Hockey

Inefficiency At The Edge Of Efficiency

By Sam Fels 1754 0

It should come as no surprise that today, as Dom Luszczyszyn at The Athletic broke down the most financially efficient teams and the most very much not, the Hawks are at the bottom of the list. They’re only ahead of known basketcases Los Angeles and Detroit, so there’s something to feel good about.

Ruining most of the Hawks’ chances is the Seabrook contract, and we’ve run enough miles on that one for now. What’s really galling about it is that the Hawks couldn’t wait to tell you about all the cap space they had this summer, and how finally they could do some things to improve. And what that got you was Olli Maatta, Calvin de Haan, and Andrew Shaw. A terrible defenseman, a decent one who really is at most a middle pairing guy, and a utility winger who will probably be played over his head simply because of name recognition. In the interest of fairness, it also got you what is probably a pretty good goalie at worst, a really good one at best, though you already had one of those.

The problem for the Hawks is that they keep playing in the part of the market that hamstrings a team, and that’s the middle. In a cap era, you pay for the top talent, you scout veraciously at the bottom to keep things cheap there, and that’s how you fill out the roster. Forking over $8.5M combined for Maatta and de Haan, guys who are no more than #4 or #6 d-men, is how you end up in trouble again. The galling thing about Maatta is he was acquired for a player who gave you more value to what you were paying him in Dominik Kahun. Perhaps you’ve replaced Kahun with Kubalik, but having both probably would have negated the desire or need for Andrew Shaw, if such a thing actually existed. Shaw is, at least right now, probably better than both of those players but $3M better?

Once again, the Hawks seemed to have failed to learn the lessons of why they were good way back when. Then they paid Toews, Kane, Hossa, Sharp, Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, and Crawford (to a lesser extent Oduya). Behind that were Saad, Shaw, Leddy, Kruger who were essentially on nothing or entry-level deals. The Hawks got themselves in that mess partially when they handed a support player a “middle” contract, Bryan Bickell. They watched Seabrook become that.

Up front, they’ve gotten middling production from Saad for what is barely top of the line money. That’s after they had top of the line production from Panarin for value, considering he didn’t get paid until this summer. Once again, name recognition and the need for it did the Hawks in, even if Saad has been ok.

And it’s a problem going on down the road. The only cap space the Hawks have in ’20-’21 is thanks to both goalies being unrestricted free agents, except someone is going to have to play goal. And now that you’ve erased any of Collin Delia’s NHL time, you have no idea if it could have been him. The $19M the Hawks have in space for next year, which might only raise to $20M or $21M, is almost certainly all swallowed up by DeBrincat, Strome if he comes along, and whichever of the two goalies you choose to keep.

Which means Erik Gustafsson is gone, which means he probably shouldn’t be here now, but there’s another topic we’ve gone 15 rounds on. So there’s Adam Boqvist’s spot opened up, assuming he doesn’t force his way in this year. But how do you get Ian Mitchell in? Moving Maatta and de Haan along again? You might not get so lucky into getting them while not having to take bad contracts back. Connor Murphy? Unless his back goes out again moving Murphy out and Mitchell in is probably a lateral move to start, though obviously makes you cheaper. And you’re still pretty thin.

The Hawks have also missed with some bottom, cheap talent that they need to provide more value than their paycheck says. Brendan Perlini failed to live up to that, Drake Caggiula was hit and miss and hurt (though another one who could do most of what Shaw does at a far cheaper rate).

As we mentioned on the podcast, the reckoning with Seabrook can’t be put off too much longer. They seemed to think they had to avoid it this year by moving Jokiharju along and figuring Boqvist is a longshot to make the team. That won’t last, as Boqvist will have to be ready in 2020 and after three years at college, Mitchell shouldn’t need much seasoning if any at all.

The Hawks seem to get it in that they want to pay DeBrincat and Strome, who are top of the roster. But how does that arc the Hawks up in the coming years? They’ll barely have enough room to cram in forwards on entry-level deals to level this out like Dach, Kurashev, or Nylander (and that’s even if they don’t sign Perlini).

The Hawks told you they did all their digging. All it was was a rest, because they’ll have to keep doing more next summer, too.

 

 

Hockey

Summer Doldrums – Projecting How the Blackhawks Will Do This Year

By John Pullega 2232 0

An active first two days of the week with the Dach signing on Monday and the curious-at-best Jokiharju trade Tuesday. The Hawks still haven’t traded Artem Anisimov, and I guess that that’s not horribly urgent, but it would make more sense if they did than if they didn’t. It might be hard for the Hawks to find a trading partner for a plodding third-line center with a $4.55 million per cap hit for the next two years who’s wide dicked his way into 20 goals three times in the past four years. But then again, Brandon Motherfucking Manning DID get a two-year deal for seven figures only to be traded and demoted last year, so I guess anything is possible. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

Because summer is categorically the worst season of the year, we’re left thinking about all the ways Chicago hockey can either surprise us or go entirely ass up this fall. We’ve done a lot of looking at the ass-up side of things, so maybe we can try to look at potential positives for your 2019–20 Chicago Blackhawks.

We like to lean on advanced stats to make points about why guys who seem underwhelming really aren’t (Brandon Saad) and to bitch about why guys who suck shouldn’t be getting the praise they do (Duncan Keith over the last two years). That’s what we’re going to do for this little exercise, because it’s only fair, and on the off chance that if Pierre McGuire ever reads this his stupid bald head might simply evaporate from his meek and mealy body.

Earlier this week, Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) posted a projection model, which you can play around with yourself (phrasing). The model uses WAR (wins above replacement) data from Evolving Wild (@EvolvingWild) and prospect data from Manny Perry (@mannyelk). In short, the model tries to predict a team’s full-season WAR based on different line, pairing, and goalie combinations. It also tries to predict how many points teams might get in the standings based on those lineups.

You bet your ass I played around with shit.

There are countless ways to guess at how the lineup for Beto O’Colliton will shake out. So I compared three potential lineups for the Hawks. I used Scott Powers’s most recent projections for the first one. I used my own projections for the second. And I used what I think would be an ideal lineup, based on the Hawks’s current roster, for the third. As you’ll see, this model gives a ton of room for hope, even if some restrictions apply. I used all the default TOI% projections for forwards and D-men, and adjusted the goalie splits to 50/50 instead of 70/30.

The Powers Projection

For this projection, I used Scott Powers’s most recent predictions for how the lines would shake out. He’s in the know, he’s trustworthy, so this is as good a place to start as any.

The first thing you might notice is that the Hawks project to end up with about 99 points in the standings with the Powers projection. That’s pretty good. In fact, that’s playoff good for last year. Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, and Columbus all made the playoffs with fewer points last year. Winnipeg, Carolina, and St. Louis all made it with 99 points.

There are a few caveats to this projection (and all of them, really).

The first is that we assume that the Bird Boys split time in net perfectly evenly. We’re doing this because that’s the feeling we get about what will happen based on the reports we read and on Crow’s injury history of late. With a perfectly even split, the model prefers Robin Lehner to Crow, likely based on Crow’s relatively poor overall stats over the past two years caused by various head injuries and historically bad defense. Interestingly, the model projects that if Lehner were to get up to 70% of the starts, his ProjFSW climbs all the way up to 8.2. This makes sense, since other than his one dry heave in Buffalo in 2017–18, Lehner’s looked as good or better than Crow statistically over the last four years. In fact, they both have a .918 SV% on their career. So if the end is nigh for Crow, Lehner is a solid—if not better—replacement for him on the ice, even if he is a shithead.

The second assumption is that Dominik Kabulik produces like Dominik Kahun did. Kabulik wasn’t available in this model, so I used Kahun as a stand-in, since Kahun’s 37 points and 0.8 WAR seem entirely conceivable for Kabulik to hit, based on how well the Hawks scout European players.

The Powers projection shows that the Lehner signing could be the difference maker for this team (if we get the version from last year at least) and that if the Hawks are truly committed to playing Seabrook on the third pairing, it will only be a disaster, rather than an unmitigated disaster. As constructed by Powers, this team could make the playoffs if everything goes perfectly.

The Pullega Projection

In this version of reality, we roll with what I think the Hawks will do, based solely on instinct and what I’ve read. Again, pretend Kabulik gives you Kahun numbers coming up. With the recent trade of my sweet boy Henri Jokiharju, it’s much more likely that Brent Seabrook plays more minutes than he should on the second pairing, because more grind something something. That’s also why I think we’ll see Shaw start out on the top line with Toews and Saad, even though Shaw is a better fit on the third line. I’d be surprised if Colliton throws Kabulik on the top line, but then again. With this projected lineup, if everything goes perfectly, the Hawks project to get 95 points, which makes them a bubble team.

 The Ideal Projection

So as I was writing this, Bowman traded Jokiharju, which is an incredibly stupid move given the context of the Hawks’s situation (i.e., the defense is an atrocity and Harju was decent at worst last year. Get red-assed with me here.) This definitely means that the Seabrook playings will continue until morale improves. But just for the hell of it, I plugged in Adam Boqvist. With this lineup, the Hawks project to be a 104-point team, which likely puts them in the playoffs pretty easily.

But as with all ideals, everything has to break perfectly. Kirby Dach has to stay and be good, and there’s no indication that he’ll stay regardless. Shit, Harju got traded for William Nylander’s younger, dumber, lazier younger brother—in what might be Stan’s most meta “getting the band back together” moment ever (Nylander’s father played for the Hawks for a few years in the late 90s–early aughts)—after being the best D-man on the team (small sample sizes be damned) just the other day. And having Boqvist play definitely shuts Seabrook out, which isn’t going to happen, maybe not even after Seabrook’s contract expires. Finally, this model really likes Olli Maatta, which may goose the projections a bit, but that might be confirmation bias on my part. If Maatta’s as good as the projections say, there’s hope with this ideal.

Projections can be fun, but they require a lot of things to go perfectly. And outside the de Haan trade, assuming his shoulder heals nicely and quickly, it’d be really hard to describe this offseason as anything even close to perfect. But we’re trying to be positive, for a change if nothing else.

In all, the forwards project to be good, just like last year. The goaltending projects to be better because of Lehner falling into their laps. And the defense has shown improvement, but we’re still skeptical about a lot of things, particularly de Haan and Maatta’s health, Maatta’s mobility, and the ever-present living eclipse that is Brent Seabrook.

The projections are kind. We can hope the reality reflects it.

Hockey

Stan Bowman Is a Moron and Henri Jokiharju Is Better Off

By John Pullega 11176 0

In case you didn’t know, the Blackhawks are coming off a year in which they iced one of the worst defenses in the NHL. That isn’t hyperbole. Last year, they gave up 292 goals as a team, which is only better than the Senators, who gave up 302. If you are in the realm of the Senators in anything, you fucking suck. Their PK finished dead-ass last at 72.7%, after finishing 20th at 79.1% the year before. They continue to throw Brent Seabrook out there based solely on his contract. They had a chance at Bowen Byram, who will likely be ready to contribute THIS YEAR, and didn’t take it.

Instead, they traded a perfectly serviceable Dominik Kahun for Olli Maatta, who can’t stay healthy and skates like slugs fuck. They then turned around and got Calvin de Haan, who’s a nice second-pairing guy who might not even be ready for the first month due to a major shoulder surgery.

And then, dear reader, they traded Henri Jokiharju—one of the Hawks’s best D-men in limited time last year—for Alex Nylander, a 21-year-old forward whose shitty stats are only outdone by his stagnant-puddle-of-horse-piss work ethic.

If there were any doubt before, we can relieve you of it now: Stan Bowman sucks shit at finding defensemen, and he can’t do a goddamn thing right unless someone else hands it to him. That includes the Lehner signing, so if you want to bring that up, fuck you.

I’m usually not one for palace intrigue, but everything that swirled around Jokiharju last year made a stupid trade like this seem inevitable. I worried about it on a few podcasts recently: Harju was vocally upset when the Hawks sent him to Finland to play in World Juniors. Colliton constantly played him less and less when he got back, despite the fact that his season-long numbers were the best among all Hawks D-men at the time. Harju wasn’t happy when they sent him back down to the AHL when he got back for that very reason. He had every right to be.

It’s simply unfathomable to trade a 20-year-old defenseman who had a 54.3 CF% (5.4 CF% Rel) on a team that couldn’t corral an iron puck with a magnetized stick and not get any defensive help back. Harju may have needed some seasoning. He may have been light in the ass. But he was probably a Top 4 guy on this team, even WITH de Haan and Maatta coming in. He may not have been an in-his-prime Duncan Keith-esque savior, but he could have been very good. His limited stats showed that last year: When he was on the ice, the Hawks had the puck more. When he wasn’t, they didn’t. Guess fucking what? When your team sucks golf balls out of garden hoses on defense, anyone who can possess the puck is valuable. And now, we will have the joy of watching him turn into Buffalo’s #2 next to Rasmus Dahlin, because that’s absolutely going to happen.

This is a move out of fear. Colliton, Bowman, and McDonough are afraid of Brent Seabrook. They’re afraid to scratch him, they’re afraid to platoon him, they’re afraid to even broach the topic with him. They and everyone around them knew that fitting Jokiharju into the lineup would mean pushing him out, and they’re all too fucking cowardly to do that.

The thing that’s most frustrating about this is that for all the shit we gave Quenneville for not giving young guys a chance, he did the exact opposite with Harju. He played him consistently, let him make mistakes, and Harju looked overall fine doing it. The numbers flesh out a better performance than the eye test, but either way, Harju looked decent at worst.

Then along comes Beto Motherfucking O’Colliton, with his shitty man system and recent regurgitations about needing MORE GRIND to the game. I want to have it both ways, wherein Colliton has no say in anything (likely the case) and all of the say in this move, but I know that probably isn’t it. Still, watching Colliton bury Harju on the depth cart in favor of replacement-level guys like Carl Dahlstrom, Slater Koekkoek, Brent Seabrook, and the rest of the defensive Bring Down Bunch makes me wonder if this is Colliton’s first Big Boy Decision. And if it is, that motherfucker needs to put his Pampers back on, because this is shit.

So what did the Hawks get in return? One Alex Nylander, a 21-year-old left wing with 19 NHL games to his name. Right off the bat, he’s not a defenseman, so what the fuck are we even doing here?

Second, his AHL stats aren’t particularly impressive. In 165 games, he has 86 total points, 30 goals. That comes out to .52 points a game. From a guy who’s touted as a skilled shooter. That’s WORSE THAN HENRI JOKIHARJU, who had 17 points in 30 games AS A DEFENSEMAN, which is .56 points a game. I know that’s a stilted comparison, but holy fucking shit what is this trade?

Third, Nylander isn’t good on the defensive side of the puck, which is super great for a team whose possession was verifiable dog shit for most of the season. Where the fuck you gonna put him? On one of Anisimov’s wings? The fourth line is probably set with Caggiula–Carpenter–Kampf. Shaw’s likely gonna be on the top line because fuck you. You’re not breaking up DeBrincat–Strome–Kane. And we haven’t even accounted for Wedin, Kabulik, and Quenneville, all of whom portend to get a shot before Nylander. You gonna put Nylander on the top line with Toews instead of Saad? Holy shit, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do. Pray for Mojo.

Fourth—and you should be furious that we are at a fourth complaint about the return following a trade of the Hawks’s ONLY young, mobile, NHL-ready defenseman—the scuttlebutt is that Nylander has motivation issues, that he half asses it sometimes. So he’ll be a great fucking fit here with Duncan “Fuck You” Keith and Brent “Best Shape of His Life Because Spheres Are Shapes Fuck You” Seabrook, whom the brass is so scared of that they traded Henri Jokiharju for some joker who struggles to compete in the fucking AHL. Good. Very good. Tickets still available.

They’ll call this a swap of prospects, but it is anything but. Harju showed last year that right this instant, he’s at worst a third-pairing bum slayer. Nylander hasn’t shown no one nothing, other than he has an older and much more talented brother playing in New York (or Toronto, if you’re into the whole factual thing -ed.), which is apparently all it takes to become the return on the kind of player the Hawks need right now.

Stan Bowman doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s afraid of his bloated, angry, shitty #7 D-man, and because he’s a coward, he kowtowed to him. The Hawks defense wasn’t good going into this year, and given two chances to improve it THIS YEAR with Byram and Jokiharju, Bowman completely fucking missed. And for what? A forward with motivation issues whom the Hawks have no need or use for while the core is still intact. What a good offseason for Stan Bowman, master negotiator.

Harju is better off, but that doesn’t do much for us here. You wanna argue that all of Harju, Boqvist, Beaudin, and Mitchell won’t make the team? Fine. But if that’s the argument, then the three that remain better be good, and fast. Stan and his Band seem to think that’s the case, but why should any of us believe that they have any idea what they’re doing with the blue line? What have any of them done to show that they have any fucking idea what they’re doing at all?

They have no plan, and their process is shit. Just cut my fucking head off and kick it into the lake.

Everything Else

The Seabrook Has An Obvious Answer, It Just Won’t Be Taken

By Sam Fels 2079 0

It was making the rounds this morning, thanks to James Cybulski of Sportsnet, that the Hawks tried to swap picks with the Canucks and get the Canucks to take Brent Seabrook’s contract along with it. The headline makes for all sorts of questions, namely have the Hawks already gone to Seabrook to see if he would go, and if they haven’t are they getting this out in the bloodstream to ratchet up the momentum toward it. You’d hope for the former, because the latter–while Seabrook certainly has earned this reputation he has now, he also has earned being treated up front by the Hawks–is pretty underhanded. Not that the Hawks haven’t done this before, as you’ll recall a couple hours before they got Brian Campbell to say yes to Florida they put it out that he had said no to Columbus. This isn’t a Hawks-only tactic, as teams like to let it know a player they don’t want won’t budge and then it makes them the villain in the piece.

I don’t know that Seabrook will ever be the villain to a majority of Hawks fans. He’s still a linchpin of three parades, and it’ll take a few more over-fed and under-mobile seasons for that to be completely washed away. That is combined with his level of play the last few years, and a seeming lack of commitment. Don’t get all twisted about that, because you don’t have the “BEST SHAPE OF HIS LIFE” stories flood training camp last year without admitting he wasn’t in shape before. It’s certainly a muddled picture.

Still, that would have been a bad trade. The Hawks wouldn’t have gotten a foundational player at #10, and they wouldn’t have lost that chance for anything other than cap space. And we don’t know that Dach is a foundational player…he just had better be.

So here we are. Whatever the method, the Hawks now have it clear they’d rather see the back of Seabrook. But no one is going to take that contract without losing another valuable piece somewhere, and the Hawks can’t keep doing that.

The problem for the Hawks is they seem terrified of making him a scratch, or a #7 or even #8 defenseman here. Maybe they think he’d become a distraction. Maybe they think he’d turn on Colliton. Maybe they think the other vets would turn on Colliton with him (those who haven’t already, that is). Maybe they think that’ll poison everything for the younger players. Maybe they think all of it.

But on the ground, in what matters, is that on the ice he simply isn’t one of the best six d-men the Hawks have now. Right now you could easily go:

Keith-Jokiharju

Murphy-Boqvist

Gustafsson-Maatta

Throw Dahlstrom in for Boqvist if you want, and that’s still six players of more or equal use than Seabrook. And even if you scratch out a role for Seabrook this year, next year Boqvist is definitely ready and Beaudin and Mitchell definitely are too. That’s if there are no trades for an actual NHL d-man like Faulk or Ghost Bear or whatever.

The Hawks have a week here, and they know what the answer is. They just won’t take it. Just buy him out. No, there are no savings. But that money’s gone anyway. It’s sunk cost. You’re spending it either way. So do you want the headache of jamming this player you clearly don’t want anymore and soon will have no room for onto your lineup simply because of the past he represents? Or do you clear yourself completely of the headache for the team and him?

You’re already biting the bullet of the cash. As we keep saying, why double the mistake by having to play him for 82?

It could not be any simpler, Luanne.

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying To Kill Me And The Toaster’s Been Laughing At Me – FFUD’s ’18-’19 Player Reviews: Jeremy Colliton

By Sam Fels 1536 0

In truth, the whole season, or at least the last 67 games of it, was referendum on Coach Cool Youth Pastor. The Hawks kind of telegraphed their intentions with their quotes and moves last summer and at the end of the season before that. You knew from the moment they brought him over from Sweden this was a guy they really liked, even if Chris Block made him cry. You knew the relationship between Joel Quenneville and Stan Bowman had gone beyond the breaking point, and everything pointed to Colliton being their hand-chose replacement. The Hawks backed themselves into a corner of having to hire him, when it was clear that Quenneville was never going to finish the season unless by some miracle. Colliton almost certainly wasn’t ready for this, but the front office isn’t going to be around for another coaching hire. At least you wouldn’t think. So it was a shotgun wedding. Did we learn anything? I’m not sure. But we had a lot of fun along the way, and in the end, isn’t that the real truth? The answer is no.

It Comes With A Free Frogurt!

The first thing that Colliton supporters will use to highlight their case, if these things actually exist, is the power play. Honestly, the power play was never a high priority for Q, as the Hawks won three Cups with a malfunctioning one either in the regular season or the playoffs or both. The PK and even-strength were given far bigger priority. So the Hawks’ power play languished, last in the league and by some distance. It was painful to watch, if not truly soul-destroying.

Look, there was clearly a lot of talent that was going to waste on it. But Colliton is the guy who got Duncan Keith off of it, trusted Erik Gustafsson to run it by himself, got it moving everywhere, and by the end of the season it finished 15th. That sounds disappointing, as it was flirting with the top-10 there for a hot minute, but when you think of where it came from, running at below 12% for awhile, to finish at 20% and to run at near 40% or above for six weeks or so is really an accomplishment. It went stale toward the end of the season when the Hawks really could have used it, but hopefully a more stable second unit and Patrick Kane not dying of exhaustion next year will curtail some of that. It was the only reason the Hawks go anywhere near a playoff spot.

To give Colliton only that would be a touch unfair. Connor Murphy played his best hockey when not being used as a blame-pawn by Q, and ascended to the toughest responsibilities. It was Murphy and Dahlstrom who closed out a fair few number of games at the end, with Keith and Seabrook on the bench. Similarly, Dylan Strome was provided an atmosphere to flourish, which you can’t guarantee would have happened under Quenneville (who was much more fair to young players than his rep suggested, however). Drake Caggiula looked useful, if not dynamic, though that could just be being freed from Edmonton. For the most part, not always, Colliton put players where they could succeed. If that meant Saad on the third line because that was his best fit, then that’s where he went. When it didn’t work, it could be argued it was because that player is just utterly talentless.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

You can’t go any farther without talking about the defense. It was the worst in the league, the worst in the analytic-era, and didn’t improve really at all. Was this all Colliton’s fault? No, because he was given about a defenseman and a half to work with. Jokiharju barely played for him, and when he did is when it was becoming clear he was overmatched. Still, there didn’t seem to be any sign of an upturn, and the excuse of not having a training camp ran thin after a while. He wasn’t installing Matt Nagy’s offense here. It’s hockey. If the Hawks were grooming a batch of youngsters to play the way they are going to when they matter again, you could maybe see it. But there really wasn’t. And there was no tweaking of anything to compensate for what the Hawks didn’t have, namely mobility in defense.

And Colliton’s system may be stupid anyway. It was infuriating seeing Murphy or Keith or Dahlstrom or whoever end up at the blue line in their own zone chasing one guy. Any team with any advance scouting knew that simply having a forward come high and a d-man go low would bamboozle the Hawks, and at worst leave a forward trying to defend down low with a d-man out covering the points and getting nosebleeds. It didn’t make a ton of sense. Even if the Hawks had the talent, we don’t know that this would work.

Colliton also suffered from not really acting like the boss. Brent Seabrook was never scratched, even though he was no more effective than Koekkoek, Dahlstrom, or Forsling. From what I can gather, that was merely because he and Colliton played together on a WJC team and the Hawks wanted the coach to have another veteran ally in the room. Especially as Keith couldn’t have made it any clearer he thought Colliton was a moron from day one. Kane was used for 25 minutes a night, and yes this was just about the only weapon the Hawks had, but it left him paste by the middle of March. It also showed no other plan.

The penalty kill was historically bad, and again, that was a matter of lack of talent, but there didn’t appear to be many changes to try and help it out. Teams could get passes through the box whenever they wanted. The Hawks never altered to either sink deeper or try and play with more pressure. They just kind of floated in the middle, which wasn’t working.

Also his wife doesn’t like us (though this is generally the norm among my friends and acquaintances).

Can I Go Now?

It doesn’t really matter, because Colliton will be here as long as Stan is, you would think. On any logical level, that’s what will happen. The rosy picture is to say that we’ll get a much clearer read on Colliton with an improvement in talent levels on defense. But it’s not clear that the Hawks will, or even can, do that. He’ll get his vaunted training camp to install the ideas that apparently have to be decoded by the Rosetta Stone, so that won’t be a crutch he and the team can wield any more.

Colliton is also going to have to win over the vets. Kane didn’t care or rock the boat because he was getting 25 minutes per night, and Toews is Toews and the captain and will always try and hold things together. You wonder how much longer any of these last if the Hawks don’t get off to a good start. How he gets Keith to play without both of his middle fingers extended is another mystery. Whatever the actual relationship between Colliton and Seabrook is, it probably has to be put under the test of Seabrook ending up in the pressbox some nights. You can’t improve this defense with #7 playing every night. At least it’s impossible to see how. If Crawford is finally fully healthy he’ll have a say as well. Can Colliton avoid a full out rebellion if some or all of this comes to fruition?

If Colliton’s strength is bringing along young players, we’ll have to see it more this year. Kubalik is coming over. Outside chance Kurashev is here. Sikura needs to go from threatening to actual usefulness and actual goals more to the point. Whatever d-man who is actually good, or even just ambulatory, needs to be harnessed. The penalty kill has to be something other than a war crime. And there have to be tweaks to a defensive system when called for.

It’s a lot. It was always a lot to deposit this coach with barely any experience in the middle of an organization that is thrashing wildly looking for any shore or bank. It was unfair. But there are far less excuses now. Stan has his guy, and he has to give him whatever they both decide they need for both to succeed. If Keith or Seabrook aren’t on board, then they have to go or it has to be clear that Colliton is the boss and they’d better get in line.

Good luck.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Dylan Strome

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

Dominik Kahun

John Hayden

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Drake Caggiula

Dylan Sikura

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and The Toaster’s Been Laughing At Me – FFUD’s ’18-19 Player Reviews – Artem Anisimov

By Rose Rankin 1481 0

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when we’re still talking about Artem Anisimov and it’s not “wow they finally traded him,” or “what a relief, he spontaneously combusted and got sucked into a hole in the space-time continuum.” No such luck though, so let’s just get this over with:

78 GP – 15 G – 22 A – 37 P

48.1 CF% – 43.6 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

Look, let’s just be honest—Anisimov isn’t very good. I’m going to make an attempt to be positive in this section of the review because technically I have to, but come on, I’m also not going to insult your intelligence (this time). Anisimov had more points this past season than the 2017-18 season. There, I said something positive!

The Frogurt is Also Cursed

OK, so maybe I’m being a little harsh, but honestly I am just fed up with slow, aging, overpriced clods on this team. And while Brent Seabrook can at least point to the fact that he’s a Hawks legend and supposedly is such a great LEADER IN THE LOCKEROOM as they keep yelling at us, Anisimov can’t say anything even close to that. We have a 2C in Dylan Strome. He may not be the most fleet of foot you’ve ever seen, but he’s a hell of a lot faster than Anisimov. Strome and Alex DeBrincat proved themselves this year—saddling Top Cat with Anisimov borders on criminal negligence at this point.

When Anisimov centered Kane—and this went on for a depressing 485 minutes last season—Arty was consistently a step (or five) behind. Kane would be setting up in the offensive zone and Anisimov would still be well behind in the neutral zone. With Brandon Saad and Dominik Kahun, they were at least above water in possession (56.6 CF% 5v5), but this was on the third line and not for significant minutes. We also have a better third-line center in David Kampf, who is defensively solid, younger and cheaper. Besides, Anisimov isn’t an energy line or checking line guy—he’s too slow, I guess dragging around that unwieldy, wide dick of his.

Even if a third- or fourth-line slot worked with whatever jamokes they could gather, or even if they put Anisimov on the wing as we had scorched onto our retinas at times, this is still paying 4.55 million a year to a bottom-six guy. That’s just insane. None of this is new or the first time you’ve heard this, but it doesn’t get any better as time goes on. In fact, Wide Dick becomes more and more of an albatross with every passing month. And no, I don’t know who they could pawn him off to since, back to the previous point about him becoming an increasingly large issue (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), the older and slower that he gets, the more sweeteners would need to be thrown into any deal to get a team to take him. That would likely mean multiple defensive prospects or who knows what else. It very well might be too steep of a price.

Can I Go Now?

Once upon a time, Anisimov was useful on the power play by just parking himself in front of the net for redirects and rebounds. This year he had all of one power play goal, and a measly three assists. If the Hawks really want a big body who can play that role, you can’t tell me that Victor Ejdsell is any worse than Anisimov. And he sure as shit won’t cost over 4 mildo a year for the next two seasons. But whatever, if the Hawks are lucky they’ll find a moron GM who’s willing to take only a couple prospects along with ‘ole Wide Dick; if they’re not lucky they may have to stomach playing the most expensive 4C in the league.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Brent Seabrook

By John Pullega 1706 0

When we divvied up who was going to write about whom a few weeks ago, we totally forgot to include Brent Seabrook in the mix. Call it wishful thinking or a Freudian slip if you must, but we can all agree that we all want to forget about the year Seabrook had. Strap in. This one’s long, and it’s gonna get weird.

Stats

78 GP, 5 G, 23 A, 28 P

46.77 CF%, 44.71 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

One good thing that happened is that Seabrook was close to his career average in points. Another thing was that as the year went on, Colliton started pulling back on the number of minutes Seabrook played. Whereas Seabrook was posting 20+ minutes with regularity in November and mid-December, once mid-December hit, the minutes started falling off.

The last time Seabrook played 20+ minutes in 2018 was on December 14. From that point on, he eclipsed 20 minutes just five times in the next 45 games he played. This has long been the argument that Hawks beat writers and talking heads have foisted upon us. If Seabrook only played less, he’d be more effective. Well . . .

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

From December 15 on, here are some of Seabrook’s stats:

  • 47.07 CF%. Only Dahlstrom was worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes (47.03%), but Dahlstrom also started in the oZ about 39% of the time, compared to Seabrook’s near 50%.
  • 40.07 HDCF%. Only Dahlstrom (37.24%) and Murphy (38.41%) were worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes. Again, the zone starts weigh heavy, with Seabrook starting in the oZ almost 50% of the time, while Dahlstrom and Murphy sat at around 39%.
  • 44.44 HDGF%. Worst among Hawks D-men with at least 500 minutes. If you include Forsling at around 465 minutes and a 37.50%, Seabrook bumps up to second worst. Joy.

Even with less time AND sheltered time, Seabrook was still getting exploited by opponents, so I’m not so sure that the “Seabrook can still be useful with less time and more sheltering” argument is a valid one.

It only gets worse when you look at the season as a whole.

Among 209 D-men who played at least 500 minutes on the year, here’s where Seabrook ranked in the following categories:

  • 170th in CF% [46.77]: Of the players who had worse CF%s, only seven spent more time in the oZ than Seabrook: Ilya Lyubushkin, Dmitry Kulikov, Jack Johnson, Jordan Oesterle, Joe Morrow, Cam Fowler, and Madison Bowey. Fucking woof.
  • 147th in GF% [46.46]
  • 189th in xGF% [44.71]: I’d like to note that this was worse than Brandon Motherfucking Manning, and better than both Gustav Forsling and Carl Dahlstrom. So anyone who says the Hawks can/should prioritize forwards over defensemen this offseason and outscore their problems can suck the shit out of a stray dog’s ass for all I care.
  • 198th in HDCF% [42.11]: Amazingly, three Blackhawks were worse than him: Murphy, Dahlstrom, and Forsling. Murphy and Dahlstrom were victims of zone starts (38% and 39% oZ starts, respectively). Forsling (52.11% oZ start) just fucking sucks.
  • 173rd in HDGF% [41.51]

And that’s just at 5v5! Seabrook also played the second-most minutes on the Hawks’s league-worst penalty killing unit, just behind Duncan Keith. In case you didn’t know, the Hawks’s PK finished with a 72.7 PK% despite being the sixth least-penalized team in the league. (Only the Leafs finished with a PK% lower than 80% among teams with fewer penalty minutes, and they finished at 79.9%. That’s fucking something.)

And the turnovers. Seabrook’s -53 giveaway/takeaway differential was worst on the Hawks and 15th-worst among all D-men. Only Alec Martinez and Scott Mayfield had worse differentials in less TOI.

Did I mention that Seabrook’s CF% Rel of -3.5 was only better than Andreas Martinsen (-6.0), Brandon Motherfucking Manning (-5.7), and Brendan Perlini (-3.8)?

I can’t go on. But the point is, there’s no metric that shows that Seabrook can play even third-pairing minutes anymore. Even if you go back to the bash-your-head-in-with-a-rock plus/minus stat, Seabrook’s -6 was tied for worst in his career. Combine all this with the eye test, and hoo boy.

All of this fucking sucks to look at. Pointing out that Brent Seabrook—who will go down as one of the most recognizable and venerated Blackhawks of both his generation and all time—sucks isn’t fun.

What’s even less fun is pointing out that he got to play minutes over Henri Jokiharju, whose performance was the polar opposite of Seabrook’s. While it’s not his fault that Colliton made that decision, it’s nonetheless frustrating. If the Hawks didn’t have anyone better to throw out there, you’d live with it a little more. But they do have at least one guy who’s better, and he got to finish in the AHL. That’s fucking stupid no matter how you slice it.

Now, let’s get weird.

Within every retrospective of Seabrook I’ve read, there’s always a paragraph or two dedicated to how much Seabrook means to the team off the ice. Everyone says he’s a great leader, the heart of the locker room, and so on. Fuck, one of the NBC talking heads quoted Patrick Kane as saying he thinks Seabrook is underpaid for what he brings in terms of heart.

I don’t think any of that narrative was of Seabrook’s own making, and thus, that narrative isn’t his fault. But a good example that he takes leadership seriously goes back to comforting Toews in the penalty box against the Wings in 2013. It goes back to Seabrook being the spokesman during the Keith–Sharp kerfuffle in 2015. And it runs through recently: When Seabrook was a healthy scratch last year, barrels of ink were spilled, including by me, about what a big deal it was.

Brent Seabrook matters, and he always will in the annals of history. But maybe his slide into badness could come with a bit more dignity if everyone would stop shoveling the LEADERSHIP narrative so hard.

I’m not in the locker room and never will be. I don’t doubt that the players see Seabrook as a strong leader. I don’t doubt that they love the guy for the things he says and does behind the scenes. I don’t doubt that he’s still important to a lot of the players, both young and old, on and off the ice. What chaps my ass is the idea that because he’s likeable and says things that pump his teammates up, he needs to be on the ice at all.

I don’t give a fuck that he’s getting paid close to $7 million a year. I’m anti-“Pay Him, Play Him” when the play isn’t worth the pay. Sunk costs blow, but the best way to handle them is to cut bait as much as possible. With all those fucking degrees from Notre Dame and whichever other institutions are at a perpetual up-their-own-asshole critical mass in the front office, you’d think they’d know how to avoid a sunk cost fallacy. But here we are.

Seabrook obviously carries a big stick, since anyone else who turned in his performance would regularly be scratched or in the AHL (the latter of which isn’t an option for Seabrook, obviously). And while I know that this goes against how hockey players (and athletes in general) only know how to compete and will never ask to be taken out, I wonder whether Seabrook, as a leader, would ever say, “Look, I’m obviously not as good as I used to be, and I’m sometimes hurting the team, but I still want to play. How can we split the difference between me playing every game and not playing at all?”

If he were to say something like that (if he hasn’t already), you have to imagine it would resonate. At that point, the entire organization can stop dancing around the fact that Seabrook isn’t good anymore and justifying playing him with this leadership narrative. They can stop filming five-minute videos about how Seabrook is in the best shape of his life in the offseason, only to retreat to his leadership when everyone mistakes him for Obese Homer trying to shoo kids away with a broom handle five games in. And we can all stop bemoaning the very public crumbling of a legitimate Blackhawks legend’s performance.

But at the end of the day, that’s on Colliton, Bowman, and McDonough, who are either too scared to tell him themselves or too arrogant to see that this isn’t the Brent Seabrook that won three Cups. That’s the real problem. Seabrook shouldn’t have to be the guy to take himself out. That’s the whole point of coaches and management. Yet another exhibit in the case that this Brain Trust was born on third and has no clue how to handle adversity.

Can I Go Now?

We have five more years on this contract, and with each year that goes by, it’ll be easier to forget what a horse Seabrook used to be. He’s not gonna be traded, so let’s snuff that out right away.

The guys over at Second City Hockey did a breakdown of what a buyout would look like. It’s not pretty, but it’s an option if his play continues to slide beyond redemption. It’s not Bobby Bonilla bad, but it’s reminiscent.

It’s extremely unlikely that Seabrook will leave close to $35 million on the table to retire and walk away from everything. It would be the easiest out, since there’s no recapture penalty attached, but Seabrook doesn’t owe anyone that.

My crazy idea would be for Seabrook to retire on the condition that the the Hawks immediately transition him into a coaching position of some kind for a salary that’s close to or equal to what he’s making now but doesn’t affect the salary cap. It would be the best of all worlds: Seabrook gets to stay around, get paid, and have an important role on the team, and his play doesn’t cost the Hawks goals or games anymore.

I’m sure what I’m proposing is impossible and stupid, mostly because Seabrook obviously still wants to play. But if the Hawks want to make one last run with this Core, it’s going to be impossible and stupid to take it seriously while this version of Brent Seabrook is still skating real, meaningful minutes. And that’s a shame.

Seabrook had a shitty year, but he will always reside in the tabernacle of our hearts. He’s a fading legend, an exploded supernova. For all the shit we toss his way, we’ll always remember and love all the good stuff he did.

I’d just rather not have to weed through half a decade of trash to remember it.

Stats from NaturalStatTrick.com, hockey-reference.com, and tsn.ca

Everything Else

You Can Spew Anything When No One’s Listening

By Sam Fels 1556 0

In one sense, this is the easiest time to be Stan Bowman. Your draft position is set, the exit interviews are done, and thanks to the playoffs (both NHL and NBA) and baseball, no one’s really paying attention to you. Throw in the fatigue most Hawks fans had from watching and thinking about their team, and that’s even more indifference and apathy that keeps them in the dark. Nothing can really be done until after the Final is over. While the Hawks would prefer to win, I’m sure that if you asked them honestly they would tell you one silver lining of being bad now is the shroud of anonymity it’s provided them. These are people who would prefer to not be looked at too closely.

So it was again when Bowman granted the Sun-Times’s Jason Lieser a lengthy interview, and boy is there some Grade A horseshit in here. Even better it came out on a Saturday, to lower the odds that anyone would see it to just above nil. But it didn’t escape my eye. Nothing does. I am Sauron. Let’s dive in, shall we? And I want to start with the end of the article first.

“Having the opportunity to start the season with a training camp and to have the time to establish a standard, that allows you to be a little more direct and aggressive about enforcing how we need to play to win,” he said.”

This is a narrative I was sick of by March 1st, and it’s one that both Bowman and Jeremy Colliton are going to pedal until the next training camp to try and save their ass. Plain and simple, Jeremy Colliton was in the job for five months. He had 67 games. While he may not have been able to do everything he liked, the idea that he was trying to install Matt Nagy’s offense on the fly is just laughable. Yes there were changes made and it’s not totally simple but it does remain hockey and it’s not that hard.

If making changes is that hard midseason, why was Colliton allowed to switch the defensive system at all then? Because he did, and you saw the results. If he can perform this massive switch the moment he shows up, and provide us with Connor Murphy roaming around the blue line by design, then why couldn’t he tweak it in February and March when it was painfully obvious that the team couldn’t run what he wanted? Or if changes are so hard…why fire Quenneville at all?

You have to hope Stan knows, and this isn’t encouraging either, that he put together a blue line that was simply unacceptable and there was no saving it. But he can’t say that, otherwise he’d be signing his own pink slip if McDonough weren’t so busy either patting himself on the back or yelling at low-level employees or both. But you wonder if that’s what Stan really thinks when you get to this mess…

“That’s something people have a hard time grasping,” he said. “What was is not always a perfect indicator of what will be.”

He’s acutely aware of every team’s trajectory at all times, and just in case everybody hasn’t been studying the New York Islanders’ defense the last two years, he’s happy to offer a quick sketch: same defensemen, new goaltender, new coach — substantial improvement.

The Islanders were way out of the playoffs a year ago, but leapt to 48-27-7 and swept the Penguins in the first round last week. They went from dead last in goals allowed, shots against, penalty kill and five-on-five high-danger chances against to average or better in every category. They allowed the fewest goals in the NHL this season.

Their situation wasn’t that different than the Hawks’ other than they were slightly younger.

Their top seven defensemen this season were already in the organization, and the only newcomer was a rookie. The Hawks have Adam Boqvist, the No. 8 overall pick last year, in the pipeline.

Robin Lehner was second in the NHL in save percentage this season and was a major upgrade at goalie, but the improvement in shots against and high-danger chances didn’t have anything to do with him. The Hawks might get a similar boost if Corey Crawford stays healthy next season.

Bowman believes coach Barry Trotz was instrumental after taking over for Doug Weight, and the Hawks are heading into Colliton’s first full season running the team.

It’s not a step-by-step guide for the Hawks, but it’s plausible to Bowman that his team could pull off that type of transformation.

“People would say that sounds good but that doesn’t ever happen,” he said. “And my point would be that it can happen — it just did happen.”

I nearly passed out when I read this. Let’s see if we go through it together if we can survive or this becomes digital Jamestown.

To compare the Hawks to the Islanders is so incomprehensible I have to put my head through the drywall just to feel anything again. One, while the Islanders might not have any stars, Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, Scott Mayfield, now Devon Toews were all highly regarded prospects and already in the NHL or right on the doorstep (Toews). Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuck have been plus-NHL d-men for years. Thomas Hickey has at least been serviceable most of his career.

Who on the Hawks fits any of these categories that’s going to be on the roster next year for sure? Connor Murphy and Erik Gustafsson are solid NHL-ers, and maybe nothing more. Henri Jokiharju might be the prized prospect, except really all he did was look better than the trash heap Bowman foisted upon the world in some Joker-esque prank. Forsling and Koekkoek are simply not NHL players. Dahlstrom can maybe has a crimp-hold on being a #6-7. Brent Seabrook may not be an NHL player either. Duncan Keith gave up. What’s left?

Second, Barry Trotz has been coaching in the NHL for two decades and has made three different teams into solid defensive outfits. Jeremy Colliton has one season at the AHL-level and four-fifths of one at the NHL-level. You really want to bet your future on his transformational abilities?

Third, Trotz teams get their defensive prowess from basically stripping any offensive impulse and creativity from their system. You’re not going to do that here with the forwards you have. Remember, the Islanders had one player over 60 points. The Hawks had four and another in Strome who was just off a point-per-game pace since arriving. Those two simply don’t line up.

At the season wrap-up, Bowman swerved from a question on Seabrook’s play by pointing to Toews’ resurgence. The message between the lines was that the Hawks need Seabrook to have that type of offseason and come back somewhere near peak form.”

This is rich, considering the Hawks were pushing the “best shape of his life” stories on Seabrook last training camp and he still looked beached orca-like during the season.

I don’t want to rule out Seabrook changing his body and game for next season. Maybe professional pride kicks in, though it hasn’t in about four years. And Toews wasn’t out of shape, he was in the wrong shape. Toews kept bulking up for a game that was getting faster. The change he had to make wasn’t working harder or finding motivation. He just had to change how he went about it.

I have no idea what Seabrook’s offsesaon regimen looks like, if it even exists. But we’ve been talking about his sluggishness since 2013 and it’s been consistent since 2015-2016. I understand he can’t really go anywhere, at least in an organization that doesn’t seem to have any balls, but this is truly the most wishful of thinking.

This is from earlier in the article:

Playing the results, the Hawks could’ve used Panarin and Teravainen this season. But based on the circumstances at the time, Bowman doesn’t second-guess himself.

“The makeup of our team and the makeup of our competitors — you wouldn’t redo those deals,” he said. “I think we were one of the first teams — I guess you could say Los Angeles as well — where this became a big issue for managing your assets. There are some other teams that are bumping right up against it now.

“It’s hard to navigate that without something giving. The whole hope is that you can manage it well enough that you don’t flounder for a long time.”

I understand no GM is going to admit a mistake on a player currently on the roster, and I say this as Brandon Saad’s last remaining fan, but if you wouldn’t redo that Panarin deal then you’ve got the wrong combo of medication. And the Hawks can’t squawk about how much cap space they have now and then turn around and claim they never would be able to re-sign Panarin, combined with the half-hearted noise they’ve made about trying to do it this summer anyway. Same goes for Teuvo, though not wanting to badmouth Bryan Bickell is understandable.

Isn’t it fun to work in the dark?

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing At Me – FFUD’s ’18-19 Player Reviews – Duncan Keith

By Rose Rankin 1925 0

It’s time now to move to reviewing the defense…I know, I know, I don’t want to remember either…

I honestly don’t know if Duncan Keith has morphed into a crotchety old man or a petulant toddler. Come to think of it, there’s a lot of similarities between the two so maybe either metaphor applies. Regardless, if there is one thing we learned about Duncan Keith it’s that when he doesn’t give a fuck he DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK. He should adjust his game to account for his decreasing speed as the game itself gets faster? DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK. He should make a concerted effort in a new defensive scheme that may not be totally in his wheelhouse but that’s how the coach wants it? DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK. Duncan Keith will do whatever he damn well pleases no matter how many bad turnovers it leads to. Let’s get to it:

28 GP – 6 G – 34 A – 40 P

49.7 CF% –46.4 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes with a Free Frogurt

Duncan Keith is not terrible and he wasn’t even close to being the worst defenseman on this team, let’s just get that out there right now. Did you even realize he had six goals this year? I, for one, did not. Looking up that stat was a surprise to me. But what matters more is that despite all the bullshit Keith managed a 50 CF% at evens (all situations), which isn’t too far off his average the last few years. Notably, that number jumps to a 53.8 CF% when he was paired with Henri Jokiharju, and HarJu’s CF% was actually higher without Keith so while that sounds concerning, i.e., Keith is dragging guys down, it actually suggests a workable way forward for an aging defenseman with a spiky attitude.

Pair Keith with someone faster who can get to the corners in ways he no longer can, and have the elder statesman act as more the free safety. His zone starts were quite sheltered again this year (58 oZS%), so keep that up and the decline can be managed. It’s probably pretty obvious that I think Keith and Jokiharju should be a package deal because I still think it’s awfully stupid to NOT have Jokiharju here when the blue line is so rancid, but even if it’s not HarJu the team can and should position Keith to use what he has left to contribute as best he can. That’s assuming Keith goes along with the plan, which is the real issue.

The Frogurt is Also Cursed

Basically the question is not CAN Keith play adequately, it’s IF he will choose to do so. Part of this is of course influenced by what the coach does, and for shits and giggles we’ll stick with it being Coach Cool Youth Pastor since by all indications he’ll be behind the bench for the foreseeable future. If Colliton does dumb shit like pair IDGAF Keith with I-Can’t-Skate-Upright Seabrook, we’re going to have a problem. For comparison, Keith and Nachos has an xGA of 20.8 at evens…that number was 17.2 when Keith was paired with Jokiharju, despite Keith having similar ice time with both. Again, this doesn’t mean that Jokiharju is the answer to everything that ails Keith, but it illustrates the point that Seabrook is still not the answer when it comes to who his partner should be.

Pairing him with Gustafsson shouldn’t really be a viable plan either—Gus just isn’t good enough defensively, so even if you give them all the offensive zone starts possible, the risk of what happens once the puck gets past the offensive blue line is terrifying. Who else is there? Forsling? Bitch please, he needs to be fired into the sun. Dahlstrom? Almost the same. Murphy? Not if Our Large Irish Son is staying with the dungeon shifts, for all the reasons we just described about Keith.

But you know all about the personnel problems…Keith needs someone who can be a complementary partner, we get it. At the end of the day, though, whether he gets a complementary partner or is stuck with the jamokes on this current roster, Keith is going to have to either 1) agree to play Colliton’s man-to-man system, should he choose to stick with it, or 2) at least raise his give-a-shit meter to about 7.5 regardless of what system he (Keith) decides he’s going to play on a given night.

We saw Duncan Keith make more lazy, careless plays this year than I can ever remember—bad turnovers that weren’t lack of skill, but lack of caring what happened. He called out his coach after the Hawks fumbled basically their last chances at squeaking into the playoffs, and while that is part of why we love him, you can see from an organizational standpoint how that’s a problem. Yes, he kinda sorta backtracked and said he wanted to be a part of whatever renaissance the Hawks may be attempting, but it’s hard to know if he really meant that or was just covering his ass with the front office.

What was clear was that Keith didn’t care to make the level of effort that is and will continue to be needed with a defense this crappy. He doesn’t have to become some media-friendly talking head; that’s not who he is or who should try to be. But he will have to contribute night in and night out both to make his remaining skills worthwhile, and hopefully to develop some of the green defensemen the system is so full of right now.

If he can’t or won’t, then the Hawks have to look at trading him while his contract still isn’t a Seabrook-level albatross for another team. And while that may make sense from a business standpoint, it would suck goat balls for the rest of us who want to see him age gracefully because we know, we could never have done any of this without him.

Preview Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia