Hockey

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

By Sam Fels 1101 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 2153 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 2384 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 1763 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.

 

 

 

Hockey

It Was Over Before Last Night

By Sam Fels 1907 0

I understand the feeling that the Hawks season ended last night. If there was ever going to be one last charge to stand up and be counted, it was returning home for two games before going back on the road. It was seeing a non playoff team. It was having one last chance to prove to the front office before the deadline that you weren’t in need of major surgery. But we all knew the truth. And I think the Hawks did too.

Nothing last night was new. There have been plenty of 20-shots-against 3rd periods for the Hawks, because they suck defensively. That’s a structural problem, not a spiritual one. Maybe we didn’t notice as much because the goalies have been so good, and have been able to come up with 18- and 19-save periods to save the Hawks’ ass. I don’t even know that Lehner was bad last night, his level just wasn’t what it had been before. Any kind of drop from either him or Crawford results in five goals against. It’s that simple.

But you combine the structural problems–slow defense, uneven buy-in to the system (at best), and a wonky roster–with the Hawks knowing in the back of their heads they’re toast and are days away from having the roster stripped to the point the last six weeks are going to be fucking ugly, and you get this overwhelming feeling that something “broke” or “collapsed” last night. I don’t think that’s really the case.

I’m betting the Hawks themselves knew it was over when they were soundly beaten by an Oilers team without McDavid. It was over when fortune damned them to a loss they didn’t deserve in Vancouver. They were able to accept the gift that David Rittich was happy to give them, but they knew the truth when they couldn’t get close to the Jets twice when they had to. A very flawed Jets team, by the way. That road trip is when it was over, and you could tell the Hawks kind of knew it.

That said, it’s not going to get better when your coach, AGAIN, comes out and says most of the team wasn’t ready to play. That’s Jeremy Colliton’s job, and almost every time the Hawks are in a game they have to have, that will help bring meaning to the season, Colliton is there after the game saying they weren’t ready or didn’t give enough. Who’s that on? Colliton hasn’t earned that place. He may be the coach, but he doesn’t draw that water. Yeah, the roster is not good enough. And it’s not good enough in a way that can make it look really bad, given how slow it is. But you can’t keep telling us you’re not doing your job. Because after a while, what’s clear is that they don’t get ready for you.

I don’t have much patience for Lehner calling out his teammates either. Yeah, Lehner Atlas’d this team in October and November. He’s been merely ok for two months now. Sure, he included himself in it, but he’s won exactly nothing in his career, unless four playoff games counts as something. I bet it counts as fuck and all to Kane, Crawford, Toews, and Keith. Everyone starting to see why no one wants to give this guy more than one year?

Behind all of this, I think what people are really upset about is knowing just how bad the rest of the season will be to watch. Even though it will actually be healthy. If the Hawks get what they can for Lehner, Gustafsson, and maybe Crawford or Saad or Strome or something creative, it’s much better for the long-term health of the team than barely missing out on the chance to get clobbered by the Blues or Avs in the first round. That doesn’t make it an easy process to get through, but surgeries rarely are.

But yeah, the Hawks will sink like a stone through March. Even the vets, who have done their best and said all the right things, are going to find it hard to find the give-a-shit meter, much less fill it. But they’ve earned that right.

But don’t assume this is about want-to or belief. This is the team that used to exude that. Last night is just another example in dozens that the Hawks just aren’t built right. The Rangers aren’t good, yet, but what they do have is a healthy amount of speed. That’s all it takes. The Hawks don’t have any. We know about the defense, but as I’ve worried the last little bit, the forwards aren’t fast enough either. Where’s the game-breaking speed? What forward can back a defense up simply because they’re out there?

Saad maybe? Kubalik? Both of those are a stretch. It’s not Top Cat. It’s not Strome. Dach’s is mobile but his gifts are his hands not feet. It’s just not there. Are they any in the system? Dylan Sikura doesn’t change this team’s fortunes, but he’s the type of player the Hawks need to be packing their bottom six with merely because they’re fast and have a modicum of skill and awareness. They keep giving you Matthew Highmore and John Quenneville. The Hawks don’t scout themselves or the league correctly. They haven’t diagnosed what the game is now. They’re still trying to win the 2014 Cup they missed out on, which is funny because they missed out on it due to the Kings trying to emulate them and get faster.

The sad part is it’s put the Hawks in an awful position. The front office that has failed to adjust the team to modern times is now in charge of this mini tear-down or rebuild. Should they be? It’s too late now (always has been, always will be…) to have anyone else do it. But what if the decision from on high is to clean house after the season? What if your new guy doesn’t like the prospects or young players you’ve brought in at the deadline? You’re spinning wheels again. You can’t do that.

But if you let Stan do this the whole way? He got you in this mess. Is he only going to drive you deeper into the muck? He says the right thing about not managing next season for his job which would lead into a bunch of panic moves. But will that happen in practice? It’s not going to be terribly fun finding out.

Maybe we’re all angry because they keep telling us this is the price for three parades and eight or nine seasons in the penthouse. But we all know it doesn’t really have to be this bad. It’s not for the Penguins. It’s not for the Caps. It has been for the Kings, but we all know that’s just as much mismanagement too. It’s a fig leaf to hide behind for an overmatched and over-rewarded front office. We know better.

It’s a dark ride from here. But there could be light at the end of it. The mystery is what gets you.

Hockey

Game #60: Rangers 6, Hawks 3 – In the Heat of the Sun, I’ve Been Dying of Cold

By Rose Rankin 2227 0

For a minute it seemed like they may have had something going, but then the third period happened. We have to file this one under “going off the rails,” and it may have just taken the last shreds of the Hawks’ playoff hopes with it. It’s been a long night so let’s just get through it:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–The first period was downright dull, with Hawks coming out of it down a goal, slightly up in possession (56 CF%) and even in shots with the Rangers (12-12). Filip Chytil‘s goal was a softie, which in retrospect was a harbinger of what was to come from Robin Lehner. But it wasn’t a disaster, by any means, just some mid-February boredom.

–Then, the Hawks did the opposite of what they usually do, which is suck donkey balls in the second period, and instead they were, shall we say, dominant in the second. Well, maybe not dominant per se, but at least in control. Jonathan Toews made a goal-line save early in the period and they promptly flipped the ice and Dominik Kubalik scored his 24th off a great pass from Duncan Keith, who got his 500th assist on the play. They led in shots (16-10) and again in possession (57 CF%), and they continued their actually functional penalty killing after Lehner punched Brendan Lemieux in the back of the head (which was kinda funny but not really necessary). Things were looking up–despite the fact that demand was so low that Sam had to sell his tickets for a measly $28, it was seeming like maybe the fire sale, in terms of tickets and personnel at the trade deadline, was a little premature.

–And then…it all fell apart. The Rangers scored five goals in the third period on 19 shots. Even just writing that out is insane. Suffice it to say, Lehner did not look good at all in that period. And no, I don’t mean that snarkily–he really didn’t. He hasn’t looked very lights-out since the All-Star break but this was something else. I won’t subject you to a breakdown of each goal he gave up (I’m nicer than that), but at least three of those should never have gotten through. And what’s worse, with the impending trade deadline his value just plummeted. Now it wasn’t totally his fault, as it never is with this team. Adam Boqvist had another rough night, but at this point I’m so infuriated with Coach Pete that I don’t even care if he did play badly. For example, he and Keith both got completely burned by Kreider on his goal, but Lehner definitely should have stopped it and I’m convinced that Boqvist’s mind is twisted with shitty coaching and an ass-backwards system that he’s trying to follow for the sake of not getting benched, but it goes against everything he knows and instinctually understands about the game, and the result is this general crappiness on top of being, ya know, a fucking teenager.

–One thing that did make this more entertaining than usual was the guys being on Hot Mic for the…well not calling the game, but narrating the game I guess. In addition to Sam’s bargain-basement tickets ordeal, they covered the inevitable video tribute to the sellout streak once they can no longer keep up the charade, along with deep thoughts from Matt and Fifth Feather, and the comments from you dear readers were priceless as always. We appreciate everyone who came along on this first simulcasting adventure and hope to bring you more soon.

OK, so there’s no denying the Hawks are really in some shit now, but maybe this and/or Friday will be enough to convince the front office to be selling everything that isn’t bolted down. Yes that’s a huge step that I don’t think they’re ready to admit, but it’s getting awfully hard to deny what we’re seeing. Onward and upward?

 

Hockey

Game #60 – Rangers vs. Hawks Preview: And F**k New York, Too

By Sam Fels 1454 0

vs.

RECORDS: Rangers 30-24-4   Hawks 26-25-9

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN (but with us on commentary!)

THE CITY SO NICE IT SMELLS LIKE PISS: Blueshirt Banter

The Hawks return home for just two games this week, before heading back out for what looks to be an absolute Unblinking Eye of a road trip through Dallas, St. Louis, and then Florida. Which makes these home games an absolute must, and even that probably won’t save the Hawks from having their season come to an end on that trip.

Which of course, is far too late. The deadline is Monday, and the Hawks can pivot toward the future, and successfully, if they just give in and start cashing in on Gustafsson and Lehner and maybe one or two others. Perhaps losing these two home games will finally make up management’s mind. Two games shouldn’t do that, but we know how this works. And we know how this team works, where they could for absolutely no reason other than hockey weirdness take these two games on Madison, and then at least split that trip coming up and justify the front office doing absolutely nothing come Monday. They’ll say it’s in service to their vets, but the vets will be just as pissed off come April when they’re still five points out of a playoff spot.

Perhaps that’s for another time, but tonight’s opponent should make for sobering viewing for the Hawks. The New York Rangers are in the middle of a rebuild, and yet have more points than the Hawks playing in the tougher conference. The Rags tried to soup up their arc by signing Artemi Panarin in the summer and having Kaapo Kakko fall into their lap.

While the former has performed as you’d expect, Kakko has been a disappointment. Eight goals and 19 points for a player that looked like he could belch up 30 goals per season at least. More worryingly, Kakko has been getting utterly crushed metrically, and his game clearly is going to need more work than the Rangers would have anticipated for a #2 overall pick. He isn’t even getting into scoring areas and chances as much as you would have expected, and has played himself onto the third line for the moment.

But this is New York, so that’s not the only drama going on with the team. Alex Georgiev might finally, along with Henrik Lundqvist’s age (though you wouldn’t know it to look at him, asshole), make the Rangers face the hockey mortality of their stalwart in net. Georgiev has been the superior goalie, this is Hank’s second straight subpar year, and at 38 and with only one year left on his contract after this one both Hank and the Rangers finally can see what life without each other is going to look like.

Up front, the Rangers can’t seem to decide if they want to trade guided missile Chris Kreider or make him part of the future. The package the Devils just got for Blake Coleman surely is giving them pause though, because Kreider likely gets the Rangers more than that. He’s also just about the last chip the Rangers have to play, as the rotting corpse of Marc Staal isn’t going to fetch much more than sympathetic looks and the loose change found in jacket pockets.

None of that has kept the Rangers from putting up more points than anyone would have guessed, and some of that is to do with their high octane defense. Tony DeAngelo (who really couldn’t be more perfectly named for a New York hockey player), Adam Fox, and Brady Skjei (Chance’s buddy) can all make things happen from the back, which keeps the Rangers playing at a pretty high pace.

They might not have star power up front beyond Panarin, but they do have a collection of fast forwards (including one named “Fast”) that can be hell to play against. They had won four in a row and five of six before getting kneecapped by the Bruins on Sunday. This is also their Mom’s trip, and it’s nice to see a team bring their moms to a true destination like Chicago instead of whatever backwaters the Hawks dragged their matriarchs through this year.

All that said, and even with the speed they have, the Rangers are a woeful defensive team. Even worse than the Hawks, if you can believe it. They’re last in xGA/60 and among the worst in Corsi against. So this game has a chance to be utterly hilarious in that fashion. Skjei, Fox, and DeAngelo (HEY! HE’S HOCKEYIN’ OVAH HERE!) can get up and go they can also get up and fall over in their own end. None of the Rangers young forwards have any idea what they’re doing in their own end, so the Hawks will get chances.

Does it matter? I have no idea. I think they’re toast. I don’t think they think they are, and maybe this is the death rattle week for them.

But what you should do is download the Hot Mic app on your phone, and listen to us do our inaugural broadcast on there for this one! Also use code “SAM376” when you do. We’ll be doing a whole MST3K thing with the game tonight, and it should be fun. Hope to have you along.

Hockey

Game #60 – Rangers vs. Hawks Spotlight: We Don’t Have The Only Iffy Trubes

By Sam Fels 1296 0

Jacob Trouba to the Rangers seemed like it was on the cards for a while. It was no secret that Trouba was miserable in Winnipeg. And really, who wouldn’t be? It’s cold as fuck, the coach is an idiot who kept playing Trouba on his off-side, and they’d dicked him around on a contract a couple times while he was restricted. As he was lining up to be unrestricted after this season, they had to cash in on him as he was never going to stay.

And the Rangers are the exact type of team that would need him. They’re on the upswing of a rebuild, but lacking a #1 d-man. Trouba has been labeled that all of his career, and he’s still young enough to be that for a while as the Rangers move from developing to contenders. And that could come as soon as next year.

The problem is that Trouba hasn’t really lived up to that. Bigger issue when you’re taking down $8M a year on the cap.

Trouba has been something of a possession-nightmare with the Rangers. He’s only got a 42% Corsi-rate and an even worse 41% expected goals share. These are way below his numbers in Winnipeg, and the Jets have never been possession-dominant. He’s below the team-rate in The Empire State, a first for him, though not terribly so as the Rangers still have some major issues defensively. Still, this was probably drawn up as Trouba being the beacon of consistency and hope. Not so much.

If the Rangers were hoping that they would also get something like the 50 points Trouba put up last year in Winnipeg, that’s on them. Trouba consistently put up 25 or so points there, and only saw the binge last year on the power play with all those forwards running wild. Trouba isn’t a power play QB, that’s supposed to be Skjei anyway, though he does have a pretty big shot. The Jets shot 18% with him on the ice on the power play, and got a lot of shots. The Rangers are short of that.

Of course, the debate could be had whether Trouba was ever the first pairing anchor he thought himself to be and was billed as in Winnipeg. His numbers are ok there, even good, but they’re not Norris-level. When in the spotlight he’d been all right, and at times in 2018 would flash that dominance, but last year like the rest of his teammates he didn’t look all that bothered. He and Skjei have yet to find the magic, though time is on their side.

Of course, that’s not the only thing that was supposed to go better for the Rangers. Kaapo Kakko hasn’t even out-performed Kirby Dach, even though he went into the draft with far more hype. Then again, so did Jack Hughes, and he hasn’t done much north of jack and shit either across the Hudson in Newark. Perhaps Adam Fox can lighten the pressure on Trouba, but he won’t lessen the contract. They seem to have fucked things up with Lias Andersson already, and Filip Chytil has yet to splash. The Rangers are performing over their heads this year anyway, but they’ll need Trouba and a host of others to pick it the fuck up before they’re contenders on Broadway again.

 

 

Hockey

Game #60 – Rangers vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, and Thugs

By Sam Fels 1187 0

Brendan Smith – This guy was the worst player in the league in 2013, when he singlehandedly gave Game 6 back to the Hawks and changed that series. There’s always someone in your life–be they a coworker, a friend of a friend, a cousin–who has the job and money you want and for the life of you you can’t figure out how they got there. That’s Brendan Smith for everyone in hockey. He’s slow, his hands are made of cardboard, and he’s got all the instincts of a drunk raccoon. And yet here he is, closing in on 10 years in the league. The world is fucked.

Michael Haley – Likely to not play tonight but we don’t know what he’s doing here at all. There’s still some thought that a rebuilding team, which the Rangers are, need a goon lying around to protect the innocent children. That starts to come apart when you see Kakko is 6-3, Howden is 6-3, Chytil is 6-2, and so on. This guy couldn’t spell dog if you gave him all the letters to rearrange.

Chris Kreider – Never met a goalie he couldn’t run, and his facial hair makes it clear he has a drawer full of designer roofies at home.