Faxes from Uncle Dale

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  • Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Douchebag Du Jour: The Idea Of A Collective

    Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes Douchebag Du Jour: The Idea Of A Collective

    It’s not going to work out for the Yotes again, but there was a time when it looked like it might. And hey, if they run the table the rest of the season, they just might sneak a playoff spot. Which would actually be the wrong reinforcement for what they do down there.

    But whenever a team like this is just a little better than it was thought they’d be (and we leave it to you to decide whether the Yotes are better or the conference is just that much worse), their supporters and media like to trumpet and champion their faceless nature. That they don’t need stars or have somehow found a way to do it through group effort. Their total is greater than the sum of their parts and more cockameemee gobbledygook like that.

    It’s not true, of course. The Coyotes haven’t been able to produce “a star” with their bevy of top-10 picks, which is a failure. Clayton Keller might be that one day, though even in just his second year you’d probably know by now. The reason the Coyotes suck–and let’s be real, if you’re outside the playoffs in the West you suck–is that they don’t score enough. 4th least amount of goals in the entire league. And they don’t score enough because they don’t have the talent.

    As much as hockey likes to bill itself as the ultimate team game and 4th liners get over-glorified on Cup winners, you win the important games at times because you have one or two guys the other team doesn’t. There’s a game or two on the run where your best player just decides you’re going to win. You’ve seen enough of them around here to know what they look like. Fuck, Duncan Keith did it for a whole spring.

    Name the last Cup champ to not have that guy. You can’t do it. Maybe the Bruins of ’11, except they had a goalie throwing a .945 in the playoffs. And they still had Bergeron, Krejci, Marchand, Chara in front of that, players better than anything the Coyotes have managed to find or develop.

    Arizona is not going to rise out of the muck they’ve resided in for their entire existence until they find one or two or three of those guys. They can play the “team” card all they want, so can their fans, in a bid to justify their existence or dedication. It’s kind of a Stockholm Syndrom. And as long as they do that, the 8th-seed is the best they can hope for. They should be offer-sheeting the shit out of Mitch Marner or throwing everything at Erik Karlsson or the like.

    Until then, feel free to pretty much ignore.

     

    Game #76 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

     

    Game #76 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

    Game #76 – Hawks vs. Coyotes: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

    Notes: Due to the Pacific Timezone start we didn’t get a chance to glance at the morning skate, but we assume Coach Cool Substitute Teacher will stick with the lines that didn’t work on Sunday but got a win. The prospect of the top line is tantalizing, but there’s not puck-winner, space-opener there. Toews doesn’t do that anymore, and Beto needs to realize that. It also leaves the rest of the lineup without any dash whatsoever. We know Kane on a “third” line looks weird, but the Hawks did win five in a row in that formation…Forsling probably plays, but we can’t bring ourselves to change it all the time or more likely to care when everyone basically sucks…Would be nice if Perlini found it again, and his recent “streak” is just three big games against bad teams…

    Notes: Stepan didn’t play last time, and he does make a difference as he’s an actual checking center. Expect him to be on Toews all night…Chychrun didn’t play last time but that doesn’t seem to be carrying over to tonight…Vinne Smalls poured in four goals in the two games after the loss to the Hawks, but hasn’t scored or assisted in the five games since…Kuemper may be having fatigue problems. He wasn’t any good against the Oilers, Lightning, or Panthers. He rebounded against the Devils and Islanders, but there’s no offensive there there…Keller has no goals and two assists in his last eight games…

     

    Game #76 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • A Cubs Fan’s Lament/Fear

    A Cubs Fan’s Lament/Fear

    I told you we were going to try some new stuff here. Today it begins. My lament as the season draws close.

    I had a hope that the approaching of Opening Day, along with watching basically the dress rehearsal against the Red Sox last night, would erase any feelings of bile or mistrust of the Cubs to come. Sadly I’m still searching for that..

    If I were to tell you it’s not been the easiest offseason for Cubs fans, I’d have a pretty handy headshot and resume for an audition for the role of Captain Obvious. That would also seriously understate some pretty heavy issues that surround the Cubs, and baseball as a whole, that they encountered and failed to navigate all that well through the winter months.

    I’m not going to tell you how to feel about the Cubs and your fandom. Your fandom is yours and yours to do with what you will. I don’t think there are any wrong answers. That’s not to suggest I’m at ease with any of it: Sinclair, Addison Russell, the lack of spending and the reasons/confusion/lies for it. While it seems silly to equate what the Cubs spend on their payroll to serious, all-world issues like domestic abuse and biased/bought media, at the base of it it still does get to labor relations, union rights, and income inequality, and that is an issue in our time.

    For me, and I’m not prescribing this for you, I don’t want to be robbed of something I’ve loved my whole life, and has been a big part of my life, by someone I can’t beat through that route anyway. I could turn in my fancard, not buy tickets, burn all the memorabilia and not acquire more, not watch, but the only person who loses anything there is me. And you can say that if more felt like that, owners like Tom Ricketts would feel the pinch. Maybe, but even then he’s still a billionaire (or more accurately, the son of one), and the loss is small if even noticeable. There are other routes to change, and those are the ones I prefer to follow.

    But there is one angle I can’t reconcile, which frightens me because it only comes about if the Cubs defy the projections and are the last one left standing come the end of October. And that’s a real possibility and that’s supposed only fill me with excitement and anticipation of the coming season.  Which is the whole point of being a fan, or most of it. And it was inspired by a piece on Deadspin by David Roth.

    It generated an image inside my head, of the Cubs on the field at Wrigley, having just disposed of the Astros in six tough games (in what you’d have to call an upset, as the Astros lineup is the baseball version of the Infinity Gauntlet). Rob Manfred hands the trophy to Tom Ricketts. And he has this smile that doesn’t say he was right all along, but that he got away with it. You know that smile. You’ve seen it on tons of people who have advantages they didn’t earn and you don’t have, and also think they’re entitled or deserved, or worse, earned them. The smile of the guy you know you’ll never get one over, the one who’ll never lose. The one that says he knew better, when you know for damn sure he never did.

    I’ve never thought of Ricketts as a dumb man. I’m not sure he is. I don’t think he’s a baseball genius or anything close. It doesn’t take a deep well of baseball understanding to just go and hire the best guy with the biggest name as an executive to lead your team’s turnaround. I think he probably is a genuine fan, but not as much as he plays up to cover what’s really going on. If he were a real fan, this offseason probably looks different.

    I’m sure like me, you haven’t bought RIcketts’s claims that there just isn’t money for the Cubs to spend. It’s there, he just doesn’t want to. Doesn’t think he needs to. And he doesn’t, because the Cubs will be massively profitable no matter what happens on the field this year. Remember, he didn’t take action on his baseball operation until the stadium was half-empty most days. Which, fair enough, I guess.

    But until the media asks some serious questions, which they haven’t, and the Ricketts family is forced to show the math on where the money is or where it didn’t come pouring in from that it was supposed to, no Cubs fan is going to take him at face value. You see the sellouts, you see the prices, you see the developments around the park, you know about BAMTECH, the new TV deal, etc. It’s the evidence you have.

    And it’s not just the Cubs, of course. This is a baseball-wide problem. Teams aren’t going all out simply because they think there’s a better way or they have to stick to a more efficient way. They’re doing it because they can, because the CBA allows them to, because they’re still going to be profitable no matter their team’s fortunes, because the union can’t do much for another couple years, and even then it’s hard to figure how you break a cabal of billionaires. They’re doing this because they can.

    And it is likely that the trophy and confetti and champagne will rain down on someone like Ricketts or Ricketts himself who will get away with it. The Dodgers could have a $300M payroll if they want, and they’re almost certainly the NL favorites. They may find the Yankees or Cleveland when they get there. You could extend this out, because really any team these days can spend what it wants. They didn’t.

    On the surface, due to my personal feelings on the city of Boston after living there for three years, another Red Sox championship left my food tasting like dust. But deeper, it’s somewhat righteous. Because the Red Sox didn’t sit out last year’s free agent market and got themselves a J.D. Martinez. They could go even higher, but money didn’t seem to be filthy lucre to them. Sadly, they seemed to have been the only ones.

    And it could be the Cubs. A healthy Darvish and a healthy Bryant makes a bigger difference to this team than a lot realize. They only need solid or expected contributions from pretty much everyone else, and maybe one surprise, to be zeroing in on 100 wins. The playoffs can be anything, as we know.

    And should it result in the second parade in four seasons, something we couldn’t even conceive of just 10 years ago. Ricketts will be up there about being true to their plan, how they knew all along, that all we had to do was trust their work and the system. That’s what he’ll be selling, at least.

    And it will all be horseshit.

    They’re on this plan because Ricketts didn’t give Theo and Jed any other choice. Those two didn’t want it this way I’m almost sure of that. They didn’t do this because they had to. They did it because Tom could. And another championship lets him get away with it. To smugly smile at all of us who couldn’t do anything about it, or more likely, forgot about it entirely while being swept up in the season and playoff frenzy. That will be part of the moment I still dream about every day. That’s how they always get away with it. It’s the perfect crime. 

    I’ve got seven months to figure out how to deal with it, if it comes to that. I may need them all.  

    Remember to hit those share buttons if you like what you see. They’re gonna take our thumbs!

     

  • An Announcement And Then Rocking Tonight

    An Announcement And Then Rocking Tonight

    Hey all. So I thought we’d talk for a minute. We’re coming up on the end of the season here, and I’ve been thinking about ways to boost what we do around here. As most of you know, or some (I don’t poll our readers, it’s too painful) I write about baseball at various ports. Or I did. But it dawned on me that instead of looking for other people’s playground to play in, I have my own right here that you’re all paying for as it is.

    I want to stress that there will be no drop in our Hawks/hockey coverage. That will always come first. When the season ends, we’ll do our player reviews, and set you up for the draft and free agency while covering the playoffs. None of that will change.

    In addition though, I’ll be doing Chicago baseball stuff as well. And yes, gonna try and do as much Sox stuff as Cubs stuff. We’ll have series previews for both, and hopefully one or two features for each team during the week. We’ll see how it goes. I just want to boost the amount of stuff here with stuff I enjoy doing.

    If things go well, well, maybe one day we’ll be the punk alternative to The Athletic or something. Or we’ll just be whatever the fuck we are, which is hard to identify. Anyway, thanks for coming along for the ride. If we can ask one thing, if you see something here you enjoy, whatever the subject, please hit those share buttons. We’re trying to grow here, and we could use the help.

    Anyway, that’s all for now. Let’s go through tonight’s NHL action:

    First Screen Viewing

    Predators vs. Wild – 7pm

    Both are watching their goals kind of slip away for the season. The Preds just got thunked in Winnipeg over the weekend, and are going to find it a tough go to capture the Central. Which means a tooth-pull of a first round against St. Louis. The Wild have slipped out of the wildcard spots thanks to the Hawks’ generosity toward the Avs. Maybe the Preds are going to accept their fate, and make it easy on the Wild. Or maybe the Wild will finally return to their level.

    Second Screen Viewing

    Bruins vs. Lightning – 6:30

    Not much at stake here, and maybe both teams try to keep it hidden until they’re doing this for real in the second round (suck it, Toronto). Still, this is two top teams in the league points-wise, so that’s always worth a look. The Lightning have to run it out to set records, so we’ll see how much that means to them. Maybe some markers being set here.

    Other Games

    Panthers vs. Maple Leafs – 6pm

    Sabres vs. Devils – 6pm

    Penguins vs. Rangers – 6pm

    Knights vs. Blues – 7pm

    Stars vs. Jets – 7pm

    Kings vs. Flames – 8pm

    Red Wings vs. Sharks – 9:30

  • Power Outage

    Power Outage

    It seems awfully simple to say the Hawks have gone as their power play has gone, but that’s basically the drill. It has dried up when it absolutely couldn’t of late, with a marker against Vancouver and last night’s Anisimov deflection the only things to show for the past 11 games. In those 11 game the Hawks are 6-4-1, which isn’t bad. But obviously a couple more power play goals in this stretch and the Hawks probably claim some points they needed to have and might even be in a playoff spot.

    You can divide the power play’s season into three segments: From the opening of the season to December 17th, which covers both Quenneville’s short term and Colliton’s start. Then from December 18th to March 1st, when it was absolutely nuclear. And then the last 11 games which go from March 2nd until now, when it’s been cold, cold, cold.

    I wanted to check on it metrically, as is my way. So I’m going to take you along with me:

    1st Phase: CF/60 – 86.5  SF/60 – 47.5   SCF/60 – 43.1   HDCF/60 – 18.8   SH% – 8.5

    2nd Phase (Nuclear): CF/60 – 104.2   SF/60 – 58.0   SCF/60 – 52.5  HDCF/60 – 16.4  SH% – 23.1

    3rd Phase (I’m turning into Lovie Smith now): CF/60 – 99.9   SF/60 – 50.6   SCF/60 – 45.5  HDCF/60 – 13.9  SH% – 5.0

    So a couple things to glean here. One is that a huge part of the power play’s success was luck. While there was a surge in attempts, shots, and chances in the middle phase where the Hawks couldn’t stop scoring, they also shot nearly three times as well as they did to start the season and almost five times as well as they are now. For a frame of reference, the median SH% on the power play this year is 13.5%, and the Lightning lead the league at 22% for the season. The Hawks were better than that for six weeks, which gives you some idea of the unsustainable nature of it.

    Another funny quirk of this is that the Hawks were actually averaging less high-danger chances when they power play went supernova than they did in the first part of the season. What changed is that they doubled their shooting-percentage on just scoring-chances, to almost 30%. Now, when you have Patrick Kane at full bore and Top Cat on the other side, you should be shooting a higher percentage than most. And the Hawks did, just not at a rate anyone was going to keep up.

    Still, in the last 11 games, the Hawks have seen a drop in attempts, shots, and chances. And that can’t be totally explained metrically.

    One thing we’ve seen of late is that teams are completely aware of the Hawks drop-pass entry, and the Hawks haven’t shown a willingness to try anything else. Opponents are leaving one forward behind the initial puck-carrier, cutting off that drop pass. Because one major change the Hawks made that sparked the power play was actually having two players trailing the initial puck-carrier, when that’s cut off the Hawks are looking at a 3-on-3 at the opposing blue line. And they don’t seem willing to take that on, even though there should be plenty of room. It doesn’t help that the two forwards ahead of the play are just standing and waiting as they’re expecting that drop pass.

    So what you’re getting is the initial puck-carrier, sometimes Gustafsson and sometimes Toews for the most part, pulling up somewhere between the red line and blue line, and literally stopping or curling toward the boards or both and waiting for that penalty killer behind them to “clear.” Now everyone’s stopped, and they’re still trying that pass except Kane or DeBrincat has four across the line to stare at with no one on his team moving forward. So entries have become a problem again.

    In the zone, the movement has stopped. Some of that might be due to Kane’s overall fatigue, but that doesn’t explain it all. When the power play was humming, Kane was getting the puck while already moving and committing people. He’s standing still and Carmello’ing/Harden’ing (phrasing?) at the circle. Top Cat is waiting on the other side for passes that have become the first priority to be cut off by penalty kills. Toews isn’t bouncing between the goal line and the high slot as much, and when Kane’s doing his isolation offense on the right circle it doesn’t really matter if Toews is in the high slot because he’s basically facing the wrong way. His only option from there is basically to bump it back to Kane, unless he has time to turn to face the center of the ice. Which he rarely does.

    It wouldn’t hurt to try and run things occasionally through DeBrincat on the other side, which makes Toews a threat for a one-timer from the high slot and Gustafsson from the blue line and a cross-seam pass to Kane as well. Kane’s not really the best at one-timing shots, but he can make a fist of it enough to have teams account for it. If it moves guys, then the Hawks can get their movement and creativity back.

  • Atop The Sugar Pile – It Can’t Rain All The Time

    Atop The Sugar Pile – It Can’t Rain All The Time

    The Dizzying Highs

    Corey Crawford – It could be argued the only thing that matters out of this month, long-term at least, is that Corey Crawford has shown he can still be Corey Crawford. The biggest feeling of dread I’ve had about all of this until now was that Crow just wasn’t ever going to get back to that. Even when he was healthy earlier in the year, he wasn’t very good. Combined with questionable health, and no matter what the plan/process/shit at the wall the Hawks front office was attempting wouldn’t matter because of questions in net. Collin Delia isn’t ready to take over, and if you have to outside the organization for a goalie that’s no better than a 50-50 shot. Seeing Crow keep this team that suddenly can’t score in every game as their defense is still historically bad at least reassures all of us it’s still there. And obviously, no one deserves it more than Crow, who has been through injury hell only to return to a team that can’t protect him and needs immediate miracles in net.

    The Terrifying Lows

    Beto O’Colliton – It’s not that switching the lines randomly and nonsensically was something we didn’t see from Joel Quenneville. Fuck, a good third of this blog was bitching about it. At least Q’s tinkering, for the most part, came at a time when the Hawks needed a jump. While at first we were curious about Patrick Kane skating on what appeared to be a third line with Anisimov and Kahun, the other two scored and played well. The Hawks won five in a row. Everyone was chipping in. Then after one bad period, Coach Cool Youth Pastor has must made it up in ways that don’t work. The Hawks have five goals in regulation, and three are from forwards. One was on a power play, While in theory just amassing talent at the top should work, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what Kane and Toews are now and what makes them click. Drake Caggiula isn’t anything more than a foot soldier, but he does the work necessary. So does Saad. Robbing Strome of Top Cat doesn’t provide that line a threat anyone has to account for, no matter how much work Saad is doing these days. It’s not the sole reason or even biggest the Hawks stubbed their toes at the most critical juncture of the season, but it is a big reason why. We wanted the last portion of the season to showcase some reason to believe that Colliton has a unique view or hope for the future. We’re still waiting.

    The Creamy Middles

    Erik Gustafsson – Goals in three straight games probably means he should be at the top, but Gus scoring from the blue line is just kind of the norm now. No, he doesn’t have a clue defensively, but in the future if he’s allowed to outscore his problems from a third pairing, no one will care at all. And at the end of the day, no matter the problems, he’s entertaining. He does make things happen, and along with Kane and Top Cat and maybe Toews on occasion, he can conjure a chance out of nothing. That’s worth having.

  • High On The Hog: Ouch!

    High On The Hog: Ouch!

    The Rockford IceHogs were primed for a big weekend of action when they began play Friday night in Milwaukee. For a while, things looked great for the piglets. By “a while”, I mean nearly two full minutes.

    The Hogs scored 36 seconds into their tilt in Milwaukee. Rockford was subsequently wiped out for the bulk of the first two games of a three-game set with the Admirals. When the smoke cleared at the BMO Harris Bank Center the following evening, the IceHogs had been outscored 12-4, losing both contests to a Milwaukee.

    Two regulation wins would have given Rockford a solid hold of the final playoff spot in the Central Division and sent the Ads postseason hopes in peril. Instead, the IceHogs are just part of the four-team pack hoping to snatch a Calder Cup Playoffs berth.

    Following Dennis Gilbert’s put-back of an Andreas Martinsen rebound, Milwaukee scored three times over the rest of Friday’s opening period. Viktor Ejdsell got Rockford to within a goal with a third-period power play strike. However, the Admirals scored just over a minute later to restore what was to become the winning margin, besting the Hogs 4-2.

    Saturday night, Milwaukee roared out to a three-goal advantage through twenty minutes. The Hogs responded with a quick pair of goals by Jordan Schroeder and Joni Tuulola to get Rockford back in contention. The Ads beat Hogs goalie Collin Delia for two quick goals near the end of the middle frame, then piled on three more scores in the third period for an 8-2 shellacking.

     

    Weekend Lines

    My plan was to give you readers some honest to goodness recaps, complete with line combos, this week. Based on the manner in which Rockford was blown out in both games, however, I reconsidered that notion.

    In my mind, though, I feel like I owe you some pairings. So…

    Lines (Starters in italics)

    Friday, March 22

    Viktor Ejdsell-Peter Holland (A)-Jordan Schroeder

    Andreas Martinsen (A)-Tyler Sikura (A)-William Pelletier

    Anthony Louis-Luke Johnson-Alexandre Fortin

    Dylan McLaughlin-Nathan Noel-Spencer Watson

    Joni Tuulola-Henri Jokiharju

    Lucas Carlsson-Dennis Gilbert

    Blake Hillman-Dmitri Osipov

    Anton Forsberg

     

    Saturday, March 23

    Viktor Ejdsell-Peter Holland-Jordan Schroeder

    Andreas Martinsen-Tyler Sikura-William Pelletier

    Dylan McLaughlin-Nathan Noel-Spencer Watson

    Anthony Louis-Alexandre Fortin

    Joni Tuulola-Henri Jokiharju

    Lucas Carlsson-Dennis Gilbert

    Blake Hillman-Dmitri Osipov

    Josh McArdle

    Collin Delia

     

    Fun Facts

    • Going into Wednesday’s game with Milwaukee, the Hogs have converted just once in 38 power play chances against the Admirals.
    • The Ads now lead the season series with a 5-1-3 record in head-to-head action with Rockford.
    • All of the IceHogs wins over Milwaukee this season have been by one goal. The Admirals have now posted two, three and six-goal wins in addition to a pair of one-goal victories.
    • With both teams having played 67 games this season, the Admirals (71 points) are just a single point behind Rockford (72 points). Manitoba currently holds the fourth-place spot via points percentage.
    • With four points (2 G, 2 A), William Pelletier is the active leader in scoring for Rockford vs Milwaukee this season. Darren Raddysh, now out of the organization, has seven points against the Ads.
    • As you would expect, the two squads are getting a little chippy with all this together time. Dennis Gilbert and Mathieu Olivier had themselves a pretty spirited bout near the end of the first period Saturday. It’s Olivier’s eighth fighting major of the season and Gilbert’s seventh. Both are near the top of the league leaders in the catagory.
    • Rockford is tied with Cleveland for 26th in the AHL in FMs with 18, though that’s more than last season’s paltry total of 11 fights. Nathan Noel has three bouts for the Hogs, while Luke Johnson has two.
    • Johnson left Friday’s game in the third period after a nasty spill into the boards. He was not in the lineup Saturday, as the Hogs went with seven defensemen. Johnson is going to be missed down the stretch if he continues to be out of the lineup.
    • While Forsberg was no great shakes in net Friday, Delia was flat-out terrible the following night. Neither goalie got a lot of help from his skaters, but the Cucomonga Kid seemed a bit slow going post to post. Chalk it up to an off night and back to the grind this week.

     

    This Week

    The IceHogs really need to post a regulation win over Milwaukee Wednesday night at the BMO, because the top two clubs in the Central Division come a-calling over the weekend. Grand Rapids visits on Saturday night, while Chicago is in Rockford Sunday afternoon.

    Follow me @JonFromi on twitter for news and notes on the guys in Rockford all season long.

     

     

  • Game #75 – That’s Why We Get High, ‘Cause You Never Know When You’re Gonna Go – Avs 1, Hawks 1 (Hawks Win a Stay of Execution)

    Game #75 – That’s Why We Get High, ‘Cause You Never Know When You’re Gonna Go – Avs 1, Hawks 1 (Hawks Win a Stay of Execution)

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    Money Puck

    For a must-win game with the season on the line, the Hawks managed an “Is it in yet?” effort. Despite dominating possession (62%+) and the shot share (42 vs. 20), they only managed six high-danger chances for against the Avs’s five. With another empty-calorie win, they’ll keep the embers of this “playoff run” just hot enough to justify watching on Tuesday, but if you were looking for a definitive reason to believe that this team can squeak into the playoffs, tonight wasn’t it.  Let’s rake this muck.

    – Colliton’s BIG IDEA over the past two games has been to test his nuclear option of Cat–Cap’n–Kane. It’s done everything it was supposed to do except score goals. They were ruthless in possession, pushing the pace at a 65% pace throughout the entire game. Granted, it was against a team that was happy to collapse on the only line that has even a whiff of a real scoring threat, knowing that if they could shut down that line, they’d probably get the one point they needed to manufacture a more comfortable lead over the last wild card spot.

    While this idea isn’t bad on its own, it’s obviously not worked over the past three or four games. When you’re loading up the top line with your only real shot creators, all your opponents have to do is shut that one line down. And it’s a lot easier to shut that line down when there’s no real puck retriever on the line. That’s what made Caggiula look as good as he did with Kane and Toews: He was willing and able to retrieve shots and rebounds that DeBrincat can’t and Kane won’t. Toews just isn’t that guy anymore, especially not this year, a year in which we’ve watched him rightfully shirk some of his defensive responsibilities to try to outscore the Hawks’s overall defensive woes.

    It’s a tough spot that Colliton finds himself in, trying to turn canned clams into caviar. But it’s obvious that you can’t expect Toews to be the guy who goes and gets the puck on that line. Make it Saad, make it Kahun, or fuck, make it Kampf. The 12–19–88 line makes sense in theory, but it’s probably a bit too light in the ass to make a difference against teams willing to pack it in, like the Avs did tonight.

    – Corey Crawford continues to impress. And for once, he wasn’t having his innards pulled out of his ass with a pair of hot pincers doing it, facing a mere 20 shots on the game and tossing a 15-15 at even strength. At 34, he still looks like he’s got a few more years in him as long as he can stay out of the dark room.

    – Fitting that Duncan Keith would score the game winner in overtime in a game the Hawks absolutely needed in regulation, given how often he’s let us down in bigger spots this year. There’s a nostalgia in watching Keith go coast to coast and flex a shot through the five hole, but it’s tapered by the fact that the extra point will likely be meaningless and that he did it in the farcical urinal race that is 3-on-3 OT.

    – Strome and Perlini look lost without DeBrincat. Dominik Kahun is a nice complementary player, but Perlini isn’t consistent enough a scorer to put Kahun there as the puck retriever. Looks like Colliton realized that too, as Kahun found himself stapled to the bench late. There’s still a lot to hope for from Perlini’s game, but he just doesn’t have the finish or vision to carry a line on his own, at least not yet. If Colliton isn’t going to bump Saad up to the first line, he can probably get away with putting Kahun with Daydream Nation and slotting DeBrincat down to the second line again.

    – The ASS line of Saad–Anisimov–Sikura was outstanding in possession, and they did so playing mostly against the MacKinnon line. This could be a good shutdown line in theory, but it’s hard to buy into Anisimov as a shutdown guy. There’s a lot to like with Saad and Sikura, and you can almost see Sikura playing the role of Saad Lite as he gets more comfortable in the NHL. I’m not sure what this line is supposed to do, but they possessed the puck a lot, so that’s cool.

    – Jonathan Toews probably could have had a hat trick tonight had Philipp Grubauer not turned into Dominik fucking Hasek. So it goes.

    – While Gustav Forsling continues to shit his diaper upward with unforced turnovers and a complete lack of vision, our own Henri “Frank Grimes” Jokiharju has to be looking for the nearest stack of live wires to hug. In a year in which Brandon Fucking Manning played actual minutes for the Blackhawks, Forsling might still come out as the worst D-man the Hawks have dressed. He’s a cold sore on top of a split lip, and his only talent is a booming shot that requires a windup that makes Pedro Baez impatient.

    Tonight is a short stay of execution, nothing more. The Hawks must win out in regulation going forward, because every game is a BIG GAME now. Given that they have not won a single BIG GAME in regulation this year, it’s hard to like the odds.

    That’s why we get high.

    Booze du Jour: High Life and Coricidin

    Line of the Night: You better believe this was a Mute Lounge game.

  • Game #74 – Hawks 2, Avs 4 – Tellin’ Myself it’s not as Hard, Hard, Hard as it Seems

    Game #74 – Hawks 2, Avs 4 – Tellin’ Myself it’s not as Hard, Hard, Hard as it Seems

    It’s over, isn’t it? I know it’s not technically over, i.e., not mathematically over, but it feels like it might as well be, right? This was yet another framed portrait in the gallery of shame that is the Hawks’ “must-win” moments this season. So tomorrow’s re-match is probably the real, final must-win (I dunno, math is hard guys) but it almost feels like it’s too late already. Let’s get to the bullets:

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    – As cheesy as it sounds, this did end up being a game of inches. Dylan Strome shooting just wide on their first power play, Dominik Kahun also in the first missing an open net as puck took a funny bounce over his stick, Alex DeBrincat‘s one-timer in the second going just wide…had any of those chance (or Kane’s breakaway in the first or Saad and Kahun’s 2-on-1 in the third) gone other than how they did, this would have been a different game. Neither team had a huge number of chances and the Avs just took better advantage of theirs than the Hawks did. Sven Andrighetto‘s goal maybe-maybe-wasn’t a high stick (I don’t think it was) and maybe-maybe-wasn’t goalie interference (a little more likely), but neither potential offense was so egregious as to nullify the goal. And that was the right call. It was just the wrong team was the beneficiary of that luck.

    – To add to that point, the Hawks only gave up 25 shots, which is, well, a normal number of shots for a team to give up, as opposed to the 752 they usually surrender. So at the time they needed to hold it together, they managed to not give up an insane amount but they did give up more high-danger chances, and you saw what Colorado did with them. And that’s with the Hawks even getting a bit of good luck with the Avs hitting the post a couple times, so it could have been worse.

    – That doesn’t mean the defense was necessarily great today. Erik Gustafsson took a stupid-ass holding penalty in the second period that started the PK that ended up being a 2-man advantage. I realize that Kampf’s high-sticking penalty is what directly led to the 5-on-3, but that was at least in the heat of the play, as opposed to Gus who lost his stick and just decided to bear hug a guy like no one was going to notice. It was just silly. And that sequence led to the go-ahead goal. Forsling and Seabrook also had their moments, including Foreskin getting burned by Andrighetto for the third goal. It wasn’t a total defensive dumpster fire today (everyone was above 50% in possession at evens, so there’s that) but in total it wasn’t enough. If this were a different time of the season I may say it’s a good sign or at least an improvement that Crawford didn’t have to be absolutely otherworldly to even keep it close. But it really doesn’t matter now, does it?

    – Also sort of fitting is how it was Patrick Kane making a lazy play that put the nail in the coffin. This guy’s been CCYP’s workhorse, and as Sam noted recently, he’s been slowing down and likely tiring out, and whether it was that his give-a-shit meter was too low or the mileage just piled up too quickly today, when he had to maintain possession as Crawford went to the bench, Kane’s half-ass passing attempt was picked off and led to the empty-netter. Yes, the Hawks would probably have lost anyway but that was quite the punctuation mark.

    – Brandon Saad had a really interesting game—I don’t know what else to call it. Sometimes he was fucking up left and right, such as bookending the first period with tripping penalties that luckily Colorado didn’t convert on but that were damn nerve-wracking. He maybe-probably should have shot on the 2-on-1 with Kahun in the third period but at full speed with the laid-out defenseman coming towards him it’s hard to pass that judgement. And then other times he was fantastic, getting an assist on Gustafsson’s goal, out-muscling Nathan MacKinnon for a takeaway in the second, and doing the little things right. No one can accuse him of not trying, and he was all over the ice and finished with a 63 CF%. The sad thing is, like everything else today, it just wasn’t enough.

    – In addition to not giving up a million shots, the Hawks led in possession the whole game (64, 62, 56 CF% at evens, respectively). And they seemed to genuinely have their hearts in it (Kane’s lazy pass notwithstanding). It was downright frenetic for most of the game, and even when they fell behind they didn’t pack it in. It was the damn 5-on-3 and a collection of their own missed opportunities that screwed them over.

    – Here lies Dylan Sikura. He never scored.

    – Stupid Alexander Kerfoot was all over the place and managed two assists. Philipp Grubauer was predictably good today, as was Nathan MacKinnon who had five shots. I was genuinely surprised he didn’t score.

    Well, we’re at the absolute last of the last chances now. The Hawks did a lot of things right and conceivably could have won this game, so maybe that means tomorrow they’ll get the bounces and breaks that they didn’t today. It’s possible? But would it matter? Onward I suppose…

    Photo credit: Chicago Tribune