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  • Game #55 – Canucks 3, Hawks 3 (Hawks Win Foursquare) – Powers That Be

    Game #55 – Canucks 3, Hawks 3 (Hawks Win Foursquare) – Powers That Be

    Box Score

    Natural Stat Trick

    Corisca

    I don’t even know what’s up with this team right now. They were playing very interesting games while looking very bad earlier this year. Then immediately before and after the All-Star Break/Bye Week they were winning games that were absolutely brutally boring. And then tonight they play like shit in a relatively entertaining game and pull out a tie/OT win. What’s going on? Let’s bullet this to process:

    – First and foremost, if there is any one specific thing you can point to in order to say Colliton has had a huge impact this year, it’s the power play, which is near dominant right now. They cashed in on both halves of a 5-on-3 in the first period tonight to get themselves off to a nice start, and while they weren’t playing well at evens in that period (nor did they ever in this none but we’ll get there), we know you can PP your way to a win and even do it several times, and that’s basically what they ended up doing here. With the amount of offensive talent they have had around here for years, it never made sense that the PP stunk so much for so long with Q, and this quantum leap in effectiveness is a major feather in CCYP’s hat.

    – So, the Hawks had a 39.8 CF% at 5v5 tonight and lost the goal battle there 2-1, as well. And it really felt like they were being outplayed the whole time, regardless of what noted meatfuck Adam Burish said in the immediate post-game. The actual SOG count wasn’t exactly pretty either, as Vancouver outshot them 43-35. And again, you can PP yourself to a win, but getting straight up shitpumped by the Canucks like that is just downright bad. So please hold off on any “Blackhawks are BACK” posts, because I am not convinced they are.

    – That being said, the Hawks are now just two points out of a playoff spot, and their upcoming schedule is full of some shitty teams. Moving forward, they clearly can’t get their face kicked in at evens like they did tonight and expect to win games and make up that playoff ground. But confidence is a dangerous weapon and there is potential they improve as they go and we see a playoff berth. Playing games that matter would certainly be valuable, but I am still not sure if I think it’s more valuable than adding Jack Hughes would be.

    – A key part of any potential playoff push (or tank-like collapse) is going to be the play of Collin Delia, and yet again he delivered an inconsistent performance that leaves me wanting an answer regarding what he actually is. The second Canucks goal simply cannot happen, and while it was less egregious neither can the third. Those are two goals where Delia was set up well in front of the shot, and just missed. But then he makes the hard saves and gives you overall solid play. He has to fix the soft shit, cuz then there is really something here. Until then, I will feel like I need to see more.

    – The connection between Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat is really something, and Strome is absolutely showing himself as a certified 2C with still some upside to maybe be more. He is so smart, his hands are so good, and he’s really using all of that to mitigate the weaknesses with his skating. Meanwhile, DeBrincat remains the third best forward on this team and really elevates Strome, and their past chemistry is definitely playing a role. They’re fun to watch and an excellent second line compliment to Daydream Nation.

    – The Jonathan Toews Fuck You Tour continues. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, bitches.

  • Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – February 7th

    Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – February 7th

    First Screen Viewing

    Sharks vs. Flames – 8pm

    Arguably, these are the two best teams in the West, though the Jets would probably “ein minute bitte” that one. A week or two ago the Flames looked ready to run and hide from the rest of the Pacific, but despite Martin Jones not knowing which way to face the Sharks are within three points and a regulation win tonight will put hot fish breath on the back of the necks of the Flames. You can’t ask for more than two of the game’s best with something on the line. Though either of these teams should be able to get past Vegas in the first round, both would much rather face whatever godforsaken dreck comes in the form of a wild card spot.

    Second Screen Viewing

    Jets vs. Canadiens – 6:30

    I don’t know what the hell they’re doing there, but not only are the Habs entrenched in a playoff spot but they’re sneaking up on the Bruins for an automatic one in the Atlantic. The Jets are clearly the class of the Central, fuck the Predators, so this one is another tilt between members of the echelon. The Habs have won seven of nine (oooh, Jeri Ryan!), so they’re rolling. And both of these teams play a track meet. Could be fun.

