Hockey

Game #45 – Predators vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1056 0

Predators

Notes: Preds didn’t skate this morning so this is how it looked against Boston. The injured don’t figure to return other than maybe Fabbro, so it’s probably the same lineup again…Rinne had an .885 in December, but Saros wasn’t much better and has probably missed the boat to take over the starter’s job at any point in Music City…The Preds have gotten rolled in their past two games possession-wise, which is fine against the Bruins but against the Ducks?…Josi has an 11-game point-streak, in which he’s amassed 19 points…

Hawks

Notes: Hawks only had an optional skate, so we don’t know exactly how they’ll align without Strome. One would think Kane would slide up, but that makes for an absolutely barren bottom six. Then again, it was always going to be that if this team suffered injuries…Caggiula has said he’s been ready to play but the coaches told him the shitter’s full. Strome’s injury puts paid to that, but they might want to slide Highmore back in instead…Crawford will start for the third straight game…After putting the Hawks down two men twice on Tuesday, maybe Smith sits instead…

Baseball

Is This Anything?

By Sam Fels 1673 0

I guess this is what we Cubs fans have been reduced to this winter. Considering whether or not something that would normally sound like galaxy-brained four-dimensional chess that everyone would  laugh out of the room is actually a thing worth pursuing. Or even based in any kind of reality. But hey, the way things are going with the Cubs, maybe it’s better to just live in a fantasy world.

So here it is: A second report connecting the Cubs to Nolan Arenado. It seems utterly ludicrous, and the kind of thing you wouldn’t get away with in MLB The Show, but here we are. The Cubs won’t pay Kris Bryant but they will pay Arenado the $70M he has the next two years and then the ensuing $199M over the five years after that if he doesn’t opt out in 2021. Say, wouldn’t somewhere around $35M keep Bryant, the better player, around for a while? Well, this is where you have to start moving pieces around in dimensions and methods that don’t exist, so let’s look at the viability of everything suggested here by Brett, Passan, and others.

One, the big flashing light on Arenado. He plays in Coors Field, and if you take him away from that, you’re only getting an above-average offensive player. That has some legs. Arenado’s career slash-lines on the road: .265/.323/.476 for a 109 wRC+ or .336 wOBA. Not exactly Vegas-neon there, is it?

Let’s try and be a little more fair. Last year, Arenado ran a 118 wRC+ away from home. But the year before that it was 104. But in 2017 it was 126. So he’s not incapable away from Coors, it’s just hard to know exactly what you’d be getting, though you’d be sure it would be less than the sum of what you get with half a season amongst the thin air, weed, and every third person in attendance owning a brewery. I would also point out that when not at Coors, Arenado plays most of his road games in San Francisco, San Diego, or LA which are bad hitter’s parks. But that’s a bit of a stretch. Also, as Brett alludes to here, there is a school of thought that bouncing between altitude and not-altitude affects players negatively. Which is true.

Still, Arenado hits the ball really hard, with a 42% hard-contact rate and we’ve talked at length how the only Cub to manage that last year was Schwarber and Castellanos. You’d like to think that would play anywhere, but you can’t be sure. And Arenado doesn’t strike out much and makes much more contact than most of the hitters in the lineup, which the Cubs could certainly use.

Ok, now here is where it starts to get really nuts. The idea is that the Rockies would somehow be slaked by receiving Willson Contreras and Jason Heyward in return, which would free the Cubs up to trade Bryant for ready or near-ready pitching and players from another team. This seems a little backward, as most likely part of the bounty gained from trading Bryant would have to go to prying Arenado loose. Because simply getting Contreras back and Heyward’s contract doesn’t seem near enough for a team’s best player, especially for a team that would be signaling a complete tear-down by moving Arenado. They’d want young players, prospects and such.

Yes, the Rockies would get to save some $28M in real dollars between Arenado’s and Heyward’s salary the next two seasoins, but you’d have to subtract whatever Contreras gets in arbitration and also consider the fact that Contreras is just a year younger than Arenado. Also, the Rockies would be losing the production of, y’know, NOLAN ARENADO, and replacing some of it with the scarecrow production of Jason Heyward. And that’s assuming you get Heyward to agree to this, which is no gimme.

