Alex DeBrincat – Page 7 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

Hockey

Game #8 – Flyers vs Hawks Preview – Burn After Writing

By Matt McClure October 24, 2019 1735 0

vs

RECORDS: Flyers 3-3-1 Hawks 2-3-2

PUCK DROP: 7:30PM CDT
TV/RADIO: NBC Sports Chicago, ESPN+, WGN-AM 720
BAM, LEAVE YOUR FATHER ALONE: Broad St. Hockey

The homestand at the United Center turns down the final stretch for the Hawks with tonight being the 6th of their seven straight on West Madison, and they’ll welcome their Prague travel mates the Philadelphia Flyers, wrapping up the season series between the two of them before the calendar hits November in another brilliant bit of NHL scheduling.

Since returning home from Europe, things have been back and forth for the Cold Ones, at one point losing four straight (three in regulation), and did so on a Western Canadian swing to boot, so at least they have a plausible travel excuse for their uneven play to this point. Most recently they pretty easily disposed of the Knights on Monday night prior to Vegas being here, though they did so early and often on Oscar Dansk appearing in his first NHL game in two years. Regardless, points in October and against overmatched goalies still count, and the Flyers are going to need every win they can get in a suddenly ultra competitive Metropolitan Division.

While Carter Hart hasn’t gotten off to a fantastic start (.907 at evens, .890 overall), which also included getting the hook in a 6-3 ass waxing in Edmonton, he’s going to get the bulk of the starts in net even if The Terminal Case Of Brian Elliott has been solid in his two starts. If the long term goal is to finally develop a stable goaltending presence in Philly, Hart is going to have to work through some of this stuff, and Alain Vigneault and the Flyera brass will have to resist the temptation of chasing spurious playoff hopes behind the aging and always flattering-to-deceive Elliott. It will he Hart’s net tonight, based on reports from the Flyers’ skate.

In front of him, AV seems to have figured out his defensive pairings with all three of them solidly in the black. Ivan Provorov is the defacto #1 here, at least when pointed towards the other net, though he’s not totally helpless in his own end. He’s paired with Matt Niskanen, whose cowboy days are probably over, but is still smart enough with the puck to keep things moving. Shayne Gostisbehere has been relegated to the third pairing with Robert Hagg, and getting the choice zone starts and matchups has helped give the Flyers push on all three pairings. That’s been possible with the emergence of Travis Sanheim as a legit top-4 defenseman, and he’s baby sat by Justin Braun on the second pairing.

Up front, the Flyers have been jumbling things around recently, and they at least worked against Vegas for a night fairly solidly. Claude Giroux has moved back to the middle with his familiar running mate Jakub Voracek on his right and JVR on his left. Neither Giroux or JVR have scored yet this year, but they’re both certainly in a position to break that bubble given how that line is constructed. Sean Couturier slots behind Giroux and will take whatever AV deems as the toughest matchup on a nightly basis. He’ll have Travis Koneckny on his right, who hasn’t stopped scoring since game 1 in Prague, and leads the team with 10 points. Oscar Lindblom is on the opposite side, and as a unit this line is currently sporting a 65 share of attempts in 50 minutes of even strength time together. Offseason acquisition Kevin “Captain Stairwell” Hayes has found himself as the third center already, which is probably where he ideally slots in on a good team anyway regardless of his paycheck. 2018 first rounder Joel Farabee is ahead of schedule on Hayes’ wing, and made his NHL debut against Vegas on Monday. Chris Stewart somehow caught on to the Flyers’ roster on a PTO, so he and Michael Raffl will assuredly contribute a very irritating goal at some point this evening from the fourth line.

As for the Men of Four Feathers, though the process against a better Vegas team on Tuesday was quite solid for 58 minutes, the results still need to be there, and Coach Kelvin Gemstone will now have to do some regrouping of things now that once again Connor Murphy is having crotch issues. With Murphy out, Slater Koekkoek will get his spot in the lineup, and Dennis “I Have The Name Of A Grandfather” Gilbert has been recalled to take the roster spot. Given the tools available, moving Calvin de Haan to the right side with Duncan Keith is about the only reasonable move here, as de Haan’s game is equally as positionally sound as Murphy’s though not quite as mobile. The hope is that trust can still be maintained from Keith, who has looked sprightly in cutting off entry attempts at his own blue line since being paired with Murphy, reminiscent of four or five years ago. Olli Maata will continue to bail water for Brent Seabrook, the only pairing that will remain unchanged. Koekkoek will play with Erik Gustafsson, whose play in a contract year has been unbelievably bad. Viewers at home with leftover pairs of eclipse glasses from two summers ago would be wise to throw those on when these two are out there.

The forward lines for the Hawks will stay the same, and while these groups haven’t been offensively bad at any juncture, they’re certainly not getting home as much as they need to. Alex DeBrincat is fighting it for the first time in his young career, and as was covered on the podcast last night, he’s still within the margins of getting his normal looks/attempts/chances, so it could be just a case of being snake bitten. But ADB is one of two “bad shot makers” that the Hawks have, and if it one of them isn’t finishing, then the results look like they have so far this season. That’s not likely to change tonight, as Coach Vinny Del Colliton would be very wise to keep Kirby Dach away from Coots as much as his humanly possible before he extinguishes any desire the rookie might have in continuing a career in the sport. Robin Lehner gets the net again tonight after another strong performance, though let it be said that Corey Crawford hasn’t exactly been benched, as Crow currently has a .930 mark at even strength, but the .615 while shorthanded might just be torpedoing that a little bit, and SHOULD rebound a little the longer the season progresses.

