Everything Else

Bargain Shopping, A Real Third Line, And Whatever Else

By Sam Fels 2230 0

So the Hawks have lost a game in regulation. They’ll probably lose many more. And in truth, last night wasn’t anywhere close to the worst game they’ve played. Couple posts, Antti Raanta being what Antti Raanta is now which is weird, and the bottom of the roster letting you down. It happens.

So let’s barge through a couple notes before adjourning for the weekend.

-I’ve mentioned on the podcast, but there’s a school of thought in baseball when it comes to free agency that you either go top shelf or well on your choices, and you don’t mess with the in-between. Because those players have the greatest variance, and if they don’t work out you’ve committed far too much of your budget to them. Whereas if your well whiskey players don’t work out, you’ve still go payroll flexibility to make up for that.

In hockey, the only sport with no exceptions and the hardest of hard salary caps, this might be even more important. While a policy like this employed by every team would freeze out even more middle-six and middle-pairing veterans than it already does, when building a team it might just have to be that callous. Even just a couple of mistakes and your cap is tied up with nowhere to go, and as we all know it’s the players at the top of your roster who make all the difference despite hockey’s undying need to glorify the artisans instead of the artists.

This is what bothers me so much about Brandon Manning. He’s not a bargain-basement signing. While $2.2 million is not a ton of money, it’s significant. Or at least it’s enough to notice. The Hawks nearly doubled this goober’s salary from last year, and I can’t even fathom whom they were bidding against. I can’t sit here and tell you what the Hawks might have done with that extra million or million and a half, but I know it could have been better than this. And it might be the difference to whatever they want to do midseason.

Especially when you’re talking about a third-pairing player. That’s not a middle-pairing player, no matter what you’ve deluded yourself into seeing as the Hawks clearly did, that you think you might get a bargain on. When opting for third-pairing players, you should go cheap and mobile as often as you can. If Jordan Oesterle has been restricted to this last year, not nearly as many would have minded. And I’m sure Brandon Davidson is just another word for Oesterle, but he can’t be worse and he’s far cheaper and more mobile. Go around the top teams in the league and you won’t find too many spending this much on a third-pairing guy, aside from the Penguins and Jack Johnson because there are a lot of fumes in Western PA.

Let’s say instead of avoiding the middle of the market, which we’ll give a wide range of $2-$6 million per year, when you commit those contracts you have to get them right. Look at the Oilers, who have at least gotten four of them wrong and see how badly it can go.

Somewhat luckily for the Hawks, they can probably rectify this if they want. While the thought has been that Gustav Forsling will head to Rockford when healthy, seems to me they can put him in the third pairing role he’s been cut out for. Fuck, pair him with Davidson and at least make it a mobile pairing. I don’t really care what it produces as long as it could move, and I don’t really care what happens to Rutta or Manning.

This would have to cause a shift in usage, as Joel Quenneville has been loathe to start Henri Jokiharju anywhere but the offensive zone, but there seems to be little choice. Burying Jan Rutta and Brandon Manning there has gotten you…well, this. Q hasn’t helped matters by putting Manning and Rutta behind Anisimov and Kunitz the most, which is just aching to get killed. There is probably a shift there needed, too.

-This is probably not pointless thanks to this morning’s practice silliness, but whether he liked it or not Q did stumble upon what could have been a nifty third line. Though he hasn’t played them enough, Brandon Saad–Marcus Kruger–David Kampf have killed the competition in two games. And they’ve done that while starting almost all of the time in the defensive zone.

Look, a checking winger who scores a touch more than most checking wingers (if he does score again) is not what you envisioned for Brandon Saad. But what you did want was a line that could keep your top six away from the hardest competition. For now, you have that. And it was quick and was creating chances.

Sure, it leaves a hole on the top six on Schmaltz’s and Kane’s wing (which once again Q appears to want to fill with Schmaltz himself and give us monolith Anisimov in the middle and I’m so tired of crying), but that’s ideally where the kids they’ve talked up, Victor Ejdsell or Dylan Sikura, are supposed to go. And if neither of them are good, then none of this matters anyway.

Our worry with the Hawks all preseason was that they had two lines. They’re staring a third right in the face, at least temporarily. Don’t worry, Q might get back to it by the 2nd period in Ohio tomorrow.

Everything Else

Atop The Sugar Pile – 10/15

By Sam Fels 1816 0

Time for our weekly review of who’s gettin’ it done, who ain’t, and who’s just there like the dead skin on my left thumb. To it!

The Dizzying Highs 

Alex DeBrincat

Only two games this week, so there isn’t much to choose from. But when you pile in four goals in two games, one of which should have been a game-winner, one that was a game-winner, and another that tied a game you were trailing in the third, it makes the pick pretty easy.

Top Cat is pacing the Hawks with nine points in five games, and is a big reason why Jonathan Toews doesn’t need Paul Bearer following him around at all times (not that I would complain if this were to happen, if Paul indeed were still with us. SKY POINT). He’s been showing off his all-around game as well, as there was a fear he might just be a one-dimensional sniper (which has worked out pretty well for Phil Kessel, but that’s another story for another time). Top Cat has showed off his vision and passing skills, and has been far more hellacious on the backcheck than anyone would have guessed for someone of the Lollipop Guild.

I’m going to spend all season giddily laughing about the “scouts’ take” article from Scott Powers about how DeBrincat would top out as a 25-goal, 45-point guy. He’s already a fifth of the way to both and the Hawks have played five games. No, he’s not going to continue his 98-goal, 144-point pace he’s on now (BUT WHAT IF HE DOES?! THAT WOULD ASSUREDLY MEAN THE END FOR US ALL!!!). But yeah, I’m totes excited to see where this goes.

The Terrifying Lows

Brandon Saad

We’re going to be the last on the Knives-Out-For-Saad tour, but this is getting a little worrisome. Demoted to the fourth line on Saturday night and barely getting five minutes of even-strength time. And perhaps more upsetting, he doesn’t seem all that fazed by it. He did manage an assist, but Brandon Saad should not be on the fourth line in this or any other universe.

Perhaps Q needs a different method than the “tough love” one, as it’s never really been something Saad has responded to. Ask John Tortorella. Actually, don’t, because there are far better uses of your time, but you get the idea. Something is amiss, and if the Hawks have any hope of actually turning this start into something prolonged, they’ll need Saad to be what he’s promised on the good side of the spectrum, not the glorified Patrick Maroon on the bad one.

The Creamy Middles

Cam Ward – wait, huh?

Yeah, I know that sounds strange, and he let in a bad one on Saturday night when he and Brandon Manning decided to rehearse their “Who’s On First” reenactment on the ice. Still, Ward was the only reason the Hawks got a point in Minnesota and had to be just about as good in the last half of the game against the Blues. It’s not winning the Hawks much but it’s giving them a platform. In those two games his SV% is .916, which will work just fine as a backup. Which he very well might be starting as soon as Thursday. The Hawks schedule picks up after that though, so it’s likely he’ll be splitting starts with Crawford to start. If he can give the Hawks .910 or so, you’l settle.

 

Everything Else

Let’s Just Go Straight To The Load Jokes

By Sam Fels 1987 0

It’s just easier that way.

It would be silly to draw any massive conclusions from just three games. Even 10 wouldn’t be nearly enough. We don’t know anything about the Hawks yet, except that they’ve been entertaining as hell, and Brandon Manning and Cam Ward are terrible. The first is something of a surprise. The latter two are depressingly not.

But one thought I’ve had over these three games, pretty much thanks to the bonkers trio of efforts that Jonathan Toews has been able to put together, is that when the Hawks’ top six is out there, or the top-pairing (usually at the same time), the Hawks aren’t a bad team. Their underlying numbers are simply surreal, they’re scoring almost all of the goals, and they’ve been fun to watch.

What’s clear is that so far, Joel Quenneville knows this as well. Which is why he’s basically only used his fourth-line when he absolutely has to, and even then we can be pretty sure his ass is puckered up tight. I can’t say I know that, because quite frankly I don’t want to be considered an expert on the state of Joel Quenneville’s ass-elasticity.

It’s a sound strategy, because the fourth line has been getting their dicks knocked in the dirt on the reg. While every other forward on the roster has gotten at least 35 minutes of ice-time in the three games, none of the players who are on the fourth have gotten even 25.

This has always been a debate in hockey lately. With TV timeouts as they are and the shape players are in, can you ride your better players more and leave the fourth-line to be something you only close your eyes, point at to go out there, and tell your assistants to tell you when it’s over? Sure, it’s a real advantage when you can use your fourth-line for real purposes, and a staple of past Hawks’ champions was that their fourth-line was actually taking checking line duties thanks to the unicorn nature of Marcus Kruger. Well, he’s on a wing now staring at SuckBag Johnson quizzically, so that’s not an option at the moment.

The defense has been more spread out. In terms of percentage, only Seabrook and Manning are getting less than 30%, with Keith and Jokiharju gobbling up the extra at 37% and 35%k respectively. This is mostly due to Seabrook and Manning getting the dungeon shifts, as they’ve only started a third of their shifts in the offensive zone and mostly have been restricted to their own. And while it might not seem like it, the Hawks have been starting most shifts in the other end. No, I don’t get it either.

The forwards are a little more skewed in percentages, as you might guess. As a frame of reference, obviously your pivot points is 25%, if you were to divide all even-strength time into quarters, one for each line. Well, Kane and Schmaltz are at 34% and 31%, with Saad at 29%. Toews and DeBrincat are at 28% or thereabouts, as Dominik Kahun has gotten some shifts off here and there. The third-line is right at the 25% mark, or just a tick below, and the fourth-line is all below 20% of the time at even-strength possible.

The Hawks are top-heavy. We know this. What I was curious about is how teams that have just accented to their top six as much and how they’ve done while doing so.

Last season, in terms of time-on-ice-percentage (again, the portion of even-strength time available given to a certain player), Connor McDavid was the leader at 33%. This isn’t a huge surprise, given that he’s the league’s best player and all. The problems there is that the Oilers sucked. After him it was Henrik Zetterberg. And yep, the Wings sure did suck as well. Up next was Alex Radulov. And the Stars might not have sucked, but they probably had the “S,” “U,” and most of the “C” in “suck” lined up. Anze Kopitar was next on the list, and though the Kings did actually make the playoffs for four minutes, they weren’t any good either. Patrick Kane is after that, and well, we don’t need to finish this thought.

Rounding out the top-10 last year in TOI% are Artemi Panarin, Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, Rickard Rakell, and Sasha Barkov. All of those players are on good teams! All of the top-10 clicked in at 31% or more.

Going back two seasons ago, Patrick Kane led the league in TOI% at 33.8%. McDavid was next, followed by Mark Scheifele, Ryan Getzlaf, Zetterberg, Jack Eichel, Taylor Hall, Vincent Trochek, John Tavares, and Nikita Kucherov. Some duds in there, but mostly playoff teams.

Of course, this really only tells us what happens when a team leans on one or two players a ton and not a top six. But clearly these players are bringing top six lines along with them for their extra shifts.

A quirk of this category is that in the past five years, Patrick Kane owns the three of the five largest percentages. The fourth-largest share of shifts was given to Jonathan Marchessault last year, which made sense because all that line did was score.

We’ll have to dive deeper into this as the season goes on and Joel Quenneville’s strategy becomes clearer. What’s obvious is that having to basically get your top six out there as much as possible isn’t ideal, but you can be a playoff team with it. What you probably can’t be is a Cup team, but no one’s expecting that around here.

Everything Else

Game #1 – You Know I’m Still Here, the Faithful One – Hawks 3, Senators 3 (Hawks Win Sap Boil)

By John Pullega 2630 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey’s back. And to quote our Fearless Leader, whether it was fun or just fun-bad, it was, without a doubt, a fun game. Let’s do it.

– Everyone ought to be relieved by how good Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat looked tonight. Throughout most game, the only time anything happened for the Hawks was when those two were on the ice. Each scored goals by themselves (Future Norris Winner Erik Gustafsson got an assist on Toews’s, but it was a Toews effort from start to finish), and while those probably aren’t goals anyone scores against a team that isn’t the personification of a bad mushroom trip, they were still impressive. DeBrincat’s had a flash of “Fuck you, I got this” that spawned memories of the dearly departed Marian Hossa. He made Thomas Chabot look like a horse’s ass, using him as a screen to pot his shot over DA LOCAL GUY’s glove.

Toews’s goal was the result of Mark Borowiecki deciding that the best way to defend a 2-on-1 is to drag your ass on the ice like a dog with worms. You could hear Toews thinking “Is this fucking guy serious?” the entire time he drove through the circle. But you take what they give you, and Toews did that. He looked like vintage Toews, complementing power and speed with excellent vision all night. He and DeBrincat were dominant in possession as well, each posting 55%+ on the night.

– For all the nervousness we had (and still have) about Cam Ward, he looked pretty good tonight. The only goal you can really put on him is the PK goal, which Colin White stuffed right through his legs. But he buckled down and made a couple of surprising saves in the third, keeping the Hawks in it in time for Patrick Kane to start giving a shit. The first came off a redirect, and the second was the result of all five of the Hawks’s skaters either falling asleep or doing something monumentally stupid. And that one all started with Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning.

– Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I adopted a cat. She was a good cat, but she had a heart defect. I tried giving her medicine to make her better, but the day came when I had to put her down. She was just 4 years old. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, and I still think about it all the time.

I would rather put that cat down every day for the rest of the fucking year than watch Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning play another minute in a Hawks sweater.

There aren’t enough adequate superlatives to describe what an unmitigated disaster Brandon Manning was tonight. He’s the Bret Hart of being a complete fucking ass wart: The worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be.

Let’s start with the second goal the Hawks gave up, which occurred with Saad–Schmaltz–Kane and Manning–Seabrook. LOCAL GUY Ryan Dzingel had the puck on the near boards, and Manning went out to cover him. He gave him a body check, which, fine, whatever. But long after Dzingel had passed the puck to Matt Duchene behind the net, Manning continued to ride him into the boards for no other reason than Brandon Manning is a shit-sipping mongoloid who would drop his dick in a urinal if it weren’t attached to his dumb fucking body. Because he decided that dry-humping Dzingel into the boards was the best play to possibly make, it left a huge hole in front of the net. Seabrook tried to cover as best he could, but where the fuck do you think Maxime LaJoie was when he potted that goal? If you said, “Where Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning should have been,” you win the prize of not being Brandon Manning.

Then, on the penalty kill goal, while Cam Ward shares some of the blame, the only reason Colin White had all the space in the world to stuff a between-the-legs shot was because Brandon Manning stood slackjawed at the top of the paint. At no point did he even feign an effort to break up anything Colin White was trying to do. He stood there like a 3-year-old who just realized he can’t hold his shit in anymore and mother is going to be so mad that she has to handwash the corduroys again.

Holy fuck this guy sucks. If the Hawks hadn’t won this game, I probably would have quit my job, moved back to Chicago, taken whatever construction job was happening outside the UC, and rubbed my red Italian ass on StanBo’s clean windows until he relented and cut Manning from the roster. He brings nothing to the table except an opportunity for us to completely lose our asses, which you can bank on happening every time Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning laces up his rock-lined skates. Fuck this guy to the end of the Earth and back.

– Getting back to things that don’t cause a complete aneurysm, it was nice of Patrick Kane to show up 50 minutes into the game. For most of the outing, he was in mid-February “can’t buy me a fuck” mode, with a ton of lazy passing and stick handling. But when Patrick Kane decides to turn it on, there are few better. His seeing-eye pass from behind the net on Brent Seabrook’s goal was art, and the top-shelf backhander to end it is the reason most of us tune in at all. While 60 minutes of that effort would be nice, you’ll take what you get.

– I liked how Seabrook looked overall. That might just be because he was paired with Ass Wart all night, but there was a bit of pep in his skating. And he channeled early-dynasty Seabrook on his one-timer in the slot. He looks a bit thinner and quicker, so maybe all that “he’s working out” talk in the offseason was more than just another marketing ploy.

– We’re going to say this a lot, but Henri Jokiharju had a hot and cold night. He was overpowered in the first period, which led directly to Ottawa’s first goal, and he needed Cam Ward to bail him out after Dzingel broke away from him off an outlet pass in the third. But those two boners aside, HJ had himself a decent game. He finished at almost 60% on the Corsi share, took three shots on goal, and drew a tripping penalty in his own zone. You’ll take that just fine for an NHL debut.

– Brandon Saad had a ho-hum game. He was putrid early, but picked it up a bit as the game went on. He probably should have been more aware on LaJoie’s goal, and didn’t really bust his ass much to fill the spot Ass Wart left open. He had one of the lower possession shares among Hawks forwards (51%+) and deferred on a couple of prime chances. This is going to be something to keep an eye on, since there are rumors that he only plays up to the level of the guys he plays with, and Patrick Kane couldn’t be bothered for most of the game.

A win’s a win, but this shit isn’t going to fly against the Blues and the Leafs this weekend. Still, if the Hawks can at least be chaotic fun, I think we’ll all have something to occupy us until the Bears roll into the playoffs.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life/Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “As good as it gets.” – Pat Foley describing Dollar Bill Wirtz’s death and Rocky’s subsequent takeover as Hawks chairman on Rocky’s birthday.

Everything Else

Game #1 – Hawks vs. Senators Preview: Unto The Breach

By Sam Fels 1884 0

 vs.   

PUCK DROP: 6:30pm Central

TV: WGN

S-E-N SPELLS SEN: Silver Seven Sens

Whether you like it or not, the Hawks will kick off their season tonight. For better or worse…and it’s worse. It’s already worse, as #3 goalie Anton Forsberg–who would have backed up Cam Ward tonight and probably had a decent shot of usurping him to get some starts before Crawford returns–went TWANG! at the morning skate and now Collin Delia is currently on his way to Ottawa. That’s how you kick this pig!

There’s really no way to mask this anymore: The Hawks lineup sucks. The top-six you could make a case for, and I’ll admit to being awfully interested in seeing what Alex DeBrincat can do with Jonathan Toews, and what this Brandon Saad – Nick Schmaltz – Patrick Kane line can do. That could be fun! Maybe Dominik Kahun is more than just a German Tony Salmaleinen? We’ll find out. Toes has needed a playmaker for a while now and we know Top Cat can do that. If Kahun is anything, and that’s a pothole-filling “if,” that line could surprise. Saad and Kane have torn a hole in the Earth together before, but that was a long time ago now. But hey, I love things that are old. Except myself.

But after that? You would read the names of these two lines to a misbehaving kid to punish him. “If you don’t start paying attention in physics I’m going to list out the Hawks’ bottom six repeatedly!”

“NO! NO! I promise I will! I love Newton’s third law! I’m totally gonna opposite reaction in this bitch!”

Artem Anisimov and Chris Kunitz on the third line is aching to be scorched. But then again anytime Arty is on a line that doesn’t include Patrick Kane it’s the same story. For some reason Marcus Kruger has moved to a wing to accommodate Luke Johnson. Q is moving a favorite toy so make way for SuckBag Johnson. Let’s all think about that for a minute and then die. David Kampf and John Hayden are here because the rules state someone has to. This is the second straight season that Hayden has “looked great in camp,” so his seven goals on the year will be even more special this time around.

As for the blue line…I mean do you want us to? Fine. Duncan Keith and Henri Jokiharju are the top-pairing. It really could be anything. The fading star and the possibly-overmatched-but-exciting kid. Keith has never been apt to be the more conservative partner in a pairing, and I’m not sure he has to be here. Maybe let both of them do their thing and just see what the hell happens. What do you have to lose? We’ll see how Keith takes to it but it would be a first if he were to rein his game in to let someone else be the aggressor. But hey, stranger things have happened…is what I’m contractually obligated to say here.

Beyond that…well, Erik Gustafsson and Brent Seabrook are the second-pairing. If this was Seabrook five years ago, you’d be about that. But now he can’t cover for Cowboy Goose and Seabs himself has some cowboy leanings that his sloth-like foot-speed hasn’t dissuaded him from. Goose showed something toward the end of last season, and of course he has the lucky charm of the “Fels Motherfuck” (TM) which should carry him to a Norris, obvi. Still, the Hawks haven’t given up on him even though he’s 26 now and we’ve seen them discard a host of prospects before reaching that age so they must think there can be a middle-pairing puck-mover in there somewhere.

As for the third pairing…

Luckily, the Senators are not a team that’s going to make anyone pay for their various roster misdeeds. Anyone who’s worth anything is either a neophyte (Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot), or a veteran who is simply waiting for his cell to ring to tell him he’s been released from this hockey malebolge (Matt Duchene, Mark Stone). Put it this way: Zack Smith was on waivers two weeks ago and is now the #2 center. That’s a life lesson right there, mister man.

Clearly, it’s going to be a long damn season in Ottawa, which just about no one is going to notice in retaliation against the owner/avoiding the trip to Purgatory-In-Reality Kanata. And the hockey will be even more boring as Guy Boucher is only going to be more convinced to trap even more given the talent discrepancy he’ll face on most nights. Most Senators games are going to look like what Steelers-Ravens games will look like in three years. You’ve had booster shots you enjoyed more.

The Senators will hope to get a promising season out of Thomas Chabot, a step from Ryan Dzingel (LOCAL GUY), and basically hope a couple other veterans can spasm a few goals to be trade bait at the deadline. But hey, they’re one of the few teams to figure out that you have to bottom out on purpose to get back up the mountain.

So I suppose it’s the perfect starting point for the Hawks. They can rack up a win and at least feel like maybe they could start to build some momentum before some very tough games this weekend. If the Hawks were to start 0-3, and you never know, then they’ll already be feeling like they’re fucked without any of the usual fun and Joel Quenneville will be facing questions about his job before he’s even through a week. Let’s try and put that off as long as we can, even though we know it’s coming.

 

Game #1 Preview Posts

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups And How They Were Built

Live From The Five Hole

Live From The Five Hole – What A Time To Be Barely Alive

By Matt McClure 1894 0

It’s a new season, and for the most part that’s probably not a good thing. But there’s a full cast here to discuss it anyway, with John Pullega and Rose Rankin joining in to discuss the slog that’s in store this year. This podcast will probably be more entertaining than the game in Ottawa, trust us. As always, it’s free to everyone, and available for download here along with various other outlets.

Everything Else

Strange Thoughts On This Nervous, Pre-Curtain Raiser Night

By Sam Fels 2028 0

This is our last night before the great circus begins. And maybe we can only hope for it be as entertaining as a circus. More likely, it’ll be just like when you realize how unhappy all the animals are in a circus and you kind of wish they’d go away forever or all just be like, Cirque de Soleil. A few thoughts before we dive headfirst into our normal coverage of the Hawks and the NHL tomorrow.

-I’ve been meaning to get this for a while now. If you haven’t seen Scott Powers’s “scouts breakdown” of every player on the Hawks, I encourage you to do so.

I think you’ll find the Brandon Saad section awfully interesting reading.

I’m not going to attempt to defend Brandon Saad. We’ve looked at the numbers, and made our peace. And yet the more I think about his last season, and reading these comments…boy, you can see it, can’t you? The trade looks awful now of course, but when it was made I don’t think many of us thought it would. When we last saw Artemi Panarin around here, he was floating around, waiting for Patrick Kane to hit his tape from the other wing. It was very Patrick Sharp. And you can still rack up a ton of points that way if you’re skilled, as Panarin is and Sharp was. And Kane will always find your tape. No one anticipated Panarin scoring 80+ points without Kane after that. Whoops.

But this has always been the knock on Saad. It’s nothing physical. If you were to design what a power left wing would look like, it would probably look like Saad. Unbelievably strong, quick on his skates, with plus offensive-skill and defensive awareness. The tools are there.

And yet…you can’t close your eyes and see him dominating that many shifts, like the way Marian Hossa did. You know what that looked like. You can still see it now in your mind (hopefully without the tears, but that’s hard to do). Can you see it with Saad? Or do you see a guy just being equal on his shifts, who gets his points really though natural gifts?

The part about playing with lesser players got me, too. Because my initial reaction was, “Well of course he’s going to fucking balk when stuck with SuckBag Johnson and David Kampf.” But that’s not what a player does, is it? This is where I want to say his first three years were spent playing with prime Toews and Hossa, and of course that’ll skew how you see linemates and teammates, It can’t really get better than that.

But that’s horseshit, isn’t it? You play with who’s out there. Not that I’m a fan of when this happens, but when Kane downed tools at times last year because he was playing on a dogshit team and at times with balloon-handed teammates, you could see where it was coming from. That didn’t make it right or excusable, but explainable? Yeah, just a touch.

But Saad doesn’t have that pedigree. Saad has proven to be an above-average NHLer, but nothing more. He flashes being a star at times, but they’re only flashes. He’ll look good with good players, but did he ever really stand above them for more than a handful of games here and there? He’ll play to the level of those around, it seems like.

And the thing is, the Hawks knew this about him. That’s why, though they may have been reluctant, they were willing to trade him when his contract demands got above what they deemed economical. Throughout his first three years here, there were whispers that some in the front office just didn’t think he had “it.” “It” being the determination to fight through defenders every shift and every night to become, essentially, Max Pacioretty. And physically, Saad could be near Patches or Blake Wheeler. If he wanted. But some in the Hawks organization doubted he wanted.

So I’m not sure what changed in the two years before they brought him back. Did their scouts see something in Ohio? If they did, the Jackets’ sure didn’t. And this could lead into another discussion about the Hawks borderline-woeful pro scouting.

This is a huge year for Saad, whatever the Hawks do as a whole. Not in terms of his future, because he’s cashing $6 million for the next three years regardless. But is he going to finally stand up and take games by the collar? Because he can, and I don’t think anyone doubts that. The Hawks certainly need it. Or is he content with that check and his 55 points? Does he care what people think about the latter? Do his teammates think that? This will be worth watching all season.

-With the pieces about to move, my biggest fear about the Hawks is that even after being skated out of the building a lot of nights last year, they’re still slow. That’s how it looked in the preseason, though some of that could be the veterans simply not caring. But then again, the veterans are the ones who are slow.

My fear is that the front office and their scouts haven’t redefined what fast is to them. The Hawks used to be one of the fastest team in the league. But thanks to their success, that threshold changed. Teams got as fast and then faster than what the Hawks were to beat them. I wonder if the Hawks aren’t still working at the same standard.

Because they told us Dylan Sikura’s size wasn’t a problem because of his quickness. But he doesn’t look all that quick in this league. They told us that Victor Ejdsell’s skating would be just enough to find space in this league. They’re both in Rockford, and that could change but you wonder. When he was healthy, did Gustav Forsling really look like he had game-breaking speed to you? Or did he look like he would be fast on a 2012 team?

I think this is changing, because Boqvist and Beaudin and Jokiharju do skate at 2018 levels of speed. But that won’t help much now. The jury is very much out on Dominik Kahun and Luke Johnson (“SuckBag” to his friends), who are here because of the Hawks claims about their speed.

Anyway, whatever it’s going to be, let’s kick this pig.

 

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Patrick Kane

By Adam Hess 2761 0

We arrive at the final few days before the start of the season, with the preseason over and the regular season set to start on Wednesday for the NHL and Thursday for the Hawks. As we get here, we prepare to finalize our preview series of the team today and tomorrow. We start today with the most important skater on the team, Patrick Kane

2017-18 Stats

82 GP – 27 G – 49 A

51.59 CF% – 63.52 oSZ%

20:11 Avg TOI

A Look Back: Kane didn’t have quite the level of success in 2017-18 that he saw in 15-16 and 16-17, and that is likely in no small part because he lost running mate Artemi Panarin. You’ll still be hard pressed to find someone at this site that thought or thinks that Saad for Panarin swap was bad for the Hawks, but it was apparent that Kane missed Panarin a bit, even with spending a decent chunk of time with Nick Schmaltz who is a better play maker than Panarin, though not quite the shooter. The real pitfall was that Quenneville seemingly refused to put Top Cat on that line despite the fact that he’s probably the most natural shooter on the team, and therefore the obvious replacement to the skillset you lost in Panarin. There were times where Top Cat got with 8 and 88, but it wasn’t enough, and I think it cost both all three players a good bit of production. If those three get together more often and get you even 10 more goals total, last season might look a bit different. But that’s in the past. Kane was still one of the league’s better players, and he will be again because he is one of the top-1o talents in the league, and that’s not really up for debate.

It Was the Best of Times: Kane is likely to start the year with Schmaltz as his pivot again, and it’s looking like Brandon Saad will man the other side of the ice, at least early on. That is definitely a good fit because Saad is one of the best players the Hawks have when it comes to being extremely skilled and also doing the “dirty work” extremely well. Saad is strong in front of the net, so if Kane and Schamltz work their playmaking magic together, there should be some easy clean up duty for him. That probably won’t last too long, knowing who the coach is, so I’d like to see Top Cat get some work on Kane’s opposite flank as well, especially with Schmaltz as the center. If Kane is able to spend most of the year with Schmaltz in his middle and Saad or Top Cat opposite him and is able to reach his ceiling again he can climb into the scoring title race and flirt with 100+ points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Kane is easily the Hawks most important skater now, a mantle he takes over from Duncan Keith as the latter has started down the declining path that comes with age and a fuck-ton of minutes played. Any worst case scenario for Kane is pretty much worst-case scenario for the Hawks as well. If Kane gets hurt and misses significant time, even if Crawford is readily available, I’m just not sure the Hawks have the scoring punch to win games without him. If he gets a Toews and Sadd-like streak of bad shooting luck this year, it could be disastrous as well. As much as Toews and Saad are due for corrections on shooting percentage, and Top Cat can bring you good goal scoring as well, Kane is really gonna be the straw that stirs the offensive drink, and if he’s out or struggling, it’s gonna be hard to watch.

Prediction: Kane is another player where at this point we know what he is, so it’s easy for me to predict he’ll have 70-80 points and just cash in my prediction for clout on Twitter later. But I don’t wanna be boring. While I think this Hawks team is going to be bad, and maybe pitifully so, I think Kane is due for a strong season among it all. Again, he’s gonna need to account for a good chunk of the offense, and if he’s given good linemates as weapons to unlock that scoring ability, he is gonna have a good year. I think he will flirt with 90 points again this year, and yet it still won’t matter. He will look really good playing with Jack Hughes in 2019-20 though.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Victor Ejdsell

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

John Hayden

David Kampf

Everything Else

Preseason Game #6 – We’ve Been Blind to This Before – Hawks 4, Blue Jackets 1

By Rose Rankin 1953 0

OK, this was the Blue Jackets’ B-team so temper your excitement when you see that score. That being said, the Hawks were not terrible tonight, and at times they were downright watchable. Again, I think we need to consider the competition but the Hawks did get shelled by the Ottawa fucking Senators not long ago, so if beating the scrubs of one of the scrubbiest teams is where we have to start, so be it. To the bullets:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– Cam Ward was not awful. He finished the night with a .938 SV%, but I hesitate to say he looked good, that number notwithstanding. The Jackets only managed 17 shots, and the one he let in was on a penalty kill that shouldn’t have ever happened (more on that later). So he did the job, yes, but he didn’t look especially confident or solid in net. Regardless, it was a much better showing than his last game. If this is the best level of competition he can handle, we’re truly fucked. But he was better.

– In the first, both Brent Seabrook and Artem Anisimov scored, and although I haven’t insulted or criticized them enough for that to count as an actual Fels Motherfuck, it was damn close. Obviously I’m glad to see them contribute, but I was a little concerned about how this will convince Q of his own genius in the ANNETTE FRONTPRESENCE department. David Kampf screened Korpisalo on the first goal by Seabrook, and after basically calling him wadded beef yesterday, that also is close to Motherfuck status.

– I think everyone was relieved to see Brandon Saad back on the second line. And that line was great—they finished with a 50 CF% but that dropped precipitously in the third when I think they stopped caring/trying. Through the second it was over 62%. Their passing and puck movement right around the top of the crease was textbook, and Saad’s goal in the second was a taste of what will hopefully come to pass this year for the three of them. Kane’s goal (also in the second) came at the end of a power play and wasn’t with Saad and Schmaltz but it looked absolutely effortless. So at least there’s that.

– The defense was also not awful. Well, Seabrook did trip over his own feet and fall down in the corner in the third, but in other breaking news, water is wet. HJ (remember, this is Jokiharju’s official nickname) had an 81 CF% with Duncan Keith tonight, and while it was clear that Keith had to clean up a few messes for his young counterpart, I was delighted to see HJ stay on the top pairing and get time and space to figure shit out. Even Seabrook and Brandon Manning had a 69 CF% (NICE). Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it was against shit competition. But the defense only gave up those aforementioned 17 shots, so it definitely could have been worse.

– There was still plenty of stupid out there tonight. Andreas Martinsen took an idiotic and dangerous boarding penalty on Dan Desalvo, which led to the power play on which the Jackets ended Cam Ward’s illustrious shutout. It was just oafish and unnecessary, and while the Martinsen-Kruger-Hayden line was mostly serviceable, the penalty leading directly to a goal will hopefully get this moron demoted and one of the other bubble guys can slum it on the fourth line. Is Dylan Sikura really that much worse? Seems doubtful.

So they ended the preseason on a high note, and now can exact revenge against Ottawa on Thursday (haha yeah right). Can they beat AHL-caliber guys whose head coach didn’t even show up for the game? Yes. Can they beat an actual NHL team? We’ll find out. As Foley and Eddie did not fail to remind us, tickets are still available, folks.

Photo credit: USA Today via Second City Hockey