Then, and you’re going to have to stick with me here, the Cubs would take the money saved by not paying Bryant his arbitration award to sign Castellanos, which arguably would be about the same thing. So they’d lose something like $45M in luxury tax dollars but bring back $35M in Arenado, and then basically swallow that up and more by re-signing Castellanos. Which would still leave them over the luxury tax. Everyone got that?

Even if we ignore all that, would the Cubs be better? It’s not clear. Arenado is certainly an upgrade defensively, and the Cubs would have one of the best left sides of the infield of all-time between him and Baez. They’d lose a little in offense, which they would gain back by having Castellanos in right. Though that outfield defense might give all that advantage back. And we still have no idea what Victor Caratini is over a full season offensively and it almost certainly isn’t anywhere near what Willson gives you.

Basically this feels like a lot of running all the way out to come all the way back and pretty much end up where you were in the first place.

The whole thing would hinge on what the return is for Bryant, and how much that helps you starting in March and how far away the rest of it would be. Which we have no idea about, and the packages that have been whispered from DC or Atlanta get a big “FUCK OFF” from me.

What I will say to all of this on the positive side is it’s odd to me that Castellanos remains on the free agent market. Most every other big ticket item has signed, which if you wanted to convince yourself of it could mean he’s waiting for something. He’s not short on suitors, we know that. We know he loved it here, we know the Cubs loved having him here, but the hoops to jump through still seem far too small and far too numerous (other than Ricketts remembering he comes from one of the richest families in the world and not really sweating luxury tax and revenue sharing fees).

I will say that if by some acid-induced vision the Cubs pulled this off, and the return for Bryant was huge and its impact at least close to immediate (say no player ready later than 2021), then shuffling these chairs to remain stationary actually sets you up better for the future. Right now, other than Hoerner and Alzolay if you squint, what the Cubs will be in ’21 and ’22 (assuming they sign ANYONE) is on the field now (if you want to mention Amaya or Davis or Marquez here, fine, but I bet they would be part of anything for Arenado too). Which…is not ideal. You could swallow it, is what I’m saying.

But the amount of moving parts here, and the amount of things that could go wrong is just kind of mind-boggling. I’m going to go ahead and say this isn’t anything.

Football

Long Journey to the Middle – Bears Positional Report Cards: Pass Catchers – Now Hiring, TE(s), WR3

By Wes French 1282 0

2019 is going to be the type of football year that you just want to throw in the trash, hoping that things get sorted out in a positive manner and you can mostly forget the things that transpired on the field. That’s essentially the case for the Bears pass catchers save for what passes as the brightest spot from the team, but also includes arguably the darkest, deepest hole (outside of QB…) and Ryan Pace’s second biggest miss of the 2017 draft.

On one hand, you have Allen Robinson being the monster wide out everyone wanted when he signed in the 2018 off-season and the emergence of second-year receiver Anthony Miller into a legit threat on any play. On the other, you have an underwhelming group of wide outs behind them, a one-dimensional backfield passing attack and a tight end room that’s stinkier than David Kaplan’s nose (because it’s firmly planted somewhere inside Tom Ricketts colon, GET IT??).  The team ranked in the lower third in just about all receiving categories, and if you read the rushing post from yesterday and quarterbacks on Monday you don’t have to squint to pick up on the theme of the 2019 Chicago offense. It sucked.

The highs were the type that felt squandered, the lows all disasters that played a part in the unacceptable offensive output – to varying degrees.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

The Good

Allen Robinson. That’s essentially your list. Robinson was the steady, go-to security blanket all season and pulled in 98 of 154 (!!) targets for just under 1,150 yards and seven scores, roughly one third of the entire receiving production on the team. He’s been everything the team needed and wanted when they gambled and signed the oft-injured Robinson two years ago, and Pace would do well to rip up the final year of his contract because 1) He’s more than earned new paper/$, 2) a new deal would actually improve the Bears cap situation for 2020 and beyond (ARob counts $15M against the cap with just $10.5 in actual dollars in 2020) and 3) who in the fuck else are you trusting on this roster going forward, especially after 2020?

Anthony Miller shone at times this season, especially standing out on Thanksgiving in Detroit with a 9/140 line. While he came up big during the min- revival stretch later in the season, he was inconsistent on the whole. But you if you want to argue that was more product of his environment in this slap dick offense you’d get no more than a “fair” from me. Miller is still an injury case, however, as he’ll rehab this spring from the exact same shoulder surgery that ended his 2018-19 campaign. Still, he lands in the positives and the Bears will need him back and building on his success in 2020.

The Bad

The rest of the wide out group left a whole lot to be desired. Taylor Gabriel was the benefactor of three TD catches in a half against the atrocious R-words in Week 3, but again suffered from concussion issues and only played parts of nine games. Rookie 4th round pick Riley Ridley hardly saw the field, working through a litany of nagging foot and leg injuries before totaling a whopping six catches over the final three contests. Javon Wims filled in admirably, again, but when he’s consistently on the field you’re probably in some trouble with your personnel; he’s best suited for ST duty in the opinion of yours truly.

Tarik Cohen was the only real contributor out of the backfield, and while he was used quite a bit (79 catches, 104 targets) all but 19 of his 456 yards were via YAC, meaning he was hardly targeted past the line of scrimmage all year. That’s your #2 in targets, averaging 5.8 yards/catch, often being targeted BEHIND the line of scrimmage. Fun!

The Ugly

The tight end group may have been the worst ever in Chicago Bears history, at least in terms of the modern game. No individual player went over 91 yards FOR THE SEASON, and the two leaders at 91/87 were preseason practice squad players JP Holtz and Jesper Horsted. Big money man Trey Burton got hurt in August, never really got to full health, and submitted to injury in November, landing on IR with all of 24 catches for 84 yards. Pace’s pet Adam Shaheen continued to impress no one but his boss, again dealing with a myriad of injuries and totaling 9/74 line. He now boasts 26 catches in 27 career games since being drafted in the 2nd round of 2017. Blocking TE Ben Braunecker was used in the passing game. Bradley Sowell was active at the position for a few games; that should tell you all you need to know about this shit ass group.

The RBs outside of Cohen weren’t as bad as the TEs, but that group was paced by David Montgomery‘s 25/185/1 line, a bit underwhelming after all the buzz about him “doing it all well” after the draft. FA Mike Davis caught all seven of his targets before he was cut, and the coaching staff failed to get $5M man Cordarrelle Patterson involved in any meaningful way.

Any Hope?

No? Not really? Robinson should get a new deal, possibly very soon, but after that it’s a big ol’ shit sandwich. Miller has the injury history, Gabriel might need to retire (but at least they can save $4.5M in cutting him) and Ridley looks to have a long way to go. This group lacks speed…so maybe just try Patterson out there instead of running him on 3rd and short?? Whoever gets hired to help run the offense would do well to get Cohen involved more down the field and in the slot, potentially, along with Patterson. The speed exists on the team, just not sure these dummies can harness it properly. Maybe some further passing work for Montgomery to keep teams guessing too.

The TE room is all signed for next year, and Burton somehow has so much guaranteed money that they can’t just cut him. The depth pieces are all okay, but this group screams for improvement. Can they sign Austin Hooper if he hits FA? Pace will need to get creative to clear enough space for such a move.

Pace and Co. have quite the overhaul on their hands this off-season.

Final Grade: C-

Hockey

Don’t Speak, I Know Just What You’re Sayin’

By Sam Fels 1983 0

I should admit right at the top I always had a distaste for No Doubt, which is saying something as I was 13 when Gwen Stefani hit the scene and that really should have been enough for any boy that age. It wasn’t. I guess I’ve never been happy.

Anyway…

I won’t be the first to point out that it’s awfully curious, or perfect in another sense, that the first time Stan Bowman was publicly available to the media is halfway through the season and when the Hawks had gone 7-3-0 during a 10-game stretch. Something about GMs in this town. You can’t find Ryan Pace with a strike team during the season. I’m not sure GarPax knows where the media room is. Only Hahn and Epstein seem to be around for you whenever, but maybe that’s just the nature of baseball and being there every goddamn day.

Whatever Stan had to say, and we’ll get to it, should be couched by this fact: though the Hawks had won 7 of 10, they were still six points out of a playoff spot before last night’s game with three teams to leap. The current last wildcard holder (Winnipeg) is on pace for 95 points. The Hawks would have to amass 51 points in their last 38 games to get to that mark, if that’s even enough by the time we get to April. Or like, 23-10-5. Basically at a 30% higher pace of points-per-game than they are managing now, and that’s with the added injuries.

The Hawks are wedged in the standings between two teams that fired their coaches. Two teams that think where they are is unacceptable. It’s important to remember all of this.

“I think we’ve played our best hockey, probably over the last couple weeks, looking at our record,” Bowman said. “It did take a little bit of time to get everything together. We did have spurts of it earlier in the year where we played well, but we couldn’t sustain it enough probably to get enough wins on the board. We’ve played better lately and now we’ve got to build on that, so consistency is probably the hardest part to nail for this team so far. Because we show when we play the way we want to play …”

I’ve been harping on this all season, but it’s infuriating to hear the team still fucking cling to this. The Hawks are not bad because they are inconsistent. They are inconsistent because they’re bad. There seems to be this delusion around the whole organization that some devine force is going to descend from the heavens and bestow them consistency. I hate to keep pulling out this GIF and repeat myself but it seems to still apply wholly…

Either the vets are simply too old to give you 82 games of dominance (Keith, Toews, Crawford), or the kids are still learning (Dach, Boqvist) or are simply not that good (everyone else). The way this team is constructed, they basically have the equal amount of players who will improve and grow and those who will continue to decline, which is a great way to remain right where you are.

“…we’ve had pretty strong goaltending all year, so that’s been the bright spot for our team, given us a chance even some nights when we didn’t play well at all we would have a chance to come back and win some games.”

Here is something that should be keeping Bowman up at nights, if not gotten him fired already. It’s the SV%s of the teams around the Hawks in the standings:

San Jose – .889

Nashville – .887

Minnesota – .895

Over in the East…

Montreal – .897

Buffalo – .900

HAWKS – .911

Here are some teams that have gotten similar goaltending to the Hawks…

St. Louis – 1st in West

Colorado – 2nd in West

Islanders – 2nd in Metro

What this should mean to Stan, or any right-thinking human getting the requisite amount of oxygen, is that the rest of the team is an utter disaster when you’re getting contender-level goaltending. In the NHL, that’s really supposed to be about 75% of the battle. If you fuck that up, you’ve really accomplished something wondrous. Stan talking about the goaltending isn’t him extolling the virtues of his team. It’s providing rope they should have hanged him with long ago.

“Well, we’re right there,” Bowman said. “We’re a little bit behind the pack — a couple points. But it’s a pretty tight pack that are fighting to get into that spot. It’s been basically half a season. We’ve got a lot of hockey left…”

I understand that the Hawks have to sell the rest of the season, even though they have the sellout streak and there are good seats still available every game (still working that one out). So Stan can’t come out and declare that they’re toast. Still, six points out of the playoffs is miles away. MILES. Three teams to leap, and you just lost another game to a direct competitor (which I guess the Flames are right now). The Hawks have more regulation wins than seven teams. Seven. Right there? Where is right there? If this were a woman telling you you were right there you’d know for sure she was faking.

“There’s a lot of teams that are going through injury troubles,” Bowman said. “The encouraging thing is seeing how our guys have responded with having a lot of established veteran players (out). They play a pretty big role on our team and they’re all out, but our team’s found a way with a different group, a different mixture here, to get some wins. That’s a good sign.”

Or could it be that your veterans just sucked? de Haan is certainly a miss, and so is Saad, but the latter’s only been out a couple weeks. Andrew Shaw provided you nothing. Drake Caggiula provided you nothing. Brent Seabrook provided you nothing. I’ll have some patience for the injury-angle, more when we know what Strome is dealing with, but only so much.

““We’re not focused on past years,” Bowman said. “We’re looking at this year where we are right now. We’ve had a pretty good stretch recently. We’ve got to continue to do that. If we’re able to build on the way we’ve played the last few weeks I think we’ll put ourselves in a nice spot over the next month.”

Not focused on past years, eh? I don’t even know what to do with this, so I’m just going to leave it alone. And you’re not going to build on how you’ve played the past few weeks, because your team has spent the past two seasons proving that it can’t.

“The focus right now is to just stay in the present and look where we are and build on these next few games and keep going.”

And here’s the big problem. The Hawks can’t focus on the right now. Focusing on merely the right now, and not even correctly, is how you get the slapdash offseason of throwing de Haan, Maatta, and Lehner to the wall, trading Jokiharju and then ending up with the playing time he would have needed and deserved but not having him here to take it. Having no sense of a long-term plan is how you end up continuing to kowtow to Seabrook until you have no choice but to send him to a farm upstate to avoid further embarrassment. You can’t just keep focusing on now, because it’s your job to map out how the Hawks get back to the top in the future. And they’ve done exactly none of that.

This blog is over.

 

Hockey

Game #44 – That Silent Sense of Content That Everyone Gets Just Disappears Soon as the Sun Sets – Flames 2, Hawks 1

By John Pullega 1662 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

What a perfect microcosm of the 2019–20 Blackhawks. An early lead generated by (what better be) the New Core followed by 40 minutes of pants shitting, entirely avoidable penalties, and a flat refusal to shoot the puck while trailing. We’d love to know if this is an example of what Bowman called Colliton’s “great approach to things,” because losing to teams directly ahead of his in the wild card standings seems to be his approach. There’s a cheesy gordida crunch waiting for me, so let’s.

– This was the most dominant game Adam Boqvist has played thus far. His first period was astoundingly strong: a primary assist, a 66+ CF%, an 82+ xGF%, two shot attempts, a ton of ice time, and—the cherry on top—two excellent defensive plays. Let’s start there.

About mid-way through the first, the Flames’s fourth line had just finished a strong shift. After a shift change, Jonathan Hockey ended up with the puck behind the net. Boqvist shadowed him from behind the net up around the far boards and never let Gaudreau shake him. In fact, Boqvist nearly caused Jonathan Hockey to cough the puck up. Boqvist is precisely the kind of defenseman the Hawks would need to run Colliton’s man system. He showed quickness and strong positioning on this play.

Not too long after this sequence, Boqvist got to show off his defense again. Following a terrible cross-ice pass attempt by Keith that was easily intercepted, Boqvist picked up Monahan one-on-one and prevented a shot. These are the kinds of things everyone has worried about with Boqvist, and he showed that he can hold his own.

You can safely assume that the good defensive plays were a result of his obvious confidence with the puck tonight. He had two shot attempts early in the first and finished with at least five by my count in addition to one official shot on goal. We got to see that wicked wrister on Kubalik’s tip, which was as powerful as advertised.

Boqvist finished the game with the most TOI, the best CF%, and the best xGF% of Hawks players with more than 10 minutes of ice time at 5v5. A statement game for him if there ever was one.

– Corey Crawford would be your second star after Boqvist tonight. He played a big part in the Hawks killing off their second 5-on-3 of the night, with two huge saves to keep it close. You can probably argue that he should have had Lindholm’s second goal, but other than that, it was another good start for the least respected athlete in Chicago sports history. Killing off two 5-on-3s and posting a .929 should get you a win every day. Alas.

– It’s painfully ironic how the Hawks’s PK manages to be pretty good despite the fact that their defense is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. But you can thank Jonathan Toews for the Hawks’s first 5-on-3 kill. After losing a faceoff in his own zone to start it, it was Toews alone who managed to clear the puck from his own zone twice in a row. He may only be able to do one or the other, and tonight he chose defense (though he had a few offensive flashes late), which was a treat.

– Dylan Strome has a right ankle injury. No word yet on the severity, but it looked kind of like Saad’s. If he misses any extended time, the Hawks intermittently woeful offensive will be much more consistently awful.

– It’s really confidence inspiring when John Quenneville appears on the power play over Alex Nylander. Not that anyone wants Nylander on the ice at all, but it’s a true testament to the Hawks’s “No Plan, All Process” approach to . . . whatever it is they’re approaching here (a third straight year of no playoffs, most likely).

– Down a goal in the third, the Hawks managed to fart out a measly six shots on goal. Through 11+ minutes, they had exactly two shots. Either this is the Hawks actively trying to get Jeremy Colliton fired or Jeremy Colliton just doing what he does, which is beg to get fired. You can take the tram or you can take the donkey. It’s the same price.

– I’ll stop bitching and moaning about it when the mouthpieces for the Hawks stop doing it: Pat Foley’s unmitigated slobbering over Marc Crawford prior to the third period was gross. I truly like how Marc Crawford has handled himself after being revealed as a gigantic shithead in his past. He apologized, reached out to many of the players he wronged, got therapy long before his shitheadedness became public, and has been contrite about his situation. Having Pat Foley Cheshire grin his way through calling Crawford “a great guy” is so perfectly in tune for this tone-deaf organization, and yet, I can’t help but be surprised by the awfulness. Crawford went out of his way to call his second chance a privilege, and kudos to him for that, but Foley should fucking know better. Righting a ton of huge wrongs doesn’t make you a “great guy.” It just makes you less of a shithead.

But it didn’t stop there. Foley then proceeded to cite Dennis Gilbert (just can’t get away from this fucker, can we?) and Kirby Dach as guys who stated that they love Crawford while completely disregarding the proven and constantly unearthed power gap between players and coaches. They can love Crawford all they want. That doesn’t serve as adequate evidence to support Foley’s “neener neener, he’s actually a great guy” horseshit. It’s getting awfully old. I want Marc Crawford to keep getting better and succeed. I don’t want to hear Pat Foley use his pulpit to try and speed that along just because he doesn’t get it. It’s Foley’s literal job to represent the Blackhawks well, and he did a terrible job of it tonight, much like his bosses that one summer at Notre Dame. I digress.

The Hawks are a mediocre team whose stars can occasionally put them over the top against better teams taking the night off and Detroit. When the chips are down, like they were tonight, they hermit crab. But hey, Bowman thinks Colliton’s approach is great, what with yet another too many men penalty and six fucking shots on goal during crunch time.

Go back to bed, Blackhawks fans. Your Brain Trust has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, Blackhawks fans. Your Brain Trust is in control again.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Zombie Dust

Line of the Night: Pat Foley calling Marc Crawford a “great guy,” which embarrassed even Marc Crawford

Hockey

Game #44 – Flames vs. Hawks Preview: Trying To Find The Heart

By Sam Fels 1607 0

vs.

RECORDS: Flames 22-17-5   Hawks 19-18-6

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

COVERED IN HORSESHIT: Flames Nation

This week, the Hawks get a chance to put a couple things…well, not right but at least improve. One is their home record. They moved just over .500 with the win over Detroit, but they simply have to be better on Madison St. Second, they can get a couple wins over teams around them in the standings, which they can claim they are competing with for wildcard spots. They did get one over on the Flames last week, which was a departure, but generally this has been a sore spot for them. Calgary is visiting tonight and Nashville on Thursday, and those just happen to be two of the three teams between them and the final playoff spot.

Obviously, not much has changed with Cal and Gary since these two spent New Year’s Eve together (I assume loudly singing along to Lizzo like everyone else). They beat the Rangers at home on the 2nd and then snuck out of St. Paul with a shootout victory on Sunday. So the issues are basically the same. As we like to say around these parts, they can’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo. They have the fourth-worst SH% at evens in the league, which belies the talent on display here through Monahan (Lisa needs braces…), Gaudreau, Tkachuk, et al. You still have to figure that will correct at some point and send the Flames toward the automatic spots in the Pacific, which they’re only two points behind and two of which are occupied by the Coyotes and Oilers. Most would guess those teams will deflate before the end of the season.

Still, something is more amiss up in Southern Alberta. This team was something of a possession monster under Bill Peters, which is something he just tended to do for his teams (as well as kick them and be racist toward them). This year, even before his dismissal, that’s not been the case. Some of it is Mark Giordano aging, and some of it is just no one else stepping up to fill in some of that gap. Recently they’ve split Gio and T.J. Brodie, perhaps to get some more push from a different pairing. But Brodie’s always been a bit lost without Giordano, so that’s a risk.

Another problem for them is a top line that just hasn’t fired at the pace they’re accustomed to. Monahan and Gaudreau have been point-per-game players before, and neither are there at the moment or anywhere close. Gaudreau especially seems to have eschewed getting to the middle of the ice, and is doing something of a mini-Getzlaf act on the outside. This has hurt Monahan’s game, as he thrived on the havoc Johnny Hockey used to cause in the offensive zone. They attempted to replicate this by moving Mikael Backlund to wing on the line and getting him in the middle, but that had middling results. Now they’re shuttling Elias Lindholm between 2C and 1RW, which is also having the benefit of making it clear what the Flames need to go get before the deadline.

Either way, this was a team that until the last meeting had given the Hawks fits, because it’s one of the many that is significantly faster than them. They weren’t much at the races against the Hawks for the first 30 minutes last Tuesday, allowing the Hawks a 4-0 lead. But once they realized they were about to be embarrassed, traffic flowed in only one direction and the Hawks were even somewhat lucky to get out of there with a rare regulation win. You can expect the Flames to be a little more attuned tonight.

Still, their goaltending has been a little wayward. Big Save Dave has given up 11 in his last three starts (including the Hawks game), and Cam and Magic Talbot gave up three at home to the Rangers. So maybe the Hawks can find some joy there.

As for the Hawks, I wouldn’t expect any changes. Robin Lehner wasn’t in the starter’s net at the morning skate and is still working through his minor leg problem. Look for him Thursday. There’s no reason to change any of the lineup, though Dennis Gilbert took a shot off the ankle at practice. But that couldn’t make him any slower. Maybe Fetch slides in for him, which whatever. After scoring his first NHL goal it would be heavily cruel to sit Dylan Sikura and lose the confidence he just gained. So Alex Nylander’s useless ass can stay in a suit.

As we’ve said, this is a part of the schedule the Hawks can make their season meaningful in. The Flames are a confused bunch, and the Preds even more so after firing their coach. The Ducks suck, and then they’ll get two games against either a rebuilding dreck like the Senators or yet another confused bunch in the Habs before having to try and catch the Leafs in Toronto. Either you are or you aren’t, and these next two weeks should tell us which. Even if you think you already know.

Hockey

Game #44 – Flames vs. Hawks Spotlight: Life After Lifetime Achievement

By Sam Fels 1288 0

It’s not fair to to Mark Giordano to merely label his Norris Trophy win last year a “Lifetime Achievement Award,” even if it had that feel. Gio had been one of the league’s best d-men for a while, certainly one of it’s premier puck-movers, and a spike in point-total was all that was required to get him an award he probably should have won. Had he not gotten hurt in 2014 he very well may have won that year, to match some truly bonkers relative metrics.

In reality, Giordano’s ’18-’19 wasn’t all that different from his ’17-’18, as in both he had utterly dominant possession numbers. Gio clearly took to the hiring of Bill Peters, who swept away the conservative, whatever the fuck tactics of Glengarry Glen Gulutzan or Bob Hartley before that and got the Flames going up the ice aggressively. Gio’s individual and team-rates are pretty much exactly the same over the two years. The difference was that last year the Flames shot 10% when Gio was on the ice, which was a huge jump from the 6.7% the year previous. So Gio ended up with 57 assists instead of 25, to go with 17 goals, which weren’t really out of line with what he’d done before.

Fair enough, Gio was really good last year and no one is upset that he has a Norris in his case now. What comes next? Well, there may have been a warning shot in last year’s playoffs.

In five games, Gio was clocked to the tune of a 44 CF% and a 45% xG%, both of which were over 10 points lower than his regular season marks. And they were mostly due to the tire tracks on his chest that Nathan MacKinnon was leaving over those five games, though to be fair to him he was only on the ice for two goals against and one for in that series. That doesn’t mean the chances weren’t flowing and they were mostly flowing the wrong way.

Something has carried over into this season. All of Gio’s metrics are way down, including his own attempts and chances. It would be easy to point to the sinking Flames ship as a whole, but his relative Corsi has tanked along with it. His relative xG% has stayed up though, so even if he’s spending more time in his zone he’s not conceding a wealth of great chances while doing it.

What gives? First, it’s hard to ignore that Giordano turned 36 right before the season, and you can’t keep the wolves of age at the door forever. Everyone loses a step, and Gio only need look at Duncan Keith his contemporary to see that. Keith’s fall came earlier, but Keith also played a ton more hockey at the top level than Giordano has.

It hasn’t helped that T.J. Brodie, Giordano’s partner for all of last year, is himself declining as he closes out his 20s. Brodie was always Gio dependent, but this year even that’s not enough. Gio’s numbers shoot up a bit when paired with younger Rasmus Andersson, and that’s what the Flames have gone to of late.

Going forward, the Flames might find themselves in the same position as the Hawks, needing to find a replacement for their stalwart while he’s still around. That was the hope for Andersson, but he hasn’t grabbed that yet. Neither has Oliver Kylington, who is in and out of the lineup. The Flames might have the option of going outside the organization for help, as they’ll have over $20M in space in the summer including both Brodie and Hamonic being free agents if they choose to remake their blue line.

Gio will be 37 then, and the time is now for the Flames given the ages of Gaudreau and Monahan and Tkachuk. It would be folly to trust the big minutes entirely to a 37-year-old for a Cup contender, which is what the Flames are built to be (even if they’ve spent the first part of this year being decidedly something else). Giordano’s one individual award won’t be enough for everyone.

Hockey

Game #44 – Flames vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, And Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1349 0

Milan Lucic – By god he found another home. It’s amazing how many teams are willing to take a chance on a player because they might provide “grit,” the most nebulous and overvalued skill in any sport. Lucic still can’t move, still can’t score, and no one gives a shit about his antics because he’s such a boon on the ice to the opponent. And he’s murdering the Flames’ cap just as he did up the road in EdMo. This guy’s been an albatross for five years. You have to almost be impressed. But hey, maybe after a whistle he can spear a guy in the nuts. That’ll get the Flames up the standings.

Whichever of Keith Tkachuk’s Garbage Sons Is Here – Not that there’s any difference. They all run their mouth and start shit all the time. But when you watch them do it you know this is just an extension of when they would go throw things at homeless people with their other private school friends. They’re just spoiled rich kids who never got told to shut up or got the shit kicked out of them because of who dad was, and got all the best training in hockey because he was rich. You know the Tkachuk’s, they just have a different name.

Not Using The Retros All The Time – The old look at home is great. Then the Flames debuted their retro whites this year, and it’s clearly what they should be wearing all the time. More teams need to learn that having black as a lining or a color, unless it’s a main color of the team–only deadens the look in HD and live. The Hawks only have the stripes on sleeves and waist which is why their jerseys still pop.. Thank god the Flames are going to these full-time next year. Enough with the superfluous piping and stripes and whatnot.