Everything Else

Game #21 – Wild vs. Hawks Q&A: Giles Ferrell

By Sam Fels 1497 0

Giles Ferrell covers the Wild for ZoneCoverage.com. He’s also a Red, which means he’s thoroughly charming and smart. Follow him @GilesFerrell.

The Wild are currently splitting the Preds and Jets in the standings. They’ve won six of seven. Are they really this good or just on a hot streak and will settle in?

Given how badly the Wild were waxed last season by Winnipeg, I still think the Jets will make up ground and jump the Wild in the standings. But it is unreal how well the Wild are playing right now and the pessimist in me tends to think at some point these guys will come down back to life a bit. Mikko Koivu is defying his age — 35 — and is averaging nearly a point per game this season. Zach Parise is also almost at a point per game pace and we were openly wondering just how much hockey this guy had left in him a year ago because of his crippling injury. Mikael Granlund is shooting an unsustainable 27% right now because everyone is respecting the [redacted] out of his pass-first tendencies. If these guys were to cool off or miss time with injury, it is very possible — because Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter have struggled just about all season — the Wild will come back down to earth.

The underlying numbers suggest the Wild don’t generate more attempts than their opponents, but they do generate more good chances. Is that what you see?
This is very true. Chances have been few and far between for the Wild early on this season, but they have made the most of those chances. Something besides Granlund realizing his stick was also for shooting in addition to passing is that the Wild have done really well at getting into the dirty areas this season and creating more garbage goals, with Parise leading the charge on that. The guy has returned to a form that not even has been seen in a Wild uniform. But they are also getting ridiculous contributions from their bottom six, as they really do outwork their opponents to draw penalties and/or create scoring opportunities.
Our dear boy Nino Niederreiter only has one goal. Something amiss here or just rotten luck with his 3% shooting percentage?
It has been most painful to watch Nino Niederreiter this season as you can hear him on the television grind his stick into sawdust every freaking shift. He just needs a goal or two to come out of this — and he got one Thursday night on a redirection — but good lord this is not the kind of start he needed with a new boss looking on to make “tweaks” to this roster. So many missed empty nets/golden chances on his part this season. If I had a dollar for every time he has looked up into the rafters after missing a glorious chance I could afford to buy the Timberwolves and fire Tom Thibodeau into the sun. For Nino’s sake, and for Wild fans’ sake, he needs to get it together real soon.
Devan Dubnyk has played in 14 of the Wild’s 18 games. Any fear it may be too heavy of a workload for a goalie in his 30s now?
As the most noted listeners of the Giles and the Goalie podcast would point out, I have been banging this drum for a few years now. The Wild have been so crunched to the cap year after year they can not afford a decent backup goalie to give Dubnyk some extra nights off. Alex Stalock has been alright this year, but I don’t think his body of work inspires Boudreau to give him any extra nights in goal as of yet. Credit to Dubnyk is that he continues to perform at a high caliber level despite the heavy work load. But at some point, this too will be catching up with the Wild. Paul Fenton better hope it is not this year.

 

Game #21 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #21 – Wild vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: If You Need To Tell Everyone, Then You Aren’t It

By Sam Fels 1556 0

If you watch any number of Wild broadcasts, and you probably shouldn’t if you want to claim any use to society which we gave up on long ago, you’ll get the impression that the production wasn’t hugged enough as a child. Or maybe too much. We can’t tell.

The Wild, or maybe just their media coverage, has this great need to be identified as someone’s “great rival.” A few years ago, it was the Blackhawks that were labeled that. Every visit of the Hawks to The X was labeled as a visit from “the Wild’s great rival.” Except the Hawks only ever noticed the Wild as a rest stop on their way to the next round of the playoffs. Games between the two meant so much to those in St. Paul. The Hawks treated them as, “Who are you again?”

These days, it’s the Winnipeg Jets that the Wild are claiming is their blood feud. We guess by physical proximity it could work. Except the Jets don’t care, because the Jets now see the Wild as nothing more than a rest stop on their way to the next round of the playoffs. And if the Jets have a rival, it’s probably another Canadian team because that’s just how things work up there.

If you have a rival, it means you matter to someone. And that’s been the Wild’s problem. They haven’t really mattered to anyone. You never think about them, and when they pop up on the schedule your biggest reaction is, “Oh right, them.” No one ever circles dates against the Wild on the schedule. Hell, people in Minnesota basically treat them as a pre-show to the Gophers. So perhaps their aching need to bother someone is just a cry for attention. It has to be.

