Everything Else

Halfway There, All Along I’ve Been The Traveler – The Brent Seabrook Problem And Solution

By Sam Fels 2038 0

Tomorrow night, the Hawks will cross the rubicon of the first half to the second half of the season, even if it feels like this half was 295 games long. There are a lot of issues with the Hawks that can be studied in this context, but there is no more important one than their blue line. Their blue line is why they’re the worst defensive team in the league. The blue line is why they give up the most high-danger chances in the league. And the blue line is what they’ve told you to focus on in the future. The blue line is why they keep mentioning the names Adam Boqvist (who has looked a bit tasty at the WJC so far, admittedly), Nicolas Beaudin, and Ian Mitchell. They know what the main issue is.

So let’s start our quick, half-season survey stretch by looking at the biggest issue on this team and what they’re going to do going forward.

This is only a working theory, and I’ll never prove it, but the main reason Henri Jokiharju is off with the Finnish kids instead of flying to Denver today is Brent Seabrook. And it’s because the front office didn’t want to put Coach Cool Youth Pastor in a position to have to scratch Brent Seabrook, and consistently. They’re still a touch afraid to have him tell Cam Ward he’s going to sit behind a goalie who has four NHL appearances to his name, even though it’s obvious that’s what has to happen. He’s already had to tell Chris Kunitz and Brandon Manning their services are no longer needed. But that’s one thing. Seabrook is quite another.

Here’s Seabrook’s last 10 games in CF% relative to his team:
+5.62 last night (yay!)

-2.09

-16.2

-9.5

-0.77

-6.67

-4.11

-2.96

-7.22

-33.3 (less yay)

Believe me when I tell you that the scoring chance numbers and high danger chance numbers are way, way worse. Seabrook is in the bottom-20 when it comes to relative Corsi or expected goals in the league of any d-man to play 400 minutes at even-strength this term. These are the facts and they are indisputable.

When Jokiharju comes back, it would be easy to argue that Seabrook is no longer one of the most important six d-men. That doesn’t mean best. Because you could easily point out that Gustav Forsling is just as bad, and I would happily agree with you. And this will be the Hawks’ out when The HarJu comes back, demoting Forsling as Dahlstrom appears to have played himself into the lineup every night. But this is Forsling’s make-or-break season. The games he would get to finish out the season are more important than the ones Seabrook will get. You have to find out if Forsling is going to be anything (spoiler alert: he won’t) at this level, and the Hawks probably still believe that something can be mined out of him. Having him finish the year in Winnebago County isn’t going to do anyone any good.

There isn’t a Hawks fan out there who hasn’t pointed at Seabrook’s contract as the reason for the Hawks pratfall from the NHL penthouse to the pile of mud outside the building.  That’s not his fault, it is what it is. But the Hawks are doubling up on the mistake by playing him regularly. It’s sunk cost. That money is gone whether you play him or not.

As this season is lost, it doesn’t really matter what you do with Seabrook for the rest of it. Or it matters less than the summer. Because then it’s going to get ugly. Aside from him, Keith, Jokiharju, Murphy are guarantees to be here next year. Let’s just say Dahlstrom continues his strong play and carves out himself a role. We’re not even talking about Gustafssson yet. You have every reason to believe that at least one of the three of the Youth Triumvirate the Hawks keep selling you is going to be on the team, probably two. That’s five without Gustafsson and only one of Boqvist, Mitchell, Beaudin on the team. Any other combination and that’s six. Would you want to see Seabrook ahead of any of them?

The Hawks cannot lose yet another good player in service of paying a player who’s already past it, otherwise known as the “Bickell Process.” That cost them Teuvo and arguably Danault. It can’t happen again. Teams would absolutely call about Murphy, who has looked like the Hawks best d-man from the moment he stepped back on the ice (faint praise, clearly). They’ll be certain to call about the kids. The Hawks can’t choose nostalgia over them.

The easy way out for the rest of this season is to play seven d-men. That was something Q refused to do and most teams are loathe to (except for the league’s best in Tampa, but y’know, why take your cues from the team that’s going to put up more points than anyone has in a decade or more?). I don’t really need more John Hayden or Andreas Martinsen in my life, and you could use that hole with 11 forwards to get all of Kane, Toews, Top Cat, Saad, Strome an extra couple of shifts per night. Seabrook can play on the second power play unit and spotted shifts here and there, and both Gustafsson and Murphy have shown the ability to play either side to deal with pairing-juggling. This is a half-measure for now.

But it won’t be a solution for all of next year, especially if two of the kids make the team. That’ll put Seabrook eighth on the depth-chart. And that’s if the Hawks don’t conclude they need to go outside the organization for a top-pairing guy to help all the kids, which they absolutely, really need to do (except there’s only one UFA who fits that bill and he’s very handsome and Swedish and decidedly not coming here. Or you could offer-sheet Jacob Trouba, and in that same world I’d be marrying Scarlett Johansson).

So where does that leave everyone? To me, there’s only one way out of this.

At his exit interview, or at his summer home, or somewhere during the offseason, Stan, McD, and Rocky are going to have to sit across a table from him and tell him that everything he has done for this team is cherished and appreciated. He will go down as one of the greatest Hawks d-men ever, because he is. But at this point in his career, he’s going to be no more than a #7 on this team, and he will not play half or most games. If he’s fine with that, great. If he’s not, the Hawks will do everything they can to find a team that will take him and play him more, including paying half his salary. They owe him that.

Again, that money is gone either way. If you can get out of half of it, that’s a win. Maybe you have to include a mid-level prospect to entice, but not every one is going to make the team anyway and as long as it’s mid-level and not an established NHL-er in the vain of Teravainen, Danault, and Hinostroza. This gives Seabrook some control, as he has his full NMC, but also gives him say over how his career is going to play out. And yes, I’m willing to wager you can find a team that will take a chance on him for a mere $3M or so per season, especially if they have to give up nothing and maybe can get a lottery-ticket prospect out of it as well. And if you can’t, Seabrook isn’t bringing your team down night after night, and will know why.

For the rest of this season, and especially in the summer, this is the Hawks biggest issue. And how they solve it is going to be a fascinating, if not infuriating, watch.

 

 

Everything Else

Game #40 – Might Not Know It Now, Baby, But I Are, I’m a Star – Wild 2, Hawks 5

By John Pullega 1881 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

After a piss-poor first, the Hawks piled on the offensively anemic Wild in the final 40. By all the metrics except the score and the save percentage, the Hawks had no business winning this game. Good thing they don’t let us fuckin’ nerds make the rules. To the bullets!

– Forty-six saves on 48 shots. Collin Delia had himself a hell of a night tonight. The Wild needed a man advantage to score both of their goals, and neither of them were his fault (they were Seabrook’s. More on that later.). The only real knock against him was his rebound control, especially early on, but he kept it clean when it mattered most. There’s no reason outside of injury or diarrhea that should keep Delia from starting Saturday, and unless he gets completely domed, he should also start the Winter Classic, if not for performance than because it would be a sin against God and the Irish not to start a guy who spells his name the brogueish “Collin” at Notre Dame. Again, 46 saves on 48 shots, and both goals required a man advantage.

– Kane got his hat trick, and man, that creep can roll. No one has evangelized for the Gustafsson–Kane connection harder than I have, and the reason was clear on Kane’s PP goal. It was a simple play—Toews wins the faceoff, Gus walks the line, Kane fires a one-timer short side—but it’s on the power play, which all of a sudden looks deadly.

Kane’s first goal was all him. When Gustafsson took the shot fake and skated around Kunin, I thought he had given himself a nice lane to take a decent shot. Then he fucking passed it. Normally, this would have been a bad pass and a missed opportunity. But Kane kicked the puck to his stick in traffic and flicked it by a porous and soon-to-be-pulled Devan Dubnyk. There are a handful of players who could have gotten a shot off on that pass, let alone scored, and Gus should thank his stars that Kane’s one of them.

– Brandon Saad did a good deal of fucking tonight. His first goal took a bit of luck from Toews behind the net. After receiving a pass from Kahun—who himself was feisty tonight—Toews tried to thread one to Saad, and it ended up bouncing off of Zucker and straight to Saad. After last year’s unlucky debacle, it’s about time Saad got one to bounce his way here. His second goal came off a brilliant DeBrincat steal. With Stalock coming out of the goal to play the puck forward, DeBrincat batted his pass out of mid-air and swept it to a wide-open Saad, who sneezed it over the goal line. His 11+ CF% Rel was also best for third on the Hawks, behind Sikura and DeBrincat.

