Faxes from Uncle Dale

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Los Angeles Kings

By Sam Fels September 26, 2019 1911 0

While it’s fun to mock the Kings, in the end you’re really only mocking yourself (done played yo’ self, fool). It’s another team that sat on top of the hockey world for a few years, but now has too many entrenched contracts to have a full teardown and restart. And those big contracts make it also near impossible to slot in players who can move them down the lineup to lesser roles. Which is why the Hawks getting Kirby Dach is hopefully a coup as he moves Toews down for cheap in the coming years. Perhaps Alex Turcotte will be that down the road, shoving Anze Kopitar to a #2 center role. It won’t be this year though, and this year looks like it might be pretty damn ugly for the silver and black. Again.

2018-2019

31-42-9 71 points (dead ass last in the Pacific and West)

2.43 GF/G (30th) 3.16 GA/G (22nd) -60 GD

48.2 CF% (22nd) 47.0 xGF% (21st)

15.8 PP% (27th) 76.5 PK% (29th)

Goalies: Like death, taxes, and my inability to love, it’s Jonathan Quick in the Los Angeles net. But perhaps this is the time when he has to let go of the rope, even if his contract says otherwise. Quick was a big back of suck last year, posting a .888 over the full season. That kind of came out of nowhere, as the debate about whether he was overrated or underrated raged on without noticing he’d been pretty solid for the three years before (.919 SV%). At least when he was healthy. It’s highly doubtful Quick is now a sub-.900 goalie, unless there’s something chronically wrong with him physically. At 33 he shouldn’t be complete toast, but last year was awfully discouraging.

He might want to pick it up, because if he doesn’t Todd McLellan might have a real headache on his hands. Well, a headache other than watching this team getting turned into tapenade most nights. Jack Campbell massively outplayed Quick last year, to the tune of a .928 SV%. While the world has been waiting for Campbell for what seems like decades, this was his first regular turn in an NHL net. Now, maybe that was the anomaly, but if Campbell continues in anything like that fashion and Quick continues to look like be belongs in the fields of Elysium, there’s going to be a call to get Campbell more and more starts. It’s highly unlikely that Quick is going to be in net when the Kings matter again, whenever that might be, and a whole bunch of fans and some within the organization might want to start that process along.

Defense: Hope Doughnuts likes cashing that fat, $11M check because he’s going to have to do everything here. Except he can’t really anymore, and his metrics went into the red for the first time last year. When Alec Martinez is your #2 d-man, people should attend your games with gas masks. I could list the rest of the Kings defensive crew, but you would be sure I was making them up and trying to get away with something. The good thing, I guess, for the Kings is that every d-man after Doughty is only signed for this season, so they can completely start over next year if they so choose. And they probably have to. Otherwise, when you’re cold and alone at night, remember there are people out there choosing to watch Derek Forbort and Ben Hutton multiple times a week. You are not alone in your desperation and waywardness. You are not alone. You are not alone.

Forwards: Two years ago, Anze Kopitar flashed for a whole season in a big “I’m Not Dead!” sign. That gave us hope for Jonathan Toews. Well, Kopitar went back to needing a forensic team to figure out if he could fog a mirror last season, which doesn’t give us much hope. But hey, he was the only Kings forward to top 60 points. Which is…well it’s not anything and it means this team has all the dash and dynamism at forward as the rat carcass in the alley. Kovalchuk and Jeff “Wooderson” Carter are still around to cash a check, at least the latter is until yet another body part of his gets up and takes a walk for a couple months. They can’t seem to kill Dustin Brown, so he’ll take a top six role because that’s just what has to be. Look for Tyler Toffoli to have a better season as he heads into free agency and the possibility of getting the hell out of there. They’ll try and convince you that any or all of Adrian Kempe, or Alex Iaffalo, or Austin Wagner are things that definitely have to be paid attention to. They definitely intake oxygen but not much else. This team won’t score much and you can see why. When Trevor Lewis and Kyle Clifford still easily claim spots, you know your team blows.

Prediction: Don’t know why Todd McLellan took this job other than sheer desperation. At least with the Oilers he could watch Connor McDavid every night. Here he’s going to watch Kopitar wheeze and hear the fat on Doughty increasing on a nightly basis. If Quick isn’t terrible they probably won’t be a front to nature, and maybe even pass Anaheim on the standings. Maybe. But all of their kids that will form the next Kings team aren’t here yet, and what is is pretty gruesome. Another sub-80 point season seems on the cards.

Previous Team Previews

Carolina

Columbus

New Jersey

New York Islanders

Hockey

Off To Europe, Without Boqvist In The Carry-On, And Not Much Else In

By Sam Fels September 26, 2019 1728 0

As we all expected but hoped would be different, Adam Boqvist was punted to the Piggies last night. We could sit here and rant about how he was sort of sandbagged by being paired with Slater Koekkoek, whom I’m going to call “Fetch” all season until he is mercifully put on waivers where I’m sure he won’t be claimed. But the Hawks are going to take a cue from baseball executives and keep Boqvist in the minors to “work on his defense,” even though his offense plays at a top level right now. They’ll soon see how badly they need him.

I don’t know how much stock to put in any preseason game, and my inclination is to put next to nothing on them. Last night wasn’t pretty, but I don’t know that we learned anything new. If Crawford or Lehner have a bad game, the Hawks are probably going to give up close to if not a touchdown every time. They simply can’t limit chances that well, so the goalies have to keep them out.

And yet…if you get real fancy about last night, at least at even-strength, the Hawks were pretty even with with Caps. By xG, they actually did a little better (1.51-1.37) and when adjusted for score it’s only 1.29 to 1.55. When you let in five even-strength goals off of that, you have to put that squarely on the goalie. So it goes.

Except I feel like this team, which could outscore the chances it creates given the finishing talent it has in its top six, is also going to probably let in more goals than the chances suggest, simply because. We’ll see.

I do think it’s a tad worrying that you already have your captain claiming the team needs a wake-up call when they haven’t even played a real game yet. It’s one thing for an established team to go through the motions in the preseason. A team that’s accomplished more than dick in the past few seasons. You would think this team, the one that hasn’t come anywhere near the playoffs for two straight seasons and hasn’t won a playoff series in the last four, would have a sense of urgency right from the bell. You’d think they’d be practicing, much less playing, with something to prove.

Only a handful of them have nothing at stake here, and you know their names. But Top Cat, Gustafsson and Strome have contracts to get. Maatta has a career to revive. Others are trying to prove they actually belong here. Seems askew that the Hawks have spent the entire preseason basically getting their ass kicked. Especially the past few days.

Still, when you give Erik Gustafsson anything more than third-pairing responsibility, this is what you’ll get. When you trust Seabrook and Maatta to do much more than stand and stare, this is what you get. And none of it counts yet. The problems are obvious, which is why, perhaps in a panic, I think we’ll be seeing Boqvist before the holidays.

What I wish I saw was some proof of Jeremy Colliton’s system being a change of anything, and we haven’t. The Hawks don’t look like they’re applying more pressure in their zone, mostly because they can’t due to the speed of their defense (i.e. none). But there also isn’t any tweaking of that system to help them with the speed they lack (see if you can see the reference in there). With this defense the Hawks really should be sagging off players on the outside and toward the middle of the ice more, instead of just being in the trail-technique all over the zone. We don’t see that yet.

It’s also not a feather in Colliton’s cap that his captain is saying his team needs to wake up in preseason. After all, both Colliton and Stan Bowman and others have never missed an opportunity to point out he didn’t have a training camp last year, and that was every reason everything that didn’t work didn’t work–the defensive system, Seabrook’s immobility, Keith’s inability to care, the record, the goaltending, the city’s budget crunch, that pothole on your street that hasn’t been fixed, that smell on the bus.

Well here we are at the training camp for Colliton that the whole organization bullhorn’d from the hills…or that one hill we have…would solve everything. And Toews is telling the assembled media they’re sleepwalking after they’ve gotten domed by the Caps and the Providence Bruins. If this was truly the answer, that having a training camp was all it would take, wouldn’t their be a burst of energy at the anticipation of real change? A sense that they were on to something? An excitement at simply something new?

Football

Kirk Cousins = Jay Cutler. Both Are Better Than Mitch Trubisky

By Brian Schmitz September 26, 2019 2400 0

For the 3rd week in a row, your Chicago Bears will face a quarterback that doesn’t necessarily inspire fear in opposing defensive coordinators. Vikings QB Kirk Cousins has long been considered one of leagues biggest question marks. Dating back to 2015, you never knew what to expect from Cousins on a game to game basis. His career record (36-38-2) and stats compare very close to everyone’s favorite E! realty star, Bruce Jenner Jay Cutler Cavalerri. So far this season, Cousins is doing what Cousins does; which is managing games, completing a great percentage of his passes, and staying healthy. On the other hand, he is turning the ball over far too much in addition to not throwing for big yards (98 yards Week 1). The latter two reasons as somewhat surprising because Cousins was very good last year, and I thought he was poised for an even bigger year this time around. Cousins’ very respectable 2018 stats are the type of numbers that Bears fans would cream themselves for:

• QBR 100.9
• Comp % 70.7%
• Yards 4,166
• TD/Int 29/10

To take this a step further, last season, Cousins was at the league average or above in 11 of 12 passer rating yardages, including a ridiculous 139.2 rating on passes over 20 yards to the right side. If the Vikings run game gets stuffed early, look for him to attack this area on Sunday:

Now that you’ve seen how good Kirk Cousins can be and why the Vikings paid him $84M over three years, let’s dive deeper into his play this season, which could generously be described as a shit-show. Take a quick look at his current 2019 numbers when projected over the entire season:

• Comp % 58.7%
• Yards 2,677
• TD/Int 16/11

Additionally, Cousins has put the ball on the carpet four times thus far this season. Now, I am not a quarterback coach or a GM or a team president, but even I know that fumbling the ball 1.3 times per game isn’t going to make too many people in the Vikings organization happy when you are making $28M per season (AAV) or $1.75M per game.

One would think that Cousins’ numbers will continue to trend downward when he faces the Bears, but don’t be so sure. The Bears are ranked in the middle of the pack in passing yards against with just over 245 yards per game. Keep in mind that of the 735 total yards given up in the passing game, 532 of those yards came against two guys named Joe Flacco and Case Keenum – that’s not exactly the ’27 Yankees of quarterback talent right there. On Sunday, I fully expect the Bears to limit the Vikings running game, which may open up some chances for Cousins to hit on some one-on-ones down the field – if he has time. If.

Where Will Cousins Attack the Bears?
I once had a good buddy who would call the “Bears” “Beers”, like, “Hey dude, how annoying are the ’85 Beers?” I’m not sure what this has to do with anything but I just thought of it, so….Any who, like the Bush family, Cousins has made a living on the right side this season, throwing the ball to left only 18 times as opposed to 33 throws to the right. Don’t be surprised if you see Eddie Jackson and Prince Amukamara solely on that side of the field.

And With What Soldiers Will He Attack?
The Vikings have one of the more talented receiving corps in the league; they just don’t have the quarterback to get them the ball on a consistent basis. Adam Thielen is Cousins favorite target, but don’t sleep on Stefon Diggs. Both guys are averaging over 15 yards per catch and have game breaking speed; if Cousins is to have a big day, one or both guys will have to get off.
Outside of the wide receivers, Cousins looks to Dalvin Cook often; in fact, more than TE Kyle Rudolph at this point in the season. Cook has nine catches for 79 yards thus far and has earned the trust of Cousins to the point that he is getting the second most targets on the team. With the amount of attention that will be paid to Cook in the running game, don’t be surprised to see him on more than one chip screens.

So, What Does All This Mean?
As I said, the Bears will make stopping the run game priority #1. This will give Cousins the opportunity to take a few shots downfield and ultimately, become the reason why the Vikings win or lose.

Vikings 14. Bears 6

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-20 Blackhawks Player Previews: Zack Smith

By Rose Rankin September 26, 2019 1487 0

I’m as tired of writing about 4^th-line glorified quadruple-A guys as you are of reading about them. Let’s just get through it:

2018-19 Stats (with Senators)

70 GP – 9 G – 19 A – 28 Pts.

44.6 CF% (-0.8 CF% Rel) – 41.3 oZS%

45.2 xGF% (-2.24xGF% Rel)

Avg. TOI: 16:21

A Brief History: You may remember a guy by the name of Artem Anisimov, who was really not good at anything over the last couple seasons. He was no longer Annette Frontpresence—overrated as she always was anyway—he was slow, which is really saying something on this team, his puck handling was laughable, it goes on. He was a 4C making over $4 million a year, which was downright stupid as well as unsustainable. So StanBo finally got rid of him and his contract, but because we were giving away trash, we could only get trash in return.

Enter Zack Smith, lifelong member of the Ottawa Senators, and not only that, a guy that this joke of a team put on waivers before last season and had to take back when there was no better offer. I imagine Smith kinda like George Costanza after he quits—quietly slipping back in and trying to pretend like nothing happened, like it was a joke. Although this is the Senators we’re talking about, so do not take this humiliation to be entirely Smith’s fault—they were also just being douchebags. His paltry production made him a scapegoat, but he was a scapegoat nonetheless for a team with so many, many other problems.

Anyway, at $3.25 million a year he’s still a grossly overpaid 4^th, or at best 3^rd, line-guy, but thanks to Anisimov’s signing bonus and other financial chicanery that goes into professional sports contracts, both teams end up saving money on this deal, which is really the only thing that matters to these obscenely wealthy shithead dinosaurs in the end.

It Was the Best of Times: The best-case scenario is that Smith isn’t a trainwreck. He fills up time and space so that better players can get a breather, while he and his fellow fourth-liners take dungeon shifts and maybe flip the ice. Or, perhaps Smith can be packaged up with a better layer as part of a trade later in the season, as the plethora of cheaper fourth-liners makes him truly unnecessary. Just do no harm and that would be sufficient.

It Was the BLURST of Times: I’d like to say the worst situation would be for Smith to see serious playing time, because that means the Hawks have no one better than a washed-up former Senator. And while it’s true that such an outcome would be bad, the real worst-case scenario would be if Smith is totally useless. They’re spending over $3 million, which means they probably won’t be able to unload his shitty contract. I know, there’s lots of morons out there, but we just pulled one on Ottawa to get the mild cap-situation improvement we’re now discussing, plus we dumped Manning on the Oilers, so the truly abject morons who would be willing to take this guy might be onto us at this point. At the very least, pawning him off is not something we can count on. And apparently he’s got a back injury right now, which is never a non-issue even if it’s technically something minor. That shit just gets worse. Maybe I’m overly frugal, but wasting that money entirely and not even getting 10 minutes a night from this oaf would be the most lamentable outcome.

Prediction: Zack Smith will manage to both suck and blow, yet the Hawks won’t be able to get rid of him nor will they be willing to eat the shit sandwich that their prior decisions left them with and play a younger prospect in his place. Neither success now nor helping the next generation is what we’ll get, unless he’s hurt for a significant portion of time, in which case we at least won’t have to watch him. We can just watch that cap space go up in flames instead.

Stats from Hockey Reference and Natural Stat Trick

Previous Previews

Football

The Vault: 2009 Bears vs. Vikings

By Tony Martin September 26, 2019 1598 0

Welcome back to The Vault, a weekly series where I dust the THC cobwebs off my brain and try my best to remember how to spell player names, information that is surely replacing things like “how to change a flat tire” or “my home address” in my limited memory bank. Catch me on the shoulder of the Eisenhower at 5pm looking at a flat and mentally spelling out “Brandon Manumaleuna” over and over again whilst in tears.

Let’s set the scene for this throwback recap: it’s late 2009, the 11-3 Vikings arrive in Soldier Field for a Monday Night Football tilt against our beloved 5-9 squad. The Bears sucked that year. This was year one of the Jay Cutler experience, and the acid hadn’t kicked in yet. Their first pick was Jarron freaking Gilbert, a player I had to look up on Monday night when a friend and I were trying to remember the guy the Bears drafted because there was a Youtube video of him jumping out of a pool and landing on his feet. He had 1 career tackle, and is cousins with NBA ICON Javale McGee. That pool video is cool as fuck though, not gonna lie to you. You can’t coach those kind of pool-jumping skills.

I watched this game at a local restaurant/bar, which is rare for me. I hate going to bars to watch games, mainly because you can’t smoke pot there and food is way cheaper at home. This bar, however, had one of those free halftime buffet deals and I was going back to college, so I took my Rodney Dangerfield lookin-ass down to this bar in the dead of winter to watch the 2009 Chicago Bears. Woof.

The game itself was a classic: a 36-30 overtime shootout that found the local boys victorious. The Bears jumped out to a 16-0 halftime lead behind the leg of Robbie Gould and a Jay Cutler to Greg Olsen TD pass.The free halftime buffet was destroyed before I even got up there, but hey no big deal, as long as the game is good, right? (about here is when I started going outside to chainsmoke instead of paying for bar food)

Even with a two score lead, any Bears fan could’ve told you Brett Favre was going to make the game uncomfortable. He left his training crocs in the locker room (probably to creep out any female staff members), and mounted a comeback that turned the fourth quarter into a legendary shootout. Each team scored a touchdown in the final 5 minutes. Look at some of the names of the players that drew pistols in this duel: Favre. Cutler. Peterson. Shiancoe. Bennett.

Side Note: Earl Bennett never got the recognition he was due. Not only was he a starting-caliber punt returner that didn’t get to do it since Devin Hester was there, but he was the best Bears possession WR of the last 10 years. His stats don’t do him justice, and if Jay stayed healthy all those years he might have made a Pro Bowl as a slot WR.

…okay maybe Pro Bowl is a bit of a stretch.

Despite these heavy hitters, it was Devin Aromashodu that truly drew first blood, in the sense that he won the game in overtime after a clutch Adrian Peterson fumble gave the Bears the ball with a chance to win it. Win it, he did.

Being a Bears fan means holding permanent grudges towards people you’ll never meet, for things that happened so long ago that they don’t even matter anymore. Brett Favre is one of those people that I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS resent. Yes, he was a creep and was sending the most awkward dick pics to team staff when he was in New York. Acts like that are unequivocally gross and should condemn anyone’s reputation. Yet any Bears fan could’ve told you he was suspect as fuck judging by the way he always dismantled the local boys. It always seemed like he took perverse pleasure in ruining my childhood Sundays. Beating Brett that night was great, and gave me a completely unearned sense of smug self-satisfaction the entire solo walk home back to my apartment with a margarita buzz on.

Fuck Brett Favre.

Hockey

Preseason Game #5 – Plugged in and Ready to Fall – Caps 6, Hawks 0

By John Pullega September 25, 2019 1455 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Whatever.

– I’m a bit worried that the Hawks are struggling to adapt to the Jeremy Colliton Route Tree in the defensive zone. On the Caps’s second goal, Toews managed to win a faceoff at the far circle in his own zone, which Seabrook correctly swung over to the near boards. Nylander was closest to the puck, but instead of chasing and clearing it, he stuck himself onto Ovi, giving Wolfenstein NPC Jonas Siegenthaler all the time in the world to retrieve the puck and keep the pressure on. In this case, I hope this was Nylander simply not having any idea how to play hockey when he doesn’t have the puck. But it sure looked like Nylander gave it some thought when he played literal man-to-man defense on Ovi.

Then, early in the third, Koekkoek ended up at his own blue line to defend . . . something? This led to a mad and unnecessary scramble for Crawford, as Erik Gustafsson was the only defender in the area.

If this is what Colliton’s full training camp is going to spit out, then Marc Crawford might need to squeeze his ass into his David Lee Roth pants sooner than we thought.

– It’s going to be really great when Alex Nylander finally arrives and starts playing hockey for the Chicago Blackhawks. I hear he’s an offensive dynamo. Can’t wait to see him.

– Dominik Kubalik on a line with Saad and Kampf doesn’t make sense. Neither of them is a playmaker. Kubalik has a booming shot. You see the problem. He still looked good tonight, but where he’s at really hampers him. What’s worse is that this is a result of Colliton shoehorning Nylander on the top line despite the fact that he has done nothing to earn that. Whatever.

– Adam Boqvist had an unfortunate blowout that led to the Caps’s first goal. He was a bit more noticeable in the third, a period in which the Hawks had exactly two shots on goal, so again, whatever. That Colliton didn’t use him once on any of the Hawks’s four power plays (opting for Keith and Seabrook instead because fuck you) is maddening, especially when he whipped out his throbbing galaxy brain by putting Boqvist on the PK in the third. Yeah, it’s only preseason, but that’s really something.

– Top Cat looked like shit all around. Nothing to worry about, but it happened.

– If Erik Gustafsson doesn’t score 60 points this year, he’s useless. He looked like a mummy having his wrappings pulled apart by two clowns on tricycles for the Caps’s fourth goal.

– The PP1 only works if 12–56–88 are constantly cycling. They did none of that tonight, and the PP looked like horseshit.

One more preseason game in Boston, then on to the old country.

Onward.

Booze du Jour: Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “I’m a mess.” –Pat Foley

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: Edmonton Oilers

By Sam Fels September 25, 2019 1561 0

And now this disaster. I was thinking earlier this morning that there really isn’t a parallel to the Oilers wasting one of the best players of all-time for years, but of course there is. It’s the Anaheim Angels. Mike Trout appeared in the playoffs once, and his team has been weighed down by incredibly bad contracts and journeymen and kids who were never up to it. And the same goes for Connor McDavid. Other than Leon Draisaitl, they’ve been surrounded be either old trash or kids that just haven’t popped the way it was thought (looking at you directly, Darnell Nurse). And this season doesn’t look to be any different. We can only hope this is the one where McDavid snaps and demands a trade midseason or in the summer, to give us some proper drama.

Let’s get through it together:

2018-2019

35-38-9 79 points (6th in Pacific)

2.79 GF/G (20th) 3.30 GA/G (25th) -42 GD

47.9 CF% (25th) 46.6 xGF% (26th)

21.2 PP% (9th) 74.8 PK% (30th)

Goalies: Sweet Jesus God. As we said with the Flames preview yesterday, the two Alberta teams pulled an indirect goalie switch, with Mike Smith, his .900 SV%, and his cantankerous nature landing behind an even worse defense than the one he had in Calgary that had him throwing whatever he could fit under the bus. Won’t his go well? Smith had a promising playoff performance while under constant carpet-bombing from the Avalanche, but that won’t be a worry here. Though the carpet-bombing might be. Smith is also 37, and I guess the hope here is that being reunited with coach Dave Tippett will help them rekindle the sporadic and greatly overblown success they had in Arizona. Good luck.

Backing him up is Mikko Koskinen, who earned a three-year extension from Peter Chiarelli, which must have been the last straw as Chiarelli was fired the very next day. Which might lead one to ask how you’re letting a GM you want to shitcan sign anyone to an extension, but keep in mind EdMo is where logic freezes and then is pissed on for sport. Koskinen’s .906 last year really inspired the masses, and as he’s 31 now there’s little reason to think it’s going to get much better. Sure, Tippett can batten down the hatches and try and create trench after trench in front of him. But with this outfit, what would that matter. Fun fun fun!

Defense: The “definition of insanity” quote isn’t actually real. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results just makes you the Oilers. So once again, these clowns are going to roll out Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Kris Russell, Adam Larsson, Matthew Benning, and even Brandon Manning, and then be truly perplexed why McDavid is bringing a machete to the dressing room that he keeps sharpening and whispering something about the time of purification being at hand.

Nurse just has never blossomed into the atom-smashing, puck-moving loudmouth he promised as a junior, and is basically just kinda there. Klefbom, while allowing for a bunch of Tom Jones jokes, is just an ok possession-driver. Larsson is great at putting all his equipment on. The rest you know. They must hope Evan Bouchard can stick this time, though he seems to be a bit of a plodder and will need to quicken up to be effective at this level. Ethan Bear is going to keep Bouchard in the AHL for now, along with something called Joel Persson, because you always want to trust 25-year-olds making their NHL debut to really impact your roster. The hope must be for Bouchard to bludgeon the AHL for half of a season and then be up.

Forwards: Zack Kassian is going to be on McDavid’s line. I don’t know what more I have to say.

Once again, the Oilers will keep having the debate of whether Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins should play center or be moved to McJesus’s wing to give him any talent to play with, and once again there really won’t be a right answer. They’ve reassembled the bad parts of the 2015 Wings with Riley Sheehan and Tomas Jurco here, and remember that Wings team sucked. James Neal escaped his hell in Calgary to stand still and fire here with whatever passes McDavid or Draisaitl can get him. Which should actually work for 20-25 goals or so.

Sam Gagner has come home again, even though you were pretty sure he was dead. Tippett will find a way to keep Kailer Yamamoto off this roster, even though it could use all the dash it can find.

