A day late, sorry about that. Anyway, Fifth Feather, Cieslak, and myself discuss the state of the Hawks’ defense, their goaltending, league-wide trends, 24/7, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Enjoy.
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If the podcast we made last night is ever returned to us by the Internet Monster, you’ll hear us discuss the state of the league and how boring certain matchups have been. It seems like more and more teams are content with executing a conservative gameplan and looking to win games by scoring 3 goals or less. Meanwhile, teams are continuing to sacrifice depth because of the hard salary cap and the quality of the league is suffering as a result.
Tonight’s game would not qualify in our conversation. With two hot goalies in net, both teams looked to take chances throughout the night because sitting back would’ve resulted in another 0-0 game through regulation. The result was odd man rushes back and forth, wild scrambles in front of the net and a lot of excitement. Even though this final score was only 2-1, it’s hard to argue that tonight’s game represented all that’s right with the sport.
What’s so hard about that?
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks – 18-8-4 Rangers – 20-9-1
PUCK DROP: 6pm Central
TV: CSN Locally, NBCSN elsewhere
NEW YORK DOLLS: Blue Shirt Banter
PROJECTED LINEUPS
ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Hawks – 50.1 (15th) Rangers – 47.8 (23rd)
ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Hawks – 47.8 (21st) Rangers – 51.9 (14th)
POWER PLAY: Hawks – 16.7 (18th) Rangers – 22.6 (5th)
PENALTY KILL: Hawks – 72.7 (30th) Rangers – 85.9 (4th)
Once more, with feeling. Two of the top teams in the NHL will have a passionate discussion for the second time in five days, this time upstairs from the teeming, gross, and poor masses of Penn Station. This time however, the Hawks are a little better armed than they were last Friday when they dropped an overtime decision to the Blueshirts.
The Rockford IceHogs season is bottoming out in December. The Hawks AHL affiliate set a franchise record Saturday night when they lost for the ninth-straight time. The Hogs last won back on November 19.
I could continue to pile on the state of the club, but I’m sounding like a broken record. Things will pick up. After all, it’s the holiday season, right?
In that spirit, let’s focus on some positives. They’re out there if you’re willing to look…right?
Folks, I think it’s safe to say it appears the Dallas Stars one-year window has slammed shut. Even factoring in that they played a game the night before, the Stars really didn’t show much, at least in terms of great hockey lingo like ‘compete level.’ Whatever chances they had, it was mostly one and done and the next sustained offensive pressure would have been their first of the night. With all this said, the Stars are still lingering in the playoff picture. This is the league we all deserve.
Or maybe tonight’s result also had to do with who they were playing. Only one way to find out. Keep clicking.
vs.
RECORDS: Stars 11-12-6 Hawks 17-8-4
PUCK DROP: 6pm Central
TV: CSN
HOW BOUT DEM COWBOYS?: Defending Big D
PROJECTED LINEUPS
ADJUST TEAM xGF%: Stars – 49.5 (17th) Hawks – 47.7 (22nd)
ADJUSTED TEAM Corsi %: Stars – 49.0 (19th) Hawks – 50.0 (15th)
POWER PLAY: Stars – 17.4 (15th) Hawks – 16.1 (19th)
PENALTY KILL: Stars – 76.7 (27th) Hawks – 72.1 (Dead ass last)
For the second game in a row, the Hawks will play an already beat-up team on the back end of a back-to-back. This time instead of blue it will be green. as the Stars coming in licking their wounds after blowing a third period lead to Brayden Schenn yesterday afternoon in the Illa-delph. Not that the Hawks are anywhere near full-strength themselves.
So let’s burn a couple things off the top here. After watching these things for a while now, 3-on-3 OT is just as much of a gimmick as the shootout so we’re just going to list them as a tie with the joke qualifier from now on. At least I will.
Second, any point gained where the Hawks are missing their top center, a top-4 defenseman, and their starting goalie should be viewed as a point gained. It feels like a certainty we’ll look back on these in a couple months and marvel that the season didn’t get away from them.
That said, the Hawks faced a team also missing their top center, a very productive winger, a wiener tucker, and going with their backup, though he’s played better than the most handsome man in the world, and couldn’t pull off two points. It feels like opportunity lost. Will it matter in the end? Probably not.
Let’s clean it up:
vs 
Game Time: 7:30PM CST
TV/Radio: CSN, NHLN (US), WGN-AM 720
Buggin Out: Blueshirt Banter
While this is supposed to a premiere matchup on the league’s calendar as far as regular season games in December go, and on paper it still is with one conference leader hosting the 2nd best of the other on a weekend night, the actual composition of the rosters on both sides still lacks the punch that it should have, no matter how many times the words “potential matchup in June” are uttered during the broadcast.
A few years ago, 2013 to be exact, those of us who pay attention to possession numbers couldn’t wait to tell Toronto Maple Leafs fans, and their coach really, that their record was something of a mirage. The small sample size of that particular schedule and some excellent play from James Reimer had masked what really wasn’t a very good team, and their Corsi number showed it. The counter that came from the organization itself and a good portion of their fanbase was that they quality of shots they gave up and that they engineered made up the difference. We all laughed and laughed at this notion, even though one day someone was going to actually do that.
Maybe it’s this year’s Rangers?
We’ve moved beyond the quarter-mark of the season, almost at a third of it. In the first month of the season, we all sort of marveled at how sloppy the hockey was. We blamed it on the World Cup, with most teams not getting to have a training camp with their full rosters for more than a few days. While play has tightened up a little bit, as the season enters its third month we’re still left with a product that quite simply, isn’t very good.
What’s become clear is that the salary cap has flattened the entire league so that there’s little difference between the best team and the worst team. If you toss out overtime losses, which are essentially ties settled by glorified skills competitions, no one in the Eastern conference is below .500. Only 12 points separate the conference leading Habs from the bottom-dwelling Islanders. While that’s not a gap that’s going to be made up (likely), it’s not all that large for an entire conference.
Thinks are a little more split in the West, where the conference-leading Hawks have a 17 point gap over the wooden spooners, the Avs. But we’ve all seen what a conference-leading Hawks team in the past looks like, and it’s pretty obvious this isn’t the same vintage. Adding to the Hawks somewhat shaky hold on the West is that they lead the league in wins in overtime, which isn’t really a true test of what kind of team you are. They’re 13th in regulation wins.
Essentially, we have a mishmash of a lot of the same things.
