Everything Else

1000 Points Of Hate – Hawks 3, Blues 3 (Hawks Win Three-Legged Relay Race)

By Matt McClure 2688 0

Box Score
Event Summary
Natural Stat Trick

Look, going to overtime five straight times as the Hawks have to start this season, an NHL record, isn’t necessarily a good thing. There have been blown leads in the last three games, and in the opener they trailed to a team they really shouldn’t have. But given where the expectations were to start this season, taking 8 of the first 10 points available will be accepted in whatever form it comes in. And tonight was as solid an endeavor as this team is likely to put forward, particularly when it comes at the expense of the Blues. So now onward to what everyone is really waiting for; it’s time to shit on Brandon Manning some more and heap praise upon Alex DeBrincat.

Everything Else

Game #4 – Ain’t No Particular Sign I’m More Compatible With – Hawks 3, Wild 3 (Wild Purify Themselves in the Waters of Lake Minnetonka)

By John Pullega 2108 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

We all whined and moaned about how the Hawks didn’t give us enough hockey last year. They’re making us whole now, with their fourth straight OT game and point. Let’s kick it.

– Reports of Jonathan Toews’s death were wildly exaggerated. As he’s been wont to do this year, Toews took the bull by the balls in the first period and looked like the kind of guy they build statues for. His assist on the first goal was one of the first times we’ve gotten to see the kind of Old Man Strength Marian Hossa used to put on display, and it looked good on The Captain. His awareness and speed gobbling up the rebound on Top Cat’s blocked shot and passing off to DA BIG KAHUNA gave him his second point of the night. You’d think that he can’t do this all year, but barring injury, I don’t know that there’s any reason he can’t. He’s playing like he has something to prove, and we should relish it.

– Congrats to Dominik Kahun on his first NHL goal. It’s hard enough to get one over the shoulder from the angle he had on it, and it’s doubly hard when the goaltender is an actual giant, but he kept his cool throughout. Kahun has impressed so far on the top line, and he led all Blackhawks with a 56+ CF%. It’s still too early to tell whether this is going to be a thing going forward, but Da Big Kahuna has handled the pressure as well as you can ask.

– Thank Christ Alex DeBrincat is 5’7”. For all the guys who have ever had a really nice girl lie to them about how size doesn’t matter, you now have someone tangible to point to. His one timer on the PP was gorgeous, but perhaps even more impressive was how stout he was with the puck. Since coming up last year, DeBrincat has had a penchant for either not turning the puck over, or, on the rare occasion that he does, turning around and picking it right back up. It’s one of the less talked about aspects of his game, but DeBrincat’s ability to cause turnovers is sometimes otherworldly. Motherfucker is special and can probably score 40 goals with Toews this year.

– One last totally positive note: Nick Schmaltz’s stickhandling was divine tonight. The fancy stats won’t back it up, but Schmaltz was everywhere. Late in the first, Schmaltz walked the blue line through Jan Rutta after Rutta’s puck allergy flared up, which turned into a one timer for Schmaltz after he passed it off to Patrick Kane, who mostly couldn’t be bothered tonight. Schmaltz also had an A+ chance in the second on the PP, but got stuffed by Devan Dubnyk and his stupidly spelled name. And in the OT, after looking like he was going to fumble the puck away, he managed to pry it back in the offensive zone at the end of his shift. He may not have had any tallies, but this was a good-looking game for him.

– It’s hard to blame Cam Ward for tonight. The Hawks posted a fucking 39+ CF% on the night. That’s really hard to do. The first goal was the result of Jan Rutta having his legs cut out under him and a no call. The second resulted from a behind-the-net pass from Eric Staal, followed by Chris Kunitz pondering the great mysteries of life for the first and most inopportune time of his life. You can maybe give him some of the blame on the third goal, but again, it’s hard to get mad at a goalie for giving up a goal that started from behind the net. Cam Ward should never have to face 40+ shots, but given that he did, he did much better than anyone could have predicted.