    Other Games

    Hurricanes vs. Sabres – 6pm

    Penguins vs. Panthers – 6pm

    Islanders vs. Devils – 6pm

    Kings vs. Flyers – 6pm

    Avalanche vs. Capitals – 6pm

    Ducks vs. Senators – 6:30

    Knights vs. Wings – 6:30

    Blues vs. Lightning – 6:30

    Stars vs. Predators – 7pm

    Oilers vs. Wild – 7pm

    Jackets vs. Coyotes – 7pm

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Preview/Slow Cooker Potluck: Come On Inside

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Preview/Slow Cooker Potluck: Come On Inside

     vs. 

    RECORDS: Canucks 24-24-6   Hawks 21-24-9

    PUCK DROP: 7:30

    TV: NBCSN Chicago

    THE BENNING WARRIORS: Canucks Army

    First off, I realize it probably doesn’t square up to keep using the train-wreck picture when they’ve won five in a row, but I also don’t want to mess with what’s working. So there.

    So this is stupid, and with pretty much everyone playing tonight it could shake out any number of ways, but the Canucks currently hold the last playoff spot. And with a regulation win over them, the Hawks will honest-to-god be one point behind them. In fact, should the Blues not win tonight–and they’re in Tampa so you wouldn’t count on it–a regulation win would see the Hawks no more than a point out no matter how the other results go. Sure, they might still have to climb over five goddamn teams, but it’s all a fucking mess so let’s do our best to enjoy it.

    And getting one over on this Canucks team at home shouldn’t be that big of an ask, but the Hawks have whiffed on easier exams. Vancouver is at the end of a four-game Eastern swing, so they could have the bus running. Since the turn of the year they’re a middling, at best, 5-5-2. They’re coming off two-straight losses, where they scored three goals total. They have five division games after this, which they’ll consider more important. This is the donut-hole, as it were.

    What the Canucks are doing here at all is another question. This is not a team that should even think about a playoff spot, and should really be more concerned with another top-five pick to line up next to Quinn Hughes next year. Sure, it has Elias Pettersson (I SAID WWE STANDS FOR…), who is the runaway Rookie Of The Year and the main reason anyone is paying any attention to the tears-blue and puke-green these days. He’s made Bo Horvat somewhat useful, which is a real trick, and Brock Boeser is still scoring at a decent rate when he’s upright. Jacob Markstrom has been good enough in net to not get them killed.

    But much like the Hawks, this isn’t a good team and there’s no number to suggest they are. They’re fifth-worst in possession, third-worst in expected-goals percentage. They’ve shot an ok percentage, but even their special teams are nothing to notice. In fact, since a barely-hot start that had them at 10-6-2, they’re 14-18-4. Much like the Hawks, they’ve profited from a middle and bottom of the conference that can’t separate or distinguish itself in anyway, and hence everyone gets to be a hanger-on like a late night at a casino (believe me, I know).

    The Canucks offer a decent top-six through Pettersson (with a record), Horvat, Boeser. Nikolay Goldobin and Jake Virtanen have not lived up to any expectation, and in Virtanen’s case it feels like the 17th straight year we’ve said that. The top pairing of Ben Hutton and Troy Stecher has been under-the-radar good, but the rest blows and you know that because it has Erik Gudbranson on it. Alex Edler is out because he tried to bob for apples on an ice surface, and he’s past his sell-by date anyway. So might be Chris Tanev, who the Canucks have refused to trade for what seems like a decade and now no one would want him. This is Canucks management at its best.

    Surrounding the admittedly promising talent are some of the most hilarious contracts in the league. Go to their CapFriendly.com page and just marvel at Eriksson, Gagner, Beagle, Sutter, and a few others. It’s like something out of the modernist wing of your local museum. It has shapes and colors but no discernible statement or plan other than “I put this shit on a wall.

    For the Hawks, they’ll be without David Kampf for the next month, and that’s a bigger deal than it might first appear. Kampf had become Kruger II, and you could start him against top lines in his own zone and he’d find a way to come out on top. He and Brandon Saad had combined to form a pretty hellacious combo on the third line, and the Hawks will miss that. Maybe the original Marcus Kruger can roll back the clock for a couple weeks, but you wouldn’t be the house on it. He’ll slide to center and Brendan Perlini will come in at wing there.

    The only other changes are Gustav Forsling in for Carl Dahlstrom, which makes all the pairings muck, and Collin Delia will start.

    This is a matchup game for CCYP. The Canucks bottom-six is a toxic waste dump covered in dogshit and seasoned with squirrel carcass. He should try and get his top lines out against them as often as possible and watch the havoc ensue. See if Kruger can deal with Pettersson like old times, and if not you can always change the plan. For once the Hawks won’t have the worse bottom lines, and should try and maximize that.

    It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s probably worse for the organization that it is this way now, but let’s see how far this dumb, silly, but fun ride goes. Six is better than five.

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Take Jim Benning’s Pen Away

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Take Jim Benning’s Pen Away

    What must infuriate Canucks fans, who are generally in a constant state of infuriation, is that Jim Benning isn’t completely helpless at all facets of his job. Much like Stan Bowman, he’ll show a flash of knowing what he’s doing, especially in the draft, but then foul it all up in the free agent market. But unlike Bowman, Benning can’t blame his crap signings on trying to sandbag his coach.

    Since being hired in May of 2014, Benning has drafted Jake Virtanen, Thatcher Demko, Brock Boeser, Adam Gaudette, Elias Pettersson, and Quinton Hughes. Hughes won’t be around until next season, and Virtanen has yet to really get a breeze going between anyone’s legs, but that’s also a first-line scorer, top center in this league, goalie of the future, and in Gaudette possibly a down-lineup weapon. When Hughes does wash up on the B.C. shores from Ann Arbor (roundabout trip, that), the Canucks will finally have a top-pairing d-man for a while. You don’t have to squint all that hard to see the spine of a real team there.

    Still, the one aspect most NHL GMs haven’t gotten right is that when you’re rebuilding, though the Canucks never stated that’s what they were doing, you don’t need to sign anything other than lost hobos and wayward children to fill out your roster  to one- or two-year deals at most. Maybe Canucks ownership wouldn’t let Benning really tank this until the kids were ready to take the mantle, but good lord check some of these out.

    He signed Loui Eriksson to a six-year deal beyond the age of 30, in a desperate lunge to wring whatever was left out of Thing 1 and Thing 2. And this was after Boston gassed up Eriksson’s car and gave him a police escort to Logan to make sure he got out of town. Eriksson will be 36 when this deal is up.

    He gave Brandon Sutter five years, and if Brandon Sutter’s name was “Brandon Owen,” he would be drinking beers in a parking lot at a beer league near you. He’ll be 31 when this deal is up. Benning inked Antoine Roussel to four years, when he’ll be 33, and he’s gotten six goals out of him. He signed Jay Beagle, at 33, to four more years to do…something. He’s been hurt, and the checking center has given the Canucks eight points. Teams that are a year or two or three away do not need specialized checking centers. He extended Erik Gudbranson, who should have “Security” written on the back of his jacket somewhere instead of his name and a jersey, for three more years before this season started. Sam Gagner is buried in the AHL he was so bad, but luckily he only has one more season to go.

    Now, Benning will get away with this. None of these guys are making serious dollars, and the Canucks will have nearly $35M in cap space next year with only Brock Boeser a necessary re-signing. Ben Hutton and Nikolay Goldobin aren’t must-haves but will be kept. The Canucks could conceivably get someone real. And thanks to the complete and utter shit-show that the Pacific Division, and really the Western Conference as a whole, is below the top tier, the Canucks have been able to hang around and hold a playoff spot. They can claim it all worked.

    But imagine the spot the Canucks would be in this summer if they weren’t holding on to Roussel or Gudbranson or Beagle. They could honestly add Erik Karlsson and Matt Duchene in the summer with Hughes and Pettersson and Boeser and all of the sudden things look a ton rosier, don’t they? They could have been one of the biggest free agent players the league has seen in years.

    And they still could be, given what they have available. But given his history, would you trust Benning with that money?

     

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Q&A: Petbugs In My Ears

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Q&A: Petbugs In My Ears

    @Petbugs13 is one of the stranger Canucks characters floating out there in the internet. Which is saying something. Check out his work as Graphic Comments on Canucks Army. 