Alain Vigneault might be a lot of things (a penis and a crybaby for starters), but he’s not a moron, and he basically pioneered the usage of drastically unbalanced zone starts in Vancouver, and he has such a weapon in Couturier now here in Philadelphia. This stretch at home has shown that Beto O’Colliton is at least willing to get elbow deep into matchups when he’s got last change, but tonight he’ll be playing chess against a guy who has a lot more experience in doing so. There are matchups to be found against this Flyers bottom six, but he’ll need to be diligent in finding them. And stay out of the goddamn box (looking at you, 65). Let’s go Hawks.

Hockey

Game #5 – Fishin’ for a Good Time Starts With Throwin’ In Your Line – Hawks 2, Jackets 2 (Hawks Win Take-Off-Your-Pants-and-Jacket Karaoke Contest)

By John Pullega October 18, 2019 1935 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

After a monumental diaper filling in the first period that would have made even Bobby Hull ask, “What the fuck am I doing here?” the Hawks managed to mostly lock their shit down and scratch out a victory on none other than Jonathan Toews’s stick. Which is good, because you wouldn’t be remiss to wonder where the fuck he’s been lately. Let’s clean it up.

– If you’re a “stick to sports” kind of fella (and you absolutely are a fella if that’s your mind-set, and if you don’t like that assumption, fuck you), skip this bullet. Or better yet, don’t.

Pat Foley is the voice many of us have followed forever and ever now. We were all pissed when the Hawks flicked him like a well-rolled booger back in the dark days, and we were overjoyed to have him back initially. But it’s probably time for this motherfucker to go.

At the tail-end of the first period, Nick Gismondi did a nice spot about how 35 Olympian women hockey players were playing a four-team tourney at Fifth Third Arena (or whatever corporate horseshit it’s named after). He mentioned that the morning before today’s game, they were skating with about 65 girls, aged 5–16, and that the tourney was to raise awareness and support of women’s hockey. Gismondi said that Hilary Knight made a comment about maybe having Foley and Edzo call a couple of their games. After sharing a laugh, Foley said, “Well, that’s be the best-looking team we’ve ever covered.”

That’s grade-A, unfiltered horseshit.

I’m sure Foley thought it was a cute compliment. It isn’t. These are Olympic athletes, some of whom have won gold motherfucking medals. They take their sport seriously and are doing their absolute best to make others take it seriously too. To have someone as well-known as Pat Foley minimizing what these women are doing by commenting foremost on their looks is a waste of everyone’s time. Foley’s job, whether you like it or not, is to inform people who are listening about the intricacies of the game. By minimizing these women’s accomplishments to make what he likely thought was a cute joke, he’s established that this tournament is a joke, which is unfiltered dogshit.

As a professional broadcaster, a person whose sole job is to communicate expertise to people who might not otherwise know better, Foley should absolutely know better. Fuck you if you think it’s innocuous, because it isn’t. Framing women’s hockey as a glorified peep show isn’t something we need or want (and again, if you think this isn’t a big deal, I can’t suggest that you fuck yourself more than I am right now).

While I’m pretty sure it was just Foley being out of touch, rather than consciously shitty, it’s inexcusable.

If there’s one positive that came out of this dick tripping, it’s the exasperation that came from Edzo, who tried to cover for his out-of-touch partner as much as possible with a “You hope everyone gets a chance to watch” comment immediately after.

Women aren’t just things to look at. Believe it or not, they’re living, breathing, shitting fucking people with goals, ambition, and aspirations. Foley either needs to either get with it or hang it fucking up.

– Now, to the hockey at hand. Thank Christ Robin Lehner showed up. The first period saw the Hawks get annihilated in possession. If Lehner isn’t at the top of his game, we likely have a Hagar going into the second.

– There wasn’t much to like about anything outside of Lehner tonight. Somehow, Maatta and Seabrook were the two best defenders in terms of Corsi (60+% and 50%, respectively). Coach Kelvin Gemstone leaned mostly on the Shaw–Strome–Kane line, because double-shifting Kane is his fucking counter-clockwise swirl at this point.

– We all like Saad–Kampf–Kubalik, but at some point, Colliton is going to have to put those two wingers next to Toews. He simply doesn’t mesh well with DeBrincat, and Caggiula—for as nice as he is—isn’t a top 6 guy. Toews brought up the rear in Corsi with a putrid 28% at 5v5. Yeah, scoring an OT game winner is cool and all. But it’s a waste of DeBrincat and Toews’s skill, and Caggiula’s . . .whatever. . .to keep them together.

– Caggiula’s goal was nice, though. Floating at center ice and a quick snap shot gave the Hawks an entirely undeserved 1–0 lead. Caggiula is useful, but probably not on the first line is all.

– Connor Murphy got totally horsed on Markus Nutivaara’s goal. I kept looking for the penalty Edzo was talking about, but all I saw was a D-man beating another D-man.

– Kubalik didn’t show up on the score sheet, but his vision is excellent. He had two excellent passes in the first—including a one-handed attempt—that found Saad on the doorstep. But as is Saad’s wont, he couldn’t quite pot them. Putting Saad and Kubalik with Toews is something that should happen in the next game. You can always revert to 20–64–8 when facing the likes of McDavid. In the meantime, stack that top line.

– Good to see Erik Gustafsson continue to do his best Bitcoin impression.

