Everything Else

Game #77 – We’re Pretty and Sick, We’re Young and We’re Bored– Hawks 3, Sharks 3 (Sharks Win Longest Toenail Clipping Launch)

By John Pullega 1955 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

The outcome may not have gone the Hawks’s way, but that was the most exciting game I’ve watched since the first two. There’s more than enough to take away from this one, so let’s get to it.

– We’ll start with Victor Ejdsell. For a guy whose first game saw him on the top line between Saad and Kane against a team still fighting for home ice advantage, he looked utterly pristine. We were worried about his skating, but Ejdsell assuaged our fears with a long albeit syrupy stride. He had a quick one-on-one with Jones early in the first that he got nervous on, forgoing a wrister to try to get closer and finish with a weak backhand. But outside of that hiccup, his first period was close to flawless.

He finished the first with a stunning 61+ CF% (26.05 CF% Rel) and a couple of good passes and set ups. He ended the game with a strong 51+ CF (12.59 CF% Rel) and didn’t have any huge diaper shittings. It’s only one game, but Ejdsell impressed me, especially with his passing. The only time I saw him plop in front of the net was during the first period PP, but otherwise, he maneuvered around in the high slot most of the time, looking to make plays. He’s someone to watch over the next five games, as he has the look of something useful.

– Speaking of useful, wouldn’t it be useful if fourth liner Alex DeBrincat would forgo his gritty bodychecking ways and just commit to scoring? The fact that he’s on the fourth line is a continuous personal affront, but hey, he set up the game tying goal there. I sometimes worry that Q putting him on the third and fourth lines will sour DeBrincat down the line, but I’m probably just projecting. Top Cat was outstanding with his passing and positioning as usual, but perhaps most impressive was a sequence late in the third.

After losing his stick, DeBrincat was bothersome until he read the puck as just unplayable enough in his own zone. He streaked to the bench, got a new stick, started a rush up the ice, and nearly scored on the play. And he’s only 20. Once he eats a few more sandwiches with Dylan Sikura, he’s going to be a force.

– I’m always going to be a curmudgeon about people who say that the Hawks miss Hjalmarsson and that Connor Murphy just isn’t up to snuff. Tonight was strictly a peep show for me, as Murphy was outright ruthless in all aspects of play. His CF% was a robust 52+ (15.12 CF% Rel), he scored a goal with a UNITY slapper, and he was far and away the most positively noticeable Hawks D-man on the ice. Don’t let Pat “Let Me Sound Out My O-Face Over Hits Unless Connor Murphy Does It” Foley fool you: Hertl’s goal ought to be laid at the feet of Gustafsson—who both misread the pass out of his oZ then couldn’t read Murphy covering for him—and Forsberg, who was wedgied by Hertl all alone.

And Murphy found himself playing with Gustafsson most of the game, which makes sense to me. Gustafsson—despite all the shit we give him—DOES have offensive instincts, and with Murphy’s burgeoning confidence, I can see this pairing working in the long term, provided Gustafsson makes at least some effort at defensive responsibility. It’s not perfect, but it makes sense on paper. And hey, Gustafsson led the team with a 57+ CF% tonight against a team rate of 43+, so you’ll take it.

– Aside from the Hertl goal, Forsberg looked decent. As always, he looked behind himself more often than a professional goalie should, but I’m always going to have a hard time being mad at him. The first goal was the result of Rutta playing “don’t touch the lava” in the blue paint, trying to cheat toward the far side of the net to cut off Hansen, who was covered pretty well by Oesterle, leaving Sorensen a gaping goal mouth on the near side. The second was off a faceoff win by the Hawks in the oZ, which then saw Seabrook turn the win over to Boedker, who passed to Shitty Kane #2, who then made Seabrook look like John Daly stumbling down a bunker to look for either his ball or a cigarette butt with a pull left on it, whichever requires less effort.

– Ragging on Seabrook these days is like shouting at the wind, but holy shit did he look like a bag of chewed cuticles tonight. He finished with a 28+ CF% at 5v5, and that’s WITH Keith. Keith himself had a 27+ CF%. I get the temptation to put the band back together, but Seabrook sucks and Keith isn’t the “America Runs on Duncan” Keith that’s a surefire first-ballot Hall of Famer anymore. If you’ve ever lamented the fact that you’ll be long dead before the sun burns out, just watch these two play together. It’s the same fucking thing. These two simply cannot play together next year if the Hawks want anything to do with a playoff run.

– Brandon Saad seems to be in the throes of a relative Renaissance. Paired with Ejdsell and Kane, he was aggressive and his passing was crisp. He fed Ejdsell a couple of prime chances, and finished with a Hawks-forward-leading 55+ CF%.

– Vinnie’s confidence continues to grow as well. He finished with a 53+ CF% and put on a one-man show in the third period, juking and jiving through defenders for a clean shot that Jones managed to stop. Fels said it earlier this month: We might have a Top 6 forward on our hands here.

Yes, the Hawks lost, but the younger guys looked good doing it. If Ejdsell can keep up what he did tonight, I would love to see him anchoring the third or fourth line next year, depending on what Kampf and/or Sikura end up being. Call me romantic, but I think there’s hope yet for this team.

Beer du Jour: Boulder Beer – Shake Chocolate Porter.  One of the best porters I’ve had in a while.

Line of the Night: “The Blackhawks won the first period, no question. That should have been a 3, 4–1 period for the Blackhawks.” –Burish during the second intermission, despite the Hawks posting a 43+ CF% and a 2/7 high-danger Corsi For percentage (i.e., the Hawks had two high-danger shots to the Sharks’s five)

Everything Else

And You May Ask Yourself, Well, How Did I Get Here – Hawks 3, Islanders 1

By Rose Rankin 2039 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

It’s a pretty sad commentary on the season when holding on to beat a bottom-feeder after being eliminated from playoff contention is the best we can muster, but hey, here we are. To the bullets:

–With Toews out and nothing really of consequence to play for (pride? Does that matter?), the lines were more jumbled than usual. However, the top line of DeBrincat-Kane-Saad was enjoyable to watch, in the same sense that Taco Bell after a night of drinking is enjoyable: in the moment it solves a specific need and makes you feel better, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem—no matter what you tell yourself about that food “soaking up the alcohol,” that hangover is still coming. And so it is with this scenario. These guys aren’t really a viable line and Kane, notwithstanding his foiling a Tavares shot in the third with arguably his best defensive play of the season, is not a center. But what does that matter? At evens this line ended with a CF% right around 70, and they totaled nine shots between them all.

Plus they scored the goals that mattered (Seabrook had an empty netter, bfd). Kane’s goal was on the power play, so I’m not chalking that up to his fantastic chemistry with these linemates. But Saad overcame his generally terrible luck and banked a shot off Halak’s ass, as he looked around frantically for the puck in all the wrong places. Not only was it enjoyable to see shitty goaltending screw over someone else, it was also nice to see Saad score the goal that would end up being the difference maker.

–And that’s because John Tavares came close to single-handedly getting the Islanders back in the game. He had a pretty wretched 31 CF% and no shots until the 3rd, but he scored the only goal after continual pressure and just plain old creating the chance to go top shelf on Forsberg. He probably would have had two goals if Kane hadn’t lifted his stick just enough on the opportunity he had in the slot, which was shortly before the goal he did score. I know it’s unlikely that the Hawks could pull it off, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want them to make an attempt to bring him here after he hits the market this summer.

–Anton Forsberg looked nervous and at times shaky in net, but he played the part of serviceable backup pretty well tonight. He finished with a .969 SV% (NICE), and while it’s rather pathetic that this display of goaltending prowess could only be managed against the lowly Islanders, at this point we should just be happy that the guy who started in goal was able to finish the game. And it’s not like Halak was any better, so there’s that.

–Vinnie Hinostroza was his usual energetic self but he seems a bit snakebitten. After missing the net on a good chance in the second, he was visibly frustrated and took it out on his stick against the post. I can’t fault the guy—he’s consistently one of the fastest if not THE fastest Hawk out there, and he and Schmaltz seem to have good chemistry. Yet he hasn’t scored a goal since March 3rd, and hasn’t had a point all week. I hope he can rack up a couple more points before the season ends, and finish it on a high note. For all his effort, he deserves at least that.

–Jan Rutta did a good thing! He had a nice play in the first to stop Barzal on a breakaway, exactly the sort of thing a defenseman is supposed to do. It should speak volumes about our defense that one good play by this guy would stand out so much, but again, here we are. The defense actually wasn’t awful tonight, but again, it’s the fucking Islanders so I’m not sure how much this really means. But we’ll take our victories where we can get them (literally).

There are so few games left…we can almost count them on one had. It’s sad, it’s a relief, it’s frustrating, it’s a lot of things. At least this one was a win.

Beer de jour: 312 by Goose Island (there’s a bunch of it in my fridge and, well, I was too lazy to bother getting anything else)

Line of the Night: OK, so I don’t have one and that’s because I was listening to music with the game on mute, which apparently my esteemed colleagues just figured out is a thing you can do (sorry guys but I’ve been laughing my ass off about this all week). For those of you who haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend it and not just for hockey—it works with any sport. But don’t fret—Line of the Night isn’t going anywhere…now you know why I don’t always have one. And what was I listening to? Well, it’s a vinyl evening here at Casa di Rankin, going through my catalog of Bob Marley records, including Live from the Record Plant, Kaya, and Uprising, among others.

Photo credit: Washington Post

Everything Else

Game #74 – Can Someone Tell Me When Something Good Became So Bad – Hawks 1, Avalanche 5

By John Pullega 1973 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

The last three minutes of this game were the most pathetic display of hockey I’ve seen from the Hawks all year. The Hawks are officially and mercifully out of playoff contention. To the bullets.

– Let’s get the worst part out of the way. The last two goals the Hawks gave up were the direct result of defensemen flat out giving up. First, Seabrook watched the puck roll into the net on the empty netter. He half-assed his way back toward the puck as it exited the Avs’s zone, and only started busting it when he realized it was going to go in. A guy with his lack of speed cannot half-ass his way back to anything. Whether the Hawks had any shot at coming back is irrelevant. That sort of lack of effort would get anyone else (e.g., Connor Murphy) benched, but since he managed the Hawks’s only goal, and he’s Brent Seabrook, he’ll be right back out there Thursday. Unless he was hurt from the Comeau hit, his effort was simply unacceptable, especially with the “A” on his sweater.

Then, Oesterle found himself strolling back on the last goal after jumping into the play on the offensive end, watching Kerfoot pot an uncontested shot while he trailed like an unwanted puppy. Of all the things the Hawks have done this year, the last three minutes of this game may have been the most embarrassing.

– The whole giving up at the end thing really tarnished what was an otherwise decent effort. The Hawks clobbered the Avs in possession, posting 65+ CF%s in the second and third but, as is wont to happen when they play Varlamov, they simply couldn’t find the net. With the game still in reach, the Hawks managed to hit a post and Landeskog’s stick before the puck squirted out of the blue paint. At least some things never change, and horsing the Avs in possession and still losing looks like it’ll always be that shitty totem we go back to.

– Patrick Kane put his entire ass into this game for the most part. He was flying around the ice and drew so much attention on the PP that Seabrook managed a half slapper all by himself for the Hawks’s only goal. And even though Varlamov stopped it, watching Kane wind up for a FUCK YOU slapshot in the third was kind of cathartic.

– Whatever offensive upside Gustafsson has is buried by his complete inability to do anything right on defense. His whiff on a clearing attempt in the blue paint in the second nearly cost the Hawks a goal. He took a completely unnecessary icing penalty in the first. Then, also in the first, after jumping in on the play and taking a shot, he failed to get back, leaving Seabrook all by himself on a 2 on 1. Oh, and he had the lowest Corsi for the Hawks tonight, with a 42+ at evens. The team rate was a 58+. Bravo.

– And Seabrook was right behind him. I get that this year is now officially lost, and so it’s time to experiment a bit. But there’s no doubt that Gustafsson and Seabrook absolutely cannot play together regularly. Gustafsson is too reckless and unaware, and Seabrook is too slow and apparently unmotivated to cover. If this is the second pairing next year, then Rocky’s going to have to get off his fat ass and make some phone calls.

– After clubbing the MacKinnon line in the first, Saad–Toews–Kane fell apart. Each ended below water in possession for the game, despite a strong performance against the MacKinnon line on the night. And Saad looked either nonplussed or uninterested for most of the night, especially on the Avs’s second goal. While MacKinnon’s patience was the key to that goal, watching Saad sort of float in the Royal Road while MacKinnon stick handled in anticipation for a lane surely didn’t inspire confidence. He, more than anyone, needs next year to be here.

The only thing to worry about over the rest of this year is preventing injuries and seeing what the younger guys can do. I’ll be keeping an eye on Schmaltz, Vinnie, Kampf, Top Cat, Saad (pray for Mojo), and Murphy.

Just eight more, then this nightmare is over.

Beer du Jour: Left Hand Milk Stout and Guinness

Line of the Night: “He has one of the longest sticks and he uses it so well.” –Peter McNab describing Alex DeBrincat, who, despite being named the Player of the Year by the Blackhawks, continues to play on the third line with Artem Fucking Anisimov and Tomas Motherfucking Jurco.

Everything Else

Game #72 – The Blarney Stone Brings A Tear To Me Eye – Hawks 3, Sabres 5

By John Pullega 1840 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

Kent O’Brockman once said that on St. Patrick’s Day, “Everyone is a little bit Irish, except of course for the gays and the Italians,” which is why you’re stuck with me for the wrap of this horseshit game. Let’s get to it and keep it brief, as there’s drinking to be done. To the bullets.

– When it mattered most, the Hawks dropped all of the corned beef they’d been cooking. After a ho-hum first, the Hawks looked more like the Hawks we’ve paid for in the past than the Hawks we’re currently paying for, posting a nice 69+ CF%. But the wheels came off in the third, as the Hawks got pantsed in possession by the (now second) worst team in the league, getting pasted for a 37+ CF% at evens. I assume that like many of us, they were looking forward to doing anything but subjecting themselves to Blackhawks hockey, and it showed.

– On his special day, our Large Irish Son had what could best be described as a mixed bag of a game. Murphy found himself on the third pairing with Oesterle and looked spry early, leading the Hawks with three shots on goal in the first. He also ended the game with a 65+ CF% and looked to be more aggressive on the rush, crashing and joining the play deep more often than I’ve ever seen.

But he also found himself on the ice for all three of Buffalo’s 5v5 goals. He was partially to blame for the Sabres’s first goal, as he overcommitted on Reinhart on the far boards. This, coupled with Patrick Sharp getting caught staring at whatever it is washed up wingers playing to a three-fourths-full stadium in Buffalo look at, gave Reinhart a gaping lane through the Royal Road to Ristolainen, who swept a pass past Jordan Oesterle and onto Pouliot’s backhand for a messy goal. The other two came off tips from Nicholas “Don’t Call Me Jean” Baptiste, so it’s hard to blame him for that. Still, we’ll have to watch going forward to see what it is Murphy might be. I will die on the “he’s the best D-man the Hawks have” hill, but there are some questions that I have regarding his awareness and positioning. Certainly not giving up hope, but there are questions.

– Highmore–Schmaltz–Vinnie was world beating for the first two periods. Granted, it’s against Buffalo, but the speed and vision they showed was encouraging. Each ended well above the team rate in possession and showed a decent amount of chemistry together. They all need to add some meat to their respective asses if they want to compete against better teams in terms of possession, but with Vinnie’s speed and shot, Schmaltz’s hands and vision, and a sort of snarl that Highmore has shown over the last two games, this is a line to watch going forward, assuming they stay together.

– Brandon Saad’s woes continued today. He shanked a few opportunities right in front of the net and was trounced in possession, posting a 42+ CF% for the game (-12.10 CF% Rel). Again, he’s not one I’m willing to give up on, but it’s frustrating to watch him struggle. It doesn’t help that his linemates couldn’t be bothered to give a shit for the first half of the game, but it’s not an excuse.

– I was four beers in by the end of the first period, but even I couldn’t believe that Alex DeBrincat was playing with Stonehand Tommy and Stonefoot Artie for this one. Alex DeBrincat isn’t a fucking third liner. I know that he hasn’t had much offensive luck over the last 10 or 12 games, but how does putting him on the ice with a guy who can’t move and a guy who can’t stick handle solve that? I guess it’s hard to figure out where to put him if you’re committed to 20–19–88, but with talent like his, it seems like you’d want to nurture it, not dampen it.

– I seem to get every J-F Berube start these days, and I always say some variation of, “He looked good for a guy who allowed more goals than good goalies allow.” I’ll say it again about today. The first goal was more on Murphy and Sharp than him, the second was on a fluke bounce on the PK, and the last two were off high-traffic tips. I’m not sure what else he can do, and I’m curious to see whether he’s the guy backing up Crow next year. I’d want to look at more tape, but he just seems more in control when he’s out there than Forsberg.

– Toews scored his 20th goal today, which was off a big rebound from Every Fraternity Chapter’s President Chad Johnson. He’s been on a nice roll offensively lately, which is nice to see as the season winds down.

– Foley had all the energy and faith of a man who had just gotten pick pocketed at his church on Good Friday, which makes for interesting listening. Sort of like a high school football broadcast by a student whose crush rejected him for homecoming. But watching him froth over a picture of a Sabres’s fourth liner punching some other hockey player I can’t be bothered to look up in the face while stereotypical Irish music played in the background during a stoppage was the most hilarious thing about this game, hands down.

Just 10 more of these things to go. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all today, Happy St. Joseph’s Day to the rest of you for tomorrow. The end is mercifully near.

Beer du Jour: Guinness, because Italians don’t know how to make beer.

Line of the Night: “Let’s see how green his tongue is at about midnight tonight!” –Foley on Adam Burish

“Ehhhh. . .” –Konroyd’s response

Everything Else

Let’s Find Some Hope: Let’s Buy John Tavares

By Sam Fels 4870 0

Ride the snake.

Ok, so you’re Stan Bowman. Yes, you’re quite bald. It’s ok. The world doesn’t end if everyone can see the top of your head. Trust me. Anyway, though you may have gone to the higher-ups last summer and told them you have a plan to rebuild the roster on-the-fly, and even if they totally believed you, you’re under serious pressure. No matter what you laid out to Rocky and McDonough, probably using very small hockey words, this is not what you told them would happen. Sure, you can claim Corey Crawford getting hurt is the same as Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady or Drew Brees getting hurt, such was his importance to his team. And that’s not even wrong. And hell, they may even go with you on that. But a year missing the playoffs this badly after two first-round exits still has them more in a “glower” position than “hopeful.” You need results and you need them next year.

And sure, if you do actually get analytical instead of just telling us you do because that’s what you think everyone wants you to say, you could play it safe with a move here or there, knowing that there’s every chance Crow stays healthy next year, Toews’s and Saad’s SH% pop back up simply because HOCKEY!, Top Cat and Schmaltz continue to grow, Sikura is just as good as you think he is, and Vinnie Hinostroza has a breakout year that his metrics suggest he very well could. Hell, maybe even Duncan Keith can play the hits for just one more season. Hell, that’s a playoff team there. You make one move at the deadline, and maybe it’s even more.

Still, the higher-ups want more. If all those things don’t happen, you’re out on your ass. Yes, with your resume and last name and this being HOCKEY! you probably won’t be out of a job long. But is that how you’re goin’ out? Like some punk “with a plan?” Or you firing all the guns at once, knowing if it doesn’t work it’s going to be someone else’s problem anyway? You only have max one or two seasons to do anything with this group anyway. Clock’s ticking. You say, “Fuck it. you only live once and dyin’ would be a stone groove.”

You sign John Tavares. $11 million a year. $12 million a year, who fucking cares? This is your blaze of glory. Win next year and ain’t no one gonna give a shit about a fuck.

“But Sam,” you’re saying out there, “there’s no way the Hawks could do that!” Well, actually there is.

Right now, the Hawks will have about $12 million in cap space if the cap goes up to $80 million as has been rumored. And that’s if they don’t find a way to shuffle off Hossa’s hit to some hinterland hockey landfill. Or they could do what they didn’t do last summer and just use it in the summer and white-knuckle it through the season. Again, if you’re Stan Bowman, you need results next season or you’re toast. It’s time for risk. So either moving Hossa’s contract or just using his LTIR gives the Hawks damn near $18 million to play with. Fuck and yes. It could be more if you can flog Artem Anisimov to some destination without taking too much money back.

You basically have no one to re-sign. You can punt Patrick Sharp to the bunny farm upstate where he’s longed to be for two seasons. Anthony Duclair won’t have warranted more than the 10% raise he’s due as an RFA, which is $1.5 million or so. We love Vinnie Smalls, but he’s not getting any more than $1 or $1.2 million. So you’re still just south of $16 mildo to play with. That’s plenty for the $11-12M you’d have to throw at Tavares.

“But Sam,” you’re saying, “Tavares is a pretty low-key guy. He’s not going to want to come here!” Shut up, moron. Let me disabuse you of that notion.

One, this is not a testing hockey market. You’ve seen that. It’s the NHL’s fourth biggest market, yes. But no one cares when the Hawks are bad. Look at it now. These guys facing really hard questions every practice? There’s like three full-time beat reporters for fuck’s sake. No one’s talking about them on the radio or TV. You don’t have a roundtable of concussed ex players/drunk writers with an hour to tell you why you suck. They’re talking about Kris Bryant here. There’s no Steve Simmons to get up your ass, and I’ll be bored and old next year. I ain’t gonna bother ya. You can fly under the radar here easy.

Second, even if there is “furor,” that’s Toews’s job. Or Kane’s, I suppose. Seabrook’s. You’re not first in the firing line. Tavares could play his hockey and go home. But it’s just big enough to keep him in the endorsements/advertisements world if he so desires.

So that makes it a more desirable destination for him than say, Montreal or Toronto or even Vancouver. We’ll circle back to this.

Your top six, if Stan goes Wild West:

Saad-Tavares-Hinostroza/Duclair

Top Cat-Toews-Kane

Sure, you could arrange this several ways. But Tavares has gotten Anders Lee a 35+ goal season and there’s nothing Anders Lee can do that Brandon Saad can’t. This team scores, especially with Schmaltz as a #3 center simply clocking whatever bums he finds across from him with Sikura and whichever of Hinostroza or Duclair is not on the top six. It scores a lot.

“Sam!” you’ll exclaim, “how are the Hawks going to afford all of Kane, Toews, Tavares, Seabrook, Keith, Saad, and then raises for Schmaltz or DeBrincat or more?” There’s going to be another lockout, you ninny. They can hit the reset button on one or two of these deals under a new system. And you’re probably fucked by that point anyway.

“But Sam,” you’ll interject, “this does nothing to solve an already porous blue line!” Fuck you! I can’t do everything here!

Ok yeah, your blue line would still suck and you can’t get out of the Central or West without one. The free agent class of d-men makes you vomit all the colors of the rainbow. You don’t have the pieces to acquire Erik Karlsson, unless you’re comfortable moving Schmaltz for him. Which you might be after signing Tavares, I don’t know. Maybe you find a way to pry OEL loose at the deadline. Maybe when Vegas reverts back to being an expansion team next year they loose Nate Schmidt before he’s a free agent. There are solutions to every problem.

“But Sam,” you say as I get more annoyed with your pragmatism, “everyone’s going to want Tavares and the Hawks haven’t won a bidding war since Hossa!”

Yeah ok, fine. They haven’t even really tried either. They wanted us to believe they were in on Zach Parise in ’12, though I have my doubts. But the Hawks name and market is still an awfully big draw, especially when you consider Tavares has already been on a Team Canada with Toews and Keith.

He’s not going to Montreal. Who wants to deal with that shit? Toronto doesn’t need nor can afford him. Vancouver is clueless and stupid. Tampa… ok, well that could be a problem if they can lose Callahan’s bloated checks for looking angry. But maybe they want to keep their powder dry for the entire bank chain they’re going to have to hand to Kucherov. Or maybe they’re still after Karlsson. Is Florida going to make a splash? Weather and state income tax aversion are nice, but that team isn’t that much more attractive than the Hawks in the near-term? Detroit might be more clueless and stupid than Vancouver. The Rangers are rebuilding. The Islanders won’t have a home for two or three years. The only language really here is green. Tell me you’re not starting to see it. Tell me a grin isn’t slowly spreading across your face.

C’mon Stan, let’s get nuts. You really don’t have anything to lose.

Everything Else

Game #71 You Can’t Close the Door When the Walls Caved In – Hawks 2, Jets 6

By Rose Rankin 1994 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Let’s just be honest—the steaming pile of dog shit that was the first period tonight ended things just as they were getting started. Sure, they managed another goal but that did nothing other than temporarily hide how embarrassing the score actually was. To the bullets:

–So the aforementioned pile of dogshit…really the first was a comedy of errors. The first and third goals were squarely on Forsberg, who got pulled after giving up three goals on six shots, before they even reached the halfway point of the period. The second goal was a direct result of Kampf and Gustafsson just dithering over who would take the puck in the corner, and Armia stepped in and helped himself to it. Moments later, Wide Dick Arty got completely out-muscled at the blue line, which led to Roslovic’s goal (OK, so maybe that one wasn’t ALL Forsberg’s fault). Then with Berube in, a shitty change led to Little’s goal, and on and on it went.

–The saddest part is this all happened after Saad caught a break and they let his goal barely 10 seconds into the game stand, when it could have been called back for being offside. IMHO, in the parlance of our times, it deserved to be a good goal because there wasn’t indisputable evidence to overturn in (and you know we’ve dealt with this shit before), but I was truly surprised the dumbass war room didn’t overturn it in their infinite lack of wisdom. The fact that they couldn’t muster a camera angle that showed the entire blue line and thus had to give us the shruggy emoji as their explanation of the call is really a perfect metaphor for the league as a whole right now. But that excitement and stroke of luck was authoritatively crushed by the Hawks’ incompetence within minutes.

–That’s not to say that Winnipeg played badly; they didn’t. They led in possession all night, which kinda makes sense when you’re scoring a shitload but they kept it up in the second as well, ending that period with a 52 CF%. In the third both teams were even with 50, but again, by then the outcome was a foregone conclusion. And jeebus is Patrik Laine a beast. He only made the score sheet once with an assist, but he was rolling right past guys like they were standing still (well, in a lot of cases they pretty much were, but you know what I mean). He ended the night with four shots and a 66.7 CF%, and if you went by the eye test alone, he played even better than those numbers.

–Speaking of numbers, the top line actually tried to play, and they managed to be above water in possession and get six shots. Saad had flashes of what we’d been hoping to see this season, but Toews missed the net a bunch as usual and Kane’s give-a-shit meter was down around a 2.5. They were not the truly embarrassing part of the game, even though they weren’t that great.

–The defense was pretty embarrassing, as you might expect in a game where they give up a half dozen goals. Murphy and Keith were caught in that shitty change, Gustafsson’s turnover led to the third goal, and Oesterle and Rutta were mostly invisible. But those re-signings, THAT’S what they needed to do to improve the blue line.

–OK, one bright spot: Despite being thrown in unexpectedly and seemingly struggling at first, Berube looked mostly solid. Yes, he gave up two goals, but let’s pretend he started the game and had given up a total of two…that would be a decent performance for a back-up. By the second he had settled in, and he made some impressive stops in both the second and third periods. Unfortunately by then it was too late, but he handled 30 of the 32 shots he faced and finished with a .938 SV%. Although neither he nor Forsberg has really seized this opportunity to become a top-tier goaltender, he’s definitely made the stronger case for himself as a serviceable backup.

In a way I wished they had given up one more goal just so I could have posted the monkey-peeing-in-his-mouth video, because really that sums up the night quite vividly. Maybe next time. We only 10 more to go, guys!

 

 

Everything Else

Friday Thoughts: Gustafsson, Rutta, And Last Night’s Pummeling

By Sam Fels 2171 0

It’s been a couple days so we should get to it. Whatever your list is of grievances that you’d like to air by firing Stan Bowman, if you have one, you can add two more.

I’m sure the Hawks thought it would slip under the radar, and it kind of did because everything they do these days slips under the radar because almost all of the city doesn’t give a flying fuck about them anymore. Either way, the Hawks re-signed both Eric Gustafsson and Jan Rutta to extensions, and combined they will cost $3.5 million combined next year.

I’m going to try and be reasonable about this….

WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK IS THIS???!!!!

Now that that’s out, let’s get to it. There’s really no other way to dress this. Both Eric Gustafsson and Jan Rutta suck. They might not be the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked, but they’re not far from the team photo. Neither one of these guys will ever rise to the level of anything more than a third-pairing d-man.

For literally no reason, Stan Bowman doubled Gustafsson’s salary. All he had to offer him was about 700K. Now, you might think the difference of about $500K really isn’t worth worrying about, but as we’ve seen, every dollar counts in a cap era, even if the cap goes up. And Gustafsson has shown nothing to warrant being offered much more than a pointed finger to the door. If he were going to provide offensive spark, we would have seen it by now. He’s 25 and basically never really flashed in the NHL. How much longer are you going to wait? And who was Stan bidding against? Who was coming to save Gustafsson from Chicago?

The Rutta one is even more baffling. He can’t regularly crack the lineup even after the trade of Michal Kempny, and yet you just hand him $2.3 million? What is it he does? Is Stan so fixated by the fact he’s been able to spasm six goals into the net and no one else on the blue line can find the right zip code with their shots? Again, what was Rutta going to get on the open market?

Here’s a list of UFA d-men you could probably get for $2.3 million this summer: Calvin de Haan, Cody Ceci, Luca Sbisa, John Moore, maybe Thomas Hickey, Dalton Prout, the aforementioned Kempny. Most of these guys suck, and yet all of them are better than Rutta.

It’s not like Stan hasn’t been able to admit a mistake. Fuck, he just traded Ryan Hartman and he wasn’t a mistake (and I’m fairly sure that trade is going to work out as having “sucked”). I have no idea why he’s doubling down on these two, but if it costs the Hawks a higher quality free agent this summer or a trade, it honestly probably should be the final nail in his coffin.

-I don’t think we can state long enough and hard enough just how pathetic the Hawks top players were last night. And you can toss out all the caveats you want–Canes are more desperate, they’ve always been a good possession team, blah blah blah–to have Corsi marks under 20% you actually have to try to do so.

I try and reserve myself about games where the Hawks haven’t looked like they care. Losing teams always look “flat,” or at least do most of the time. But the Hawks are a good possession team, or at least they have been. And for their top line and top pairing to simply get skulled by a team that doesn’t actually have a top line is simply unacceptable. You can’t say they were all there, or fully focused, to be that bad.

I can’t ask this team much more than to actually just show up and finish out the season professionally. Last night was anything but. That falls squarely on the leadership. They’re not going to fire Toews and Keith and Seabrook as captains, at least I doubt it. So you know where that goes. But I’m guessing Rocky and McD are too chickenshit to let that happen, nor do they have the scruples to replace Stan competently (which would involve probably firing Q anyway). So if the Hawks don’t care now, why am I going to assume they will next year at this time after another seven months of listening to a coach’s voice it’s becoming more and more apparent they’ve tired of?

Everything Else

Game #67 – The NHL Is A Toilet – Hawks 1, Avalanche 1 (Hawks Win Biggest Bong Hit)

By John Pullega 2436 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

This game adequately proved why the NHL will always be a Riot Fest porta-potty to the rest of the sports-watching world. On the 20th anniversary of The Big Lebowski, it’s appropriate to say that we’re all nihilists. We believe in nothing. To the bullets of this garbage display from the worst sports league on Earth.

– Let’s get to it. At first, the Saad no goal looked like the right call. He made a kicking motion. It was obvious. But our Fearless Leader made a good point over on Twitter dot com, saying that unless the NHL had conclusive evidence that the puck DIDN’T touch Saad’s stick, the goal ought to have stayed good. And that IS the rule. The call on the ice ought to stand unless there’s conclusive evidence otherwise.

All the original angles didn’t really give any indication. But living in Colorado, I had front row seats for the Colorado feed, which had an overhead angle of the goal. If you watch the video, it’s pretty clear that the puck touches Saad’s stick on its way over. So once again, the NHL can’t zip a pair of fucking sweatpants without getting its dick caught in a zipper that only they would have on a pair of fucking sweatpants.

But the most unbelievable thing about all of this is that THE NHL WAR ROOM DIDN’T HAVE THAT ANGLE. How the FUCK DOES THE WAR ROOM NOT HAVE THAT ANGLE? As a multi-billion dollar league. As a league that says over and over again that it wants to be taken seriously. As a league that waters down each and every team for the sake of faux parity to get casual fans to watch their Burger-King-toilet-after-a-cocaine-and-soft-cheese binge of a product because anyone who’s anyone knows what a burning orphanage the NHL is. How do you not have that angle?

This is a game with playoff implications for the Avalanche. Granted, the call ended up going for them, but isn’t the whole premise of the NHL that “our playoffs are the best”? And you want to overturn calls that shouldn’t be overturned because the people who make the decisions on that call don’t have the one fucking angle they need, an angle that the broadcasters for the Avalanche—who work out of the backroom of one of the 69,000 dispensaries we have on each and every fucking corner of this state—did? On what fucking planet is that acceptable?

The NHL’s integrity on things off the ice has always been a used condom dangling over a chicken-processing-plant’s open-top dumpster after a long, hard summer rain, so it’s fitting that its on-ice product, which when done right is as fulfilling as cunnilingus on top of an ice cream cake, has begun to reflect that. I hope the next strike never ends.

Fuck the NHL. Eat Arby’s.

– OK, now that that’s done, let’s talk about the Blackhawks. Connor Murphy had an exemplary game, and has supplanted Duncan Keith as the Hawks’s #1 D-Man in my view. His only boner was the penalty he took in the second that led to MacKinnon’s goal, and it was a bad penalty. But aside from that, he shut the MacKinnon line down, which is no small feat. He was also the calming presence on the ice, as Keith consistently found himself turning the puck over in his own zone. It’s neat and bittersweet to watch a changing of the guard on one pairing.

– We give Erik Gustafsson an awful lot of shit for sucking at defense, but I see offensive upside when he’s on the ice with Garbage Dick. On his goal, he was trying to make a saucer pass to Kane, who was wide open on the far side for a tip. It happened to go off Nemeth’s skate, but it also looked on target for Kane. Then in the second, he made another quality pass that Kane tipped and Varlamov managed to stick away. If you look at Gustafsson as an offensive defenseman, the extension might make a bit more sense.

– Brandon Saad was an unstoppable force tonight. Despite getting his dick punched on that shitty, inexcusable overturned goal, he was everywhere tonight. He drove the net with power several times, most noticeably in the first and second. He ended the night with a 58+ CF%, and the last time I checked in the second—because I was too goddamn furious to watch the third—he was hovering in the 70s or 80s.

– My Cousin Vinnie does just about everything except score these days. He was on the plus-side of the CF% ledger, and had two particularly good plays. The first was about midway through the first period. He took the puck through the neutral zone, then lost it. Instead of panicking, he skillfully lifted the defender’s stick, took the puck, and continued on like nothing happened.

In the third, he completed a gorgeous Spin-o-Rama to get the puck to a streaking DeBrincat, who caught some bad luck in Varlamov and couldn’t put it away. Still, you have to like what you’re seeing out of a confident Vinnie.

– J-F Berube was outstanding tonight. There’s not much he can do about MacKinnon’s goal, with MacKinnon being a Hart candidate standing alone on Seabrook’s side on the PK and Seabrook being Seabrook. He ended up with 33 saves on 34 shots against a team desperate for points on a playoff drive. He’s only had three games—two great and one statistical stinker—but hell if he’s not making a case to be the backup.

The NHL is a toilet. The officials are horseshit. The war room is an affront. But the Hawks won, and The Big Lebowski is on somewhere, so we’ll call it a win.

Beer du Jour: Tommyknocker Blood Orange, followed by straight pulls from the Jefferson’s bottle.

Line of the Night: “They had no overhead. At both ends . . . or one of the ends . . . so they can’t use it.” –Peter McNab, describing why Saad’s goal got overturned.

Everything Else

Game #63 – Hawks vs. Blue Jackets Spotlight: You’re Not Wrong, Torts, But You’re Just An…

By Sam Fels 1696 0

We have a lot of fun here at the expense of John Tortorella. And with good cause. His stewardship of the Vancouver Canucks was just the height of comedy. His guiding of Team USA was even “better.” He loves to hear himself talk. He went from “Safe Is Death” guy in Tampa to having his teams be painful to watch in New York, Vancouver, and now Columbus. He’s crushed the development of a lot of young players.

Here’s the thing we’ve come to realize: he might have been right about a couple of them.

1st case: Torts chased Ryan Johansen out of town. He didn’t think he worked hard enough, didn’t get strong enough so he could be knocked off the puck, and as soon as he got his second contract in Columbus he basically became a jelly donut. So he was traded to Nashville, and while he chased another, big-time contract it looked like a terrible decision. The Jackets have never really had a #1 center, and Johansen was certainly looking like he might be one.

Then Johansen cashed in on an $8 million deal this past summer. He’s got eight goals, 39 points so far this year and has for the most part has looked like he’s gone back to his waffle-iron-runoff form. Was Torts right all along?

Case Two: Torts and Brandon Saad never quite saw eye-to-eye. Saad found himself on the fourth line at times, and was even a healthy scratch. Torts didn’t think Saad played in straight enough lines, or would go to the net often enough or hard enough. Given Saad’s skillset, you can’t help but think if he did those things he would be a 35-goal scorer.

So the Jackets didn’t mind sending him back here for Artemi Panarin. Saad has bounced all over the Hawks lineup and while he’s certainly been unlucky and the underlying numbers suggest he’s getting to all the right spots, certainly Joel Quenneville hasn’t been pleased at all times with what Saad has provided. Again, was Torts right all along?

That doesn’t mean we’d want Torts coaching our team. The Jackets goofed a playoff spot last year because their power play went nuclear and Bobrovsky cleaned up the rest. Now that the power play has regressed all the way to terrible, the Jackets are seemingly nowhere. Zach Werenski has seemingly stalled a bit in his development. There were whispers that Seth Jones was mentioned in trade rumors, though we can’t fathom that will be the case. Alex Wennberg hasn’t become a #1 center. Brandon Dubinsky still plays far too many minutes. So did Jack Johnson, but that’s stopped and now he’s bitching about that.

Of course, Torts can’t help that Cam Atkinson got hurt. Or Boone Jenner is shooting less than 5%. Still, Torts shot-block heavy, defense-first ways don’t seem like they’re ever going to get the Jackets through the Penguins now or the Lightning or Bruins in the future. At some point you gotta step on the gas.

But amidst all the funny bluster, Torts might not have been so far off base.

 

 

Game #62 Preview

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Saad by the Numbers: Tell Me What It Takes to Let You Go

By John Pullega 3537 0

With the Hawks in a malaise, and no answer or savior over the hills, there’s been rabble-rousing about trades. About blowing the team up. About hitting reset. Now, one of the louder calls has been to shop Brandon Saad.

It’s no secret where we at the FFUD laboratories stand on Saad. We were positively thrilled to be getting a proven two-way skater who could flank Jonathan Toews and put The Captain back on track. We thought that he would resume as the force in transition with back-checking skills to boot, upgrading from Hossa Jr. to Hossa Reincarnate. There were even stars in our eyes about Saad becoming a 30- or 40-goal scorer in his return to Madison St.

The lattermost of those hopes and dreams has been crushed this year, but is all as bad as it seems for our favorite Man Child? In times of doubt, we turn to the data for answers, so what do we know about Saad’s year?

To start, let’s look at a claim I made over on Twitter dot com a few days ago.

I claimed that trading Saad would be shortsighted because his ONLY problem was that his shooting percentage was down 3%. Friend of the Program, Jim Brett, said that he wished he could be sure that the shooting percentage was the explanation. So let’s see whether I was talking with my brain or my colon.

First, let’s start where a lot of the pain comes from: Saad’s raw points totals. Through 54 games, he has 13 goals and 11 assists at all strengths. For comparison, Artemi Panarin—the main piece in the trade to get Saad back—has 13 goals and 29 assists through 53 games. It’s easy to compare the two and think that the Blackhawks got hosed.

So, let’s look at the claim I made, which is that Saad’s only problem is his lower shooting percentage (S%).

Saad Team GP Goals Shots SPG S%
2013 CHI 46 10 98 2.13 10.2%
2013-14 CHI 78 19 159 2.04 11.9%
2014-15 CHI 82 23 203 2.48 11.3%
2015-16 CBJ 78 31 233 2.99 13.3%
2016-17 CBJ 82 24 210 2.56 11.4%
2017-18 CHI 54 13 153 2.83 8.5%

Per-game ratio (Shots Per Game [SPG]) rounded to two decimal places for easier reading

Stats relevant to ALL situations

Currently, Saad’s S% is 3.3% lower than his career average prior to this year (11.8%). If we do some math and assume that Saad were shooting at his career percentage this year, he’d have 18 goals, five more than the 13 he has. Extrapolating that over a full season, if Saad were shooting at his career rate, he’d end the year with 27 goals, as opposed to the 19 he’s on pace for.

To recap:

  • Saad is currently shooting 3.3% lower than his career average, on pace for 19 goals on the year.
  • If he were shooting at his career average of 11.8%, he’d have 18 goals through 54 games, and 27 through 82, which would be his second highest goal total of his career, behind only the year in which he shot at a 13.3% clip (1.5% higher than his career).
  • Saad has taken the second-most shots per game (SPG) of his career this year. So he’s getting more chances, and fewer of them are going in than ever before.

Now, let’s take that information and apply it to the bigger points picture. First, a look at what Saad has done to this point in his career.

Saad Team GP Goals Assists Points GPG APG PPG
2013 CHI 46 10 17 27 0.22 0.37 0.59
2013-14 CHI 78 19 28 47 0.24 0.36 0.60
2014-15 CHI 82 23 29 52 0.28 0.35 0.63
2015-16 CBJ 78 31 22 53 0.40 0.28 0.68
2016-17 CBJ 82 24 29 53 0.29 0.35 0.65
2017-18 CHI 54 13 10 23 0.24 0.19 0.43

Per-game ratios (Goals Per Game [GPG], Assists Per Game [APG] and Points Per Game [PPG]) rounded for easier readability.

If you look at the goals per game (GPG) category, Saad is currently just a bit behind his career pace prior to this year (0.29), and that’s while he’s shooting 3.3% off his career rate. If we extrapolate this year through 82 games at his current 8.5 S%, he would end up with 0.23 GPG vs. his career 0.29 GPG prior to this year. While that would be his worst GPG rate since his rookie year, it isn’t so far off as to sound the alarm.

On the other hand, if we assume Saad shoots at his career 11.8%, then his GPG through 82 would extrapolate to 0.33 GPG.

So, a quick recap:

  • At his current S%, Saad’s 82-game GPG ratio would rest at 0.23 (lowest since rookie year).
  • At his career S%, Saad’s 82-game GPG ratio would rest at 0.33 (second highest in career).
  • Even at his current below-average shooting rate, Saad’s GPG ratio (0.23) is at least close to his career average (0.29). It’s a drop, but it’s not precipitous.

Now, what’s really alarming is Saad’s assists per game (APG) ratio this year. Prior to this year, Saad averaged 0.34 assists per game (or 28 assists per 82 games). This year, he’s on pace for a paltry 15 assists. When we consider assist numbers, there are a whole bunch of variables that can affect the ratios. For instance, we’d have to consider the quality of Saad’s teammates (QoT) and the quality of his competition (QoC).

Since people infinitely smarter than me haven’t yet agreed on the best way to turn QoT and QoC into an agreed-upon algorithm, I’m going to try to give you an idea for what might be affecting Saad’s assist rates in the context of which teammates he’s played with most this year. Please note that this method is incredibly imperfect (I’m pulling a Milbury and making it up as I go), but it might give us an idea for why his assist numbers are as low as they are. (For a bigger and better discussion on passing, check out some of Ryan Stimson’s stuff.)

TOI WITH Shots 2018 S% 2018 Actual Goals 2018 S% CAREER Expected Goals 2018 Actual vs. Expected
TOEWS 667 154 9.7 15 15.3 24 -9
KEITH 447 129 0 0 4.7 6 -6
SEABROOK 322 81 3.7 3 5.3 4 -1
PANIK* 289 70 8.6 6 12.6 9 -3
KANE 225 189 11.1 21 12.3 23 -2

TOI in rounded minutes at ALL strengths, stats at ALL strengths, Expected Goals through 54 games

* = With Hawks Only

First, let’s get some obvious flaws out of the way (outside of the ones we’ve already discussed): Toews probably isn’t ever going to approach his career S%, so his expected goals are likely inflated. And Richard Panik probably isn’t a 12.6% shooter in real life, so his expected goals are also likely inflated. And it’s not like these guys took ALL off their shots while on the ice with Saad. But say everything goes perfectly, and the top six guys whom Saad has played with this year score at their career rates. That’s an extra 21 potential assists Saad is looking at just with the guys he’s played with most this year.

Of course, Saad likely wouldn’t convert each and every one of those 21 potential assists among these linemates. And of course, this assumes that all of the shots these players took were with Saad on the ice, which isn’t the case. The point here is that among the guys Saad has played with the most, each one is shooting either below or well below his career S%, which likely plays a role in Saad’s assist totals. Additionally, Saad is currently playing with guys like Tommy Wingels, Patrick Sharp, and Ryan Hartman, who have shown no scoring prowess thus far this year.

So, to recap this section:

  • Saad’s assists per game ratio in 2018 (0.19) versus his career average (0.34) is much more out of step than his goals per game ratios (0.24 vs. 0.29, currently).
  • The players Saad has played with most this year are all shooting below their career averages.
  • The above methodology is at best a stab at why his assist numbers are so low, given the numerous variables that would go into predicting future assist numbers, including QoT and QoC (which don’t have accepted algorithms). Take it with a grain of salt.
  • Saad’s recent partners (Hartman, Sharp, Wingels) are not scorers, further hindering his assist totals.

The numbers above reflect Saad as an individual player. When we look at some of the more team-focused stats, Saad is actually having one of the best years of his career. For instance, he’s currently posting a 58.4 CF% (versus a career CF% of 54.5). And look at the differences among his CF% Rel year-over-year:

Saad Team CF% Rel
2013 CHI 1.5
2013-14 CHI 0.4
2014-15 CHI 0.1
2015-16 CBJ 2.9
2016-17 CBJ 6.4
2017-18 CHI 7.3

Jumping even deeper down the rabbit hole, let’s look at Saad’s expected goals-for percentage (xGF%).  (For a thorough explanation of this stat, click here.) Briefly, the xGF% stat tries to predict the difference between the expected goals for (xGF) and the expected goals against (xGA) while the player is on the ice. Similar to CF%, an xGF% above 50% means that while the player is on the ice, it’s more likely that his team will score than be scored on. Saad’s current xGF% is 53.46, and his xGF% Rel is 5.36. Compare this to some of his other teammates who have played comparable minutes:

xGF% xGF% Rel
KANE 58.46 13.22
TOEWS 55.15 8.56
DEBRINCAT 53.48 4.85
SAAD 53.46 5.36
SCHMALTZ 52.23 1.88
ANISIMOV 50.78 1.71

Minimum TOI bound: 700 minutes, ALL situations

One final recap:

  • Saad’s CF% and CF% Rel are at career highs.
  • Saad trails only Kane, Toews, and DeBrincat in xGF%, and only Toews and Kane in xGF% Rel

So, Should the Hawks Trade Saad?

Short answer: NO, unless.

Based on these numbers, Brandon Saad is a 25-year-old LW whose shooting percentage is down, whose assists-per-game ratio is extremely down, whose possession numbers are on the rise, and who would be on pace for 27 goals and 28 assists (55 points, the highest of his career) if he were performing at just his career averages. Unless you believe that Saad peaked at 23–24 (and it is possible, but not likely), trading Brandon Saad would be selling extremely low.

So, what would it take to get a reasonable return on Saad? I asked our very own Feather about this, and he used Rick Nash as a baseline.

Currently, the Rangers are asking for a pick, a player, and a prospect for Rick Nash, who is on an expiring contract, is 33-years-old, and has exactly three more goals than Saad this year. On top of that, Saad vastly exceeds Nash in CF% (58.4 vs. 49), CF% Rel (7.3 vs. 3.8), xGF% (53.46 vs. 50.76) and xGF% Rel (5.36 vs. 3.55). And wouldn’t you know it, Nash is also shooting about 3% lower than his career average, though that might be the age coming out.

Feather suggested that the Hawks could accept nothing less than double that (so essentially, two picks, two players, two prospects) for Saad. If they accepted anything less, we could assume that the Hawks’s front office has no long-term strategy for this team whatsoever. Don’t forget that Saad will be just 27 when his contract expires, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another well-rounded player like him for $6 million a year.

In short, Saad is having a terribly unlucky year. Outside of his low shooting percentage and outrageously low assist-per-game ratio, Saad is having one of his best years in the NHL. Luck can change quickly, so unless the Hawks can find a haul, I’m willing to wait Saad’s funk out, based on past and expected performance.

Sources

Expected statistics (xGF%, xGF% Rel) for All Players

TOI Stats for Assists chart

2018 & Career Stats (All Players)

Saad’s Salary

Explanation of Expected stats (xGF, xGF%)

Deeper Explanation of Shot Quality and Expected Goals

Discussion of Passing Stats

Special thanks to Jim Brett for inspiring this article.