– Dylan Strome had a ton of opportunities tonight that he just couldn’t cash in, but he was in all the right places. He’s got five points in his last two games, and one can only wonder how much more it could be if he had DeBrincat flanking him rather than Artie the Obelisk.

– It’s been a while since we’ve had to gripe about Brent Seabrook, mostly because Coach Cool Youth Pastor has hidden him as far away from meaningful time as possible. But tonight was different, though not necessarily by choice.

Seabrook was on the ice and out of position on both goals. On the first, the PK2 unit found itself stranded on the ice for 1:30. With about 15 seconds left, Granlund moved in on Seabrook at the far circle, forcing Seabrook to step up, which is not a phrase you want to hear outside of “Seabrook stepped up to cheer on Henri Jokiharju (FINLAND POINT) from the press box and got jalapeño stains on his suit.” Granlund then floated toward the top of the circle, opening up Seabrook on the inside, and hit Staal with a pass. Staal’s shot was blocked by Delia, but it allowed Staal and Parise time to set up behind the net. After playing catch, Staal swung behind the net for a wraparound, and Seabrook got caught between playing Staal behind the net and Parise in front. Seems like you’d want to cover the guy who’s in front of the net rather than behind it, but Seabrook’s hesitation allowed Staal to take the wraparound and Parise to sweep in the rebound.

On the second, Seabrook managed to screen his own goaltender and vacate the spot from which Staal scored. This one was a bit more excusable, given how quickly the play developed, but still not great. There’s not much we can do about it other than grumble, but when Seabrook and Keith were together, they got overwhelmed. No more of that.

– Dominik Kahun was active all night, even though the stats show paltry evidence of it, aside from his secondary assist on Saad’s first goal. His best play of the night came about halfway through the second. Carl Dahlstrom broke on a rush, only to have the Hawks turn it over in the neutral zone. Murphy gummed up a 2-on-1, giving Kahun time to get back and lift Staal’s stick as he wound up for a pass from Zucker. It would have been a hard shot for Delia to stop, and Kahun prevented it all with strong stick work.

– David Kampf was good on the PK tonight, logging just over four minutes. He was on the ice for the Wild’s not-really-a PP goal, but aside from that, he battened down the hatches. If he had just a bit of scoring touch, he probably would have had a goal too, as Kane hit him with a smooth drop pass (the good kind) and left him with a wide-open shot that Stalock denied.

– Though it’s a minor gripe, I’d like to see Sikura and Perlini switch back up. Neither was particularly noticeable tonight in their respective spots. It didn’t hurt, but it also didn’t help.

– Toews got his 400th assist tonight. Good on him. If anyone deserves a statue, it’s Toews.

In the first time in about 10,000 days, the Hawks had the tools to win a post-Christmas-break game. They’ll travel back to my backyard on Saturday, where the only excuse Colliton will have for not starting Delia will be because he ate the fattest edible known to man and took advice from drunk Patrick Roy. The Hawks are on a bit of a roll now, and if the shit fits, wear it.

Booze du Jour: Tin Cup

Line of the Night: “Have to get Forsling and Seabrook off the ice. They’re out of gas.” Eddie O., saying what we’re all saying.

Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – December 27th

By Sam Fels 1033 0

First Screen Viewing

Flames vs. Jets – 7pm

Everyone’s pretty much in the pool coming out of the Christmas break, and while the nation’s eyes will mostly be tuned to children in Vancouver beating up on children from Switzerland to define that weird country’s emotional state, its two best teams will be dancing in Winnipeg. Both the Jets and Flames stand atop their divisions, giving the Great White North real hope of another Final appearance, only its third in 13 years should it come to pass. The Jets have actually opened up some space on the Preds, who can’t get their act together on the road at all, while the Flames are going to have to shake off the Sharks (if Martin Jones doesn’t do it for them). Two of the NHL’s glitterati here.

Second Screen Viewing

Avalanche vs. Knights – 9pm

And then two of the chasing pack. The Knights are only four points behind the Flames and the Avs are still being something of a nuisance to the Preds and Jets. Yes, the Avalanche are only one line and that’s going to be a problem down the road, but when that line is doing this you don’t complain too much. The Knights don’t have a shutdown pairing, and their up-tempo ways would seem to let Mackinnon and Rantanen off a leash and into the neighbor’s yard. Could be points galore for everyone here.

Other Games

Devils vs. Bruins – 6pm

Jackets vs. Rangers – 6pm

Red Wings vs. Penguins – 6pm

Hurricanes vs. Capitals – 6pm

Flyers vs. Lightning – 6:30

Sabres vs. Blues – 7pm

Stars vs. Predators – 7pm

Canucks vs. Oilers – 8pm

Coyotes vs. Kings – 9:30

Ducks vs. Sharks – 9:30

Everything Else

Game #40 – Wild vs. Hawks Preview/Clear-Out Sale: Sweat Out The Cake

By Sam Fels 1929 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Wild 17-15-3   Hawks 13-20-6

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

VIKING HORN SOUND: Hockey Wilderness, Zone Coverage MN

The mini-Christmas break is over, and the entire NHL is kicking out the cobwebs, stretching it out, processing a big yawn, and getting ready to get back to the grind. And thanks to the CBA and the players’ union strange request, tonight is filled with games where the road team flies in day of and never looks like it’s all working together. You’ve seen some of them get really fed on this day, but the Hawks haven’t gotten this day right much at all over the years. Last season they got an extra night before shitting it against the Canucks in Vancouver. The year before that that they were nowhere against the Jets, and the year before that they laid an egg against Carolina. So just because the Wild are in the air as we speak doesn’t guarantee much.

Let’s start with the Hawks. Collin Delia looks to be getting the start, which should be the case until there’s a back-to-back (weekend after next) or Corey Crawford comes back. Cam Ward showed his true Cam Ward colors on Sunday, or should I say is true technicolor yawn, basically gifting the Panthers a couple goals and ruining what was a decent enough start from the Hawks. While he played well in a couple wins before the break, he still has a terminal case of being Cam Ward and we all know exactly what he is. Delia at least comes shrouded in mystery and some hope, and right now that’s good enough for the Hawks.

Other lineup changes see John Hayden slot in for Chris Kunitz, who sadly wasn’t banished to a sawmill in the country during the break. Dylan Sikura is dropping to the fourth line, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I guess Brendan Perlini has played well enough for a promotion? Whatever. I don’t think it matters at this point.

To the Wild, who are only five points ahead of the Hawks but have played four games less. They have been tumbling down the standings like Martin Sheen off a roof for the past few weeks now. First it was Devan Dubnyk having a month-long sneeze in November, and while that’s corrected their scoring has gone completely agoraphobic and they can’t get anywhere near the opening between the posts. Since the middle of last month the Wild are shooting just 6.4%, fifth-worst in the league. Which betrays their metrics, as just like last year they create far more good chances than they let up even if the attempts are more or less evenly distributed. But that doesn’t really matter if you can’t bury them, and if your goalie goes through a streak where he can’t stop them.

Further dampening the Wild attack is that Matthew Dumba is basically done for the year, out three months with a pectoral problem that required surgery. He was one half of all their push from the blue line, with Jared Spurgeon the other (it’s not really what Ryan Suter does anymore). This has forced both Nate Prosser and Greg Pateryn into the lineup, which is a place you want to be in less than a bus station at 3AM. Without Dumba, you can expect the Wild’s metrics to go down.

Up front they’re juggling things again, with Charlie Coyle doing his regularly scheduled shift from wing to center where he can flatter to deceive there as well. Jordan Greenway has got himself punted to a wing where he can watch Mikko Koivu wheeze and belch as Father Time leaves another counting the lights. Zach Parise was hot there for a minute but has cooled off, and Mikael Granlund couldn’t hit an elephant from five feet at the moment. The lack of a true front-line scorer is once again biting the Wild in the ass, just as it has for the past…well, existence.

I guess in the Hawks’ mind, not yours or mine, if they’re going to push anything out of this season they have to start now. The schedule is pretty light from now until their bye in January, with only one back-to-back and three-in-four stretch with two of those at home. We’ll see what they make of it, which won’t be much.

 

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Game #40 – Wild vs. Hawks Spotlight: Gabby Gabby Hey

By Sam Fels 1643 0

You’re supposed to get a guarantee with Bruce Boudreau behind your bench. Your team might not have any defensive structure, or really any offensive structure for that matter, he’s going to be awfully red-faced, but your team will finish with over 100 points. Oh, and you’re going to do dick in the playoffs. Those are the guarantees. So what happens when your team doesn’t get those 100 points? Or even looks bang-on to not even get 90?

Bourdreau’s record is quite remarkable, both in its consistency and uniqueness. No team he has coached for a full-season has played at less than a 100-point pace (the Ducks had 66 in the season-in-a-can of 2013). The exception, if you want, is his ’11-’12 Capitals team that 25 points through 22 games before it fired him. But that’s really the only team before this Wild one that wasn’t going to clip triple-digits. And even that Caps team was on course for 93 points which may have been enough for the playoffs.

But obviously, that’s been combined with a startling, and honestly hilarious, lack of success in the playoffs. Boudreau teams have only gotten past the second round once in his 10 attempts to ascend the mountain. And even in that one, it was the third of four-straight Game 7 capitulations at home for the Ducks. No coach is ever going to be able to claim that again, you wouldn’t think.

Which makes Boudreau a hard coach to judge. Based on the far larger sample size of the regular season, you can hardly find one better. Even Joel Quenneville can’t match Boudreau’s regular season marks, and he had superior talent for most of it. And yet in a sport that only cares about what you do after that, you can’t really find anyone much worse. At least no one who’s had the chances that Gabby has had.

While you’re tempted to make a certain level of excuses for Boudreau’s playoff face-plants, and his two Wild teams really had no business going anywhere anyway, there’s only so far you can go when a team has led 3-2 four times with a Game 7 at home and whiffed on it every time.

So this season, when the Wild don’t look to be set for the regular season success, where do they go? The Wild are on pace for 86 points, which is going to leave them open leagues from a playoff spot. In the underlying numbers, the Wild still look good, Their 12th in CF% for a team, and 5th in expected-goal percentage. What they can’t get is a save right now, 22nd in even-strength save percentage, as Dubnyk had a simply abhorrent November and has only been ok in December. They also find themselves unable to hit water if they fell out of a boat, as they’re 25th in SH% as well. Is that really on Boudreau if he can’t get a save and his team isn’t converting the chances that his “system” is creating?

Still, you get the feeling the Wild know this era, such as it is, doesn’t have much legs left. Mikko Koivu, Ryan Suter, Zach Parise, Eric Staal, and Dubnyk are all on the wrong side of 30, and Jared Spurgeon reaches that next season. They hired a new GM in Paul Fenton, and presumably his main charge was to find a way out of the cap hell his predecessor Chuck Fletcher got them in. That probably means younger soon, and Boudreau’s teams have rarely been that, save for his first Caps team. Which then pretty much quit on him anyway.

Boudreau’s regular season record certainly warrants more than one bad one before a shit-canning. And yet when combined with nothing close to banner-worthy playoff success, and the wick on this candle may be a lot shorter than you’d first guess. But how do you find someone to squeeze better regular season results out of this? It’s also a hellish division, where the Preds, Avalanche, and Jets aren’t going anywhere for a while and one could assume the Stars and Hawks won’t suck forever (though they might).

It’s going to be an awfully tough decision for Fenton. Boudreau’s tenures haven’t lasted too much longer than a third full season. In DC he was fired during his fourth full-season. In Anaheim it was after his fifth. It won’t be long either way, you’d think.

 

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Game #40 – Wild vs. Hawks Q&A: Whatever, Vikings Suck

By Sam Fels 1970 0

Ben Remington covers the Wild for ZoneCoverage.com. You can follow him on Twitter @BenRemington. 

The Wild have had an ugly December that have seen them tumble down the standings. What’s been the problem?
From an eye-test perspective, the scoring has dried up something fierce, and the loss of Matt Dumba recently has definitely exacerbated that. On paper, the stats back that up. Since December 1, the Wild are 30th in the league in Shooting% at a paltry 7.1%, and have scored the least amount of goals in the NHL (23 in 10 games…woof).
Devan Dubnyk struggled mightily in November with an unsightly .882 SV%, but seems to have turned a corner, and is sitting at .916 in December. The defense is playing pretty solid, but they’re giving Dubnyk no margin for error, and he’s not quite up to the task of standing on his head every night. Wild fans have long lamented the Wild’s inability to finish, and this time, it’s popping up in the regular season with regularity, rather than only happening in the playoffs.
The Wild don’t score a ton. Eric Staal has 12 goals. The Wild weren’t counting on anywhere near 42 again like last year, were they?
I don’t think so, but they were certainly expecting a good season, which I think he’s close to. Staal is a really interesting topic for Wild fans, partly because of those 42 goals last season, there’s a decent sized crowd that want to see him re-signed. There’s also plenty of folks who think when you win in roulette like you did with his contract, you don’t place an even bigger bet on the exact same number on the next roll.
That being said, the Wild are woefully, woefully thin at center, and Staal is the the only true first line center this franchise may have ever had. Take a look at the panic that ensued after Mikko Koivu missed a few games to get an idea of how important Eric Staal is to this team right now. Charlie Coyle has again been hokey-pokeyed into playing center, but he’s not exactly flourishing at the position, not that he was at wing, and he could very well be playing in a new sweater soon.
Ryan Suter is on pace for a career-high in points. How has he remained so effective into his 30s and could he send some notes to Duncan Keith?
Suter has really changed his game a bit, as my friend Tony Abbott from The Athletic wrote about last week. Suter’s been a tad more aggressive on offense lately, but it has caused a handful of defensive breakdowns, which is uncharacteristic. It could be his pairing with Dumba for most of the season that has him so offense-happy, or it could be a change of heart in relation to what’s fun about playing hockey after his ankle basically exploded late last season and almost ended his career.
So I guess if you want Duncan Keith to see the light, maybe a ‘Misery’-type lower body injury? If it doesn’t get him playing better after he recovers, it would be cathartic for some Hawks fans, at the very least.
If the Wild can’t pull out of this spin and miss the playoffs, will Bruce Boudreau face some heat? It’ll be three years without a playoff series win, and a new GM in town who might be tempted to find his own guy…
That’s a very real possibility. We Twins fans just saw Paul Molitor canned more or less because he wasn’t the current GM’s hire, and that could very well be Bruce’s fate if things don’t turn around. It’s really unfortunate, because I think Boudreau is a good coach, and his time with a lackluster Wild roster has somewhat tarnished his reputation, but that could very well be a chicken and egg situation.
But Paul Fenton seems fairly happy with Bruce, and I think he’d be more apt, and probably better off, making some worthwhile changes to the roster first before he gets rid of Bruce. That could just be the Bruce fan in me talking though. He’s a great coach to cover, especially contrasted with Mike ‘Cold, Wet Blanket’ Yeo. Bruce might just need an ‘NHL 24/7’ type rant on the Wild to turn things around, if he hasn’t given them one every game yet.

 

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Game #40 – Wild vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Jason Zucker And The Myth Of A Hawks Killer

By Sam Fels 1549 0

Maybe it’s just us, but we’re fairly sure we’re not alone in hearing Jason Zucker’s name and thinking, “Oh that guys just kills us.” There’s certainly a litany of names that conjure up the same thought. Vladimir Tarasenko is probably the leading one, though he tends to score against everyone (when he cares, which isn’t now). Cody Eakin seems to be another one with two teams. Andrew Cogliano was another. You probably have your own you identify that way.

The thing is, Zucker isn’t really. He has seven goals in 23 regular season games. Which isn’t a bad record, it’s just not what you think it is. Must be the playoffs, right? Nope, two goals over two series and nine games. The one where the Wild really gave the Hawks trouble, 2014, he was injured and didn’t play.

And yet it feels like he is, doesn’t it? Every time he scores against the Hawks you can’t help but feel, “That guy again?!” Maybe it’s because we used to get him confused with Erik Haula. Maybe it feels that way because every player on the Wild is basically indistinguishable from the next one so any goal scored by them feels like it’s scored by Zucker. Does it really matter if it’s Zucker or Granlund or Niderraiter? Same guy, right? Maybe we just thought this for so long we can’t get rid of it now, whether it’s true or not.

Maybe it’s that games against the Wild, even when the Hawks were good and the Wild were bad/nondescript, were still mightily annoying. They always were too hard and involved some late equalizer the Hawks should have never given up or Dubnyk makes 37 saves for no reason. And we just take it out on Zucker.

Or maybe it’s just he really is a hockey version of some go-go Twin that led them to a lot of regular season success than never meant anything. Jason Kubel or Nick Punto with skates (more the latter). Maybe it’s just Minnesota sports in general, where if Dante Culpepper got to play against the Bears every week he’d be in Canton. And yet they never do anything either.

Maybe that’s it. Minnesota sports don’t matter and spending any emotion on them is a waste of time. Yeah, that’s it.

Fuck the Vikings.

 

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Game #40 – Wild vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels 1323 0

Notes: The big story with the Wild is that Matt Dumba is going to be out for basically the rest of the season. Outside shot he could be back at the end of March, but without him they lose a ton of their get-up-and-go from the back. It’s basically Spurgeon now…they’ve moved Coyle back to center, which means six more weeks of winter…Koivu has been demoted, so you can see how his season is going…Dubnyk was awful in November but seems to have rebounded the past few weeks…Granlund hasn’t scored since November 29th…Parise was on fire a couple weeks back, with 13 points in 14 games, but hasn’t scratched in his last four at all…

Notes: Not much change here. Not sure why Sikura gets the demotion when he and Top Cat seemed to have struck up an understanding and it’s unclear what you want out of him on a fourth line. Look for this to last a period…Gustafsson is so unpredictable that he’s basically forced Keith to iron out and pull back his game a bit, which is fine with us…why is Forsling starting so often in his zone?…Delia looks to get the start after Ward’s tour-de-stupid on Sunday. If he plays well, he should keep rolling until he proves he can’t anymore, and that includes South Bend…

 

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Atop the Sugar Pile — Christmas Edition

By Rose Rankin 1756 0

It’s time once more to take a look at the good, the bad, and mildly acceptable in all things Blackhawks. And in the spirit of the holidays, let me give you one more gift: Dear Santa Claus, Go Fuck Yourself will be the best thing you watch this week; this is just one clip but go find the whole thing. You’re welcome.

The Dizzying Highs

Dylan Strome: We are officially fans of Dylan Strome around here. In addition to a three-point game last night against the Panthers (in what was otherwise a full body dry heave thanks to Cam Ward), Strome has been part of a power play that is resembling something functional and playing like the actual 2C that the Hawks so desperately need. And he’s doing this while saddled with Wide Dick Arty who has no business being anywhere other than the pressbox, much less on the second line. Strome has looked good with DeBrincat when they’ve had chances to play together (duh of course) so it’s extra annoying that Coach Cool Youth Pastor still feels the need to play Anisimov with Strome and Kane, but Strome is making it work and we’re here for it.

Alex DeBrincat. On a related note, Definitely-Not-A-Third-Liner Alex DeBrincat has six points in his last five games, including a three-point performance against the Stars. He’s also a part of the sort-of functioning power play, and he and Dylan Sikura seem to have something going. His possession numbers aren’t bad either—a 51.5 CF% although admittedly with sheltered starts (nearly 59% in the offensive zone). We may bitch and moan about where he’s at but point is we need him scoring, wherever he plays. And that’s happening as of late and we’re here for it.

The Terrifying Lows

Gustav Forsling. This guy sucks, there’s not much else to say about it. He was pretty much solely responsible for the Avs only goal last Friday when he just stood there watching Compher score. In fact Forsling excels at standing around sort of near the goal watching guys score when he should be pressuring them. His CF% is underwater at 48.4 right now, and don’t be fooled by the goal he scored against the Predators last week—that was a pure Fels Motherfuck and the rest of the night he was awful and looked lost. I’m not suggesting Forsling should sit and be replaced by Brandon Manning, who is actually even worse if that can be believed. But I really want the Hawks to find some moron GM on whom to dump this pile of crap because I am done waiting for him to be something. He will not be anything.

The Creamy Middles

Erik Gustafsson. Cowboy Gus is quarterbacking the first unit of the aforementioned power play and even got a goal on the man advantage against Dallas, which alone qualifies him to be on this list. Perhaps even more impressive is that he’s a defenseman generally playing competent defense (we see you, Connor Murphy, but let Gus have his day). He saved a goal in that same Dallas game and his CF% stands at 51.7% (again, sheltered starts but whatever). He did stop giving a shit when the Panthers game really got out of hand, so he’s not THAT great. But at this point we’ll take generally competent.

Dylan Sikura. OK, he’s only got two points in seven games but he’s looking like a decent third-liner. Playing with Alex DeBrincat definitely helps that, but Sikura doesn’t look lost or useless, and really that’s where we’re at in terms of requirements right now. He even had four shots last night against the Panthers. Merry fucking Christmas.