– Calvin de Haan is a wonderfully representative defensive defenseman. He made a couple of odd-man-rush plays that made me say, “Ah, that’s what a defenseman is supposed to do there.”

– Top Cat got off the schneid on the power play. It was the old Gus–Kane–Top Cat connection, with Kane slinging a saucer onto Top Cat’s stick through the slot for an easy one timer.

The Hawks will welcome the Caps on Sunday. The Caps have legitimate scorers on their team, so this dragging-their-asses-like-a-dog-with-worms play style won’t cut it there.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Victory Sour Monkey

Line of the Night: “Not a good piece of skin cancer.” Pat Foley, describing John Tortorella’s basil-cell carcinoma removal.

Hockey

Game #3 – Jets vs. Hawks Preview: Third Time Lucky?

By Sam Fels October 12, 2019 1404 0

vs.

RECORDS: Jets 3-2-0 Hawks 0-2-0

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

LOOKING FOR AN AIRPORT: Arctic Ice Hockey

The Hawks will try and get their first points of the season in the second of seven straight at home, and they’ll do it in their first division game of the nascent season. The Winnipeg Jets roll in having won their last two, steamrolling both the Penguins and Wild after opening the season being looser defensively than the current bond on my windshield wipers (minor car repair is not my thing).

In their first three games, Winnipeg surrendered 14 goals in the three-game New York swing. They’ve tightened up to only let in three in the last two, but this blue line is a mess either way. Jacob Trouba and Ben Chiarot are gone, Dustin Byfuglien is off looking for answers, and what’s left is a shallow and brackish pool. Or Poolman (KARROOOOOGGGAA!). When your top pairing has Dmitri Kulikov on it, you know you have issues. Neal Pionk and Josh Morrissey aren’t doing much to help, which is why the Jets are surrendering the third most shots per game at a touch over 36. That’s even worse than the Hawks! It can happen!

But, as you know after all these years with the Jets as division foes, if there’s any team that can outshoot its defensive waywardness and lack of possession, it’s this outfit. Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor have switched places on the top two lines, which hasn’t stopped the top one from scoring even though they have some truly whiff-tastic metrics. Bryan Little hasn’t started the season yet due to brain injury, but Andrew Copp has filled in admirably. The Jets still have that hybrid checking line of Mathieu Perreault, Adam Lowry, and now Mark Letestu. They can do just about whatever you ask.

Because the Jets’ defense is a whatever is hopping cargo trains into town, Connor Hellebuyck is going to need to have a stellar season. So far so good on that one, as he’s up at .927 in three starts. The Jets do play tomorrow, hosting the Penguins this time, so the Hawks might get a look at Laurent Brossoit, one of the league’s better backups last year.

For the Hawks, it took two games for the lineup that shook out of Magic Training Camp to be blown up. To be fair to coach Kelvin Gemstone, the new look lines do make some sense, with the top three having the Puck-Winner-Playmaker-Finisher combos that Quenneville favored. Alex DeBrincat will shuffle up to play with Toews and Caggiula, and Kane will slot down to play with Dylan Strome and Andrew Shaw. The third unit that started so brightly against San Jose before being broken up and torpedoing the whole arrangement remains intact of Saad-Kampf-Kubalik (A little bit of the Kubbly!)

The shuffling doesn’t stop at forward, as Calvin de Haan‘s season debut has rejiggered the d-pairs as well. After being the low-hanging target that Colliton could call out, Erik Gustaffson is dropped to the third pairing with de Haan, as Colliton was shocked to find out that Gus can’t actually play any defense. Connor Murphy will join Duncan Keith, a pairing that just hasn’t worked as well as you’d think in the past. Still, Murphy is just about the only d-man on the roster with the mobility to cover for Keith’s wanderings and meanderings at his own line and down low. Maybe this time it will be different.

Robin Lehner will make his Hawks debut so Corey Crawford can get some air.

There are no must-wins in October, but it would behoove the Hawks to get off the schneid tonight. 0-2 is nothing more than a blip, whatever worrying signs contained within. But 0-3 starts to border on a whole thing, and it wouldn’t be too much longer before the Hawks have to play catch-up for the whole season. There’s already a strain and pressure on the players and coach and front office, and another biffed start to the season is only going to make it worse. Maybe this time there will be real consequences.

As if.

Considering the state of each teams’ defenses here, this one should have some goals. Entertainment is all we ask, and should get it to kick off a Saturday night.

Hockey

It’s Time…For Time

By Sam Fels October 9, 2019 1527 0

I was reading Ryan Lambert’s article today about how the Oilers pretty much have to run Leon Draisaitl‘s and Connor McDavid‘s ice-time tank to the “E” every night, and began thinking about how the Hawks will manage the same thing this season.

The Hawks aren’t a deep team, though they’re deeper than the Oilers even with Drais-Cube and McJesus. If the Hawks are going to do anything this year that you might remember, they’re going to do it on the backs of Kane, Toews, and DeBrincat doing remarkable things. So how much should Jeremy Colliton toss them over the boards? We know the answer is a lot, but finding the right amount is going to be tricky.

As we know last year, Patrick Kane only trailed Draisaitl and McDavid in time last season. He had a jump of a full two minutes per game from the previous season, breaking over 22:00 per game. That was also the highest of his career, at age 30, and even though his insane workout regimen has been well documented, it seemed less than ideal.