Prediction: This is where I’m supposed to say that Tippett will tighten things up and at least lower their goals against to keep them competitive for a while. But Ken Hitchcock couldn’t do it, and that’s all he does. And Todd McLellan is no idiot and he couldn’t either. Even if you trusted the goalies, which you shouldn’t, the defense has no top pairing player anywhere. Maybe if Tippet is finally the one to unlock Nurse, things could improve. But how many coaches is it going to take?

Tippett surely isn’t known for getting max scoring out of a team, and this team was short on scoring even with McClavicle, RNH, and Leon The Ladies Man. They still think Kassian can do anything. Neal might pop for a few goals, but not enough. They’re simply miles behind Calgary, Vegas, and San Jose, and you can’t see them running with any wildcard contender either. It’s another lost season up in EdMo, barring some miracle.

Save yourself, Connor. No one else here will.

Hockey

Before The Dress Rehearsal

By Sam Fels September 25, 2019 1692 0

We’ve been setting you up bit by bit for the season, but we haven’t gotten a chance to muse much. And musing is what we do best. So before the Hawks have their dress rehearsal tonight, thought we’d go through some things (that weren’t covered on the podcast, which was most things, which you can find here).

-I’ve been meaning to get to this one for a while, and it’s Stan Bowman’s take on Kirby Dach. Now, everything that follows is obviously moot if Dach can’t ever actually suit up due to concussion, and it doesn’t sound like that’s going to be tonight. On the ground, he’s going to Europe but probably isn’t going to play in the exhibition game in Berlin or in the season opener. Which is fine, as this weird schedule opener will actually give the Hawks an additional 3-4 practices before the home opener against the Sharks on the 10th. So there’s plenty of time to acclimate Dach for whatever audition he’s going to get.

And the gist of this piece is that he’s going to get it. Stan even hints at keeping him longer than the nine games even if he proves to need more time in the WHL, though that would be kind of silly. The beauty of the schedule here is that after this Euro opener, the Hawks next seven are at home. Which means seven games that Coach Cool Youth Pastor, if he even realizes he can do such a thing, can put Dach in the right spots and keep him away from tricky matchups. Obviously, you can’t go through a season doing that, but it would certainly give us an idea of what Dach can do and what he can’t when set up for success.

Whether Dach sticks or not will be an indication of what exactly the Hawks want out of this season. We’ve been debating this for two years without any answer, because whenever they deign to actually answer a question about what the goals are here it’s always some mealy-mouthed argle bargle trying to halve the line of competitiveness and development. We still honestly have no idea if the Hawks think the playoffs are a must this year, or if their eyes are really on next year and the one after when Dach, Boqvist, and Ian Mitchell are for sure on board. And we won’t, because transparency isn’t something they can spell over at 1901 West.

It would seem to me a third straight playoff-less season would mean everyone is fired, but we’ve though that before. And considering how much it feels like they’ve eaten through their season ticket base, that would be the factor applying the most pressure. They didn’t really have this last year as they remained competitive, but if they’re out of it in March I wonder how many patches of red seats we’ll be seeing in the stands (or won’t be seeing thanks to NBCSN Chicago’s spelunking-like filters).

So if the goal has to be playoffs, then Dach is here. Plain and simple. You’re not as worried about development, and he could walk in right now and be a better third center option than Anton Wedin or David Kampf. Put him between some two-way conscious wingers, and you might have something. If the Hawks send him down, then you have a pretty good idea this season isn’t the priority (and it might not have to be). That is unless he looks completely lost, which I heavily doubt he will.

Dach is a little awkwardly fit because even at home, Dylan Strome also needs sheltering. Ideally, you could trust Strome to not have to be coddled with hammock shifts every time, but we’re not there yet. If he could be, you could start Dach exclusively in the offensive zone and you’d probably have something.

I wonder if some of this Bowman thinking isn’t really hoping that Dach comes up, absolutely kills it, and makes the Strome negotiations in the summer easier. If Dach looks like he’s going to be a #2 or even #1 center by the end of the season, and Strome is knocked down the depth chart, well you’re not so eager to just hand him $6M or $7M are you? It’s definitely a factor.

Either way, Bowman sounds a little more aggressive with this prospect than he has about ones in the past. Part of that is he has a coach who won’t have his own agenda this time around, but I think he knows he’s got something here and he’s not going to get in Dach’s way.

-And when I say putting Dach between two two-way conscious wingers, I’m looking straight at this Saad-Kubalik combination. The Hawks seem intent on making Alex “Fetch” Nylander happen, so he’s with Toews tonight and Kane is going to have ya-ha time with The Hounds Of Justice (well, “The Shield” line was Perlini with DeBrincat and Strome but we’re keeping it). Putting David Kampf between the two of them makes for an effective checking line, and saw Saad control play from a third line spot last year, but there’s more they could be doing.

I am kind of happy Colliton has already decided to see Andrew Shaw in a 4th line role, though it’s probably already knowing what he can do in the top six and give someone else a look. Still, if this is any indication that Beto O’Colliton is a little more infatuated with what Drake Caggiula can do than Shaw, man won’t this be a fun season? This was one of our complaints about the Shaw trade, is that if Caggiula is healthy and fully blown out he kind of does the same things, though maybe not with the hands. Watch this space.

Football

The Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 3 Review

By Sam Fels September 25, 2019 1211 0

Our boys have gathered to go over Week 3’s win and look ahead to Week 4’s divisional showdown with Minnehaha.

Comfortable win against a terrible team, but that’s what good teams do, right? Or is there more to this?

Brian Schmitz (@_BrianSchmitz): I hate to answer it this way, but I have no idea what we can take from the win at Washington. A win is a win is win, but let’s not re-ignite the Super Bowl talk just yet. The Vikings game, however hard it will be to watch, will give us a far better idea as to where this offense is at.

Wes French (@WFrenchman): Was it really that comfortable? Sure, it was a dominant half and final few minutes of the 4th, but without Case Keenum thinking he could goal line leap a first down this one was far more nervy than it needed to be.

Mitch was good but still inaccurate on throws that Nagy gifted him. He could have easily been perfect through the half and wasn’t, and the great TD pass to go up 28-0 is easily forgotten when you stand it up against the awful “fade” throw intercepted at the 1-yard-line. A touchdown there and you step on the throat, seal the game with 20+ minutes to play. Take out starters, run clock, all the fun victory stuff while ESPN fills air space.

We didn’t get that, and it’s concerning given the level of competition. I said it halfway through the 2nd quarters while Mitch was dinking and dunking his way to 14-0…a real NFL defense like Minnesota is going to be the real measuring stick.

Tony Martin (@MrMartinBruh): I also found myself sweating out the entire third quarter/second half until Keenum’s boneheaded play. I feel like Pagano took his foot off Washington’s throat and that, combined with some anemic play calling gave them a chance. My biggest issue so far with Matt Nagy’s offense is that his designed run plays lack the creativity of his designed passes; they’re either the zone read or something zany. They invested so much money in the interior of the line, why is it they can’t line up and run it up the middle with any success?

Wes: To the point about the running game, they also investing in the backfield – three new players in Patterson, Davis, Montgomery – and outside of a handful of plays there is no real plan. The diamond formation feels like it could become a real weapon, given that the four backs, those three and Cohen, could interchange roles out of that formation and give defensive fronts some real confusion to deal with. But the plays they call, when Patterson is in the backfield you know he’s getting the ball. Cohen is the guy getting carries between the tackles? Montgomery is doing it all, and Davis is basically a guaranteed pass blocker. Is that the best they can draw up?

Tony: All we can go by is what they’re showing us, so I’m gonna say yes, this is all Nagy has. I understand the ideological concept of using the screen game as an extension of the running game, but in all three games so far the Bears have had a very quick three-and-out in a key drive. Good teams don’t always run the ball super consistently, but they can when they need to, and a stronger devotion to the run game will give Mitch opportunities downfield.

Brian: That’s true, but what if you have an O-Line that can’t run block? The underlying issue with the teams offensive inconsistency is the five guys up front. Until this gets figured out, the run offense will continue struggle.

Wes: I think it’s a little lazy to just say the team can’t run block so why try? Mike Davis signed to rave reviews about how well he fit and that he would be a part of this offense and he’s got all of 28 snaps in three weeks.

I just feel like there is something there in that backfield to be unlocked, and if Nagy and his coaches can figure it out this offense climbs out of mediocrity and open things up for everyone.

Looking ahead to Sunday, what do you want to see on either side of the ball, and what do you think we’re going to see?

Brian: What I think we are going to see is a very boring, low scoring, close game. The Vikings are probably are probably the closest comp to the Bears that we will see this season; a team that will defend first, and hope their offense does just enough to win the game. It will be very interesting to see if the Bears can build on the offensive momentum they started against Washington.

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega September 25, 2019 1557 0

Few people hold Brandon Saad’s jock like I do. Today, I’m going to try something different. Rather than going all in on how THIS WILL BE THE YEAR THE REAL BRANDON SAAD APPEARS, I’m going to try to figure out where the latent angst about Saad exists, despite all the good he does on paper.

2018–19 Stats

80 GP – 23 G, 24 A, 47 P

52.69 CF% (5.1 CF% Rel), 49.9 oZS%

47.06 GF% (-2.97 Rel GF%), 47.27 xGF% (2.61 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 17:41

Last Year’s Saad Review

A Brief History: Let’s start with the easy shit. Saad’s 23 goals and 47 points are right about in line with what he’s shown he can do in his career. His 24 assists were down a hair relative to his career numbers. His shooting percentage jumped back toward his norm (11.8% last year; 11.1% career). Those are excellent numbers for a third liner, which is how Colliton used Saad primarily last year. But when you trade a guy like Artemi Panarin, you expect more than a third liner in return.

The topline numbers place Saad in second-liner territory. It’s those pesky underlying numbers that make Saad a flashpoint of frustration. Of Blackhawks who played at least 41 games, Saad had the best CF% (52.69) and CF% Rel (5.1). (If you include Sikura [33 games] and Jokiharju [38 games], he’s third overall in both.)

Here’s how he affects the Hawks in terms of the shots the Hawks take when he is and isn’t on the ice.

All Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

The heat map looks even better in when you put Saad in isolation.