    The Nucks appear to be in a similar spot to the Hawks, in that making the playoffs wouldn’t really be as beneficial as getting another top five or three pick, right?
    Oh my God yes. There are some in Vancouver that think the rebuild is over and that this team will soon return to the good old days when they would be battling toe-to-toe with the Hawks in search of the ultimate prize. Now, to be fair, they aren’t wrong. Except this time around, the ultimate prize is named Jack Hughes, not Lord Stanley.
    But seriously, there really are people that think this. And unfortunately, those people happen to own/run the team. Now, I’m sure that for business reasons, they would love the revenue from a few playoff games and hope that getting back in would boost season ticket sales for next year. But from a hockey perspective, you’re absolutely right. This team needs at least one more top 10 pick, and for another one or mid round picks to turn into solid NHLers if they hope to compete.
    Beyond that, the real danger of getting back in to the playoffs prematurely is that they’ll then continue down the Edmonton Oilers’ path. Making the playoffs two years ago was the worst thing that could have happened to Edmonton. It’s not just missing out on another pick, it’s how the team then reacts to thinking everything is fixed.
    Pettersson, Horvat, Boeser are at the top of the marquee, but is there anyone beyond that who has looked promising for the future?
    Not at the NHL level. Those are the three guys they are building around at this point. Virtanen and Goldobin are both struggling to live up to their promise, each in their own way. The rest of the roster is filled with guys you could pick up for $250 on the waiver wire at least once or twice during a season, or role players you go after for depth when you want to fill in gaps for a Cup run. And don’t get me started on the blue line…
    If there’s any real help for the future, it’s going to come from the prospect pool. Adam Gaudette and Jonathan Dahlen look promising, and last year’s 7th overall pick, Quinn Hughes, could finally bring a true offensive threat to the Canucks’ defense corps. He is expected to join the Canucks once his season at University of Michigan finishes up.
    When is it Thatcher Demko time?
    Realistically, I think we can expect to see Demko as a full time NHL goalie next season, but I suspect it will still be in a backup role but with the opportunity to play himself into a bigger share of the net. It will be Markstrom’s last year under contract, so the timing is right for Thatcher to get acclimatized to playing in the league.
    That means learning to watch out for a number 97 flying at him out of nowhere when he’s playing in Edmonton. You know, just in case it lands on his head and then he can’t see the puck. And, since he plays for the Canucks, he’s also going to need to eat, sleep, shower while wearing headphones playing Chelsea Dagger on a loop. There’s no way that song is going to rattle another Canucks’ goalie, dammit.
    The Canucks have a ton of cap space for next year, and a bunch of RFA’s that wouldn’t appear to be urgent to re-sign. So I guess our question is how are they going to fuck this up?
    I think you just answered your own question. Jim Benning has not met a ton of cap space he couldn’t turn into a lump of lead or two. Actually, scratch that. He would overpay and definitely only be able to afford one lump of lead.
    I mean, here’s a guy that dodged a bullet when his old boss, Peter Chiarelli, outbid the Canucks for Milan Lucic three years ago, but he still managed to throw the inadvertent win away by signing Loui Eriksson to an untradeable six year, $36 million deal! He signed Brandon Sutter to a five year extension and gave him a retroactive no-trade clause for the one year he had left on his existing deal!! He is paying Sam Gagner $3 million to play for Toronto’s farm team!!!
    Have no fear. Jim Benning has no shortage of ways to burn Francesco Aquilini’s money.

     

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Alex Edler, Last Of His Kind

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Alex Edler, Last Of His Kind

    It may be hard to believe, but while the Hawks still sport Toews, Kane, Keith, and Seabrook from battles with Vancouver past, only Alex Edler stands for Vancouver from what used to be. They’ve all gone elsewhere or retreated to the garbage dumps from which they hatched. Kesler, Burrows, Luongo, The Children Of The Corn, Hansen, and more. Only Edler is left in the rubble where once stood…well, honestly, it was just bigger, uglier rubble. It never really amounted to much.

