Faxes from Uncle Dale

Everything Else

Game #60 – Kings vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Rob Blake Might Be An Idiot

By Sam Fels February 19, 2018 2123 0

It’s only his first year in the GM’s chair on Figueroa, but Blake’s deadline push-in for Dion Phaneuf doesn’t bode well for Kings fans.

Dion Phaneuf has always been massively overrated. Hockey GMs and media have always been distracted by the noisy things he does. He makes big hits, he takes big slappers, he yells at his teammates a lot convincing them he’s a leader. It’s the kind of thing you always hear about in the sport.

But Phaneuf has never driven play. He’s never helped his team create more chances than they give up. It’s been six years since he scored more than 31 points, or more than 10 goals. He’s not really an offensive weapon, and he’s never been all that good defensively. You think you hate Brent Seabrook…

And the Kings problem has always been they’re slow. They used to play slow under Sutter, they want to play faster under John Stevens, but only Doughty and Martinez can really go anywhere. How does Phaneuf help the Kings keep up with Vegas or Nashville or Winnipeg in the first round, all possible opponents who can really move? He’s just going to have that same confused gape on his face he had in Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa when none of those teams really went anywhere.

In addition, Blake has now taken on his ridiculous contract. He’s signed until 2021 when he’ll be 36. That’s a boat anchor.

Lastly, Phaneuf is the kind of player that quite simply is being phased out of the game. All d-men have to be able to move and get up and join the play now. Even if you’re a “stay-at-home” guy, you have to be able to win races and open yourself up to pass out of the zone. Phaneuf can’t do that at 32. How’s that going to look at 34?

Whatever, not our problem.

Game #60 Preview

Everything Else

Game #60 – Kings vs. Hawks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels February 19, 2018 1415 0

Game #60 Preview

Everything Else

Game #60 – Kings vs. Hawks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels February 19, 2018 1545 0

Game #60 Preview

Everything Else

Game #59 – You Can’t Get Romantic on a Subway Line – Hawks 7, Capitals 1

By John Pullega February 17, 2018 2685 0

And fuck those jagoffs yelling at Smith-Pelly.

Everything Else

Game #59 – Capitals vs. Hawks Preview/Six-Man Tag: Revolution #9

By Sam Fels February 17, 2018 2040 0

vs.

RECORDS: Capitals 33-17-7 Hawks 24-26-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: WGN

THE NATIONALS HAVE NEVER WON A PLAYOFF SERIES: Japers Rink

At this point, we should just enjoy every game for the singular event that it is. I guess. So tonight is the one time per year that Alex Ovechkin comes to town, and if you’re headed to the UC tonight remember that you may be seeing the greatest goal-scorer of all-time (if you adjust for the era and such). So that’s cool. Other than that… well, it’s more to the Lance Bouma-Tommy Wingels Showcase Showdown.

When looking at the Caps, it’s actually really hard to tell just what the hell they’re doing at the top of the Metropolitan. Maybe it’s just that division is so bad, or was until the Penguins turned on lately. For fuck’s sake, the Flyers are in third in that division. Did you know that? No, you didn’t, because you don’t ever think about Cold Ones. And you don’t know who the hell is on there anymore. And they’re in third.

The Caps are a bad possession team. They’re a bad defensive team, as they actually have a worse expected goals-against than the Islanders, and the Islanders defensive policy is to fart into the wind. The Caps haven’t even really gotten a high-level of goaltending, as both Braden Holtby and Phillip Grubauer are carrying SV%’s right around league average. Holtby of late has been terrible, with an .898 in February. At least Trotz has figured out to not punt him out there 70+ times a season.

What the Caps do is shoot well, with the league’s best SH% at evens. The Caps have never needed to dominate games possession-wise with the skills of Ovie, Backstrom, Oshie, Kuznetsov, and they still have bottom-six finish with Eller, Connolly, and Vrana. They get some help in that area from the back end as well, with Carlson and Orlov each having over 20 points (and Carlson over 40). But the extent at which they’re overcoming their deficiencies so far makes you believe this is all a house of cards. And of course, once the Caps spit it in Round 1 or 2, we’ll get the now springtime tradition of Caps and turning their road jerseys into home ones by opening up a vein or six.

The Caps busted a modest two-game losing streak by stuffing the Wild but good on Thursday. They’ve been ho-hum this month, going 3-2-2 and giving life to the division chase of Pittsburgh. The Pens are three points back but have played two games more, so it’s still a ways to go but if the market corrects on the Caps before the playoffs, you can see where this is going.

Still, for tonight, it’s an awful lot of firepower for the Hawks beleaguered defense and goalies and… you know, let’s just change this to “beleaguered Hawks.” The Caps can get you from three lines and the power play is always something you don’t want to mess with. Trotz likely won’t hold anything back tonight, as the Hawks look like easy prey to just about everyone right now. The word’s out that if you get the Hawks in any kind of antsy situation, they’re probably going to find a way to lose and/or pack up the cats. So Washington will be looking for an early lead to get themselves an easy night. Not like the Hawks can score three goals anyway.

For the Hawks, lineup changes look like Connor Murphy will be punished for catching a rut on Thursday in Quenneville’s every increasingly-logical world. David Kampf also looks like he’ll draw back in for Tomas Jurco, so he can center Duclair and Anisimov for seven minutes or so. Everything else should stay the same, and Forsberg will get two straight starts if you can believe it.

Nothing to do now but play spoiler and see how much Schmaltz, Top Cat, and now Dahlstrom can grow. At least the Hawks showed some chutzpa on Thursday. That’s another thing to watch, whether Q can keep them trying until the end. We have so little to hang on to.

Game #59 Preview

Everything Else

Game #59 – Capitals vs. Hawks Spotlight: Hendrix Said He Nearly Trotz’d

By Sam Fels February 17, 2018 1868 0

Barry Trotz has been one of our favorite pin cushions since we started this madness, not just because he kind of looks like one. His Predators teams tended to drive us nuts, and then their fans drove us nuts because they kept claiming they didn’t trap. And now Trotz has etched his name right next to Bruce Boudreau’s in Capitals lore, coaches of great teams that kept finding ways to burf in the 2nd round of the playoffs.

Because of that, you probably didn’t realize how good Trotz’s record is as a coach. Once the Predators actually came of age, back when the NHL made expansion teams earn it, since ’03-’04, 11 of 14 teams of his have reached 90 point or higher. 10 of them made the playoffs. He’s fifth all-time in regular season wins. He’ll go down as one of the greatest coaches of all time, in that sense.

And yet… in hockey, no one cares if you don’t make it count in the spring. Trotz’s teams have never seen a conference final. Some of them most certainly should have. The 2007 Predators and 2012 Predators probably should have. The past two Capitals teams almost certainly should have. Maybe Trotz can’t help running into Mike Smith the one season he had taken eye of newt and became a different being. There isn’t much Trotz can do when Braden Holtby’s level drops just enough to be surpassed by Matt Murray. And yet we keep saying these things about Trotz and his teams, don’t we?

And now Trotz finds himself in the last year of his contract, something you don’t see coaches get to very often. It feels like this year, he’s either got to break through or he’s out. One wonders how many coaches the Caps get to try before they have to start all over. They’re not there yet but they’re getting closer.

That doesn’t mean that Trotz should be written off completely. Because there’s another coach who was thought of the A-t0-B-but-not-C guy. He had coached nine playoff teams with two organizations without ever seeing a Final. It was thought he couldn’t find a way to get through either. You might have heard of him. Joel Quenneville. On his 11th playoff team and 13th season of coaching, Q finally broke through. It can take that long.

Which makes for an interesting discussion around these parts, does it not? If this season ends in a divorce between Quenneville and the Hawks, and if another shortened spring means that Barry Trotz doesn’t get another contract in Washington… would he be a candidate here? He’s certainly familiar to the Hawks after his years in Nashville. He would have the instant respect of players who know his name and methods, something to not be underestimated when you’re dealing with a roster that has multiple multi-Cup winners on it. His Caps and Preds teams, at least at times, played a style that meshes with what the Hawks want to do.

But that playoff record. It didn’t scare the Hawks off Quenneville, although that was for an organization and fanbase that didn’t really know any better. It was also with a powerhouse roster, which any new coach wouldn’t get here. Now the Hawks and their fans are at least slightly more clued in. Would they accept a coach who hasn’t “gotten it done?”

A discussion for somewhere down the road.

Game #59 Preview

Everything Else

Game #59 – Capitals vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Timothy Jimothy Leif

By Sam Fels February 17, 2018 2297 0

In a sense, you have to hand it to Timothy Leif. The guy knows when to shoot his shot. It takes unique timing to double your career shooting-percentage in your free agent season. It got Timothy Jimothy an eight-year deal that will pay $5.7 million (cap hit). That’s cashing in at the right time.

Of course, Timothy Leif as returned to Earth this year. He has 12 goals this season, as his 13.4% shooting-percentage is right on the nose of his career mark. This is what he is. Oshie is a 20-25 goal-scorer. And even that’s giving him the best of it. This is his 10th season, and he’s only surpassed 20 goals three times. He’s a second-liner who got the rub of playing with Backstrom and Ovechkin for a while. And that’s ok.

Timothy Jimothy’s reputation is still outsized from an Olympic performance that A) didn’t matter at the time and B) doesn’t matter at all now. A shootout-win in the preliminary round over a Russian team that didn’t have a blue line was hardly worth celebrating. Getting exposed by Canada and then Finland proved that. It doesn’t hurt that Oshie’s photogenic and affable, but again, as a player he’s kind of just there.

As we like to say when he was a Blue, we’re sure he makes engine noises as he skates around the ice. His hair-on-fire style has subsided a bit, he’s become more of a standstill shooter. His metrics are still only ok, though hasn’t fallen as far the team’s. Much like every Cap, he’s turned invisible when the opponent wears black and yellow in the spring. Oshie scored once and in last year’s series, though he had a hat trick and five goals in the ’16 matchup.

But we’re probably not too far away from Caps fans glaring at his contract in spite when they can’t afford to hang onto their window anymore. It’s a story we know well.

Game #59 Preview