But they’re still not there. Jets fans don’t care about the Wild, especially given the way the Winnipeg turned the Wild into an aioli in last year’s playoffs. And they’re likely to do so again, if the Wild aren’t served up to the Predators instead.

The Wild aren’t even a little brother. They don’t have that kind of connection. They’re the kid down the street who keeps offering to fight you for money while you’re just trying to get to the store. They’re no one’s rival, except for maybe themselves.

Keep stamping your feet, Minnehaha. Maybe you should get a horn like the Vikings. At least then you’d be annoying, which would move the needle in any way. Which the Wild haven’t done ever.

 

Game #21 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight – November 17th

By Sam Fels 1065 0

First Screen Viewing

Oliers vs. Flames – 9pm

The first Battle Of Alberta of the season highlights a rather lackluster Saturday night slate. The Flames are fun and have a ton of drama because you can watch Mike Smith torpedo an overall good effort and then watch Flames Nation immolate itself on Twitter. They have to be getting close to going to David Rittich full-time, which will send Smith into orbit and that’ll be fun too. The Oilers aren’t any good either, but these games tend to be passionate affairs and if you don’t want to head out into the sleet tonight, this one will keep you company.

Second Screen Viewing

Sabres vs. Wild – Now

Before the Wild invade tomorrow night to join their Viking brethren for an all-Minnehaha raid of Chicago, they’ll take on the surprising Sabres. Should probably start paying more attention to Buffalo, as the addition of Jeff Skinner and Rasmus Dahlin has made them actually watchable and noticeable. The Wild are the league’s hottest team at the moment, and Boudreau has them playing faster than before.

Other Games

Canadiens vs. Canucks – 6pm

Penguins vs. Senators – 6pm

Panthers vs. Rangers – 6pm

Jackets vs. Hurricanes – 6pm

Bruins vs. Coyotes – 7pm

Kings vs. Predators – 7pm

Blues vs. Sharks – 9:30

Everything Else

Game #20 – Hawks 1, Kings 1, Kings Win Rock, Paper, Scissors: Leaves Start Falling, Comedown is Calling

By Rose Rankin 2189 0

It took a really long time, but after about 46 minutes the Hawks and Kings realized they were playing a game in front of spectators and cameras, and they stopped skating around with their dicks in their hands and attempted to play something resembling hockey. Unfortunately for the Hawks it was a lot of the type of hockey they’ve been playing lately, and they could barely squeeze out a point against some bottom-feeders and their fourth-string goalie. Are you sure you want to know more? OK then, we’ll get to the bullets, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

– It’s almost hard to express how painfully dull and stupid the first two periods were. The Kings are not a good team, and we know this to be true, and yet they outplayed the Hawks and just looked, and WERE, better. Notice I didn’t say they were good, they were just better (all the more frustrating). They beat the Hawks in shots and possession (ended the first with a 60.6 CF% and the second with a 58%), and thanks to a fortunate bounce, they also had the lead after two. Tyler Toffoli banked it off Keith’s skate and it ricocheted in, more luck than anything, but in terms of how it happened that’s irrelevant. The Hawks made their typical fuck-ups on defense, such as having three guys behind the goal line chasing the puck, which left Kempe wide open in front of Crawford (who stopped the shot because of course he did). Dumb turnovers, useless power plays, these two periods had everything you’ve come to expect.

–More on those power plays, for a minute: the Hawks had three in quick succession in the second and of course converted on none. Patrick Kane was out there for the entirety of at least two of them (maybe all three, admittedly it’s a blur). And by the third try they were at least getting shots on net, but in the first two it was still a lot of passing around the perimeter—more puck movement? That’s the best we got?—but nothing of substance. They kinda sorta got better by the third one, but nonetheless the clown shoes remain firmly ensconced.

– And they got goalie’d again by a fucking nobody. The amount of times this happens has reached downright farcical levels. Calvin Petersen (huh?), who apparently the Hawks tried to draft, made 34 saves on 35 shots for a save percentage of .971. I want to be angry about it, but I’m just worn down by this situation. And for the record, Crawford was nearly as damn good. He ended with a .969 SV% (NICE) which is funnier and cooler so Petersen can go fuck off. And both Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane should be embarrassed that they couldn’t score on this jamoke in the shootout.

– Guys, Brandon Saad may be good again! There’s a silver lining for ‘ya. He got moved to the top line midway through the game and scored the Hawks’ only goal off a gorgeous feed from Toews that hit his stick just at the top of the crease. In fact, the accompanying change of Schmaltz moving to a line with Anisimov and DeBrincat also worked. At first I was a little skeptical, given how slow Anisimov is, but the three of them had a CF% over 70 together, and Nick Schmaltz even shot the puck a couple times. I know I’m grabbing at any sliver of hope or positivity here, but it was sort of working, honest.

What else can one say about a game with idiotic defending, shitty power plays, and non-existent offense? Wait, I think I actually just summed it up right there…so no, there isn’t more one can say. This was their last “easy” game for a while, if you take the Wild or Capitals seriously and I can understand why you wouldn’t. But if they can’t even get an overtime or shootout win against the fucking Kings, there is every reason to dread those teams that may just be overrated, mediocre, or still hungover from last summer. Either way, it’s a long road ahead. Onward and upward.

Beer: Drumroll by Odell Brewing

Line of the Night: “They’re a very fragile team right now.” —Eddie O, but which team was he referring to?

Everything Else

Game #20 – Kings vs. Hawks Preview: A Chilling Vision

By Sam Fels 2271 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Kings 5-11-1   Hawks 7-8-4

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

NO MORE CALIFORNIA SONGS: Jewels From The Crown

It’s ok if you mourn the end of the Hawks Era. It can be a tough watch at times, especially when the memories of what a fine, oiled machine it was still so fresh. No team ever exits the spotlight gracefully, or at least it’s pretty damn rare. The fall is always painful. Especially in the callous world of the salary capped NHL, the tumble comes quick and the tide always wins. Maybe it was an impossible task set ahead of the Hawks, even without the mistakes they’ve made.

Then again, they could be the Kings.

It’s an interesting record. Since the Hawks last Cup win, they have three playoff wins. The Kings have one in the four seasons since their last win. They’ve missed the playoffs twice. And whereas the Hawks have tried to dance around their rebuild or collapse, the Kings have fallen face-first into theirs this year. Those days of Kobe and Kershaw wearing Kings’ jerseys are over, because this is a mess only identifiable by dental records. And given that it’s a hockey team, even that’s dicey.

They may provide a lesson in what happens when you cling too tightly to things that have past. The Kings for too long still tried to be a roving horde of barbarians that they thought won them two Cups, and watched as their team got slower and dumber while the league got faster and more skilled. Seriously, this outfit traded for Milan Lucic once. Firing the GM and coach is nice and all, but not if you’re not going to try anything new.

They also bought into fortune-stained results as reality far too much. Last year’s playoff berth was simply due to a magnificent Jonathan Quick season, which is not the norm or anything you should count on, and Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown shooting the lights out. No matter how much their fans bitched and whines that Kopitar should have been the MVP simply because no one stays up late enough to watch their dog-assed team, he was never likely to replicate that. And if he didn’t, he wasn’t taking Brown with him either. That’s what’s happened.

Jeff Carter is 33 now and looking it. Ilya Kovalchuk‘s style of impersonating waiting for a bus until a pass comes was never going to improve the team much, and it hasn’t. Beyond whatever this top-six is, and that’s clearly still very much a mystery, there’s simply nothing on the bottom-six. It’s more of the Kyle Clifford–Trevor Lewis Axis Of Yuck that it’s seemingly been forever.

The real treat is at the back of course, where Drew Doughty got his money and seemingly doesn’t care anymore. He’s playing with something called Derek Forbort, not that it matters. Alec Martinez and Jake Muzzin are starting to look like the remnants of that Big Mac you left on the coffee table at 3am last night and discovered this morning while guzzling gatorade. Dion Phaneuf is even more of a monolith than he was, which shouldn’t be possible but hey, L.A. is the land of fantasy and dreams!

Quick isn’t around to bail this out, which he’s only capable of once every four or five years. He’s out for a while. So is his backup Jack Campbell, which means they’ve brought Statler and Waldorf in to play goalie.

Robb Lake the GM seemingly has recognized all he’s built here is kindling (too soon?), and the sell-off might already be under way. This week he sent Tanner Pearson to Pittsburgh for Carl Hagelin, with Hagelin a free agent after the season. Whatever isn’t battened down should probably be sold at auction, so Muzzin, Martinez, Forbort, and Toffoli could and should be on notice. They’re the only ones whose contracts aren’t an atrocity.

For the Hawks, Marcus Kruger returns to the lineup after Brandon Davidson was informed that he’s hurt, replacing Dream Warrior on IR. SuckBag Johnson will sit. Alex Fortin remains out in favor of John Hayden. Sure. Corey Crawford will attempt to ride the momentum of Wednesday’s shutout, and against this decidedly broken squirt-gun of an offense you’d think that wouldn’t be too hard.

I don’t want to put too much on the Hawks, but there’s really no excuse to not get a regulation win tonight. The Kings are already getting the white flag out of the closet if not waving it already. They’re on their third-string goalie, maybe fourth. They’re slow and dumb, and the Hawks have done all right with the rare slow and dumb opponent you see in the NHL these days. As long as you don’t do anything too stupid, the Kings can’t really find a way to score enough to beat you. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.

 

Game #20 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #20 – Kings vs. Hawks Spotlight: Those Who Do Not Learn…Go To The Kings Front Office

By Sam Fels 1955 0

Let us take you back to the spring of 2014. It’s not a happy trip for those of us around here, but it’s necessary. The Kings and Blackhawks played perhaps the best playoff series since The Great ’05 Lockout. The Kings come out on top by a pubic hair. They go on to destroy the Rangers for their second Cup in three years.

You might think they would have taken a close look at how they did that. You might think they’d want to keep replicating what they actually did on the ice, not what they did in between their own ears. You’d be wrong. The Kings beat the Hawks that spring by playing the Hawks’ game better than the Hawks. They were fast. They were dynamic. They scored a ton. They simply overpowered the Hawks on most nights of that series. Corey Crawford was helpless (so was Jonathan Quick, to be fair) to do anything about it. You may not see a series of that raw power again…until the Jets-Sharks West Final this spring, obvi.

We can demonstrate it better. They averaged 2.78 xGF/60 in that playoff run of ’14. That was a boost from 2.37 from the regular season. They averaged more attempts and shots, as well. Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Tyler Toffoli, Marian Gaborik, et all were skating everywhere.

They haven’t been above that 2.37 mark in the four seasons since. First Darryl Sutter, and then John Stevens returned the Kings to their plodding, simplistic ways that their players hated. And in a league that gets faster and faster, the Kings are getting left behind.

Check out some of the acquisitions since that Cup win, both from Dean Lombardi and Rob Blake (or Robb Lake, if you prefer): Milan Lucic, Vinny Lecavalier, Kris Versteeg, Luke Schenn, bringing back Rob Scuderi, Dion Phaneuf, Nic Dowd, Jarome Iginla, Devin Setoguchi, and an aging Ilya Kovalchuk. What about any of these names suggest faster and skilled? Or even smarter? The Kings seem to be playing a game that’s from 2002.

Moreover, since the 2011 draft, here are the NHLers the Kings have produced: Andy Andreoff, Nick Shore, Colin Miller, Tanner Pearson, Paul LaDue, Adrian Kempe, and that’s it. Say what you want about where the Hawks are now, but they’ve produced actual prospects. They’ve traded most of them, but at least they exist.

The Kings mistake was falling in love with the idea of what people thought the Kings were. They won the ’12 Cup on the back of Jonathan Quick with a heavy roster. It also didn’t hurt that the entire Western Conference that year took a step back. The Hawks were still reloading, the Sharks fell off their peak, the Canucks were a paper tiger beating up on a horrid division, and the Wings were done. It was ripe for the Kings to run through, which they did.

They fell in love with this image of an atom-smashing, meat-off-the-bone, thundering herd of a team that hockey media was only too happy to play up. But they were only that once. 2013 saw them get rolled by the Hawks in the Conference Final, and realize they couldn’t be viking warriors if they were going to win. They set out to be the Hawks. And they did it. And then for some reason, forgot all about it.

And now they’re on the precipice of a great fall. Not only is their window shut, there isn’t a path to open a new one. Kyle Clague won’t by himself. By the time they can summon another good team, Kopitar and Doughty will be well into their 30s. Carter already is. How do you extricate yourself from this? Being so bad that Kopitar and Doughty ask out? Who wants those contracts? The Kings dinner for the next 10 years is going to be a lot of salary for players moved elsewhere.

But banners hang forever. It’s a trade most fanbases would make. Perhaps all. The crash doesn’t have to be so hard, though.

 

 

Game #20 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #20 – Kings vs. Hawks Q&A: Out Of The Darkness…More Darkness

By Sam Fels 1783 0

We really have to reach into the depths for our Kings Q&A. It’s best if you don’t know. Just know that he’s truly warped. 

Boy, your lot really sucks, huh?

Last Saturday, Sportsnet flashed a graphic that the five leading scorers on the Flames had more goals than the Kings have scored all season. In the two games since, the Kings have added one goal to their total of 34, which is also the season total of the quartet of Kane, DeBrincat, Toews, and Saad combined.

You mean Ilya Kovalchuk and his five goals weren’t the answer?

Where would this team be without its leading scorer, Ilya Kovalchuk? The answer is in exactly the same spot standings-wise, and possibly the same place points-wise, depending on how a theoretical Knifey Spoony against Lundqvist and three friends turned out. If you pretend the Kings have two additional Kovalchuks? Well, they would break the salary cap by over $12 million, but also finally pull into a tie for 30th in goals with Anaheim. The only unrealistic part of this scenario is imagining the Kings bringing in multiple players in one offseason.

Anze Kopitar has six points. What’s the deal there?

And only three of those six points were at evens, where his most common wingers are Alex Iafallo, and since his return from injury, Dustin Brown. Playing around with sortable categories on Natural Stat Trick, one notices that his current numbers are still above 50% (hovering around 52-53% for Corsi and Fenwick). However, they are mostly below either his rookie 2007-2008 season or his broken wrist 2016-2017 season. He’s 31 and it has become easier and easier to concentrate on just shutting his line down. But I bet if Eastern Conference writers stayed up to watch him play more often, he would have at least eight or nine points by now.

Does Rob Blake have any idea what he’s doing?

He knows exactly what he is doing: firing everyone under him before people realize this team is going nowhere. Was it really John Stevens’ fault after just 95 games?

What does the immediate future hold? What should it hold?

The immediate future holds rooting against any hot streaks that pull them ahead of other bottom-feeding teams, or convince upper management not to make more drastic changes. Everything with a pulse should be traded, but the team’s most liquid asset is Carl Hagelin, whose best case scenario is being flipped for a fifth-rounder to a team looking for #SPEED. Their youngest defenseman, Paul LaDue, is 26. Dion Phaneuf is still signed until 2021. The immediate future does not look great, even with a big lottery win, so maybe it is time to revert to planting drugs on albatross contracts.

 

Game #20 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #20 – Kings vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: The Road To Hell Is Paved With Kyle Clifford

By Sam Fels 2645 0

Fanbases can get attracted to fourth-line players, especially ones that stick around for a while. You see it all the time. Even though deep down, everyone knows they could be replaced by any number of halfwits from the AHL, because no one paid attention long enough to see that this particular grunt hadn’t left, he becomes celebrated.

What can’t happen is that scenario in front offices. Just because someone screwed up and forgot to tell this particular punter that he was moving on, doesn’t mean he becomes a team staple.

Kyle Clifford is going into his 9th season with the Kings. He’s scored 45 goals over that time. He’s amassed 96 points. His metrics have always sucked, consistently lagging behind the team rate. He’s big, and he’s slow, and he’s dumb. He’s the kind of player you’d want to see washed out of your team years ago. And yet here he is.

There isn’t a better symbol of how the Kings have valued the wrong things the past three or four years that they sought not to populate their bottom six with more speed. Or there’s no bigger indictment of their development system that no kids has been able to render him redundant and pick up the pace. And so Clifford remains.

Clifford isn’t the reason the Kings suck. No team is ever brought down by one bottom-six forward. But it’s a spot the Kings could have improved upon, and didn’t feel they needed to. Because Clifford can fart loudly in the corner, or something. The Kings have sat back and watched the Sharks, Ducks, Knights, and Flames in their division filter out the dim-witted for at least the dim-witted that could skate and was younger and cheaper. Clifford isn’t terribly expensive at $1.6M per year, but it’s a job you can get done for something with a “K” instead of an “M.”

We’re sure he’s “good in the room.” Or he “is a good teammate.” And all the other buzz-phrases that players and coaches alike come up with to justify a player who doesn’t actually do anything that helps you win.

But this is how the Kings want it.

 

Game #20 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built