    Edler contributed to the ire and bile of the fable, he wasn’t merely a bystander. There wasn’t any hit that Edler couldn’t leap into with his elbows floating up like water-wings, and then claim to be the aggrieved. There isn’t anything Duncan Keith has done to a Canuck that Edler didn’t attempt to a Hawk first. Keith was just better at it and more thorough. There was a reason we remarked, “When Eds The Swede gets here, his elbows are going to jump for joy!”

    Edler’s career has gone kind of the way of the Canucks since then. It hasn’t helped that he’s made of stickum and snot, as he hasn’t played more than 75 games in a season in seven years. While there was a time, in the midst of all of the mishegas, that he looked like he might become a dynamic puck-mover, he stalled out with the rest of the organization and hasn’t bested 40 points since 2012.

    And much like they did with pretty much everyone else from their “glory” days, they missed the window to trade Edler and get something tangible for him. He’s hurt again, on IR after trying to kiss the ice surface at high speed. He’s a free agent this summer, and any team that is interested in trading for two months of Alex Edler isn’t interested in giving up much to do it. He’s 32 now, and there was a time a year or two ago where he would have been worth far more.

    He won’t play tonight, and hence for the first time in a long time, Hawks fans will look upon the squad in white and green and blue and not see any villains from battles past. There will be no reminder of what was, what hockey could be at its most passionate and dangerous. No one to make you remember, however faintly, what it was like to actually have your blood boil. Perhaps when they return in March we’ll get one more chance to recall the confrontations of yore. Perhaps we’re not really ready to say goodbye just yet. Not until the next rival identified.

     

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

     

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

    Game #55 – Canucks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

    Notes: Coach Cool Youth Pastor should be targeting the bottom six of the Canucks, because it SUCKS. With last change, get your top lines out against them as much as you can, and see if Kruger and Saad can’t deal with Horvat or Pettersson. It’s worth a shot…Pettersson hasn’t stopped, with 23 points in his last 18 games…Roussel has four points in his last three games, and makes a habit of scoring against the Hawks…with Demko hurt Markstrom is going to take just about every start…Stetcher has been sneaky good metrically, hopefully the Canucks underrate and lose him somehow…

    Notes: Kampf’s injury is bigger than you might think. He and Saad had dominated possession with unfriendly zone starts, and it’s a real question that Kruger can hold up his end of the bargain, though Edmonton was a good start…Forsling comes back in for Dahlstrom, which makes you wonder who CCYP is going to throw at Pettersson, and pray to god it’s not Keith and Seabrook…Delia and Ward are apparently just going to swap starts, which probably isn’t the worst way to bleed Delia into the league but you know at some point Ward is going to go Cam Ward…Saad has seven points in his last seven…

     

    Game #55 Preview Suite

    Preview

    Spotlight

    Q&A

    Douchebag Du Jour

    I Make A Lot Of Graphs

    Lineups & How Teams Were Built

  • Empty Calorie Fun

    Empty Calorie Fun

    Maybe I’m getting old, but I feel like I have to put a disclaimer at the front of every post that will probably turn out negative. I used to be much more confident in my cynicism. Maybe I’m just trying to be happier as I hurl toward death. Either way.

    Let me state that it’s much more fun to watch the Hawks win. Much like any wrestling fan will tell you, things are better when there are stakes and you’re not merely completing the schedule. The fact that the next few Hawks games, and hell, maybe even the rest of them, have something riding on them is enjoyable. I’d really rather this than a full-out tank, simply because the Hawks could never full-out tank and yet they still could finish near bottom of the conference. That might sound hypocritical from someone who was all aboard the Cubs tank and rebuild and also is kind of fascinated to watch the White Sox one. But that’s baseball, where both teams were easily able to flog whatever player they wanted for whatever they could get. Can’t do that in hockey. So whatever. Last night was probably the most fun game of the season, though the Oilers have something to do with that as well.

    But what’s most important is that the front office, and maybe the coach, see what exactly is going on here. And though I know better than to think I’ll glean whether or not that’s true from what Stan Bowman says to the press–because he’s highly guarded and not all that eloquent–let’s just say I’m not encouraged.

    Take this from Monday’s article at The Athletic from Mark Lazerus (closer than you know, love each other so, Mark Lazerus…) about whether or not the Hawks should have fired Joel Quenneville sooner and what Jeremy Colliton could have done with the extra time. This quote isn’t strictly about that, but when talking about the team now this is what Bowman had to say…

    “He said they’re not as bad as their record suggests, that if they had been playing all season the way they’ve been playing the last eight weeks, they’d be ‘right there.’”

    In one sense, I guess he’s right. The Hawks in the last seven weeks are 12-6-4. That’s a 104-point pace. Hey, that’s nice! Good even! But as you all know, I’m a process guy. This is hockey. Any team can spasm a run of results anywhere and for just about any reason. I want to know what I’m seeing is sustainable. So…is it? Well, no. Not even close. It’s the same story it’s always been.

    Since December 17th, when the Hawks second eight-game losing streak ended and this 12-6-4 one started:

    Corsi Percentage: 46.1 (28th)

    Scoring-Chance Percentage: 44.3 (29th)

    High-Danger Scoring-Chance Percentage: 38.7 (dead-ass last)

    That’s not just bad. That’s legitimately terrible. At even-strength, over the past seven weeks, the Hawks have been one of the worst even-strength teams in the league. So how did they get this record? Well that’s easy. Over those seven weeks they’ve got decent goaltending (.926, good for 12th), have shot pretty damn well (9.7%, good for seventh in the league), and of course, the power play.

    No, I don’t mean to just dismiss the power play. You can power play your way to a lot of things. The Jackets did it to the playoffs a couple seasons ago. The Sharks used a power play to get to a Final in ’16. The goals still count. But even the power play, process-wise, has only been ok, and nowhere near what its results are. Yes, I get it. It’s a results business, and with Kane, DeBrincat and a suddenly nuclear and Fels-powered Gustafsson, the power play should always out-result its process. But I want to know that these results can last. So over the past seven weeks, the power play…

    Shots/60 – 55.9 (7th)

    Scoring Chances/60: 50.5 (13th)

    High-Danger Chances/60: 17.0 (23rd)

    So the power play isn’t creating chances and good ones anymore regularly than middling. What it is doing is burying the chances it gets, at a ridiculous clip of 28%. Over the past seven weeks, the second-best shooting percentage for a team on the PP is Ottawa at 21.6! That’s seven points! That’s the same difference between second and 11th!. To give you some idea of how ludicrous the marksmanship on the power play has been, last year Pittsburgh led the league in PP SH% at 17.0. The year before that it was Montreal at the same 17.0%. Sure, any team can put together a hot couple months. But this 28% just isn’t going to stick around, and there’s nothing to support it when it flattens out, which it simply has to.

    Ok, let’s try and find something positive here. It’s stupid to to look at just five games, because any team can do anything over five games. But maybe it’ll be the base for something. Maybe we’ll look back in April with this as a starting point and say that’s when the Hawks started to turn it around structurally. That’s when their even-strength play started to match their play on the man-advantage. So fine, over the past five games:

    Corsi Percentage: 48.1 (23rd)

    Scoring-Chance Percentage: 46.6 (23rd)

    High-Danger Scoring-Chance Percentage: 44.3 (24th)

    Nope, still blows! The Hawks, even during this streak, have been a subpar defensive team, and even their goaltending ranks 15th over this limited stretch. What they do lead in is shooting-percentage for these couple of weeks at 13.5. Again, that won’t last.

    Look, I want to believe just like you. And teams have stretched out goofy percentages and habits for longer than this. Way longer than this. And maybe Delia gets hot again to even some of this out, or Corey Crawford returns the conquering hero on March 1st and does even better. Stranger things have happened.

    And that’s being a bit cold. There are some things in this streak that do portend to a brighter future. Like Dylan Strome, or Top Cat proving not just he’s a top-six scorer but a genuine top-line scorer. Saad and Kampf (before he got hurt). Connor Murphy has been able to take top pairing/dungeon assignments. It’s not a barren wasteland.

    But overall, this is pixie dust. And while you would never, ever hear Bowman or Colliton say this (great seats still available!), my fear and expectation is that they genuinely believe something ingrained has changed here. And it hasn’t.

