Hockey

Game #48 – Hawks vs. Canadiens Preview: They’re A Bit Spiky, A Bit…French

By Sam Fels 1429 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 21-20-6   Canadiens 20-20-7

PUCK DROP: 6:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

GREAT BAGELS THERE: Habs Eyes On The Prize

Hey did you hear the Hawks took a train from Ottawa to Montreal? Crazy, right? I mean, who does that? A train from city center to city center without dealing with an airport that neither town has near downtown? Other than like, every East Coast team between DC and Boston? Who ever heard of such a thing? Geniuses, these Hawks.

Anyway, now that everyone apparently has survived this galaxy-brained tactic of taking, y’know, a train between two cities, the Hawks will use that advantage to take on their mirror image in a lot of ways in the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are also an O6 franchise that can’t seem to get its dick out of a knot, are staring down their third-straight playoff-less season, and don’t seem to have any particular direction. Fuck, they even employ former Hawks assistant GM Marc Bergevin, who has done pretty much nothing since getting there 48 years ago or so it feels. But hey, he speaks French and everyone says he was a funny guy back in the day, so here he still is, serving up tepid stew as a hockey team once again.

The difference is that the Canadiens actually do things well with no stars to make it count, where the Hawks don’t really do anything well amongst their skaters but their stars barely keep them relevant. Metrically, the Canadiens are one of the best teams around, as Claude Julien teams tend to be. If you go by Corsi-percentage, or expected goals percentage, or just attempts per game for and against, or expected goals for and against per game, you’ll find the Habs top-10 in all of them. They keep the puck and they create the better chances more often.

What they can’t do is finish them. Les Habitants are bottom-1o in SH% at even-strength. Combine that with the fact they’re only getting middling goaltending from Carey Price this year, and they just can’t seem to turn these numbers into wins. Even a rise in SH% from their current 7.4% to just 8.0% would see eight more goals for them at evens, which can be six or more points in the standings. That would have them right on the wildcard hunt and breathing down the necks of Buds All Day for the last automatic spot in the Atlantic. You can’t miss the bear, people.

The Habs are also pretty damn fast, even without Paul Byron and Brendan Gallagher as they’re currently injured. This is a team that can feature Artturi Lehkonen and Jesperi Kotkaniemi on its third line at times. It just doesn’t have what you’d call front-line scoring. That’s why Ilya Kovalchuk is now here, hilariously. Tomas Tatar is on the top line. Phillip Danault is awesome and has a serious case for the Selke this year, but he’s also not a top line center as the Canadiens have to use him. The hope would be that Nick Suzuki becomes that one day, but that’s a hell of a stretch.

You used to think of Montreal as having a plodding defense behind these gnat forwards, but that’s not as much the case anymore. Ben Chiarot is at least an upgrade on Karl Alzner, and Cale Fleury and Victor Mete (which you have to pronounce as Jonah Jameson even if you have to mispronounce “MEH-te” as “MEAT”) on the third pairing certainly upgrade the mobility scales. Weber and Chariot have been great together, and Jeff Petry always makes it work despite being 198 years old (somehow he’s only listed as 32 but I’m sure that’s a lie).

Price is only sporting a .908 this year, but the Habs have yet to locate a suitable backup for him so he’s playing too much and not all that well. If they were getting Price of four years ago, they’re almost certainly a playoff team. But they’re not, which leaves them seven points adrift and having four teams to leap to get there. Sound familiar? It’s like looking in a mirror…only…not.

For the Hawks, the only change we should see is Corey Crawford starting in his hometown again, where he’s generally been brilliant. Crow carries a lifetime .954 against Montreal anywhere, and his last five appearances in the Bell Centre have seen him give up four goals total. Clearly he likes it there.

The Hawks will be up against it on the back end of a back-to-back here, given how fast the Canadiens can play. A good time to remind everyone that though they won their last trip there in March, they also gave up 48 shots to do it and Crow got them all. Best not to repeat that. A track meet wouldn’t suit the Hawks here, though they could end up finishing more chances than the Habs do even if they give up more. Play this one a little more simple.

It’s a busy end to the pre-bye schedule, as the Hawks will close with three-in-four after this, making a total of five games in eight days in four cities. And they need most of the points on offer if not all of them. This is what happens when you back yourself into corners like this. Allez.

 

Hockey

Game #47 – Hawks vs. Senators Preview: Ottawa…I Don’t Think So

By Sam Fels 1488 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 20-20-6    Senators 16-22-7

PUCK DROP: 6:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BULWORTHS: Silver Seven Sens

The Hawks get to remain in the remedial class after their win against the Ducks tonight, and arguably tomorrow, as they’ll head for the Eastern Canada swing. They kick it off tonight against the equally-rebuilding-as-the-Ducks Senators, before decamping east into La Belle Province to face another floundering O6 team in Montreal on Wednesday. But first things first, a contest out in the middle of nowhere Ontario. Even though basically Ontario is nowhere, and deep down even Ontario knows that.

The Senators aren’t quite as bad as they were supposed to be. This was supposed to be a Wings-like outfit, with a sad little point total as they raced to the #1 pick in June. And the Senators certainly aren’t good, but they haven’t redefined stink as we know it like the Motor City cadre. Still, they’re tied for the second-fewest regulation wins in the league with the just-conquered Ducks and two ahead of the Wings. Perhaps they just couldn’t anticipate just how bad the Wings would be. Who could?

Not that the Sens do anything well. They’re bottom-five in both goals-for and goals-against in the league. Their metrics aren’t much better, though they’re a little weird. They give up a ton of attempts, and have one of the worst Corsi-shares around. But their expected-goals marks are basically middle fo the pack, in that they don’t give up a ton of great chances. They’re not a great defensive team by any sense of the word, and they don’t have nearly enough firepower to make any team capable of breathing sweat. But they do limit the kinds of things they give up, which is more than you can say for the Hawks. In fact, if they were getting any kind of goaltending, they might barely be on the fringes of they playoff picture.

But the thing is, Craig Anderson is now three days older than water and Anders Nilsson is the very definition of “replacement level goalie.” So this is what you get.

The Sens have gotten breakout seasons from Anthony Duclair (spotlighted earlier) and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the latter of which figures to be a pretty valuable commodity around the deadline. He’s cheap now at $3M and will make a decent 2-3 center for some contender down the stretch. He also is an impending UFA, so he’s going to get a major raise which probably isn’t in the interest of the Senators.

The only pieces that figure to be around whenever this thing turns in Ottawa is whichever garbage Tkachuk son resides there and Thomas Chabot. You may have heard about Chabot playing 37 minutes in a game recently and averaging about 27 minutes per night the past couple months. I mean, why not play your future pieces into dust now while you suck raw sewage, eh? I suppose names like Filip Chlapik, or Rudolfs Balcers (which sounds like a gastrointestinal problem), or Drake Batherson (which definitely was a character in Knives Out) could make the list before the year is out but they have some work to do. The road is long for the Sens, let’s just say that.

For the Hawks, Robin Lehner gets his “revenge” game or whatever as a former Senator before Corey Crawford gets the hometown start in Montreal tomorrow, where he generally has flourished. Thanks to the demotion of  John Quenneville, which was done because the Hawks actually feared putting him on waivers, means that Dylan Sikura gets back in the lineup. Zack Smith also has this as a homecoming, having spent his entire career in Ottawa before moving south.

Neither the Senators or Canadiens are any damn good, so the Hawks might want to gobble up these points before seeing a rejuvenated, if not beat up, Leafs squad on Hockey Night. They’re getting close to the bye, which generally has seen them turn the motor off. And that’s fine if they’ve scratched this season. If they’re still planning on making something of it, these are games you have to have. Well, they have to have them all but we know how they do against other teams actually competing for playoff spots, but you know how this goes.

Hockey

Game #46: Ducks 2, Hawks 4 – And I’ll Be Satisfied Not To Read In Between The Lines

By Rose Rankin 1911 0

They’re not bad because they’re inconsistent, they’re inconsistent because…well, tonight I won’t bother to finish that sentence. The Hawks beat a crappy team, as they should, so let’s take what we can get, right? To the bullets…

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–Early on, it felt like things were going to go off the rails again when Max Jones scored less than five minutes in. But the Hawks righted things well enough, to the point that while their play in the first can’t be described as “good,” it can be described as “not horrible.” Jonathan Toews had a great opportunity where he actually shot the puck through John Gibson‘s five hole but it bounced off the post in some weird quirk of physics. But, he made up for it minutes later with a wrist shot, again five-hole, but buried it straight up. The best part was, he was on a 2-on-1 with John Quenneville and at no time in the entire sequence did he even pretend like he was going to pass it to Quenneville. He was absolutely right in his decision-making, but the lack of even the slightest pretense was great.

–Dominik Kubalik is tied for the league lead in rookie goals. He now has scored five goals in his last four games, two of which came tonight so he was basically the difference maker and was deservedly the first star of the game. The first goal was off a beautiful backhand feed from Patrick Kane, who’s got a six-game scoring streak of his own going, and the second was a tap-in of a rebound off a long shot from Zack Smith. Kubalik has made it impossible for Colliton to reduce his ice time or maroon him in the bottom six, which you could just tell this doofus was itching to do, and that brings joy to my cold, black heart. The team really tried to get him a hat trick with an empty netter, but you know how empty net attempts go for the Hawks. No big deal anyway, Kubalik was great tonight.

–Adam Boqvist had a good night too, or at least, a much better night than his last game. In the second, Keith had his stick vaporize in his hands, giving the Ducks an easy breakaway and Boqvist hustled to strip the puck, bailing out Keith and preventing even a shot on goal. He also generated a chance in the second, which was his only shot of the night but it was the kind of play we’re all looking for–a nice wrister from the dot after a nifty move into the zone. Boqvist finished with just a 41 CF% at evens and had the least ice time of any defenseman, but he was faster and more confident than Thursday against the Predators.

–Connor Murphy, on the other hand, did not have a good night. He gave up a couple bad turnovers, including one that led directly to Jones’s goal. And yet he had a 58 CF% so it wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t passing the eye test, either.

–Robin Lehner looked excellent in his first game back after a bruised knee or bruised ego or whatever it was. He ended the night with a .946 SV% and made a number of key saves in the third to keep the Hawks in the lead (if the Ducks had tied this oh lord I don’t want to think of how that could have ended). There was a particularly crazy save on Gudbranson early in the third that you’ll see on highlight reels somewhere soon. All the way around, a quality start for Lehner.

–If Olli Maatta scores on you, you know you suck. That’s all I have to say.

They needed to win against this shitty team and they did. It doesn’t mean all their woes are solved but it’s better than losing to a shitty team, no? Onward and upward…

Line of the Night: “Getzlaf had a chance but instead of shooting, he tried to pass.” –Eddie O describing…Ryan Getzlaf’s MO

Beer du Jour: Beach Blonde lager, Crystal Lake Brewing

Hockey

Game #46 – Ducks vs. Hawks Preview: Picking On Your Own Size

By Sam Fels 1312 0

vs.

RECORDS: Ducks 17-22-5   Hawks 19-20-6

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

OC GANGSTAS: Anaheim Calling

After dropping yet another two games against teams they want to catch to barely hang on to the playoff chase, the Hawks get a rare Saturday night home game against one of the few teams in their wake. The Anaheim Ducks are in the middle of the rebuild the Hawks won’t allow themselves to take on, transitioning from the Getzlaf-Perry era to whatever Sam Steel and the rest of the kids can produce.

We’ll start with the Hawks, who are once again trotting out this mess of a lineup. As we said in the lineups post, yes the Hawks have injuries. And yes the roster wasn’t very good to begin with. But this is as mangled group of forwards as you’re likely to ever see. David Kampf is not a winger, much less a scoring winger, and has no business playing with Dach and Top Cat. Patrick Kane is a third-liner with one worker bee in Ryan Carpenter and one dunderhead in Alex Nylander. Dylan Sikura, still better than any of Nylander, Highmore, or Quenneville, has whatever confidence he might have gleaned from breaking his duck (sorry again) by sitting for another game. John Quenneville, whose next contribution that you’d notice will be his first, remains on the top line with Kubalik and Toews.

This is a one line team right now. So make it one. Put Kane up there with Toews and Kubalik and play them 22 minutes. Pair Sikura with Top Cat and Dach to give them speed and something of a puck-winner with skill. Use Kampf and Carpenter and Caggiula as a checking line. Mash a fourth line together and play them sparingly. The answers are simple. None of them have been taken, and it’s no wonder these players refuse to bother until they’re on the verge of getting embarrassed.

Anyway, Lehner starts even though he missed the morning skate as he’s over his knee- or ankle-knack.

Right, to the Ducks. Who suck. Truly down in the muck. Not sure why you should give a fuck? If you’re looking to us for help, you’re out of luck. You’ll see as soon as they drop the puck.

Let us have our fun.

Much like the Hawks, the Ducks are a top-heavy team. When Getzlaf and Silfverberg (who’s hurt anyway) and Henrique are out there, they can control the play. When they’re not, they get crushed. There’s a fair amount of kids out there now, like Steel, Comtois, Jones, Larsson, Ritchie (also hurt) and one or two others. The Ducks have admitted one era is over and it’s time to find the next one.

It’s still a pretty solid blue line with HAMPUS! HAMPUS! and Cam Fowler and Josh Manson (he’s mad…he’s bad…), despite Erik Gudbranson’s best efforts. Jacob Larsson is the kid back there that they will hope rises to meet the other three one days soon.

What the Ducks haven’t gotten is Vezina-level goaltending from Josh Gibson like they did for most of last season before he gave in to exhaustion. Ryan Miller hasn’t been much better, sending him back to his My Bloody Valentine records. Gibson has had it especially rough of late, so maybe Miller gets the start.

The Ducks don’t do anything especially well, but they might be eager to get out there in what could be a rare road win for them. It’s really about keeping their top six from going totally off, and you can do that through matchups if Colliton were ever bothered (he’s not). Toews has almost always caused Getzlaf to shrivel and give up, and probably can still in both of their advanced ages.

And if the Hawks can’t get this one before heading out on the road…well, that’s probably it. It’s probably it anyway.

Hockey

Boqvist, Nylander, Colliton, And Other Thoughts On A Dreary Day

By Sam Fels 2094 0

Not much more to discuss after last night’s loss, as Rose summed it up pretty well. So we’ll clean through what we can.

-The Hawks will run to the stronghold of the excuse of injuries, and that has some validity. Without Saad and Strome, this team is missing two of a top six that never really had a six until Kubalik proved he was worthy of it (and you could probably still argue on a good team Kubalik is a great third-liner). That’s going to be too much for this team to overcome. Until they return, you’re probably going to see a few more two-goal games or four-shot periods and the like.

Still, I won’t hear much about adding Andrew Shaw to that list, because that’s pining for the idea of Andrew Shaw and not what was reality. You could do that when he was healthy. He didn’t provide much forecheck, hardly any scoring, and basically the only thing you got above a “meh” level was dumb offensive zone penalties.

That doesn’t mean it’s not somewhat embarrassing to get clowned by a coach who has had one practice with his new team. John Hynes might fall on the “Moron” side of our binary Moron/Not A Moron coach rating system, but his Devils teams were a nightmare for the Hawks the past couple seasons. And that’s because they had enough speed for Hynes to simply let them loose on the forecheck and there’s nothing the Hawks can do about it. Or they won’t.

Most teams don’t have to worry about leaving a third man high on the forecheck or not, because if they send two forwards aggressively they will likely cause a turnover. The Hawks have never been instructed to A. move the puck along quickly and B. have their forwards in spots to aid that if they have been. They’re either too far deep along the boards where one forechecker can get to both he and the d-man or they’re floating somewhere out in the neutral zone, stationary. The Hawks don’t time this well. What the good teams are doing is flipping pucks into the neutral zone as the forwards are charging out of the defensive end. They’re leading them.

The Hawks, because their players demanded they play this way and the front office went along with it to basically cut Colliton off at the knees, send their forwards early. So even if the d-men have time to get the puck out there, everything is a jump-ball. Hynes knows enough to know this and harasses the Hawks d-men below the goal line with all of his d-men and third forward “above” the Hawks forwards, or closer to the puck. So when there is a turnover, they’re better positioned and it’s ya-ha time.

Secondly, Hynes is yet another coach who knows the Hawks “system” in their zone is still easily pierced by a simple weave either by the circle or out at the line, where a forward carries the puck from down low to out high and a d-man switches spots with him. You saw it last night on the first goal, where Boqvist has to go chasing Filip Forsberg all the way out to the line, and hence ends up running an incidental screen on Kane chasing Josi, leaving the latter a free lane to the net. Seeing as how Forsberg’s back is to the goal and he’s moving in the wrong direction, it would seem prudent for Boqvist to pass him off to whatever forward is there because there’s time to do so without providing a four-lane high way to the slot. But no, we continue to see this.

-Speaking of Boqvist, he had a rough one last night. On the ice for the first two goals, flailing wildly on the first and caught flat-footed after Keith was stripped on the second. And then he couldn’t out-skate Nick Bonino for the first empty-netter, though he might have gotten confused whether it was Bonino or the puck he was supposed to chase. And he was at the end of a shift, so maybe judging his speed then isn’t the fairest. There were always going to be nights like this, and you’d dismiss them as just that if you thought it was part of a proper learning curve.

Still, we haven’t seen Boqvist move through the gears at all except for brief flashes in the offensive zone. What’s been frustrating for me is that as soon as he gets the puck in the defensive zone, his feet stop moving. What’s supposed to make Boqvist special is that he can squirt out of trouble with the puck and move the Hawks up the ice with a couple opposing forwards caught. He’s supposed to a risk-taker, just like Josi is and always has been. Sure, there will be some ugly turnovers that way but this is a team that desperately needs to play in space and can’t always hail mary its way to that. It needs a quick turn or spin out from behind the net and suddenly it has possession with speed and teams backing off of them.

I don’t know if this has been an organizational treatise to Boqvist, and they’ve been lording over him for a year and a half now, or just a teenager still trying to come to terms with the top division. But if he’s just going to immediately become a statue when in possession in his own end, then all you’ve got is a more skilled Erik Gustafsson. That’s not nearly enough.

-I can’t call Alex Nylander the dumbest Hawk I’ve ever seen, because that’s a hell of a competition. But man is he making a case. We’ve seen the repeated failure to gain the red line for a dump-in to change. Or the blind chases to find space when it was detrimental. He added a new one last night on the power play in the 3rd when Kubalik (I think) had the puck on the right half-wall and Nylander simply skated right at him motioning for him to switch spots like they were messing up a dance routine and they were told to take five. Doofus, he had the puck, maybe play off of him and naturally get to your spot instead of ruling yourself out as an option?

The too many men he forced was the capper though. Everyone in the arena and on TV could see the Hawks were changing and he had the puck on the opposite side of the ice under no pressure. So there’s no way he couldn’t see it. A simple shovel into the Preds zone and everything was fine. Instead, he passed it into a sea of red jerseys, where the absolute best result would have been for every Hawk to avoid the puck until the change was complete and probably result in the Preds grabbing it. And that’s if everyone was looking at him, which no one was because they were changing and just expecting a dump-in.

This might go down as one of Stan’s worst moves, which is saying something because Jokiharju maxes out as a nice, second-pairing player. But Nylander simply has no feel for the game, no instincts, and it’s getting worse. How do players like this get taken in the first round at all?

Hockey

#45: Predators 5, Hawks 2 – Knowing Better but Choosing to Fail

By Rose Rankin 2173 0

It was a game they had to win, so of course they lost. I don’t want to hear anything from the organ-I-zation about how there’s a lot of hockey left, and there’s still half a season to go. Fuck that noise. If they actually wanted to do anything about the playoffs then literally every game from here on out matters, and their record needs to be absurdly good to have a chance. Instead we get absurdly bad shit like this one, where a first period in which the Hawks completely shat the bed was enough to sink the entire night. And then to really give us the finger, Pekka fucking Rinne scores a goal. You read that right. Let’s get through it:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–So as mentioned, in the first the Hawks were disjointed, messy and seemingly confused about what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to be. And I don’t mean that in the existential sense of, “oh they suck at hockey,” although a lot of tonight’s roster certainly does. I mean it quite literally, in that there were defensive breakdowns everywhere and guys just looking at each other not knowing what to do. What’s really bizarre is they were barely beaten in shots in that period (12-10), and they led in possession at 5-v-5 (55 CF%, lots of 5s right there). This may lead you to say that it was Corey Crawford‘s fault, and I can assure it wasn’t, although I would have liked to have seen his glove side a little tighter. On the second goal, Adam Boqvist just got out-muscled and that’s the one Crawford needed to stop, but it’s not exactly his fault that his diminutive defenseman got drop kicked by an oaf, and said oaf was then left completely alone just above the crease. John Quenneville also demonstrated why he’s completely useless on Matt Duchene‘s goal, where he basically just watched the puck go by him like a spun Phish fan watching a glowstick (trust me, I know). All the way around it was exactly the opposite of what the Hawks needed to do.

–To cap off that terrible period, the Hawks took yet another too many men penalty, which I could have sworn was their 15th of the year. Mark Lazarus on Twitter had the actual data and it’s in fact 7 total for the Hawks, which isn’t worst in the league as I snarkily opined, but it’s the 3rd such penalty in basically the last week. I can’t think of anything that sums up poor coaching and a tuned-out team better than that. I get it, math is hard, but even I can count to 5.

–There are plenty of issues with personnel on this team, which have only been exacerbated by injuries, meaning there isn’t a huge pool of talent to work with right now. However, that makes decent coaching and decision-making even more important, and again Colliton isn’t even close to getting a passing grade. For example, why is John Quenneville on the top line? One could ask why he’s playing at all, while Dylan Sikura sits in the press box (and I will ask that–why the fuck is Sikura in the press box? Did he run over Colliton’s dog or something? It’s ridiculous at this point). For god’s sake Quenneville was on the power play–what does that tell you about where this team is at?

Another example: if you’re missing key players and working with less, why put two of your best centers on the same line? Having David Kampf on a wing is just foolish, since he’s the best defensive center they have, and Kirby Dach can hold his own as the 2C no problem. And if you’re not going to put Toews and Kane on a line, even though all logic says they should play with Kubalik, then at least get Patrick Kane OFF THE FUCKING THIRD LINE where he’s centered by Ryan Carpenter who is OK but not actually good, and Alex Nylander who can’t pass, shoot or do anything that plays to Kane’s strengths (or anyone else’s, for that matter). For what it’s worth, Kubalik-Toews-Kane did finally get a look in the later stages of the game (and had an 83 CF%, by the way), but the fact it took nearly the whole game, and the fact that they still only got under 5 minutes of ice time together when it was woefully obvious his first concoctions weren’t working, shows how clueless Colliton really is.

–So what did work? Well, for one, Dominik Kubalik. His goal was off a beautiful wrister and he was showing off his speed, which we know is a rare thing around here. He finished the night with an 58 CF% at evens, yet remains Colliton’s most hated player aside from Dylan Sikura. Alex DeBrincat scored on the power play, so that was nice too.

–And to be honest, the Hawks played better in the third period. I would hesitate to say “well” because they fucked up about three odd-man rushes that should have resulted in at least one goal. However, they certainly made a game of it and piled up 14 shots in the third, but this is also what’s maddening about this team. Flip the first and third periods and the outcome may have been different. It’s definitely a give-a-shit meter thing, but also the general confusion and poor coaching mixed with the lack of enough good players. Quite a situation.

–And ‘Ole Shit Hip not only gets the win, he got a fucking goal. What a time to be alive. Yes it was an empty netter, but still…

The game was closer than the score, but in the end it doesn’t matter. They had to have two points here and couldn’t even keep it even. I can only hope that every one of these types of losses brings Jeremy Colliton‘s tenure closer to its end. Onward…

Line of the Night: “Zack Smith needs help from Olli Maatta.” –What you hear from the broadcast when your team is composed of bad players.

Beer du jour: Moon Man by New Glarus Brewing

Hockey

Don’t Speak, I Know Just What You’re Sayin’

By Sam Fels 1919 0

I should admit right at the top I always had a distaste for No Doubt, which is saying something as I was 13 when Gwen Stefani hit the scene and that really should have been enough for any boy that age. It wasn’t. I guess I’ve never been happy.

Anyway…

I won’t be the first to point out that it’s awfully curious, or perfect in another sense, that the first time Stan Bowman was publicly available to the media is halfway through the season and when the Hawks had gone 7-3-0 during a 10-game stretch. Something about GMs in this town. You can’t find Ryan Pace with a strike team during the season. I’m not sure GarPax knows where the media room is. Only Hahn and Epstein seem to be around for you whenever, but maybe that’s just the nature of baseball and being there every goddamn day.

Whatever Stan had to say, and we’ll get to it, should be couched by this fact: though the Hawks had won 7 of 10, they were still six points out of a playoff spot before last night’s game with three teams to leap. The current last wildcard holder (Winnipeg) is on pace for 95 points. The Hawks would have to amass 51 points in their last 38 games to get to that mark, if that’s even enough by the time we get to April. Or like, 23-10-5. Basically at a 30% higher pace of points-per-game than they are managing now, and that’s with the added injuries.

The Hawks are wedged in the standings between two teams that fired their coaches. Two teams that think where they are is unacceptable. It’s important to remember all of this.

“I think we’ve played our best hockey, probably over the last couple weeks, looking at our record,” Bowman said. “It did take a little bit of time to get everything together. We did have spurts of it earlier in the year where we played well, but we couldn’t sustain it enough probably to get enough wins on the board. We’ve played better lately and now we’ve got to build on that, so consistency is probably the hardest part to nail for this team so far. Because we show when we play the way we want to play …”

I’ve been harping on this all season, but it’s infuriating to hear the team still fucking cling to this. The Hawks are not bad because they are inconsistent. They are inconsistent because they’re bad. There seems to be this delusion around the whole organization that some devine force is going to descend from the heavens and bestow them consistency. I hate to keep pulling out this GIF and repeat myself but it seems to still apply wholly…

Either the vets are simply too old to give you 82 games of dominance (Keith, Toews, Crawford), or the kids are still learning (Dach, Boqvist) or are simply not that good (everyone else). The way this team is constructed, they basically have the equal amount of players who will improve and grow and those who will continue to decline, which is a great way to remain right where you are.

“…we’ve had pretty strong goaltending all year, so that’s been the bright spot for our team, given us a chance even some nights when we didn’t play well at all we would have a chance to come back and win some games.”

Here is something that should be keeping Bowman up at nights, if not gotten him fired already. It’s the SV%s of the teams around the Hawks in the standings:

San Jose – .889

Nashville – .887

Minnesota – .895

Over in the East…

Montreal – .897

Buffalo – .900

HAWKS – .911

Here are some teams that have gotten similar goaltending to the Hawks…

St. Louis – 1st in West

Colorado – 2nd in West

Islanders – 2nd in Metro

What this should mean to Stan, or any right-thinking human getting the requisite amount of oxygen, is that the rest of the team is an utter disaster when you’re getting contender-level goaltending. In the NHL, that’s really supposed to be about 75% of the battle. If you fuck that up, you’ve really accomplished something wondrous. Stan talking about the goaltending isn’t him extolling the virtues of his team. It’s providing rope they should have hanged him with long ago.

“Well, we’re right there,” Bowman said. “We’re a little bit behind the pack — a couple points. But it’s a pretty tight pack that are fighting to get into that spot. It’s been basically half a season. We’ve got a lot of hockey left…”

I understand that the Hawks have to sell the rest of the season, even though they have the sellout streak and there are good seats still available every game (still working that one out). So Stan can’t come out and declare that they’re toast. Still, six points out of the playoffs is miles away. MILES. Three teams to leap, and you just lost another game to a direct competitor (which I guess the Flames are right now). The Hawks have more regulation wins than seven teams. Seven. Right there? Where is right there? If this were a woman telling you you were right there you’d know for sure she was faking.

“There’s a lot of teams that are going through injury troubles,” Bowman said. “The encouraging thing is seeing how our guys have responded with having a lot of established veteran players (out). They play a pretty big role on our team and they’re all out, but our team’s found a way with a different group, a different mixture here, to get some wins. That’s a good sign.”

Or could it be that your veterans just sucked? de Haan is certainly a miss, and so is Saad, but the latter’s only been out a couple weeks. Andrew Shaw provided you nothing. Drake Caggiula provided you nothing. Brent Seabrook provided you nothing. I’ll have some patience for the injury-angle, more when we know what Strome is dealing with, but only so much.

““We’re not focused on past years,” Bowman said. “We’re looking at this year where we are right now. We’ve had a pretty good stretch recently. We’ve got to continue to do that. If we’re able to build on the way we’ve played the last few weeks I think we’ll put ourselves in a nice spot over the next month.”

Not focused on past years, eh? I don’t even know what to do with this, so I’m just going to leave it alone. And you’re not going to build on how you’ve played the past few weeks, because your team has spent the past two seasons proving that it can’t.

“The focus right now is to just stay in the present and look where we are and build on these next few games and keep going.”

And here’s the big problem. The Hawks can’t focus on the right now. Focusing on merely the right now, and not even correctly, is how you get the slapdash offseason of throwing de Haan, Maatta, and Lehner to the wall, trading Jokiharju and then ending up with the playing time he would have needed and deserved but not having him here to take it. Having no sense of a long-term plan is how you end up continuing to kowtow to Seabrook until you have no choice but to send him to a farm upstate to avoid further embarrassment. You can’t just keep focusing on now, because it’s your job to map out how the Hawks get back to the top in the future. And they’ve done exactly none of that.

This blog is over.

 

Hockey

Game #44 – Flames vs. Hawks Preview: Trying To Find The Heart

By Sam Fels 1544 0

vs.

RECORDS: Flames 22-17-5   Hawks 19-18-6

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

COVERED IN HORSESHIT: Flames Nation

This week, the Hawks get a chance to put a couple things…well, not right but at least improve. One is their home record. They moved just over .500 with the win over Detroit, but they simply have to be better on Madison St. Second, they can get a couple wins over teams around them in the standings, which they can claim they are competing with for wildcard spots. They did get one over on the Flames last week, which was a departure, but generally this has been a sore spot for them. Calgary is visiting tonight and Nashville on Thursday, and those just happen to be two of the three teams between them and the final playoff spot.

Obviously, not much has changed with Cal and Gary since these two spent New Year’s Eve together (I assume loudly singing along to Lizzo like everyone else). They beat the Rangers at home on the 2nd and then snuck out of St. Paul with a shootout victory on Sunday. So the issues are basically the same. As we like to say around these parts, they can’t hit a bull in the ass with a banjo. They have the fourth-worst SH% at evens in the league, which belies the talent on display here through Monahan (Lisa needs braces…), Gaudreau, Tkachuk, et al. You still have to figure that will correct at some point and send the Flames toward the automatic spots in the Pacific, which they’re only two points behind and two of which are occupied by the Coyotes and Oilers. Most would guess those teams will deflate before the end of the season.

Still, something is more amiss up in Southern Alberta. This team was something of a possession monster under Bill Peters, which is something he just tended to do for his teams (as well as kick them and be racist toward them). This year, even before his dismissal, that’s not been the case. Some of it is Mark Giordano aging, and some of it is just no one else stepping up to fill in some of that gap. Recently they’ve split Gio and T.J. Brodie, perhaps to get some more push from a different pairing. But Brodie’s always been a bit lost without Giordano, so that’s a risk.

Another problem for them is a top line that just hasn’t fired at the pace they’re accustomed to. Monahan and Gaudreau have been point-per-game players before, and neither are there at the moment or anywhere close. Gaudreau especially seems to have eschewed getting to the middle of the ice, and is doing something of a mini-Getzlaf act on the outside. This has hurt Monahan’s game, as he thrived on the havoc Johnny Hockey used to cause in the offensive zone. They attempted to replicate this by moving Mikael Backlund to wing on the line and getting him in the middle, but that had middling results. Now they’re shuttling Elias Lindholm between 2C and 1RW, which is also having the benefit of making it clear what the Flames need to go get before the deadline.

Either way, this was a team that until the last meeting had given the Hawks fits, because it’s one of the many that is significantly faster than them. They weren’t much at the races against the Hawks for the first 30 minutes last Tuesday, allowing the Hawks a 4-0 lead. But once they realized they were about to be embarrassed, traffic flowed in only one direction and the Hawks were even somewhat lucky to get out of there with a rare regulation win. You can expect the Flames to be a little more attuned tonight.

Still, their goaltending has been a little wayward. Big Save Dave has given up 11 in his last three starts (including the Hawks game), and Cam and Magic Talbot gave up three at home to the Rangers. So maybe the Hawks can find some joy there.

As for the Hawks, I wouldn’t expect any changes. Robin Lehner wasn’t in the starter’s net at the morning skate and is still working through his minor leg problem. Look for him Thursday. There’s no reason to change any of the lineup, though Dennis Gilbert took a shot off the ankle at practice. But that couldn’t make him any slower. Maybe Fetch slides in for him, which whatever. After scoring his first NHL goal it would be heavily cruel to sit Dylan Sikura and lose the confidence he just gained. So Alex Nylander’s useless ass can stay in a suit.

As we’ve said, this is a part of the schedule the Hawks can make their season meaningful in. The Flames are a confused bunch, and the Preds even more so after firing their coach. The Ducks suck, and then they’ll get two games against either a rebuilding dreck like the Senators or yet another confused bunch in the Habs before having to try and catch the Leafs in Toronto. Either you are or you aren’t, and these next two weeks should tell us which. Even if you think you already know.

Hockey

Atop The Sugar Pile – 1/6: 2020 And There So Much More To Go

By Sam Fels 1448 0

Who was good, who was bad, and who was just running heavy, heavy fuel this past week. 

The Dizzying Highs

Patrick Kane – Much like last year, we could just put him in this spot every week and it would almost certainly never be wrong. Four goals, seven points in three games, which kept him top ten in the scoring race. If the Hawks were even close to the playoffs, he’d probably drumming up MVP talk again, because he’s had to do it with so many different teammates who are either having off years or just plain suck. McDavid has Draisaitl, MacKinnon has, at least part of the season, Makar and Rantanen. Huberdeau has Barkov. Even Jack Eichel has had Olofsson, though not anymore. Alex DeBrincat could argue to at least be standing outside this club begging the bouncer to let him in, but Kane hasn’t spent all that much time on his line. Toews was off when Kane was there, and now it’s Ryan Carpenter and Sikura. But I digress. Kane’s rocketing toward another 100-point season, which would be his third. Since he came into the league, the only players to have three 100-point seasons are Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, and Ovechkin. Worse company to be in.

The Terrifying Lows

Dennis Gilbert – This probably isn’t fair to him per se, because he is what he is. And it’s hard for even me to reconcile that Gilbert is vomit-on-ice, and yet the Hawks have nothing to lose by playing him every night. Still, he was on the ice for four goals against in Vancouver, and routinely is either chasing hits that put him out of position, lazily getting back to the front of the net, or both. Oh and he’s slow. But again, he didn’t force anyone to put him in a position he’s clearly no way equipped for. And fuck, he watched Brent Seabrook do this for years, so how can we blame him for emulating that?

The Creamy Middles

Dylan Sikura – Look, if him scoring his first NHL goal and the reaction from him and his teammates after didn’t bring a smile to your face at least, then I don’t really know why you even watch sports in the first place. There’s no way it wasn’t weighing on him, and even the organization could use it as a cudgel against him, or at least an excuse to ignore all the stuff that Sikura does do. He’s no star-in-the-making, but Sikura can be a useful bottom-six player on a good team. Perhaps a Michael Frolik type. He has NHL-level speed, which the Hawks sorely lack. He doesn’t need a GPS in his own zone, and there’s more skill than his waiting a year for a goal would suggest. Hopefully breaking that chain will give him the confidence and relax him a bit to let it all hang out, because you feel like there’s more there. Unlike Alex Nylander, whom he has replaced in the lineup, Sikura isn’t afraid to play in tight spaces despite his small size and he has actual instincts. Hopefully he gets a long look and pots a few goals, because he’s doing more than immediately meets the eye.

Hockey

Game #43 – Red Wings vs. Hawks Preview: Love Letters In The Sand

By Sam Fels 1470 0

vs.

RECORDS: Red Wings 10-29-3   Hawks 18-18-6

PUCK DROP: 6:30pm

TV: NBCSN

GOTTA LOSE YOUR MIND: Winging It In Motown

As we comment every time these two meet, it used to mean so much. This was one of the NHL’s deadliest rivalries, at least among the fanbases. On the ice…well, it wasn’t a rivalry for much of the last 30 years. The Wings rose above where the Hawks could ever dream of getting in the early 90s, and only at the very end of their reign did the Hawks stare them in the eye. And that was almost 20 years later. And quickly the Wings faded away, and ran off to the Eastern Conference so Mike Ilitch wouldn’t have to stay up so late and risk shitting himself. Much of the heat has gone, and what’s left is basically from memory. The younger section of the fanbase will never know the vitriol and bile this used to have. And maybe that’s a good thing.

If it was still there, this would resemble their tangles in the 80s, when both teams were either terrible or just good enough to be chum for the Oilers. It all goes in cycles, I suppose.

If it does, the Wings are certainly at the bottom of theirs. In truth, Detroit probably needed to do this a few years ago, but kept trying to desperately crawl and cling to the very bottom rung of the playoffs, with signings like Trevor Daley or Frans Nielsen or some others in the past. But it didn’t work, and now this is the full tear-down. They’re still committed to Justin Abdelkader and Frans Nielsen, love letters from Ken Holland, but every other vet is on his way out no later than this summer. Steve Yzerman will hope to flog a couple of them at least for any pick or prospect he can get.

Of course, that means what’s on the ice is truly awful. The Wings trail everyone by at least 13 points in the NHL. They have yet to crack double-digits in regulation wins. They’re last in goals for, and last in goals against. That’s how you bottom out, folks! And they can’t even argue they’re somewhat unlucky to be this bad. They’re second last in Corsi, and second-last in expected goals. They’re last in shooting-percentage, and third-last in save-percentage. What the Wings do well you can put in your pipe and smoke it and not have nearly enough to pass around. This is a truly wretched outfit. And it should be.

Did I mention they’ve lost seven of eight? Or 17 of 20, all in regulation? Try to contain your sorrow, I’m sure you’re just dying inside. Also, though +/- is a bullshit stat, it’s hard not to gawk at Andreas Anathasiou’s -35 in half a season and wonder just how the gods could allow such a calamity.

All of this means the Hawks can’t fuck this one up. The Wings have no defense and they have an attack that even the Hawks should be able to repel. Even if the Hawks aren’t all there mentally, even they could get a win in second gear here. This is the free spot on the Bingo card. If you don’t let Dylan Larkin go off the leash, this team can’t score. The corpses of Valtteri Filppula and Nielsen are still around. Luke Glendening is like 49 years old now. They’re even beat up, as Anthony Mantha and Andreas Athanasiou are both hurt and are two of the few who don’t come with mittens pinned to their jackets.

For the Hawks, Robin Lehner and Zack Smith missed practice yesterday, as that nasty fall Lehner took against Vancouver came home to roost. So Corey Crawford finds his way back into the lineup. Everything else wikk remain as it was.

The Hawks have a nice row of home games here, though they’ve been mediocre at home all season. The Wings blow more than anyone has blown in a long while, they just outplayed the Flames, the Predators are seriously trying to get Peter Laviolette to the unemployment office, and the Ducks aren’t any good either. It’s all set up, but first you have to hit the hanging curveball. Don’t foul it off your foot.