Well it’s all over but the math, and Pullega, Fifth Feather, Sam, and myself have grievances to air. As always, no subscription is necessary, grab the audio after the jump at any number of outlets.
Well the Hawks have taken 11 of 12 points, but don’t worry, Sam, Pullega, and myself still find plenty of shit to gripe about. As usual, the audio is free after the jump.
vs 
RECORDS: Canucks 30-32-10 Hawks 32-30-9
PUCK DROP: 7:30PM CDT
TV/RADIO: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network, Sportsnet, WGN-AM 720
SEA TO SKY TOILET: Canucks Army, Nucks Misconduct
Every season in every sport takes on a complexion of its own, for better or for worse. Water finds its own level, and certain truths are exposed over a large enough sample size whether they make sense or not, and they seem wholly confined to within the context of that league year. So it’s with that being said, that despite the two teams tonight being objectively horseshit, it is a critical, must-win, FOUR POINT game on West Madison for both the Hawks and Canucks.
For the visiting Canucks, this is precisely where any right-thinking fan of theirs (and there are about six of them, admittedly) does not want the team to be. Sure, they are bad, but they aren’t fully bad enough to put themselves in the best position possible to draft a transformational forward (whose brother just happens to be in the Canucks’ farm system), and they aren’t at the tail end of any window with any aging veterans who could realistically justify a go-for-it mentality, or at least not anymore, with the last remaining holdover from the “glory” years of nearly 10 years ago now being Alex Edler and his elbows. Sure, they have the likely Calder trophy winner in Elias Petterson, who has been sensational and leads all rookie scoring despite a) being hurt a significant portion of the year and b) basically doing it with zero help, as Brock Boeser has been hurt just as often as Petterson has.
At 60 points in 61 games, Petterson is the Canucks’ leading scorer in all three categories, and has all the tools one would ask of a true superstar in the making – he’s fast, he’s an elite stickhandler and passer, has a quick shot, and has great scorer’s instincts. He’s currently centering the aforementioned Boeser and his huge shot, along with fellow prospect Nikolay Goldobin, who has taken a slight step back in his first full season in the NHL with only seven goals in 62 games after eight in 38 last year. It could be a bout of bad luck as he’s only shooting 6.7% this year while getting more shots on net, but even still he’s good for 1.67 per game in all situations, as opposed to Boeser’s nearly three per game.
So at least with those three forming a top line, GM Jim Benning can get a good look at what the future might hold while deluding himself that his team is in a playoff chase. Behind them however, things are far less interesting. As of last night, Bo Horvat is centering whatever is left of Loui Eriksson and Leafs castoff Josh Leivo, and Adam Gaudette is getting another look at the show with bottom six minutes between the suddenly well-traveled Tanner Pearson and Zack-Kassian-Cosplayer Jake Virtanen. Big free agent acquisition Jay Beagle still patrols the fourth line, just more expensively now, and between the likes of the other Granlund no one cares about and Fifth Feather’s favorite guy Tyler Motte.
On defense the Canucks are even less conspicuous, with the aforementioned Edler being about as default a #1 defenseman as there is in the league. He’s paired with the potentially useful Troy Stetcher, but it’s difficult to say how useful he could end up being considering he’s only ever been on teams that’ve gotten their dicks kicked in. And when looking at the rest of this blue line its easy to see why Quin Hughes would want to take his time getting here, unless 21-year-old former 3rd round pick Guillame Brisebois getting his first taste in the league or the corpse of Luke Schenn excites you, which it shouldn’t.
In net tonight will be another prospect after Jakob Markstrom made 44 stops in a shootout win in Dallas last night, Thatcher Demko, who might have the worst name in the sport. After two years in Utica, Demko has spent most of the year hurt, with four appearances for the Canucks and 16 in The A. He hasn’t been particularly impressive to this point, with an .895 overall and an .892 at evens, which is always impressive when the EV mark is lower. But Demko has consistently put up solid numbers at every level when he’s been healthy, and given the far more protracted growth curve for goaltending, none of this should preclude him from future success.
As for the Men of Four Feathers, getting four points in regulation against Toronto and Montreal when they weren’t expected to get any kind of makes up for shitting their pants against the Kings and failing to capitalize on the Avs and Stars a few weeks back, but not fully. And Corey Crawford throwing up a shutout in his home town (where he always performs well) is certainly a bonus, but everyone involved would have preferred it not taken him 48 stops to do so. Granted, the dam didn’t break until the Hawks went up two early in the third, but 48 shots is still 48 shots. He’ll get the call again tonight, as all of the sudden Crawford’s posted a .929 overall in March.
In front of Crawford the Platoon of Ineptitude between Slater Koekkoek, Carl Dahlstrom, and Gustav Forsling is likely to continue, though Forsling has managed to stay in the lineup by some act of god. There’s nothing really that can be said about this unit, they’re historically bad and they’re not going to stop any time soon, so just duck and cover and try to get out of each 60 minutes alive.
Up front, the Brendan Perlini Debutante Cotillion continues (just as Fifth Feather sooth-said on the podcast), as on top of his insurance marker on Saturday he’s just today been named the NHL’s second star of the week with five points in three games. It’s all well and good, and certainly playing with the Otter Boys maximizes his obvious tools, but he’ll need to continue this output if the Hawks are going to keep this charade of playoff hopes alive.
Whether anyone likes it or not, this game has playoff implications for both teams, such is the fetid state of affairs in the Western Conference this year. Even that context aside, given the rosters of both teams and the fact that the Canucks were on the road last night and took the maximum time necessary to come away with two points, the tale of the tap says that the Hawks should walk away victorious. But this team has found new and exciting ways to trip over its own dick when encroaching on competence multiple times this year, so to assume this game is a gimme would be stupid. In any event, six is better than five. Let’s go Hawks.
Game #72 Preview Suite
We’re in the traditional three man weave formation this go around, discussing the pants pissing in California over the weekend and its larger implications. As always, the audio is free after the jump.
at 
Game Time: 8:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Elon Musk Is A Sociopath: Fear The Fin
To the remaining 8 people who still held onto any kind of reasonable playoff aspirations for the Hawks, yesterday’s display should have disabused anyone of that notion with a defensive performance against one of the worst offenses in the league that one would have go lunge into oncoming traffic to call “embarrassing”. They’ll get to follow that up tonight in Northern California against one of the prohibitive favorites to come out of the West in the Sharks. Terrific.
at 
RECORDS: Hawks 27-28-9 Kings 23-33-8
PUCK DROP: 3:00PM CST
TV/RADIO: NBC Sports Chicago, NHL Network, WGN-AM 720
PLEASE NO MORE CALIFORNIA SONGS: JFTC
How the mighty have fallen. It’s a cliche, but given the matchup between these two former titans, it’s applicable. And while the Hawks are threatening to make a useless playoff appearance this year as the Kings did the previous season, the opponent they find for themselves today has no such delusions of grandeur.
At the start of today’s games, the Kings find themselves with the second worst point total in the league, and dead last in the Western Conference, with only the fetid corpse of the Ottawa Senators providing the buffer between them and the dirt. The problems for this team has remained constant even coming from the salad days, where their team offense is 30th in the league, but only this time there hasn’t been any defense and goaltending to bail them out. Age and workload and everything else has caught up with Jonathan Quick, whose .891 overall save percentage (.905 at evens) wouldn’t even be good enough on a team that boasted some high octane offense on occasion, and he need look no further than the squad in white today as proof of that. Quick is now 33, and his contract will take him until he’s 37, so if this is the rate of decline that Rob Blake and the Kings are going to have to live with, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. But rest assured, despite Rob Blake not being able to make a solid transaction to save his life, much like he couldn’t ably perform any of his other post playing career duties, he’ll somehow manage to get promoted to executive VP or some shit, because that’s just what happens to Rob Blake.
In front of Quick the Kings’ blue line is still anchored by accused rapist Drew Doughty, whose play has also completely fallen off the table. While he’s still taking assignments in any and every situation as a true #1, he has not been able to flip the ice this season as in years past, and only has one goal all year for his troubles. The latter is a bit of bad luck, and now with longtime partner Jake Muzzin gone he’s dragging around Derek Forbort, but if this is the new standard with his new contract kicking in at $11 mildo per NEXT year for the maximum 8 year term, the Kings are going to have to hope he rebounds at 30, and again, ask the guy wearing the XXXXXXL #7 sweater on the other bench how well that works out. With this season lost, the Kings are not at least trying to get a look at whatever they’ve got in their barren prospect cupboard, particularly with Alec Martinez hurt, so people named Kurtis MacDermid, Sean Walker, and Matt Roy are rounding out the bottom two pairings along with the overrated corpse of Dion Phaneuf.
Up front, Anze Kopitar hasn’t been able to repeat his career year which saw him gain a Hart Trophy finalist nod primarily because no one else on the Kings was scoring last year. Well now Kopitar has backslid to what his usual numbers had been, but no one else on the Kings has picked up any of the slack. Yes, it’s completely shocking that a 36 year old Ilya Kovalchuk has been a giant floaty turd on a team going nowhere, and he also has four more years left on his deal. No one on the Kings has more than 20 goals, which is probably most shocking from Jeff Carter, but again, the miles have more than likely caught up with him. Kyle Clifford and Trevor Lewis are still here, and it’d be easy to point and laugh about being permanently attached to 4th liners, but Marcus Kruger is still getting paid fairly nicely on the other side.
As for the Men of Four Feathers, this is an absolute must-have game in regulation if they’re going to continue to delude themselves and everyone else that they’re still vying for a playoff spot. The Nuclear Option of Saad, Toews, and Garbage Dick returns with The Drake now concussed, making the Hawks’ forward group even more top heavy. But again, if they’re going to do this, it’s not going to be because John Hayden and Wide Dick Artie are going to start dominating from the third line. And given that there’s no fathomable combination of defensive pairings that are going to slow anyone down, even this Nerf gun Kings offense, there’s no reason not to lean on the proven weapons they’ve got. Any run is also going to require solid goaltending from the likely still dizzy Corey Crawford, who in all likelihood will go tomorrow night in Silicon Valley, leaving Cam Ward to hopefully not shit his pants this afternoon. It’s a big ask, but he provides veteran leadership and and big game experience so hopefully he’s up for it.
When these two played at the UC back in November the Hawks were just getting acclimated to Coach Rod Belding and the game was an unwatchable slog. According to Stan Bowman, the team is still learning his system, which apparently must be like learning Sanskrit given the on ice results in the defensive zone. While the Hawks have at least become some form of black comedic fun since then, the vultures have continued to pick at the Kings, but afternoon hockey is the great equalizer and almost always results in shitty play and shitty ice conditions, so expect the same this afternoon. Regardless of that, if this team wants to convince itself it should be playing past game 82, beating the worst team in the West is nothing short of mandatory. Let’s go Hawks.
Game #65 Preview Suite
I was very resistant to any idea that the Blackhawks were “back” as they were embarking on the win streak a few weeks ago. But as they got within touching distance of a playoff spot (through no major accomplishment of their own, mind you), I started to come around on the idea of playoff hockey for the atmoshphere and excitement. Then this past week happened and this team is back to being who we thought they were, which is a not good team that might be better off in the final field for Jack Hughes than Lord Stanley. Here’s who did what this past week along the way:
The Dizzying Highs
Patrick Kane – Is picking the guy who was on an otherworldly scoring steak a bit lazy? Absolutely. Listen, when you write the Sugar Pile you can be as creative as you want. I also struggle a little bit to find someone who really dominated last week. For the most part the Hawks were not great, but Kane continued to be. He had 6 points in the first three games of the week and then saw his 20 game point streak come to an end on Sunday against Dallas. Up until Sunday he was basically to the point you could consider the Hawks up 1-0 at puck drop because you knew he was getting them a goal one way or another (alas, even with that hypothetical advantage I had low confidence in them).
More than just the scoring, Kane absolutely skull-fucked the opposition on the possession front, only posting a CF below 57% against Detroit. Otherwise? 58.54% against Ottawa, 63.64% (!!!!) against Colorado, and 57.14% against Dallas. Toews was along for the ride for a lot of that, but Kane clearly stole the show by my estimation.
The Terrifying Lows
Collin Delia – Not the most encouraging week for Delia, as he played in just two of the four games and was not great in either. He got just 8 minutes on Monday against Ottawa and managed to give up 3 goals on just 10 shots in that time before getting the yank. None of the goals were exactly horrible, but they also were of the “could have had it but didn’t get it” variety. So we had that, and then he played against Colorado, and the same thing happened. None of the goals were awful, but he got beat pretty easily on seemingly pedestrian breakaway shots, and there was one that was just a straight up bad one by me.
None of this means too much for Delia, who has been overall fine this year but has slowly seen that save percentage creep closer and closer to “oh shit that’s bad” level – he’s at .909 right now. That’s more than serviceable from a first year NHLer, which he is, and it’s more than fine from a backup, which he might be long term. The jury is still out, but we just need to get him back on an upward trajectory after a pretty shitty week.
The Creamy Middles
Cam Ward – While I am loathe to really say anything nice about Ward (mind you, in a week in which he didn’t even have a save percentage that started with a nine, having him as a “middle” is probably quite nice) I have to say he didn’t exactly hurt his case with me last week. In what was just a fucking awful overall hockey game on Monday against Ottawa, he managed to keep the game under a semblance of control and backstopped them to a win. He also wasn’t horrible on Sunday in what was a much more fun and entertaining game. He kept them in that one as well up until they managed to screw it up in the end. I do not give a single shit about Cam Ward, but he was fine last week and his performance is exactly what I think of as “creamy middle” – boring vanilla bullshit that managed to be not good and also not bad.
This week returns to Double John formation where the unrelenting sillyness that is this Hawks season is discussed, and Fifth Feather gets more than a few baseball related thoughts off his chest as an added bonus. No subscription required to get the audio after the jump, so do yourself a favor. It’s like driving a runaway hearse.
Corsica was broken tonight, probably by this game
The Hawks schedule in February was always favorable because while they are certainly not a good hockey team, they aren’t really close talent-wise to being one of the worst in the NHL. When you have Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat and Brandon Saad and Dylan Strome all having good seasons, you’re not gonna bottom out, even if I in particular thought doing so was the best route. The blue line is still garbage and the system that Colliton is running is getting them torched in their own zone nightly, but they still can’t be one of the worst teams.
That being said, nothing is in place to stop them from playing down to the competition, and while the scoreline might indicate a fun and exciting hockey game, I felt more like I was watching a horrific game that was trying to get me to love it. Hence, the title of this wrap. Let’s just get to the bullets.
– So, in the interest of full disclosure, I missed the first period live (lost track of time), but caught up on the highlights in the intermission. What I saw was a lot of capitalization by the goal scoring team on bad plays from the opponent or a lucky bounce on just about every play. The first Sens goal was just piss poor on Delia, another example of how he still isn’t quite in franchise goaler territory yet. Sure it was on the PP, but it was one he needed to have. The second Sens goal was just dumb luck as the Hawks were caught with the pants at their ankles on defensive transition. Just about every Hawks goal save for DeBrincats PP tally was the same. It was just ugly hockey and bad goaltending, and it got disguised by the puck finding the net. If most of those pucks stay out, we would’ve been talking about a truly boring, awful hockey game after 20 minutes.
– The rest of the game mad a bit more sense, but it was still not good on either side. Carl Dahlstrom got absolutely toasted by Thomas Chabot in the third period before Cam Ward gave up a pathetic short-side goal. Neither team’s blue line could fight their way out of their own defensive zone if it was a wet paper sack. It was just bad. At least the score made it kind of interesting, I guess.
– With all that being said, there was still some positivity to be found here too, but nothing really new. Top Cat is still really good at scoring goals. Dylan Strome continues to flash the tools that most scouts thought would compensate for his skating – his goal was such a perfect example of his instincts, “hockey IQ,” and soft hands. Those two specifically are really onto something, and it lets Colliton skull fuck the other team with Toews and Kane together.
– And boy, those two dudes can play together. I know that Q didn’t like relying on them together for the sake of balance and making it harder on the other teams, but it kind of looks like a feather in Colliton’s hat to be doing it so much. I don’t really think it’s much of a coincidence that they’re both having near-career years while spending so much time together. And it doesn’t even matter who is on the other wing, as long as they can stand up straight and hold their dick at a urinal, which Drake Caggiula is appearing to be capable of.
– So if I can stand on a soapbox here and use my conclusion on this wrap to make a point, here it is. You have two killer duos running your top two lines, with high skilled playmaking centers clearing the way for even higher skilled play making goal scorers who are usually the best player on the ice when they’re out there. Plus Saad’s had a resurgent year, and Kahun has been good, and you still might have something in Sikura, Kampf, Caggiula, and if you’re lucky one or two of the guys in Rockford. And people still want this team to re-sign Artemi Panarin to “shore up the top six” because there are “no good defensive options.” Motherfucker, if you went to liquor store for Zombie Dust and they didn’t have any, are you really gonna blow your money on Bud Light because you had a good time with it in college? No, you find another fucking way to get your Zombie Dust, bitch. So fuck off with this Panarin shit. Thanks.
– What a stupid win. What a stupid game. What a stupid month. What a stupid team. Stupid, all of it, but still intriguing. I guess that’s all we can really ask.
vs
Game Time: 7:30PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, WGN-AM 720
Urban Meyer Is A Sociopath: The Cannon
With the NBA All-Star festivities taking place, the Hawks will get a rare premium Saturday night home game in the mid-winter. They’ll welcome the Columbus Blue Jackets to West Madison, who are threatening to be wildly entertaining over the next few days, though not for on ice-reasons.