Simply, the Blackhawks are a much bigger offensive threat with Saad on the ice.

On the defensive side, the numbers aren’t quite as friendly, but the Hawks are still a better defensive team with Saad on the ice than without.

Saad does a good job of keeping shot rates on his side (LW) lower than average when he’s on the ice. When he’s off, that left side opens up, as do the shot rates within higher-danger areas. While Saad clearly couldn’t fix the woeful defense by himself, in isolation, he looks really, really good.

Having Saad on the ice was preferable to not having him on the ice—both on offense and defense—in terms of shot rates at 5v5 last year.

Saad also made almost all of his teammates better when he’s out there at 5v5.

The only players who were marginally worse with Saad than without were Toews and maybe Kampf, and even that’s a stretch. Without Saad, Toews ended up with slightly more shots for than against, but it’s a really thin margin. Without Saad, Kampf saw more shots for, but also more shots against. Everyone else was noticeably better (i.e., took more shots than they faced) with him out there.

Saad’s positive contributions were evident on the penalty kill last year, too. Yes, the Hawks were a potted plant watered with piss on the PK last year, but not because of anything Saad did wrong.

On the PK, the overall threat percentage is better (lower is better on defense) and the area that Saad plays in produces fewer unblocked shots when Saad is on the ice.

This is all the good Saad does. Now, I will gently place Saad’s jock to the side and talk about two things that caught my eye about him in a bad way last year.

First, his performance on the PP, in light of the fact that Colliton’s PP2 does not include Brandon Saad as of now (Keith–Seabrook–Kubalik–Nylander–Shaw).

The Hawks were indeed much, much worse on the PP when Saad was out there. This matches the eye test. Saad is generally a straight-line skater who doesn’t normally go to the front of the net. (He’ll occasionally trapeze along the goal line and put his shoulder down, but it’s relatively rare.) He doesn’t have a booming shot, and he’s not usually one to set up for a one timer. All of these things combined, these heat maps make sense. Saad isn’t much of a threat on the PP. That’s frustrating for sure.

Second, and more interesting to me, are his GF% (47.06) and xGF% (47.27). Saad is on the ice for almost exactly the share of goals expected of him. By themselves, those numbers don’t look good. But in terms of xGF%, only three Blackhawks had a positive share on the year: Dennis Gilbert (1 game played), Slater Koekkoek (22 games played), and Dylan Sikura (33 games played). So, Saad’s expected goals-for share isn’t as bad as it seems, relative to the rest of the team. (For comparison, Kane’s xGF% was 44.93. DeBrincat’s was 46.47.) Still, it’s not something to hang your hat on.

It’s the GF% that’s bothersome. Compare the xGF% and GF% among some of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards.

Player	xGF% (5v5)	GF% (5v5)
Kane	44.93	55.63
Toews	47.05	51.67
DeBrincat	46.47	53.66
Strome	43.08	52.43
Saad	47.27	47.06

Of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards, only Saad’s GF% is lower than his xGF%. When compared to the other top-scoring forwards on the Hawks, Saad’s rates look downright miserable. Every other forward overperformed their expectations last year, whereas Saad did just about what was expected of him by the numbers. And when the expectation isn’t good to start with, meeting that expectation isn’t really great, either.

Even worse, of the 13 non-goalie teammates that Saad played with for more than 100 minutes last year, only three of them (Keith, Seabrook, Jokiharju) had a higher GF% with Saad than without.

I think this is the heart of the angst. Saad never really outperforms what he’s supposed to do in terms of goals. When given the chance to play with guys who do outperform, the stats show that the outperformers do worse with Saad. Though this is only one aspect of his game, it’s a really fucking important one, and comparatively, Saad is lacking.

Saad did many things right last year, but when it comes to the goals-for share, it’s not up to the snuff of other offensive threats. I think that these stats are what manifest the madness about Saad most. What I don’t know is why that is. Is it play style? Motivation? Attitude? It’s hard for me to chalk up his relatively lacking GF% to motivation or attitude, given all the other things he does well. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

It Was the Best of Times: Saad finds a spot on the first line and makes it work with Toews and Kubalik offensively. Saad’s responsible defensive and possession abilities take pressure off Toews, who serves as more of a playmaker for Kubalik’s booming shot. The threat of Toews to Kubalik opens up more ice for Saad (especially if Gustafsson skates with them primarily), and he pots 25 goals and 60 points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Saad withers away offensively on the third line because David Kampf has never been anything close to a playmaker. The third line gets stuck babysitting Maatta and Seabrook, and because Seabrook, Maatta, and Kampf can do no wrong in Colliton’s eyes, Saad gets crucified for not being everything on both offense and defense. He takes several healthy scratches in favor of Alex Nylander, requests a trade to the Blues, and proceeds to dome the Blackhawks ad infinitum.

Prediction: Saad is going to get crucified by Jeremy Colliton, Pat Foley and Eddie O, and the Brain Trust for being everything but an overperforming goal scorer. We’ll all keep listening to the notes he’s not playing and wishing that possession and shot shares, rather than goals, were what wins games.

Stats from HockeyViz.com, hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey

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