And that was bared out as the season went along. Kane went for 16 points in his last 18 games, which pretty much every other player on the planet save a handful would consider the best streak of their lives. But it doesn’t look as good when you consider that in the previous 38 games Kane went for 65 points (seriously). And sure, there’s some variance in there with power play scoring and shooting-percentage and such. But anyone who watched the Hawks in March and April last year (or would admit to it and then accept the concerned looks from their friends that would follow) knows that Kane looked a half-step slower in the season’s final throes. And why wouldn’t he?

Now maybe after a season of doing it, Kane is more prepared to take on 22 minutes per night, and wouldn’t you know he played 21:30 in the season opener. Still, 22 minutes a night for a winger seems a tad high, though we’re likely to get it again as this Alex Nylander thing blows up in their faces down the road. At least until my guy Philip Kurashev comes to save the day!

Toews also saw a big jump in his minutes last year, and also a career-high, clocking in at a flat 21:00. The Hawks are probably even thinner at center this year than they were last, though perhaps Ryan Carpenter is a push to Artem Anisimov depending on how you look at it. This would be less of a problem if Kirby Dach is kept around, but we’ve had that talk. How much do you want to push Toews at 31? Toews also tailed off a bit last season toward the end, though not as sharply. He had 15 points in the last 18 games where he’d gone 45 in 38 before.

Perhaps it’s DeBrincat who might see the real push in time this year? Top Cat only averaged a shade under 18 minutes a night last year. Now it would be easy to point out he doesn’t kill penalties and needs to be sheltered in shifts, but you could say the same things about Kane. Perhaps Top Cat doesn’t create as much offensively as Kane does, he’s more of a finisher, but he’s also not bereft of inspiration for his teammates either. He’s never been asked to do it much, always installed as the finisher on a line or power play. But it wouldn’t hurt to see if he can do more when shifted occasionally with some plugs, because it’s in his locker.

It might also help if Brandon Saad could author some streaks to warrant pushing 20 minutes a night, but that ship might have sailed. Same goes from Dylan Strome, and that ship is very much still in port.

Needless to say, the Hawks need these guys on the ice as much as possible, without cracking 22 or really even going over 21 minutes a night if they want Daydream Nation to still have anything in the tank come spring. The hope is that Strome and Top Cat make themselves available and necessary for 19-20 minutes per night as well. If that happens, the Hawks might actually do something. If they have to lean on the plus-30 Kane and Toews over 21 minutes a night again, they’re probably in that spot with the upstream and no paddles thing.

Hockey

Game #1 – Hawks 3, Flyers 4: Nothing Rhymes With Orange

By Sam Fels October 4, 2019 2491 0

Box Score

Shift Chart

Natural Stat Trick

Ok, so we’re off. Sort of. It’s a little silly to jump to any conclusions off of one game played in a weird place due to odd scheduling. It’s a little difficult to not feel a tad deflated when the Hawks looked exactly like we kind of feared they would. Sloppy, slow, and disjointed, unable to deal with any kind of forecheck or pressure. It’s hard to get too mad when you’ve had to do without your two best defensive d-men (and maybe best overall), as no team really wants to scrape into #8 and #9 on their depth chart. Even if the Hawks are just opting to not use one of their best in Adam Boqvist instead of being forced deeper into the well.

The Hawks will remain in most games simply because their top end talent will scrape out a goal or two because it can. That said, this wasn’t exactly a world-beater on the other side, and the Hawks were second-best all over. The metrics and numbers are bordering on heinous.

But hey, it’s my job to clean it up, so let’s hop to it:

The Two Obs

-So you’ve had three weeks of MAGIC TRAINING CAMP, which is three weeks to see who can play with who and what works best. And two periods into your first game, you’re already rearranging things from the start. That feels…less than ideal.

-Alex Nylander went from the penthouse to the outhouse pretty quickly. There is little doubt that if you can get him in open ice, he can do things. That’s what the first goal was as he was able to corral a loose puck at center and had the freedom of the blue line as the Flyers backed off him. The problem is the Sabres and other scouts didn’t think he had much interest or ability to find openings in tight spaces when everyone is where they should be. Clearly Colliton didn’t think much of those efforts today, as halfway through he was skating with Ryan Carpenter and Zack Smith. Drake Caggiula was called to try and open up some space.

Which, if you’re skating Toews and Kane together, is what they need. Toews isn’t the dual space-opener/finisher he once was. He is probably better as the finisher on a line now, evidenced by the 30+ he put up last season. Which means they need a forechecker, grunt-type, which Caggiula is. Nylander is most certainly not.

-I’m still getting used to the xG markers for individual games in both hockey and soccer, but when you’re basically getting doubled up in that at both evens and overall, you’re not creating much, you’re giving up too much, and you’re basically getting domed.

-The Hawks experts on TV and some in the media will try and chalk this up to just one-off sloppiness or looseness. But that’s what this team will look like a lot of nights. They can’t gain the opposing line with control and speed because their defense is so slow that when they do corral a puck in their own zone all they can do is just gasp for air, i.e. fire it out to the neutral zone or in the vague direction of a teammate at their own line, praying to Yahweh that they can somehow corral that pass. They still try and make too many passes to get out, and they don’t have time for it most of the time anyway. Yes, teams mostly now just want to lay pucks out into the neutral zone for forwards to skate onto. Or just make one pass and go. But that is done with a modicum of control or plan. The Hawks are just thrashing about, trying to find the sides of the pool to keep from going under.

-It might look a little better if Duncan Keith can locate a fuck to give between now and whenever. My guess is he isn’t looking all that hard. His gap on Konecny’s second was simply woeful. And I counted two or three times when he half-heartedly tried to make a play at his line, his former calling-card, missed and fell on his face.

-Which means you’re restricted to individual brilliance, which Kane provided for goals two and three today. Doesn’t hurt that #2 went to one of the best finishers on the planet.

-Colliton was double-shifting Kane in the second period. Does he know another song to sing?

-Your best possession line was the second one, and I would hope we see more of that and due to the improved skating of Strome’s which is clear.

-Saad-Kampf-Kubalik was given the dungeon shifts and came out basically even, which is nice. One wonders just how this line would be deployed when Dach is the center, which the Hawks are going to at least try. Of course, the one thing you might want to try is slotting Toews between these two wingers, putting Dach with Kane and Caggiula or Shaw or someone and keeping them exclusively in the offensive zone. Think we’ll see that? No, me either.

-One problem for Boqvist is that the Hawks already don’t use Gustafsson on the kill. So if 27 were in the lineup as well, that means the Hawks would be trying to kill penalties with just four d-men. This could be solved by dressing seven d-men, but the amount of piss that gets spilled onto the floor every time the Hawks try this probably keeps that from happening.

-Some debate on Twitter about Shaw’s penalty that eventually resulted in a four-on-four goal against. Yes, no one wants DeBrincat getting crosschecked gleefully and freely while he’s prone on the ice. But if Shaw just goes and grabs and hugs Sanheim, it’s almost never a penalty. When you wind up trying to do a Bo Jackson across the other guy’s chest, you’re inviting the ref to make a call, no matter how weak. Just grab him and do your yappy thing. It’s what you do best.

Let’s see how it looks with Murphy and de Haan back. Until then…

Onwards…

Hockey

The Production of Cats We Like

By Sam Fels October 3, 2019 1841 0

The rare genuinely exciting news broke out of Hawks camp this morning, where it was announced that Alex DeBrincat has put pen to paper on a three-year extension, starting next season. The deal will pay $6.4M per season, which is honestly kind of insane.

Top Cat would have had every right to pursue what Kyle Connor, or Patrik Laine were after, or what Mikko Rantanen actually got. Same goes for William Nylander. This could have turned quite ugly next summer, and likely spilled into next fall. Clearly DeBrincat wanted the security of the next three years and the Hawks were equally excited to have this in the bag quickly and efficiently.

There are clearly some interesting quirks to this deal. You can’t help but notice it ends at the same time as Kane’s and Toews’s contracts, which is when the Hawks might be headed for a hard reset anyway. Should they send Kirby Dach back to the WHL, assuming he’s still alive, that would be the end of his entry-level deal as well. Funny enough, that just so happens to be when Duncan Keith’s deal is also up, assuming he makes it all the way through. Strange, no? It’ll also be the first full season after a new CBA, when a tweaked or possibly wholly different system is in place.

Now, there could be some sort of under-the-table agreement that when the Hawks have at least near $27M in cap space freshly available in 2022 thanks to the expiration of contracts to The Main Three, that Top Cat will get a further extension. Or he’s betting on himself to get a really big number. Either way, the Hawks should have the flexibility then to do what they need, assuming they don’t fuck it up be reacquiring…oh I don’t know, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Teuvo Teravainen when they’re old (please reacquire Teuvo).

As we said on the podcast, if the Hawks really do plan on making another run with the old guard still in place, they kind of have to do it during Boqvist’s and Dach’s entry-level deals (assuming those players turn out to be everything they hope). Basically in the next three or four years. Does this deal help them do that? Sure does, but it’s still going to take some work. They currently have $11M in space for next year, and they have two big spots they have to fill. One is goalie, and the other is Dylan Strome’s spot, as the defense is going to be reinforced by kids (you’d hope. Man, a lot of parentheticals today).

I say “spot,” because I’m willing to wager that the Hawks want to see Strome earn it this season. If he were to spit it, they would just let Dach take the #2 center role before ascending to the #1 cheaply and basically tell Strome to do one. If Strome does earn an extension, him and whatever goalie they choose almost certainly eat up most if not all the cap space the Hawks have. Of course, some of that could be alleviated by jettisoning some combination of Saad, Shaw, Smith, or Maatta off the roster either during this season or in the summer. All these guys have something to play for, clearly.

Still, to get Top Cat at that number is a good thing. A very good thing. Keep in mind that even with the juiced scoring last year, there were still only 13 guys to eclipse 40 goals. Top Cat was one of them, and they’re getting him for a touch more than Jake Guentzel. It’s nice work. It also removes that headache discussion all season, which is a relief to everyone.

So it’s over to you, Strome.

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Dylan Strome

By Adam Hess September 30, 2019 1479 0

A couple of weeks ago I read a metaphor that was being applied to a certain quarterback of a certain local football team, but as I thought more about it, could also apply to Stan Bowman. Ol’ Stan is like golf – you can play up-and-down golf for 17 holes, constantly battling relief and frustration with your own shots, but then you approach your second shot on 18 and crank it 3 yards short of the pin, and think to yourself, “This really ain’t so bad. I will come back and do it again because I am good.” Bowman has had plenty of hits and misses in recent years, but the Dylan Strome trade is that birdie-on-18 that makes you think this guy really does still have the good GM inside him.

2018-19 Stats

*all stats are with Hawks

58 GP – 17 G – 34 A – 51 P

46.18 CF% (-3.20 CF% Rel) – 56.66 oZS%

43.08 xGF% (-3.26 xGF% Rel)

Avg. TOI: 17:03

A Brief History: Strome was widely considered one of the top prospects in hockey for a few years after being picked third overall in 2015, after Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel. The only problem with that sentence is that generally, guys picked that high in the draft don’t remain “prospects” very long. It’s plenty understandable for a No. 3 pick to not be in the NHL right away (we may even see that with Kirby Dach, but I digress), but that Strome couldn’t even carve out a regular role for himself on the 2017-18 Coyotes seemed a bit problematic. But Stan and company clearly saw something there – probably the utter lack of quality forwards to pair Strome with in the desert – and realized that John Chayka might be analytically inclined but he’s still a huge dumbass, and was go get Strome and Brendan Perlini for Nick Schmaltz.

The change of scenery was huge for Strome, as he got to pair with his old OHL teammate in Alex DeBrincat, and those two were joined by some guy named Patrick Kane. Strome’s production took off from there, and after having just 3 goals and 6 points in his first 20 games of the season in Glendale, he came to Chicago and produced at a near point per game pace, with 17 goals and 34 assists giving him 51 points in 58 appearances. There are some concerns about those relative CF% and xGF%, but if he can take a step forward in the production, it will help mitigate some of those.

It Was the Best of Times: Strome having a full offseason and camp as a Hawk and being able to get more familiar with Jeremy Colliton‘s system and his teammates results in a huge boom, and he launches himself toward the ceiling that many teams and scouts saw and dreamed on when he was in the draft. Playing in the full 82, Strome steps his production rate to just above a point-per-game rate, and gives the Hawks 90 points from the “second” line. In the process, he solidifies himself as a candidate to be the top center on the Hawks moving forward, and the future looks much brighter for the pivots in Chicago. Oh, and he signs a contract extension with an AAV below $9M.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Strome reverts to the guy he was in Arizona, and solidifies himself as one of the bigger NHL busts in recent memory. Despite playing with Top Cat and Kane for most the season again, he just can’t find a scoring touch and somehow manages to just never be involved in goals by other of those two. He ends up with just 40 points on the year, and the shot and expected goal shares get worse in the process. His feet also morph into literal cinderblocks.

Prediction: I tweeted at Pullega the other day that this season, 12-17-88 has a chance to be A) a whole lot of fuckin’ fun and B) the most productive line in hockey. Kane is a near lock for 90-ish points and 100+ is completely reasonable. Top Cat is gonna give you 70+ and maybe can get into the 90+ range. Strome is the biggest question mark on the line, but I think that playing with those two a lot, which he should and hopefully will, will result in at least 60 points, even by accident. If he becomes an active participant in the production on that line, which I think he will, he can get 80 points himself and potentially even the 90 I mentioned in the Best of Times. My official prediction for Strome – 27 goals, 81 points. Combining that with my 43 goals and 83 points from Top Cat and 45/108 from Kane, we have one line accounting for 115 goals and 272 points. Am I optimistic? Yes. Am I crazy? Maybe not. But I know two things – that would indeed be in the running for most productive line, and also that may still not be enough for the Hawks to make the playoffs, because hockey is fucked and the Hawks blue line might be too.

Stats via NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.

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Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Andrew Shaw

By Adam Hess September 27, 2019 1771 0

I was not a huge fan of the Blackhawks moves over the offseason, but just about all of them were understandable. They brought in some defensemen, even if not great ones, because they clearly needed blue line help. They traded Artem Anisimov for Zach Smith because they both suck, but Smith was ever-so-slightly cheaper. They signed Robin Lehner to shore up the crease, which has seen a lot of instability lately, and provide insurance for an aging Crawford.

But trading for Andrew Shaw was a move that I cannot understand in any sense other than “this is a guy we are familiar with.” Shaw is still everything he was when the Hawks got rid of him three years ago, which is: not as good as he gets credit for, frustrating as shit with his penalties, and expensive relative to his skill level and production. Let’s just get this over with.

2018-19 Stats (with Canadiens)

63 GP – 19 G – 28 A – 47 P

52.43 CF% (-2.39 CF% Rel) – 50.29 oZS%

53.79 xGF% (-0.29xGF% Rel)

Avg. TOI: 15:55

A Brief History: The common line being used in defense of the trade when it happened was that Shaw was coming off a career year in Montreal. And that is correct. Shaw’s overall contribution of 47 points was by far a career high, marking the first time in that he exceeded the 40-point mark. He also did that despite missing 19 games, putting him on a ~62 point pace had he appeared in all 82 (which he has never done in his career, by the way). That seems good! “So, Adam, why do you hate this trade so much?” you may be asking. Well, dear reader, because all of that production will be as fleeting as a fart in the wind.

Shaw’s shooting percentage of 14.1 last year was the second highest of his career, and tied for the highest-mark he’s ever posted in a “full” season, with only his 16.2% conversion rate in 37 games in rookie campaign being better. Moreover, Shaw had shot right around the 10% mark in the each of the four years prior, going 10.2%, 9.2%, 9.4%, and 10.6% from 2014-15 to 2017-18. Now sure, that was after doing a 14.1 and 13.4 percent in his first two full years, including a 20 goal season in 2013-14, but since then he had been consistently mediocre and had never topped 15 goals until last season.

I would love to be wrong about Shaw here, but I feel like trading future 2nd and 3rd round picks for a guy like Shaw, who projects to regress hard and will still cost you almost $4-million against the salary cap for two more years is going to end up looking like a hugely stupid move in the future. The Hawks are essentially banking on last year not being a fluke, and if we know anything about hockey, it’s that you should always be speculative about a guy having a career year at 27 years old. It was smart to get rid of him when they did back in 2016, and they even ended up with Alex DeBrincat as a result. It would’ve been smarter to adopt a no returns policy on this one.

It Was The Best of Times: Shaw proves that I am a huge fucking idiot with no clue what he is talking about, and goes out there shooting and playing at a similar level to last season, showing that it was not a fluke. He plays in all 82 games, getting some run on multiple lines but ending up a surprising first line right wing with Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad, and scores 20 goals for the second time in his career. By virtue of keeping up his ’18-’19 scoring pace and playing all 82, he tops 50 points for the first time in his career and gets close to 60, and he has a mutually beneficial relationship as a lineman with 19 and 20, helping to power the Hawks to the playoffs.

It Was the BLURST of Times: The luck pendulum swings to the other side on Shaw, and he ends up a $4-million fourth liner as he shoots 6% and can’t even top 10 goals, the first time in his career failing to meet that mark. Frustrated by his lack of scoring and overall suckage, he starts taking Tom Wilson-esque runs at opponents, and ends up with a career high PIM total, putting the Hawks shit ass PK on the ice way more often than it should be. As a result, the Hawks lose a number of games with opposing PPG’s as the difference, and it costs the Hawks a playoff spot in the end.

Prediction: Shaw ends up returning to what he really is – a somewhat versatile forward with a propensity for stupid plays, who shoots 10% and adds 12-15 goals for you and 30-35 points. I’ll go ahead and call it 14 goals and 18 assists for 32 points. That will all be well and fine on the third line, but it’s not much better than you could’ve gotten from the guys you already had here, and I’m damn near positive it’s not worth the draft capital the Hawks gave up to get him here.

Hockey

Preseason Game #5 – Plugged in and Ready to Fall – Caps 6, Hawks 0

By John Pullega September 25, 2019 1448 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Whatever.

– I’m a bit worried that the Hawks are struggling to adapt to the Jeremy Colliton Route Tree in the defensive zone. On the Caps’s second goal, Toews managed to win a faceoff at the far circle in his own zone, which Seabrook correctly swung over to the near boards. Nylander was closest to the puck, but instead of chasing and clearing it, he stuck himself onto Ovi, giving Wolfenstein NPC Jonas Siegenthaler all the time in the world to retrieve the puck and keep the pressure on. In this case, I hope this was Nylander simply not having any idea how to play hockey when he doesn’t have the puck. But it sure looked like Nylander gave it some thought when he played literal man-to-man defense on Ovi.

Then, early in the third, Koekkoek ended up at his own blue line to defend . . . something? This led to a mad and unnecessary scramble for Crawford, as Erik Gustafsson was the only defender in the area.

If this is what Colliton’s full training camp is going to spit out, then Marc Crawford might need to squeeze his ass into his David Lee Roth pants sooner than we thought.

– It’s going to be really great when Alex Nylander finally arrives and starts playing hockey for the Chicago Blackhawks. I hear he’s an offensive dynamo. Can’t wait to see him.

– Dominik Kubalik on a line with Saad and Kampf doesn’t make sense. Neither of them is a playmaker. Kubalik has a booming shot. You see the problem. He still looked good tonight, but where he’s at really hampers him. What’s worse is that this is a result of Colliton shoehorning Nylander on the top line despite the fact that he has done nothing to earn that. Whatever.

– Adam Boqvist had an unfortunate blowout that led to the Caps’s first goal. He was a bit more noticeable in the third, a period in which the Hawks had exactly two shots on goal, so again, whatever. That Colliton didn’t use him once on any of the Hawks’s four power plays (opting for Keith and Seabrook instead because fuck you) is maddening, especially when he whipped out his throbbing galaxy brain by putting Boqvist on the PK in the third. Yeah, it’s only preseason, but that’s really something.

– Top Cat looked like shit all around. Nothing to worry about, but it happened.

– If Erik Gustafsson doesn’t score 60 points this year, he’s useless. He looked like a mummy having his wrappings pulled apart by two clowns on tricycles for the Caps’s fourth goal.

– The PP1 only works if 12–56–88 are constantly cycling. They did none of that tonight, and the PP looked like horseshit.

One more preseason game in Boston, then on to the old country.

Onward.

Booze du Jour: Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “I’m a mess.” –Pat Foley

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega September 25, 2019 1553 0

Few people hold Brandon Saad’s jock like I do. Today, I’m going to try something different. Rather than going all in on how THIS WILL BE THE YEAR THE REAL BRANDON SAAD APPEARS, I’m going to try to figure out where the latent angst about Saad exists, despite all the good he does on paper.

2018–19 Stats

80 GP – 23 G, 24 A, 47 P

52.69 CF% (5.1 CF% Rel), 49.9 oZS%

47.06 GF% (-2.97 Rel GF%), 47.27 xGF% (2.61 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 17:41

Last Year’s Saad Review

A Brief History: Let’s start with the easy shit. Saad’s 23 goals and 47 points are right about in line with what he’s shown he can do in his career. His 24 assists were down a hair relative to his career numbers. His shooting percentage jumped back toward his norm (11.8% last year; 11.1% career). Those are excellent numbers for a third liner, which is how Colliton used Saad primarily last year. But when you trade a guy like Artemi Panarin, you expect more than a third liner in return.

The topline numbers place Saad in second-liner territory. It’s those pesky underlying numbers that make Saad a flashpoint of frustration. Of Blackhawks who played at least 41 games, Saad had the best CF% (52.69) and CF% Rel (5.1). (If you include Sikura [33 games] and Jokiharju [38 games], he’s third overall in both.)

Here’s how he affects the Hawks in terms of the shots the Hawks take when he is and isn’t on the ice.

All Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

The heat map looks even better in when you put Saad in isolation.

Simply, the Blackhawks are a much bigger offensive threat with Saad on the ice.

On the defensive side, the numbers aren’t quite as friendly, but the Hawks are still a better defensive team with Saad on the ice than without.

Saad does a good job of keeping shot rates on his side (LW) lower than average when he’s on the ice. When he’s off, that left side opens up, as do the shot rates within higher-danger areas. While Saad clearly couldn’t fix the woeful defense by himself, in isolation, he looks really, really good.

Having Saad on the ice was preferable to not having him on the ice—both on offense and defense—in terms of shot rates at 5v5 last year.

Saad also made almost all of his teammates better when he’s out there at 5v5.

The only players who were marginally worse with Saad than without were Toews and maybe Kampf, and even that’s a stretch. Without Saad, Toews ended up with slightly more shots for than against, but it’s a really thin margin. Without Saad, Kampf saw more shots for, but also more shots against. Everyone else was noticeably better (i.e., took more shots than they faced) with him out there.

Saad’s positive contributions were evident on the penalty kill last year, too. Yes, the Hawks were a potted plant watered with piss on the PK last year, but not because of anything Saad did wrong.

On the PK, the overall threat percentage is better (lower is better on defense) and the area that Saad plays in produces fewer unblocked shots when Saad is on the ice.

This is all the good Saad does. Now, I will gently place Saad’s jock to the side and talk about two things that caught my eye about him in a bad way last year.

First, his performance on the PP, in light of the fact that Colliton’s PP2 does not include Brandon Saad as of now (Keith–Seabrook–Kubalik–Nylander–Shaw).

The Hawks were indeed much, much worse on the PP when Saad was out there. This matches the eye test. Saad is generally a straight-line skater who doesn’t normally go to the front of the net. (He’ll occasionally trapeze along the goal line and put his shoulder down, but it’s relatively rare.) He doesn’t have a booming shot, and he’s not usually one to set up for a one timer. All of these things combined, these heat maps make sense. Saad isn’t much of a threat on the PP. That’s frustrating for sure.

Second, and more interesting to me, are his GF% (47.06) and xGF% (47.27). Saad is on the ice for almost exactly the share of goals expected of him. By themselves, those numbers don’t look good. But in terms of xGF%, only three Blackhawks had a positive share on the year: Dennis Gilbert (1 game played), Slater Koekkoek (22 games played), and Dylan Sikura (33 games played). So, Saad’s expected goals-for share isn’t as bad as it seems, relative to the rest of the team. (For comparison, Kane’s xGF% was 44.93. DeBrincat’s was 46.47.) Still, it’s not something to hang your hat on.

It’s the GF% that’s bothersome. Compare the xGF% and GF% among some of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards.

Player	xGF% (5v5)	GF% (5v5)
Kane	44.93	55.63
Toews	47.05	51.67
DeBrincat	46.47	53.66
Strome	43.08	52.43
Saad	47.27	47.06

Of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards, only Saad’s GF% is lower than his xGF%. When compared to the other top-scoring forwards on the Hawks, Saad’s rates look downright miserable. Every other forward overperformed their expectations last year, whereas Saad did just about what was expected of him by the numbers. And when the expectation isn’t good to start with, meeting that expectation isn’t really great, either.

Even worse, of the 13 non-goalie teammates that Saad played with for more than 100 minutes last year, only three of them (Keith, Seabrook, Jokiharju) had a higher GF% with Saad than without.

I think this is the heart of the angst. Saad never really outperforms what he’s supposed to do in terms of goals. When given the chance to play with guys who do outperform, the stats show that the outperformers do worse with Saad. Though this is only one aspect of his game, it’s a really fucking important one, and comparatively, Saad is lacking.

Saad did many things right last year, but when it comes to the goals-for share, it’s not up to the snuff of other offensive threats. I think that these stats are what manifest the madness about Saad most. What I don’t know is why that is. Is it play style? Motivation? Attitude? It’s hard for me to chalk up his relatively lacking GF% to motivation or attitude, given all the other things he does well. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

It Was the Best of Times: Saad finds a spot on the first line and makes it work with Toews and Kubalik offensively. Saad’s responsible defensive and possession abilities take pressure off Toews, who serves as more of a playmaker for Kubalik’s booming shot. The threat of Toews to Kubalik opens up more ice for Saad (especially if Gustafsson skates with them primarily), and he pots 25 goals and 60 points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Saad withers away offensively on the third line because David Kampf has never been anything close to a playmaker. The third line gets stuck babysitting Maatta and Seabrook, and because Seabrook, Maatta, and Kampf can do no wrong in Colliton’s eyes, Saad gets crucified for not being everything on both offense and defense. He takes several healthy scratches in favor of Alex Nylander, requests a trade to the Blues, and proceeds to dome the Blackhawks ad infinitum.

Prediction: Saad is going to get crucified by Jeremy Colliton, Pat Foley and Eddie O, and the Brain Trust for being everything but an overperforming goal scorer. We’ll all keep listening to the notes he’s not playing and wishing that possession and shot shares, rather than goals, were what wins games.

Stats from HockeyViz.com, hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey

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