  • Game #54 – Hawks 6, Oilers 2 – I Set Out Running but I Take My Time

    Game #54 – Hawks 6, Oilers 2 – I Set Out Running but I Take My Time

    It was worrisome for a minute, but then the Blackhawks remembered they were playing the Oilers, and their confidence that they weren’t the shittiest team in the league, or run by the biggest dumbasses in the league, or from the most miserable, cold location in the league managed to just overpower a confused Edmonton team, who also suddenly remembered they were the Oilers. By the end, all Run CMD could do was watch. To the bullets!

    Box Score

    Corsica

    Natural Stat Trick

    – Things started well enough but then the last half of the first period went to shit for the Hawks. They took four straight penalties, some of which overlapped leading to 5-on-3s, and Leon Draisaitl was having his way with the Hawks, scoring two goals in about two minutes, both on power plays. The defense looked generally lost, and in particular Seabrook got absolutely smoked by Connor McDavid. I know that’s not shocking and shouldn’t even be news, but in real time it was ugly to watch.

    – Prior to the penalties and the Hawks basically falling to pieces for a while, our favorite beneficiary of the Fels Motherfuck, Erik Gustafsson, potted his 11th goal of the year and it came…wait for it…on the power play. We talked about it on the podcast last night, and I’m telling ‘ya, someone is going to take Gus for a real defenseman and if the Hawks play their cards right, they can cash in off the results of this motherfuck. We’ll be waiting by the phone for the kudos and our share of the spoils.

    – But enough of all that—five goals in one period! If it had been against any other team I wouldn’t have believed it. But this is the Oilers, and despite Ty Rattie have a good night with three shots, Draisaitl scoring twice and Connor McDavid being Connor McDavid, it still wasn’t enough. And once the Hawks rattled them with Hayden’s goal, a fourth-line goal that was the result of a quick passing play from Marcus Kruger early in the third, the Hawks just kept scoring at will. In fact is was a DLR in the span of one period, and Ken Hitchcock had no idea how to help his team respond. Which is hilarious, except when you think about a generational talent being wasted on this shit organization.

    – And I have to say, I’m bummed FOR McDavid. Sure, he makes a shitload of money and no, I’m not actually losing sleep or anything, but it’s hard to see a game like this, and records like what the Oilers have, while also seeing his capabilities and not rue the fact they’re being so blatantly wasted in this mis-managed and poorly coached dumpster fire of a team.

    – But before it sounds like this was just another example of the Oilers fucking up royally, let me state for the record that the Hawks got their shit together and played better as soon as the second period started. They came back from the first intermission being on the PK but killed off the last of that string of penalties, and they bounced back from being underwater in possession in the first period to a 60 CF% for the second. The Kane-Toews-Caligula line in particular had a number of strong shifts in the offensive zone. Ward had a highlight reel save against Rattie to keep it 2-1. They played WELL during the second and just carried that into the third, which is when it translated into goals.

    – The second line looked really good tonight as well. They only scored one goal (only! We can say only one because there were so many!), but they had a 67 CF% and had strong shifts all night. And not only did Dominik Kahun get an assist on Strome’s goal, he got one of his own in the barrage later in the third period.

    – You know I love to complain about the defense, but get this: every Hawks defenseman had a 50 CF% or better, and as a team they only gave up 27 shots tonight. Despite the incident of McDavid lighting Seabrook on fire, and some early struggles during the bad half of the first, this was actually a relatively competent defensive effort. Is this the end of days?

    So here we are talking about the Blackhawks being three points out of a playoff spot. Let that insanity sink in. To be completely honest, I don’t think this is actually a playoff team, and what we’re seeing is them benefiting from shitty opponents, a good power play, Patrick Kane, and a large dose of luck. But whatever, they’re on a hot streak right now and are beating the teams they should be beating. So I’m not going to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, and let’s enjoy it while it lasts. Because it won’t last. Onward and upward!

    Beer de Jour: Slalom King, Crystal Lake Brewing

    Line of the Night: “The senior citizen behind the Oilers bench…” –Foley, attempting to throw shade at or be polite to Ken Hitchcock, I’m still not sure which…

    Photo credit: Chicago Tribune