– Brandon Saad was a little more noticeable for the right reasons tonight. He had at least two high-quality chances that he couldn’t pot, and his possession numbers were garbage (38+ CF%), but there was a little more life to him.

–  Henri Jokiharju. We love him. He’s going to be excellent. He was excellent tonight, relatively speaking, and flashed a ton of confidence throughout most of the game. He’s probably going to be looked at as the at-fault defenseman on the Wild’s game-tying goal on the short hand, but this is the kind of stuff we’ve been warning people about. He’s 19, so he’s going to get overpowered at times. You take the bad with all the good.

– If we’re going to be subjected to Brandon Manning and Jan Rutta, tonight is probably the best example of how to turn shit into a shingle. They played strictly as a third pairing, and neither of them made any horribly egregious errors (other than, you know, playing professional hockey instead of working a 9–5. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED). As much as I want to fault Manning for skating too far up on the wrong side of the ice in an attempt to clear right before the Wild’s first goal, if Rutta gets the tripping call he deserved, it’s a load of nothing.

If anyone had told you the Hawks would capture six of their first eight points, you’d ask for a dose of whatever they were taking. It looks like this team is going to be exciting if nothing else.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life

Line of the Night: “I thought that pass was purrrrrrfect to The Cat.” –Eddie O. on Top Cat’s PP goal.

Everything Else

Game #2 – I See The Things That They’re Wishing On Me: Blackhawks 4, Blues 4 (Hawks win Spoons)

By Adam Hess 2369 0

Through two games of hockey, I am not sure what to make of the Blackhawks. There are times when I think they are completely awful, and others that I think they might be good. Not necessarily win the division good, but like sneak into the playoffs as a wild card and play spoiler good. There is enough there with some of the players they have that they probably aren’t the bottom-five NHL team that I (Hess) originally thought they were. I am not sure how I feel about that. But even if I don’t know what to make of it, these first two games have definitely been good watchin’. LET’S GET BACK AT IT FOLKS:

BULLETS

– I have been trying to tell y’all for like 13 months that Jonathan Toews is NOT done in the way that so many of the Toews haters and detractors have been acting like. I don’t have to rehash the numbers over and over again, but so much of his struggles the past two years came down bad shooting luck, and so far he’s getting the regression from that in a BIG way. Three more goals tonight for his fifth career hat trick and bringing his total to four through two games, to go with an assist in the Ottawa game have him at 5 points already. The pace is obviously unsustainable but he’s laid the groundwork to a 70 point season with this kinda start.

– Q sang the praises of Joker after the first game, and the melody ain’t stopping my frents. For being just 19-years-old, you’d be hard pressed to determine on your own that he’s not a more seasoned vet than some of these other assclowns the Hawks are dressing on the blue line. He is extremely solid defensively, which surprised me a bit honestly, because I felt like the tape I’d seen of him and the reports I saw sang his praises more as an offensive guy, but you will not get me to complain about it. He took the puck away from Tarasenko completely cleanly in the second period, which was really, truly, a moment of pure ecstasy. Then he added his first career point on Toews’ second goal of the night by trailing the play well and releasing a good shot that nearly beat Allen but ended up with a favorable rebound for the captain to pound home. Joker’s not some kind of franchise savior, and his ceiling may be high-end second pairing guy, but on this team right now that’s basically a #1 defenseman and through two games you can make the case he’s been their best blue liner.

– My feelings about Cam Ward are not positive, and I have not kept that a secret. He wasn’t awful in the first game against Ottawa, and he did his best to at least look like he was keeping the Hawks in this game in the first period. But in reality, he was beat extremely cleanly on two of the Blues four goals tonight, and made a comically awful play on another one (Tarasenko’s tally in the first that made it 2-0). Ward may not end up being completely awful, and he’s done enough to get the Hawks two wins in these first two games, so you give him that credit. But he is sloppy as hell and I am not sure I will ever get used to watching him in net, nor do I want to.

– But, in defense of Ward, the Hawks were just absolutely shit in their own zone tonight. There was power play in the third period that St. Louis was able to keep the puck in the zone for the entire two minutes. And that’s just one glaring example of what was an all around bad performance in their d-zone tonight. It’s gotta get better.

St. Louis City Hall
Everything Else

Game #2 – Hawks at Blues Preview: The ‘This Year’s Different’ Cup

By John Pullega 1860 0

at St. Louis City Hall

RECORDS: Blues 0-1-0   Hawks 1-0-0

PUCK DROP: 7:00 p.m. Central

TV: NBCSCH

IT’S NOT HIS FAULT HE CAN’T READ: St. Louis Game Time

The NHL decided to kick off a weekend of inferiority complexes early, as the Hawks took I-55 south to practice in an abandoned fucking mall because St. Louis is less a city than it is a cluster of trash piled together by no fewer than five rat kings. If there’s one good reason to watch, it’s that the Blues managed to do one thing right for the first time in team history for tonight’s game, choosing to don the powder blue uniforms that might deceive the undiscerning eye into thinking this is a team that chooses not to employ players who drink rainwater from the rafters for sustenance. And yet . . .

The first game of the “This Year’s Different” Cup couldn’t come quickly enough for the Blues, who had a mudhole stomped in their asses by Winnipeg in the season opener. Trash City hung with the Jets for an entire two periods, presumptively because no one in St. Louis can count higher than two, before giving up three goals in just under two minutes in the third. It’s once again the Blues’s woeful defense and goaltending that will keep it from ever doing anything worthwhile.

Year in and year out, the Blues try to convince everyone that Alex Orange Jello and Jabe O’Meester are not only not dead but also top-pairing guys. And they’ll do it again tonight, mostly because there’s nowhere else to go for them on the blue line. Vinny Dunn and his gabagool-stained sweater will likely pair with Colton Parayko, and these two can move the puck if nothing else. And let us assure you, they can’t really do anything else. In the season opener, Dunn–Parayko had CF%s under 25%, despite the Blues having a 54+ CF% on the game and despite those two starting in the offensive zone more than 70% of the time. You have to try to be that bad. Behind them is the Cronenberg pairing of Chris Butler and Jordan “The Lesser” Schmaltz, which might be worse than anything the Hawks throw up on the ice today. That’s a real commitment to sucking.

All of this makes you wonder just how long Jay Gallon can go before having a complete mental breakdown. As the perennial presenter of the “This Year’s Different” Cup, Jake Allen has seen this movie play out, and it never ends well. And lo, Thursday saw him toss a .800 SV% up, including a short-handed goal, despite his strong first 40 minutes. At some point the Blues will have to admit that Gallon probably isn’t the guy to get them to the WCF, let alone past it, but that day is not today. He’s likely to get the start, but if humanoid marital aid Mike Yeo gets itchy, it’s possible to see Chad Johnson take his first start for the Blues. Johnson is about as much of “a guy” as you can find, right down to his frathouse-appropriate name.

Even with all the dreck on the back-end, the Blues do have dangerous weapons up front. Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko have all the skill to be a holy terror, provided the aptly named Patrick Maroon doesn’t trip over his own dick too often and kneecap them. You can count on him getting into at least one fight tonight for HOCKEY REASONS, and god willing it’ll be with Brandon Manning and result in match penalties for both.

Behind them is the quick and crafty line of Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, and Jordan Kyrou. Kyrou is just 20 years old and stands as a beacon for St. Louis’s future offense, as he’s fast and has outstanding hands and vision. With most teams looking to blanket the O’Reilly–Tarasenko line, this is where you figure the Blues can do the most damage. Bozak is on the third line where he belongs, but slotting him in with Steen and alleged-living-person David Perron as the Blues’s version of a dungeon line is going to have him wondering what the fuck he was thinking signing in STL. The Ivan Barbashev–Rob Thomas–Sammy Blais line rounds it out. Thomas (20th overall in 2017) and Blais are both supposed to be a thing for the Blues.

As for the Hawks, the song remains mostly the same. Cam Ward will try to build off a decent performance against the Senators, assuming the Hawks don’t fart and belch their way through their own zone like they did on Thursday. The Hawks had a hard time fending off pressure from Ottawa’s crashing defensemen on Thursday, which simply doesn’t bode well against a team with better weapons like the Blues do.

There are no changes for the Hawks defensively. Duncan Keith and Henri Jokiharju will have their work cut out for them against either the O’Reilly or Schenn line, and this will be HJ’s first real test of his defensive awareness and abilities. Erik Gustafsson and Jan Rutta will keep doing whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and this game is set up to allow Cowboy Gus to be an aggressive bum slayer. The shutdown pairing is Manning–Seabrook, which is fucking hilarious because the only thing Manning has ever shut down is any hope that the Hawks’s pro scouting department has any idea what a hockey player is, let alone what a passable hockey player looks like. Brent Seabrook did look better than expected on Thursday, but whether that’s per se or resultant of playing next to Manning remains to be seen. If God were merciful, you’d have Davidson rotate in for Manning, but alas.

Before I digress into another fit about Manning, let’s get to the forwards. The only change that might be made is subbing in John Hayden for Andreas Martinsen on the fourth line. We still aren’t sure why Moonface Luke is playing center over Kruger. The Toews line figures to carry most of the momentum in this game, and if the Hawks can get more than just 10 minutes of giving a fuck out of the Kane line, there are plenty of advantages to take against the Imo’s Pizza that is the Blues back-end. We’ll likely see Kunitz–Anisimov–Kampf out for far too long against Tarasenko, because it’s completely fucking normal for a team with playoff aspirations to have line like that as their third. Truth be told, that line was the most dominant in possession on Thursday, but the Blues are much, much better than the Senators you assume, so there might be a violent regression here.

The more they say things will be different, the more they stay the same.

Let’s go Hawks.

Game #2 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups And How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

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

By John Pullega 2631 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 1885 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

Everything Else

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

By Rose Rankin 1955 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

Everything Else

Are we really gonna do this: Blackhawks 6, Red Wings 8

By Adam Hess 1845 0

It’s tough to put a lot of stock in preseason games, obviously, because you’re not getting a full squad run from either team, and players are still getting back into the rhythm of playing games and what have you. At this point in the preseason, though, we’re getting more toward real-ish hockey. The Hawks played most of the big names tonight, and the Wings played a number of their top guys as well (not that they have many left at this point, but you get me). Keith played. Seabrook played. Toews played.

What I am getting at here is that even with the context of it being a preseason game on a Tuesday night in gosh darn September, the Blackhawks defensive effort being so damn putrid tonight is pretty troublesome. There were just too many occasions where guys got beat, or turned the puck over badly, or were out of position, or were just plain bad. We already knew at the end of this year we’d look back at the blue line and realize it was more like a BLEW LINE (save that one for later, but make sure you credit me thanks), but for it to look so bad so early is not good.

Moreover, and we all already knew this, Cam Ward sucks major ass. He was scheduled to play the entirety of this game and still managed to get pulled after two periods. That’s how bad he was. Joel Quenneville felt the need to pull him out of a PRESEASON GAME because he was that bad in the PRESEASON GAME. One that he was scheduled to play the entirety of. And he still got pulled.

Folks.

Anyone with a brain has known since the charade the team put on last year that Crawford’s health status for this season was gonna be in question. We knew the backup situation was bad, and Stan might need to upgrade it. Cam Ward is not that. If Crawford doesn’t come back relatively early in the season, the damage done by playing Ward could literally be irreversible.

You might be thinking this has become less recap and more scorched earth takedown of Cam Ward. But really, this becoming a scorched earth takedown of Cam Ward is the ultimate recap of this game, because score the earth and take down Cam Ward is exactly what the Red Wings did tonight. They got him pulled from a preseason game in which he was supposed to play the whole damn thing. LMAO.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images, acquired via Second City Hockey

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Marcus Kruger

By John Pullega 2424 0

Kruger is only one season removed from being the firefighter you remember here, and we know that Q knows exactly what he is. Let’s say he’s an improvement on David Kampf. And he only has one year on his deal, so if he’s another charred remains of a beloved warrior of victories past, well whatever. . . . At this point in his career if Kruger matters too much you’re fucking sunk. –Sam Fels, July 12, 2018.

Well shit.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Cam Ward

By Adam Hess 2410 0

After a season marred in large part by bad goalie play after Corey Crawford went down to injury, the Blackhawks decided to attempt to address their bad backup goalie problem by signing…. a bad backup goalie. Cam Ward probably wasn’t the worst option available on the market, but he wasn’t exactly far from it.

2017-18 Stats

43 GP (42 starts) – 23 W, 14 L, 4 OTL

.906 SV%, 2.27 GAA, 2 shutouts

.914 EV, .846 PP, .858 SH

28 SA per game

A Brief History: Cam Ward has had one of the cushiest gigs in professional sports over the past decade, as he has been living out the true American Dream of making a lot of money to be not that good at his job. He’s done that by living off the glory of a Stanley Cup win in 2006 as a rookie, despite the fact that he was pretty much dogshit during that regular season, posting a .882 SV% in 28 games that year.

It’s really a wonder Ward has even made it this long into an NHL career, now a veteran of 13 seasons, because in his first two years he couldn’t even crack a .900 SV% and even when he did get there in year 3, it was by the thinnest of margins with a .904 mark. Something seemed to click for him between the 2008-09 and 2011-12 seasons, as he went .916, .916, .923, and .915 over that stretch, finally lending some credence to his place as an NHL goalie. Since then, it’s been less rosy.

Since the start of the 2012-13 season, Ward has yet to get post a save rate north of .910, and only got to that number once. The last two years he’s gone back to barely scraping hockey’s Mendoza Line, with .905 in ’16-’17 and the above mentioned .906 mark last year. He’s also posted negative or worse Goals Saved Above Average marks every year in that same stretch, even getting as low as -13.93 in ’16-’17. Less than ideal.

In an attempt to be fair to Ward, it’s probably not all his fault, as Bill Peters system is well known for hanging the goalies out to dry in the attempt to control possession. Still, GSAA at the very least makes an effort to adjust for outside factors, so the information that is out there about Ward is still not encouraging.

It Was The Best of Times: The ideal scenario for both Ward and the Blackhawks is that Ward doesn’t have to come off the bench more 30-35 times, ideally against bad teams. Maybe in limited outings Ward will be able to find some of the game that he showed earlier this decade rather than what he’s been showing recently. Quennville’s more risk averse system should at the very least take bit of the pressure off Ward’s shoulders that he’s been felt in Carolina, while perhaps giving him a bit more confidence. Even so, in a backup goalie you could do a lot worse than a guy hovering around .910, so if Ward gets in that range it could keep the Hawks in games even when Crawford isn’t there to bail them out.

It Was The Worst of Times: Believe it are not, there are pretty much two worst case scenarios here. On the other end of spectrum of possibilities to what’s above is that it turns out Ward can’t stop a puck unless he’s getting frequent playing time, and resorts back to the player he was early in his career and not even stop 90% of what’s thrown at him. If Ward turns into Swiss Cheese in net whenever he’s in there and can’t even give the Hawks a fighting chance in the games he backstops, the classic Stan Bowman NMC is going to really bite this team in the ass unless they can find a way to make up an injury and try Forsberg again.

The other worst case scenario is that Corey Crawford is no longer good or his brain is mush after all, and Ward turns into your starter. Sorry, but this Blackhawks roster with a .905 goalie behind them is probably gonna have top-3 odds at Jack Hughes next spring.

Prediction: I am awful at predictions, but I will use Pullega’s Crow prediction as a baseline for mine. If Crawford does come in and only miss 10 or so games before coming back and being his old self, Ward will do just enough to help the Hawks survive Crow’s brief absence without falling apart, then turn into a dependable-but-not-impressive backup goalie, which really is how all backup goalies probably should be.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford