Some stuff happened didn’t it? We talked about all of it despite Slak not being around to offer his own special flavor of commentary. Grab it after the jump.
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Just Another Friday Morning
Full disclosure, I’m writing this wearing my Brandon Saad Saginaw Spirit jersey, so that’s where I am emotionally.
Ok… let’s see if we can parse this altogether. It’s not going to be easy. So here’s the facts. The Hawks first traded Niklas Hjalmarsson to Arizona for Connor Murphy and Laurent Dauphin. Then, presumably getting buzzed on the fumes from that, Stan Bowman turned around and traded Artemi Panarin, Tyler Motte and a pick to Columbus for Brandon Saad, Anton Forsberg, and another pick.
Well…. well… let’s get to it, shall we?
I’m not going to bury the lede here on how we feel. The Hammer trade has the potential to be a very good one. Yeah I know, you’re throwing something at the screen right now, hoping it will somehow be absorbed by the internet and then spit out through my screen and hit me in the face.
But I know what I’m saying. Put the sentiment aside. For the second half of last year, Niklas Hjalmarsson was not good. Where before he could smother the best any opponent had to offer, he couldn’t do that last year. It wasn’t just Seabrook getting torched by the Predators last year. It was Hammer too. And as we’ve said repeatedly the past couple years, the aging curve on a less-than-mobile puck bag that Hammer was can get very ugly in an awful hurry. Think Rob Scuderi. Think Robyn Regehr. Think Niklas Kronwall. Think Brooks Orpik. Not pretty, no?
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Hossa Fallout, Schedule, And Argle Bargle
Few things to clean up today:
-Stan and Q had their press conference today to discuss Marian Hossa and the draft. Q had the look of a man who just saw his one top six winger who can backcheck effectively ripped away from him, because he is. There’s not much Q can do at the moment, as we get the feeling he’s going to be less involved on free agency and trades and personnel decisions than he’s been.
So it came to Stan, who had to wax poetic about how complicated it’s going to be using Hossa’s cap space in LTIR. And he’s right, it isn’t as simple as most believe.
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Skin Failure
Ok, I know. I shouldn’t joke about this. It really isn’t funny, and I’m sure if I were going through it I would probably gut anyone making a joke about my skin literally peeling off.
So there’s a couple things this post is not going to be. One, I’m not going to try and convince any Hawks fan who thinks this is totally on the up and up that it isn’t. Nor am I going to try to convince anyone outside our bubble that is convinced this is fishy that it isn’t. I think if you want to Occam’s Razor this, it’s probably something of both. Hossa has been dealing with this for a few years, and now that the medication is A) less effective and B) possibly poisoning him to the point they have to blood test him regularly (think Iron Man 2, though we all know that Hossa is more a Steve Rodgers, organic lab experiment type thing instead of a machine but stick with me here). And now that his salary is dropping to $1M, and he’s won just about everything there is to win, and his Hall case is pretty secure, maybe he figures it’s not as worth it to torture himself and put his health at risk for it anymore.
It’s easy to sit here and say we’d do anything for a million dollars, but why is it Kevin Durant can eschew millions more to keep the Warriors together and everyone pretty much shrugs and agrees that a few million more won’t make any difference to him, but everyone outside of Chicago is crying foul on Hossa when his actual health is at risk here? Strange, no?
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Replacing Kruger
Sometimes you just have to face reality. And while I would like to sit here and stamp my feet and throw my toys out of the crib, screaming to everyone how important Kruger has been for six years, that’s not going to do anyone any good. Though it might feel good. As previously discussed, there really isn’t anyone in-house who can pick up the slack. The Hawks will try and claim it’s Working Class Kero. The only problem with him is that he’s bad. They may think Vinnie Hinostroza could do some of it, and yet I remain unconvinced he’s anything other than a really fast skater with decent finish for the 8-12 chances he’ll get per year (which is better than Kruger in one category, I suppose).
This of course won’t be able to see who the Hawks could bring in via trade if they do flog someone. We’ve generally thought the Hawks are trading for d-men anyway if they can fit a new one in under the cap. So who’s out there for dirt cheap on the open market?
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Potential For Aggressive Expansion
The day finally arrived yesterday, and it feels like almost as many people were waiting for the announcement of protected lists for the expansion draft than they were any playoff game. I suppose only a few fanbases get to be involved in the playoffs while everyone is in on this, but still. We’re talking about a team that’s going to suck for a bit, no matter how much the NHL tries to pad it. And if George McPhee believes he can really go for it off the bat, just like he did Lorne Molleken’s face, then they could suck for quite some time.
BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.
There weren’t too many surprised from the Hawks, at least given what the buzz has been for a while. We know Marcus Kruger is pretty much a goner, which allowed the Hawks to protect Tomas Jurco. That’s interesting in itself, but we’ll get to that in a second.
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Remembering The 2016-2017 Nashville Predators
Once again, we were asked to give a eulogy for Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy Blog. We drew the last straw, and got the Predators. Here it is. Enjoy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve come here once again to bur….you know what, it doesn’t feel right this time. Because… is this really a funeral? In most ways, it feels like the Nashville Predators were born this spring. As we all know, you’re not actually a hockey town, or even a section of civilization, until Canadian hockey media discovers that you’re a better place to watch a game than a freezing barn in Guelph, if that’s even a real place. Welcome to the big time, Nash-Vegas. You’re now officially on the sanctioned list for Globe and Mail writers to come and get drunk and fall down.
(Other areas on the list include Bob McKenzie’s lake house, Winnipeg and Tony Twist’s St. Louis-style hot dog stand. Congrats, everyone. You’ve made it.)
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Bringing It All Back Home
We’ve had some fun here the past couple months, leaving the Hawks in the background for the most part while they study and fidget about what to do to reclaim what they once felt was theirs. Obviously there’s not much you can do once your punted from the playoffs except have a press conference where you express just how angry you are and promise changes. Then you go back into the offices and realize you’re pretty much boned but thank your lucky stars you didn’t say that in public.
So we don’t have much to work with yet, and the answers probably don’t start really arriving until next week when the expansion draft, which for some inane reason is woven into the NHL Awards, takes place. But that won’t stop us from guessing!
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Meaning
Such a weird league. We have spent most of the past two years, if not longer, complaining that the salary cap has essentially made the differences between teams smaller and smaller, to the point where they’re hardly noticeable at times. How the shootout and stupid overtime system and the even dumber points system makes the standings somewhat fake a lot of years, and keeps teams bunched together while also making it nearly impossible for anyone to pass anyone.
And yet we sit here, with three teams having won eight of the past nine championships. And the one outlier in that group, the Bruins, played for another and lost to one of the three. So four teams have taken up 11 of the possible 18 Final slots. Stretch it back a round, and those four teams have taken 16 of 36 conference final spots, with the Kings, Hawks, and Penguins each losing one or two in that frame.
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So… I Wrote A Book?
A lot of you have been asking what I’ve been up to, why the program wasn’t around this season. Here’s your answer.
I won’t shroud it in any way, this is my Fever Pitch. No, not the terrible Jimmy Fallon movie (which is redundant). Or even the barely passable one with Colin Firth. No, this is off the Nick Hornby book, which was about his life as an Arsenal supporter. This is mine about being a Hawks fan, and one that somehow got involved with it professionally (somewhat).
But I don’t feel like this is just my story. I feel like it is the story of a lot of Hawks fans, or hockey fans, or sports fans in general. How we come to it, how it helps build an identity in our childhood, and how it fits and doesn’t fit as our lives change and we grow (or don’t). It’s family, it’s friends, it’s relationships, it’s trying to find adulthood when you just want to be a kid and finding your childhood when you absolutely need it most.
So yeah, it’s all of that. It’s funny, sad, glorious, confusing, and everything else. From my first entrance into Chicago Stadium, to becoming the writer of a gameday program that I was bleeding on with toner in my scalp. through three Cups and everything that came with them to now.
Hope you like it.
Couple notes: The paperback version will be ready in the next couple days, and I’ll let you know when that is. For now, just Kindle: