedly be scratched on Thursday for REASONS—and Alex DeBrincat, who set up a nice scramble in the first with some nifty skating and a slick backhand shot that led to a Ryan Carpenter chance. He also hit iron off a good Toews pass in traffic. Perhaps if he had someone other than Ryan Carpenter centering him, he’d have more luck.

The Blues never had to leave first gear to grind the Hawks down like a twisting and dry leaf in a dog’s shitty, dragging asshole. The cherry on top is that the Hawks could only ice 17 players tonight because of salary cap restrictions and a sick (of this team) Robin Lehner. Truly a sign of a well-run org, that. If Rocky gave a single shit about anything, Colliton, Bowman, McDonough et al. would be on their asses tonight. But that sellout streak continues, so fuck you.

We need new pornos. Guess I’m still writing.

Beer du Jour: Half a bottle of 1792.

Line of the Night: Mario Lemieux didn’t have the heart, didn’t have the tenacity, didn’t have the drive of a Gretzky or Kane. – Steve Konroyd

Hockey

Game #27 – Blues vs. Hawks Preview: A New World

By Sam Fels 2155 0

vs

RECORDS: Blues 17-5-6   Hawks 10-11-5

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

GOOD GOD DON’T GO THERE: St. Louis Gametime

Like any adversarial relationship, or really any relationship that goes for a long time, there are different phases to it. The Hawks and Blues have had theirs. They were scraping for bottom of the barrel rewards in the 80s together. They were playoff rivals in the early 90s, each with hopes of breaking through the post-Oilers scene (never did). Both were hapless background pieces to the Wings, either in the mid- or late 90s. Both have been unequipped batting practice for the other at times, for instance the Pronger-era Blues were far ahead of the Hawks and obviously what came before here not so long ago. Both have been mud people at the same time.

We thought we’d permanently left them behind this decade. That’s the arrogance that comes from multiple championships. But you can never leave something like this behind. It’s always there, even if you have to squint, and it’s always a reminder of what you truly are. It feels like getting hit with a large fish in the face when you realize that, but here we are. Last spring was a reminder that some things are always like this, no matter how it might look.

And now it’s reversed. The Blues are in the sunshine, seemingly clicking everywhere, seemingly have figured out when everyone had assumed they never could. That it would always be that way. And the Hawks are the ones with their shoes tied together, valuing all the wrong things with an inability to take any step forward. Oh sure, maybe it’s only been two seasons like this, instead of the seven or eight we enjoyed laughing at the unwashed down I-55. But it’s gone now, isn’t it? Oh yes, yes it is.

So the Blues will show up for the first time this season tonight, with their unfathomable champions pedigree and their first place standing now and the added arrogance not just of having done all that, but of having done it when no one ever thought they could. These aren’t the Blues you remember, and it’s likely they will never be again. We’ve lost something. They’ve gained something, and that is truly world-shattering. They’re 15 points ahead of the Hawks.

The Hawks are 15 points behind, five points out of a playoff spot, and one point ahead of the basement of the entire damn conference. Has anything moved forward? Does it feel like it will anytime soon? Aren’t the questions all the same as they were before? The lack of answers sure are. This is supposed to be them. It was them. And we figured it would be them forever. Because it felt like it would be, when it was and we weren’t. We had all the answers before there were questions. And then in a flash it reversed, and now we’re the laughingstock in the relationship. “Look at how far behind they are,” they crow, and rightly. The gap is bordering on a gorge.  Cruel world.

Anyway, on the ground, the Blues are in first but in some ways they’re a lot like the Hawks. They’re not a great possession team. They get great goaltending and they’re getting some fine finishing from more sources than the local outfit. They’re still pretty good defensively, in that they hold down attempts, shots, chances among the better teams in the league. They don’t create much, but with the way Jordan Binnington is playing they don’t have to. The more you suppress shots and attempts the more games come down to a moment or two. And when your goalie is better most nights, you’ll win most nights. When you allow chances and attempts to flow like and Elvin-conjured river, you make it more likely that results will match what the teams are. That’s how you get the Hawks, no matter how good the goalies are.

Of course, the Blues are here without their main sniper in Vladimir Tarasenko, who might not play again in the regular season. They’re also without Alex Steen, which doesn’t mean much these days, and Oskar Sundqvist, which is somewhere in the middle. In their absence, Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron, and Brayden Schenn have fucked off just like they did last spring that landed us in this mess. Alex OrangeJello seems intent on having a true free agent year, and Jayden Schwartz is actually healthy. Imagine what happens when Justin Faulk actually gets comfortable. Fuck this life.

Anyway, to the Hawks, who will be without Duncan Keith, Dylan Strome, and now Robin Lehner as well as Andrew Shaw tonight. Lehner has the flu, which is a strange code for telling his teammates they suck on the bench and being given a day or two to calm down, even though he’s right. Without Keith, and he really shouldn’t matter this much, the Hawks roll out an AHL defense behind Connor Murphy. And we already said Connor Murphy shouldn’t matter this much either. Oh, did we mention they’ll have to do the same against the best line in hockey Thursday? On the road? ONE GOAL.

Because of all of this, the Hawks will skate one player short due to cap constraints, with the recalling of Kevin Lankinen putting them up against it. Real tight ship, here. A cap team that’s one point above the West basement. Everything’s fine. They have a process. They know what they’re doing. Everything is on course.

It won’t take more than four minutes for Pat and Eddie to comment on the Blues “grit” and the forecheck the Hawks apparently want to emulate without realizing what they’re actually talking about. The Blues can get in your shirt because they’re actually really quick. It’s not just about dressing psychopaths, which used to be their M.O. They upgraded the speed, and with Pietrangelo, Faulk, Colton Burpo, they’re mobile enough on the blue line to not worry if their forwards occasionally get beat. They defense can just step up behind it. The Hawks d-men can’t. So you get what the Avs did to them, which is streak to an odd-man whenever they felt like it. And failing that, they could just wait for that moment when four Hawks were trying to find the Big Dipper in their own zone and tralalala their way down the slot. The Blues are no more stupid than the Avs are.

The season is almost certainly already toast, but it’s for sure going to be if the Hawks don’t ace December. They can rant and rave all they want about where the Blues were on New Year’s Day last year, but that team was built to contend and needed to fire a coach who was clearly a moron and everyone knew it to get where they were supposed to be (say there’s an idea). This might be where the Hawks are supposed to be. Starting the month off with the two Finalists isn’t exactly cherry. The rest of the slate isn’t either.

The difference between the two might not any clearer after tonight, or at the end of the month. You’ll just have to wait for the day when the relationship shifts again. It might be a long way off.