Everything Else

High On The Hog: Summer Changes

By 1617

The Rockford IceHogs are going to be a new-look bunch come fall. The departing faces on their parent club practically guarantees some changes.

Even in the offseason, the Blackhawks AHL affiliate has made the occasional headline. The Hawks and Hogs extended their union through 2021-22.. Rockford re-signed captain Jake Dowell for next season and said goodbye to goalie Michael Leighton in a couple of signings from earlier this month.

It came out yesterday via Scott Powers  that Chicago is not going to retain Leighton’s services. However, the writing was clearly on the wall based on how the organization addressed the net prior to this week.

In case you haven’t been in the loop, here’s the state of the Hogs heading into what could be a real period of roster turnover in the coming weeks. As there has been lots of recent changes in this area, let’s start in net.

Everything Else

Fare Thee Well, Chicken Hawk And Other Drafty Day Musings

By 1543

It wasn’t hard to be immediately smitten by Andrew Shaw. Within his first couple shifts as a Blackhawk, he’d already scored and gotten into a fight (guess which one Q noticed more?). You watched him skate around that first game in Philadelphia and thought, “This kid is nuts!” Hockey is probably the one sport where watching a player makes you say that, and that’s a good thing (though Willson Contreras might be carrying this tradition into baseball, and a young Charles Tillman did it for the Bears SKY POINT). In his second playoff game he ran over Mike Smith, fulfilling the fantasy of most Hawks fans (and I assume players as well). Sure, it didn’t help the Hawks much but that didn’t mean we didn’t glean a perverse joy from it.

Everything Else

Your Draft Day Primer

By 1414

We recognize that some of you may have not been around all that long, and this may be the first time you’ve watched the NHL Draft tonight. Or you have before but need a little help making sense of it all. Well, having taken in a fair few of these now (and the resulting depression that I’m actually watching the NHL Draft), let me prepare you for what you’re in for tonight.

-First off, NBCSN just picks up the TSN feed, and the Canadian broadcast will act like this is the most important date on the calendar for the country. Probably because it is.

-The opening segment will have a close-up of the obvious first pick, this year it’s Auston Mathews. But they’ll also try and drum up some drama on whether it will be Mathews at all, so they’ll also have a close-up of Patrik Laine. Both of them will look extremely awkward, because they’re teenagers and that’s what teenagers do, and their suits probably don’t fit. Also, no one will ask Mathews why spells both his first and last name wrong.

Everything Else

Good God Man, What’s The Plan?

By 1642

Last night, during the usual car crash that is the NHL Awards Show (and why does the NHL need a show? No other sport needs one), Chris Kuc from the Tribune tweeted out that the Hawks are actively shopping Marcus Kruger and even Andrew Shaw, though what he could bring back as a pending RFA really wouldn’t be all that much.

The Kruger one is especially baffling.

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Cinch It Up & Hunker Down

By 1551

Tonight marks the NHL’s annual award ceremony in Las Vegas, where F-list celebs uncomfortably deliver patter at the podium prior to drunk hockey players receiving replica trophies and mumbling through an acceptance speech in between impossibly poorly curated musical acts. It truly is one of the greatest events in all of show business and sports.

So naturally, because nothing Cardinal John McDonough and his PR cadre ever do is on accident, the night before he could walk home with as many as three trophies, information “leaked” that Garbage Dick is on his best behavior this summer here in the placid lakeside outpost that is Chicago under the team’s watchful eye, rather than in the cesspool of temptation that is Buffalo, New York.

Everything Else

The Chicago Bruins

By 1658

Day late to this, was traveling yesterday so apologies for the delay.

As we spent a season watching the Hawks fuck up pretty much every chance to make themselves likable as an organization, or even appear competent in the ways of PR or understanding, yesterday’s post-trade bus-tossing of Teuvo Teravainen shouldn’t really be disappointing considering the heights of incompetence and deafness they’ve already scaled. And yet it’s another minor notch on the post showing that the Hawks aren’t really anywere near the first-class organization they love to tell us that they are. Maybe they were once again too busy filming an ad with a sick kid they use to sell tickets where they don’t tell us what disease or condition that child has and/or provide information where others might find out where to learn and help.

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It’s Hard To Leave When You Can’t Find The Floor

By 1676

Most of Hawks Nation is still clearing the cobwebs from the news that Teuvo Teravainen had to be included to rid themselves of Bryan Bickell’s contract. It’s yet another case of the Hawks choosing to go with their veteran’s floors instead of their prospects’ ceilings. Teuvo is probably the highest ceiling of the players the Hawks have had to lose next to Brandon Saad, and that’s why the sting is so great. Then again, the real sting is that while the Hawks probably HAD to lose Saad given his salary demands, they didn’t have to lose Teuvo. They decided, or more to the point Q decided, that Andrew Shaw was the higher priority.

We’ve done this before, but it’s worth examining whether that’s really the case.

Everything Else

Be Here Now

By 1963

It was rumored a week or two ago but a lot of us didn’t want to believe it. The Hawks pulled the trigger on trading Bryan Bickell and having it cost them Teuvo Teravainen to do so, shipping them to Carolina for 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. Remember, Patrick Sharp can’t get you picks in return for a salary dump but Bickell and Teuvo can. MMMMMM THAT’S GOOD GM-ING!

There are various levels on which to view this, and you can’t really judge it until we see what the Hawks get to do with the cap space they now have. Though you have to ask yourself if the $1M in savings this does over simply buying out Bickell, and the $1.5M next year, is worth losing Teuvo. I don’t think it is.

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We Like To Watch – June 14 – Garbage In, Garbage Out

By 1753

Now in the refractory period between the hoisting of The Chalice and the flurry of activity that comes at the Draft, a slow trickle of minor news has been seeping out across the league. Vegas is apparently a go, without the approval of Nevada Gaming Control somehow. Randy Carlyle is hilariously the head coach of the Ducks again, apparently at the behest of the refusing-to-go-away Teemu Selanne. The Flames seem to be zeroing in on Glen Gulutzan, who is not to be confused with any number of Elaine’s dipshit boyfriends on Seinfeld, but actually was last seen coaching the Stars in the pre-Genius Jim Nill era to nowhere in particular.

But on a day where bullshit like this constitutes news, one seemingly minor thing crossed the wire that could have gone unnoticed at any other time during the year, and that’s piece of shit with teeth Matthew Barnaby leaving his post on the NHL Network on SiriusXM to be an assistant coach for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. This is just so disgustingly perfect.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – After All Is Said And Done, Gotta Move While It’s Still Fun

By 1477

So it took one game longer than I thought it would, and most thought it would. And for at least two periods, it was probably the best the Sharks have looked in this series last night. But because their coach couldn’t stop playing Polak and Dillon, they immediately surrendered the tie they had just gotten, and couldn’t find a way through the smothering Pens defense. It’s too simplistic to pin it all on the Sharks’ third pairing (though awfully tempting), because the Penguins were clearly the better team in this series. But still, that was opening the door and rolling out a red carpet sprinkled with flowers for Pittsburgh to stroll on in.

Whenever we have a new Cup champion, there is a rush to see what we can learn from them and how teams should apply their plans going forward. That’s a little harder to do with this one.