Hockey

Game #61 – Predators 1, Hawks 1 (Hawks win Jimmy Jab Games): A Night To Remember

By Sam Fels 2467 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

That was one of the better games to watch in a long while. But instead of the steely-eyed and acerbic analysis you come for, there’s just a couple things I want to talk about.

-I don’t know if that was Corey Crawford’s last start as a Hawk. If the Canes were watching, they should be absolutely salivating at bringing Crow aboard to take advantage of their contender-worthy roster instead of trusting everything to James Reimer. Unlike Robin Lehner, Crow is playoff-tested and passed.

The purely factual, analytical way to look at the Hawks right now is that they should trade both goalies. Sell everything, get as many pieces back as you can for anyone that another team will give you something for, and try and reload this up next season. But being a sports fan isn’t just about being analytical and results-based and only viewing things as a process to wins. When it gets like that, you get the fucking Houston Astros.

One the one hand, Crawford deserves the chance to go somewhere where he’ll be appreciated in a way he never was here, take a team deep into the playoffs one more time, and possibly win the Conn Smythe and break it over Pierre McGuire’s bald head for costing him the one he more than earned in 2013. That would do my heart and many others’ well.

On the other, I and many others never want to see Crawford leave. Too many Hawks fans haven’t appreciated what he’s been, and seeing as how he’s the only goalie living that’s won two Cups for the Hawks, that’s pretty fucking weird. Tonight was another vintage Crow performance, standing up to a barrage that lasted for 40 minutes at least and required 39 saves just to get the Hawks to OT. He was brilliant, as he’s been thew past six weeks or longer.

It’s obviously more than one night with Crawford. He’s been made to eat shit by the organization itself, the media, and the fans for very little reason. Not only that, but he’s had to face his hockey mortality more directly than any player on this team. When he hit his head against the post against San Jose last year, most of us didn’t just wonder if he would ever play again. We were pretty sure he wouldn’t. And a lot of us thought he shouldn’t. And while he said he never considered retiring, it must have been discussed in that household at least once.

And yet Crawford has answered the bell again by doing what he does after every challenge faced. Simply ball out. After McGuire called out his glove hand simply because it was an easy-to-reach story, he gave up three goals in two games to the Bruins to provide a parade. After struggling in the opening round of 2015, he went .931 in the last three including giving up two goals against in the Hawks last three wins of the Final. He returned from missing nearly a full season to concussion last year by balling out again. He watched the Hawks bring in someone meant to take his job this past summer (and that was the plan for the Hawks, don’t you doubt it) and has just outplayed him for the past two months. He’ll even grease Lehner’s tracks out of town.

Crow is just about the easiest Hawk to root for, and I don’t know why more people aren’t doing so. He never complained when the front office hung him out to dry, nor pointed any fingers when the defense simply turned to dust the past couple seasons. He just gets on with it. Maybe the fandom or the league in general doesn’t know what we have here, but we do.

And I’d hate to see him go. He doesn’t have the NTC that the other four vets have. But ask the four of them and I bet they’d tell you he should. Just as I’d love to see one more run with them, I want even more badly one more run for Crow here. Maybe then he’ll finally get the appreciation he’s lacked in this town and league-wide for so long.

It makes way more sense for the Hawks to cash in on Crow. But we’re not in this for sense. The heart wants what it wants.

-Anyway, quick story. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a lovely, elder gent names Harold tonight from London, Ontario. He has been an occasional billet for players for the Knights. A few years ago, his wife and him decided they wanted to see a game in all 31 arenas. Sadly, his wife passed a year or two ago. But Harold decided he would do the trip anyway for her, at the age of 81. Tonight was #28, and St. Louis, St. Paul, and Winnipeg will round it out next month. Oh, and at 81 he also has two full sleeve tattoos, so he’s basically a vision of my future.

You don’t get that kind of thing anywhere else but sports. It’s kind of why we’re here. It was nice to be reminded of that again.

 

Hockey

Game #61 – Hawks vs Predators Preview – Where Are You?

By Matt McClure 1369 0

vs

Game Time: 7:30PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Send David Poile To Gitmo: On The Forecheck

In a less-dystopian universe, one where each team played to what their roster says they should be, tonight’s matchup on West Madison would be one filled with Western Conference playoff intrigue. The Predators jockeying for home ice in the first round and the Hawks clinging to hold on to one of the last wild card spots. But instead, it’s the Preds still trying to figure themselves out as they keep running out of road in the regular season, and the Hawks actively imploding.

Hockey

Game #61 – Predators vs. Hawks Spotlight: Seriously, What Is John Hynes Doing Here?

By Sam Fels 1565 0

Needing to fire Peter Laviolette isn’t a huge surprise. Hopefully, it’s a feeling we’ll get here one day, as that will mean the Hawks hired him in the first place. He’s a good coach, maybe even a very good one, but his style tends to grate on players pretty quickly. He burned himself out in Philadelphia, but the Flyers haven’t really been the same since, and it’s kind of amazing he lasted as long as he did in Nashville. It’s no surprise they had their greatest success under him as well.

But eventually the time comes when the players are sick of his act, and the Preds clearly were. This is not a team that should be floating outside the playoff spots, or even anything close. It was built to compete for the Western crown, not slap-fighting with the Coyotes over the leavings. And yet here we are.

But hiring John Hynes smacks of GM David Poile only having half of a plan. He knew he needed to fire Lavvy but didn’t have any idea who should replace him. And then he was forced to hire what was out there, which was Hynes.

Hynes’s claim to fame is that he happened to be standing behind the bench when Taylor Hall went on a “Fuck Edmonton” world tour after being traded to Newark, earned a Hart Trophy, and dragged a thoroughly unimpressive Devils team to the playoffs where they were promptly thwacked by the Lightning. The Devils never came close to the playoffs since, and in fact that was the only year that the Devils even finished above .500.

Sure, Hynes was never given a real roster to work with, and maybe that’s the best he could do. He certainly helped transition the Devils from a war crime to a fast-moving team, but that was a few years ago. The Preds already were that. So why is he here?

Poile will tell you it’s to improve their defensive game, as they’d become lax under Lavvy. Ok, how’s that going? Under Lavvy, the Preds were still one of the better possession teams around, ranking 8th in the league in Corsi-percentage at 52.8. Under Hynes, they’re 22nd at 48.2. And they’re giving up five more attempts per game than they were before the firing. But hey, they’re also generating four less attempts too!

When it comes to xG%, the Preds under Laviolette were again top-1o, ranking 8th at 52.5. Hynes has managed to fuck that up too, ranking 20th since he was hired (behind the Hawks!) at 49.6. Oh, and their xGA/60 went from 2.08 to 2.37 since the change. This is going well! We’ll give Hynes this, at least the attack has stayed steady at 2.3 xGF/60 per game. He hasn’t blown everything up yet.

Hynes has even gotten better goaltending than Lavvy did, with Juese Saros has at least shown some competence of late whereas before Hynes was hired neither Saros or Rinne could find their ass with either hand. And yet the Preds have still gone just 10-8 under him, which isn’t exactly the bump Poile would have been hoping for.

This isn’t a team built to play defensively, and if it isn’t skating with its hair on fire it can be awfully open. But that’s how they were designed, with their go-go defense. Hynes hasn’t been helped by Ryan Ellis being out for his entire stay so far, but there’s more than enough here to do better with. It’s also not Hynes’s fault that Johansen and Duchene spend most of their time having money-fights in the dressing room, but he was probably brought in with the idea that he could get them to snap to attention. Still waiting on that one. This is still a team where a d-man leads them in scoring by 17 points!

There probably can’t be a more clear exhibit of how in the NHL if you get one job, you get 17. Hynes never did much in New Jersey and yet somehow ended up with a better team in Nashville. And when this goes balls-up, which is looking soon, you can bet he’ll get another job because someone will think if the Predators hired him he must be good. And so it goes.

Hockey

Game #61 – Predators vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1522 0

Ryan Johansen – Nothing pisses us off more than comparisons of Kirby Dach to this bloated jackass. The Preds had to sign Matt Duchene because Johansen kept eating his contract and not being a #1 center, and now they’re shocked to find out that Duchene isn’t a #1 center either. Clearly has played for a contract twice in his life, gotten those deals, and then just let the world pass him by. It’s ok, he’s only signed for five more years, so in 2025 the Preds can expect a comeback season…assuming RyJo can even get out of his dressing room chair by then.

Dan Hamhuis – You know he still got this.

Jarred Tinordi – Your father was an asshole and never left the Hawks alone. If Tinordi had another last name he would have been playing in a beer league three years ago. But no one believe in legacy quite like the NHL, and you can expect Tinordi to get another chance after this. And it’ll probably be in St. Paul, where old North Stars never die. Also your first name is spelled wrong, fuckstick.

Hockey

Game #61 – Predators vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1076 0

Predators

Notes: The Preds didn’t skate this morning so we’re guessing a bit at the goalie. They play Columbus tomorrow, and in a sobering bit of news that will be viewed as the harder game, so they may want to save Saros for that as he’s been the better of the two of late. Also given how Rinne did last time the Preds were here, well…Ellis could return since getting domed by Corey Perry at the Winter Classic. He would likely slide Tinordi out of the lineup and pair with Ekholm…Granlund has picked it up of late, with seven points in nine February games…

Notes: Same lineup as Wednesday’s capitulation, and should be interesting viewing to see if the Hawks give it up as easily ahead of Crawford as they did in front of Lehner with even less to play for. Could tell you a lot…Zack Smith will return to the lineup on Sunday in Texas, if that was keeping you up at night…Can we move Strome back to center now?

Football

An Offseason Plea: Bigger Than The Game

By Tony Martin 2126 0

I don’t like talking too much about myself in these articles, because really who cares? This isn’t one of those cooking blogs where people tell a 500-word story about themselves and then tells you how to make “authentic” Thai Iced Tea or whatever (it’s not? – ED). With that said, I need to preface what I’m about to say by telling you a tiny bit about me.

The meagre five-figure salary that Fels pays me to write for FFUD only covers so much, so I moonlight as a high school teacher. I work with low-income, high-risk kids that have been expelled from their home schools for whatever reason. It’s been this way for the last five years. I love my job, and I’m good at it. In 2017, I won a “Heroes in the Classroom” award for my work, which was from some company called Symetra and sponsored by the Bears. I scored tickets to a game, got my dumb face on the jumbotron, got a signed football from Leonard Floyd, went to Halas Hall and got a custom jersey with my name on it. Pretty cool shit, all things considering. It’s one of the coolest moments of my life. The wonderful human being who nominated me for that award knew how much of a Bears fan I am.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, let’s talk about Jameis Winston. Not only is he a league-average quarterback at best, he’s an awful human being. So, imagine my disappointment seeing so many Bears or national blogs linking Winston to Chicago this upcoming offseason. There are a ton of things this team needs, but Jameis ain’t it, man.

(Side note: I like this Bears team. They’re scrappy, they like each other, and for the most part the team has good character guys on the roster now. For the most part over time up until the present day, I’ve had okay feelings about rooting for most players on the Bears, though some players have done some pretty rough stuff and still gotten money from the organization after.)

I’ve always wondered how Steelers fans still root for Ben Rothlisberger, or Chiefs fans root for Tyreek Hill, and I always feared this day would come- even if the Bears don’t sign Jameis, they are bound to sign someone who has been potentially involved with some publicly-known assault allegation. How does that make you feel? It leaves me feeling incredibly conflicted.

Goddammit I love football so much and it would be so… hopeless(?) to boycott the franchise. If they sign Jameis I couldn’t watch the Bears the way I always have, I’ll feel completely disconnected from the team I have grown to love football because of. I know, it’s so bleeding-heart and it doesn’t make any difference to their bottom line, but I can’t do what I do professionally and with my entire heart while also rooting for a team that employs someone who did what he did in Tallahassee in 2012, and then again to an Uber driver in 2016.

How could I go into my classroom on a Monday morning and try to empower young women to advocate for themselves knowing the day before I was cheering on a man who has repeatedly taken agency away from women? The short answer is I can’t. The long answer is I can sit on my couch at noon on Sundays and make excuses: maybe act like people are just making baseless accusations, or say that my boycott wouldn’t matter anyways so who cares, or even just say fuck it and watch it knowing I’m a hypocrite.

This article is my promise to myself that I won’t make any excuses. If the Bears sign Jameis, I’ll start writing about something else during the week. Maybe I’ll be the fantasy football guy, or I’ll write different reviews of the same Truckfighters album every week, whatever. I won’t make excuses. I’ll just watch RedZone instead. I won’t make excuses.

Look, I know I’ve lost 99% of you reading this by now, but if you’re still there: I’m not judging you. Football means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and your reasons to continue to watch people like Tyreek Hill or Ben Rothlisberger or Ezekiel Elliott are yours and not for me to critique. For me, though? I can’t be a “Hero in the Classroom” and also support the type of people that I want to protect my students from. If the Bears sign Jameis Winston, I can’t continue to hold onto that award.

That stupid certificate and jersey and football are the coolest things I own, but I don’t feel okay having them around if they evolve to be representations of an organization that gives millions of dollars to someone who has done what he has done.

I don’t know what I’ll do with that stuff if the Bears sign him. I won’t burn it like so many MAGA dorks and their Colin Kaepernick jerseys, because that’s so dramatic and silly. Maybe I’ll put it all in storage, or just throw it out. If I put it in storage, maybe I’ll revisit it someday. I don’t know how these things work, really. Do I like “get over it” when the Bears cut Jameis after he throws for 40 interceptions in 2021? Do I hold a grudge forever, and just cut off that part of me for good? I don’t know.

These questions are so big to me, this whole thing has me fucked up. I don’t know what to do or feel, and I just hope I don’t have to make that moral decision this spring. Since I know for a fact that Virginia reads my articles: Please don’t sign Jameis. Please.

I’d feel the same way if Jameis was the QB who would take the Bears to the Super Bowl, for what it’s worth. Winning is always “the most important thing” but employing people like that doesn’t feel like winning no matter what happens on the field. The game is all about winning, but life is bigger than the game. Showing people that the organization won’t give millions to people who have proven to be a danger to women is bigger than the game. Recognizing that people care who plays for the Bears is bigger than wins and losses, it’s bigger than the game.

You and me, as individuals, no matter who you are reading this- we’re bigger than the game. Our safety is bigger than the game. Respecting people’s bodily autonomy is bigger than the game, as is not rewarding those who don’t respect it.

 

Hockey

What Did It Cost You?

By Sam Fels 2361 0

The last time Stan Bowman came out to open his mouth and find out with the rest of us what would come out of it, and a continuing theme the Hawks have hid behind, is that the price for “going for it” every season there for a bit cost them their future. Which is what we’re living with now. And it seems reasonable, but I thought I’d go a little more into it than just taking it by word.

I’m going to start with 2015, even though that season ended with a Cup and no one’s complaining at least about Antoine Vermette. Before that was six years ago, and even picks the Hawks gave up then would be veterans now that the Hawks likely wouldn’t be able to afford anyway. This is also going to assume that the Hawks would have nailed even any of these picks, much less all of them. But we will see who might have ended up as a Hawk if they still were making those pick. So let’s review:

2015

Antoine Vermette – Acquired for Klas Dahlbeck and 1st round pick (30th)

Coyotes drafted: Nick Merkley

Players that followed immediately: Christian Fischer, Travis Dermott, Sebastien Aho, Brandon Carlo

Clearly, Merkley never became anything. And again, the Hawks won the Cup that year, so this is what you sacrifice. But clearly, any of the four taken directly after Merkley would have been a huge help to the Hawks going forward. Even Dermott would have been the best defensive prospect they’ve produced other than Boqvist. Aho…d’oh.

Kimmo Timonen – Acquired for 2015 2nd round pick (61st) and 2016 2nd round pick (52nd)

Maple Leafs drafted (2015): Jeremy Bracco 

Players that followed immediately: Kyle Copabianco

Flyers Drafted (2016): Wade Allison

Players that followed immediately: Filip Hronek, Dillon Dube

Not as damaging as what came before. In 2016, Hronke would have definitely made this Hawks roster and showed some promise, while Dube probably could have been a useful bottom-sixer. Or he would have gotten the Dylan Sikura treatment for no reason other than the Hawks didn’t see him fight the one night they were scouting Rockford. Who knows?

2016

Andrew Ladd – Acquired for Marko Dano, 1st rounder in 2016 and conditional pick in 2018

Pick later traded to Flyers, drafted: German Rubstov

Players that followed immediately: Henrik Borgstrom, Max Jones, Tage Thompson, Brett Howden

Didn’t miss out on much here, but Howden would have been nice.

Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann – Acquired for Phillip Danault and 2018 2nd round pick

Canadiens Drafted: Alex Romanov

Player that immediately followed: No one

So Bowman can bemoan going all in all the time cost them the future, but this trade is more than that. It’s just bad. Fleischmann and Weise weren’t as valuable as Danault was that season, let alone what would come after. And deep down, we knew that at the time. This was splurging for the sake of splurging. And from the draft that they gave up a pick from, they didn’t really miss anything, although Howden’s future looks promising, except he hasn’t done much in the NHL yet. So he wouldn’t really be pulling the Hawks out of their current spot, just promising a better future than they have now.

2017

Johnny Oduya – Acquired for Mark McNeill and 2018 4th round pick

Dallas Drafted: Adam Mascherin

Players that immediately followed: No one

The Hawks didn’t really go all in at this deadline, as they were in first and felt pretty good about themselves, even if it felt like it was all on stilts at the time. McNeill never went on to be anything, and there’s no one from the fourth round of the 2018 draft who has mattered yet.

So looking back on all this, on the surface it seems like the Hawks sacrificed a lot to win in ’15 and try again the next two years. But the only cost really was that 1st round pick for Vermette. Now, maybe the Hawks would have taken Sebastien Aho, and things would look awfully different right now. Even Brandon Carlo would have changed the trajectory a bit. But how much?

At this point, this is deflection from the front office. The Danault trade was just bad. That wasn’t a sacrifice, that was idiocy. Extending Anisimov immediately to try and justify giving up a fan favorite in Brandon Saad for him wasn’t a sacrifice, it was idiocy (coming from on high). That cost you Teuvo Teravainen.

And the players Stan did draft, as the Hawks haven’t been bereft of picks, have been hit and miss. They’re not exceptionally good at it, but they’re not bad at it either. Still, on this current team, only Boqvist, Dach, and Debrincat look like Hawks draft picks that will make a difference for the Hawks. That’s just not good enough. That’s not about sacrifice, at least not entirely.

Again, this is Stan hiding while trying to justify his continued employment. And it looks thinner and thinner every day.

 

Baseball

Never Should Have Been That Hard

By Sam Fels 1741 0

The leadoff spot for the Cubs has been an overhyped black hole for a few years now. It was never that hard, but the Cubs kept making it so. And they made it so by sticking hitters that are either bad altogether (Almora, Descalso, whatever other idiot you can think of) or were struggling at the time that only made it worse thanks to the attention it got (Schwarber, Heyward, Happ). It also didn’t help that Dexter Fowler is a distinctively cool and handsome man whom we all loved and quite frankly no one was going to compare. You can’t really have Dex’s swag in the leadoff spot if you never get on base.

Still, the recent trends in baseball have been to move your best hitter in the #2 spot, because they get more ABs over a season that way. So it stands to reason that if you put your best hitter in the leadoff spot, he’ll get just many ABs and perhaps even more. The Red Sox won 108 games with their best hitter in the #1 spot in 2018. The Dodgers are going to bat that same guy in their leadoff spot this year. It’s not that revolutionary of a move.

Now you may say, “Hey there Fels, you stupid weak baby, Kris Bryant isn’t Mookie Betts!” And I would say, check this out, chumley:

.284/.385/.516  139 wRC+

.301/.374/..519  135 wRC+

I’m not going to tell you which is which, because as you can see, it doesn’t really matter. You might say that Betts has four seasons of 20 steals or more where Bryant only has one with more than 10, but are we really going to worry about stolen bases at this point in our lives? We are not, dear reader. Especially given that Bryant is a great baserunner without the steals.

Sure, if you only have a couple big time hitters, you probably don’t want to waste one at the top of the lineup and hope he can just hit a bunch of solo home runs before the next three guys make outs. That’s not the case for the Cubs. If we take Kris Bryant out of the equation because he’s leading off now, there’s still Rizzo, Baez, Schwarber, Contreras behind him, and all of them have been run producers at various times in their careers. And again, if Happ can come good and Heyward is restricted to the #6 or #7 spot and never see a left-handed pitcher, the lineup extends.

The case for Bryant at leadoff is easy. One, he gets on base (cue gif of Moneyball scouting table and pointing at Pete). He had the second-highest OBP last year even with the injury problems at .382. His career-mark is .385. That’s better than Rizzo’s .373, in case you wanted to see Rizzo up there (which would have been fine with me as well). Second, he’s fast. Probably the second-fastest player on the team behind Baez. That doesn’t mean he’s stealing 30 bases or something, but you can see a lot of innings starting with no one out and 1st and 3rd after Rizzo singles. Or scoring from second for Baez or Schwarber. Third, it plunges the pitcher right into it. Not time to “find it.” You have to be ready from the off. There’s going to be a fair amount of leadoff walks here.

Mostly, it gets someone else out of the spotlight. I think Schwarber is a decent solution up there too, given his OBP skills, but we’ve seen that movie and it’s the question he has to answer all the time. Let him be in the middle, and his only concern is to smash the shit out of the ball. That’s all he should worry about. It’s all he should have worried about batting leadoff, but here we are. It doesn’t add something to Ian Happ’s burden of trying to cement himself in the majors for good. Same goes for Hoerner if he’s actually here.

Bryant won’t care about that. One, he just doesn’t care about any of it, probably because not much sticks in that beautiful head of his (and he will match Fowler for handsomeness in the leadoff spot, which apparently is important). And also he’s got a track record. And it’s something the rest of the team doesn’t have to worry about.

This was an easy decision, but it was at least a departure from Joe Maddon for David Ross, as the former kept trying to crowbar anyone else but the guy it made the most sense to put up there. Ross will face bigger hurdles than this, but at least he’s getting this one right by quite simply, not getting too cute about it. And too cute was Maddon’s mantra basically.