Everything Else

Pat Foley, Please Do Your Job

By Sam Fels 4709 0

Being a Hawks fan this season hasn’t been pleasurable. We all know that. Even the most cynical amongst us before the season never saw this coming, though there was no way to see that Corey Crawford would miss over half of it. No matter how well the Hawks play for the past couple months, they’re just a bad goal away from everything going to shit. And that bad goal is always arriving. And sometimes they don’t play well and they get steamrolled. Vets haven’t performed, or have gotten old, or both. We get it. It’s been a slog. Tuning in sometimes feels like a chore, and that’s if you’re still bothering.

If you are, what you’ll find is a broadcast that’s making it even worse.

As we always say, writing this king of thing is a knife to the heart for us. Pat Foley is the soundtrack to a good portion of our childhoods, and his calls of some iconic Hawks moments last with me forever. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s turned most of these games into a funeral dirge, and quite frankly that’s not what the job is.

For the past few months, you can hear the laments out of Foley’s voice several times per game. And hey, part of the job is calling out mistakes and bad plays. We don’t want a cheerleader either. But it’s gone way beyond that. It’s as if the entire team offends Foley’s sensibilities and is beneath him, which doesn’t make the viewing experience any better. Which has only led to longing for more neanderthalic aspects, like hit stats or fighting. If it’s beneath you, Pat, then why are we here? Are you above us, too?

Granted, Foley and Olczyk always cited hit stats when the Hawks were good, but it’s insulting to the audience because we know at this point that the Hawks don’t require “MOAR HITZ” to be good again. They never did in the past. And whether Foley likes it or not fighting is making its way out of the game in a natural progression, and the way the NHL is tripping over its own dick in this concussion lawsuit you might see that accelerated soon.

The whole air of the broadcast makes it feel like it’s a waste of his, and in turn our, time. And Adam Burish threatening to punch Brandon Saad in practice isn’t helping (hey Adam, whatever happened to that time you said you’d fight Chris Pronger? You’re still living, so you must’ve found a way out of that one). Yes, the Hawks make a lot of turnovers and mistakes and don’t get saves they need. That’s the hallmark of a bad team.

But being a professional means you’re supposed to cover this game in the same fashion you covered Game 5 against St. Louis in ’14. That’s the job. If you need inspiration, look no farther than your friend Len Kasper. Kasper called five years of utterly dogshit Cubs baseball between ’10-’14, not to mention the pretty terrible 2006 as well. And that’s every goddamn day, not just two or three times a week. And Kasper’s calls don’t sound any different from those to today when the Cubs are one of baseball’s leading lights.

We don’t need another Hawk Harrelson, as we’re on the verge of gloriously getting rid of the one we already do have. Listen to Jason Bennetti who has only had really bad Sox teams to comment on, and tell me he isn’t doing a marvelous job.

We’ve been down this road before, of course. Foley was a leading voice as the Hawks became irrelevant due to simple indifference and incompetence. He wasn’t hesitant to point out the problems. It got him fired. But that was under an ownership group that didn’t care and wasn’t trying. The Hawks didn’t foist this on us on purpose. A lot of things went wrong. And while I’ve said a lot about the Hawks’ organization, I would never accuse them of not caring what the product is on the ice. This is not the Old Man’s Era and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Sure, it’s deflating to have nine years of covering good teams with games that mattered to a team running out the clock for three months. It’s frustrating to see the same mistakes over and over. It’s probably hard to not have a close friend in the booth with you most nights due to health troubles and have the blank gape of Steve Konroyd. But that’s the job. That’s why they pay you.

Let us lament what’s gone with this team in our spare time. Hey, I don’t want to be in Buffalo on a Saturday afternoon watching two bad team scrap at shit like the rhino pen at feeding time. But I’m not being paid to present it like I should be. All we ask is that you sound like you want to be there. That would seem to be the minimum requirement of a broadcast job.

Everything Else

Game #72 – Hawks vs. Sabres Preview/Leather Tanning: Lonely Afternoon

By Sam Fels 1762 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 30-33-8   Sabres 22-36-12

PUCK DROP: High Noon

TV: WGN, NHL Network outside the 606

FIGHTING ON ARRIVAL: Die By The Blade

I’ll start this one with a story about what this one feels like. Many years ago, I was sitting in an OTB with my father and Freddie The Beard, something of a Chicago pool room legend now. Both avid horseplayers, as was I. Arlington ran a race with four horses, apprentice jockeys, on the turf. Freddie, never one for subtlety, turned to Tribune Horse Racing columnist Dave Feldman (at the time probably something like 138 years old) who happened to be sitting in the same room, and yelled, “Hey Feldman! Use your connections to get us more of ‘dis! We like ‘dis! Four horse race with the apprentice jockeys…on the turf!”

That’s how I feel about this one. This is a game going on because the schedule says it has to. No one particularly wants to watch it (and I’d be surprised if more than a few didn’t want to play it), and yet here we are because this is where we are. Hawks-Sabres. Saturday afternoon. March 17th. This is what we chose.

Both of these teams have dreams of Rasmus Dahlin, though the Sabres’s is much more likely. They are marooned to the bottom of the NHL standings, and really only the Coyotes are keeping them company down there. It has been nothing short of a disaster in a season when they were supposed to start to at least maybe think about considering taking a step forward in their rebuild.

It’s hard to know where to start. The goaltending has sucked, as it will tend to do when leaning on Chad Johnson and Robin Lehner. The defense has sucked because it was based on Rasmus Ristolainen playing like a top pairing d-man and quite frankly he’s never nor will he ever be that, despite some early season flashes. It had Zach Bogosian and Justin Falk and Jake McCabe as well at times, so you can guess what kind of smell that created night after night. The forwards lacked punch, as Eichel and Okposo have missed time and there’s just not much else. Sam Reinhart is still finding his feet, and also trying to figure out which Reinhart he is. Benoit Pouliot and Jason Pominville are either old, simply plugs, or both. It is not an inspiring bunch.

Because of that, and the moves at the deadline that saw Fuck Head Kane The Younger amongst others moved along, the Sabres are turning more and more over to the kids. Bailey, Baptiste, Eichel, Reinhart, Rodrigues, Guhle, and Ristolainen are all players that are under 25 that will kick into the lineup when healthy. The Sabres are going to find out what they have, because it’ll be good info and also will give them the best chance to end up with another Rasmus. You can never have too many Rasmuses (Rasmi?)

For today, both Eichel and Okposo look like they won’t make the bell coming off an ankle sprain and brown brain, respectively. Which means the outfit the Hawks will see today is decidedly punchless. Ryan O’Reilly is simply doing miraculous work as the only forward who’s been above water in his underlying numbers, and he also murders the Hawks. But he can only do so much. Then again, things seem to always go stupid at HSBC Arena. The Hawks never have it easy there.

For the Hawks, JF Berube will get his turn at the wheel after Forsberg’s wheel kept on turning in net on Thursday. And then we’ll cycle back through this again and again for another three weeks. We’re almost there, people. There really aren’t any other lineup changes to be made with Duclair injured. Q shuffled up the lines during practice yesterday and below the top one they’re a real piece of work. But who knows how long he’ll stick with them because that’s his thing.

Let’s just get through it.

 

Game #72 Preview

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

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

By Sam Fels 4950 0

Ride the snake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your top six, if Stan goes Wild West:

Saad-Tavares-Hinostroza/Duclair

Top Cat-Toews-Kane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything Else

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

By Rose Rankin 2033 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Everything Else

If The Standings Made Sense

By Sam Fels 2286 0

We here at the FFUD offices have always railed against the NHL standings. The presence of the OTL point, the now gimmick 3-on-3 overtime, and shootouts in general have always given the league false parity. It’s rewarded genuinely bad teams while screwing over some actually good teams. It’s certainly skewed how some things are viewed. For instance. last year’s Hawks-Preds series was a 1 vs. 8 in the standings, but in reality the Predators only had four less regulation wins than the Hawks. It wasn’t that kind of gap, but the Hawks prowess in overtime  saw the gap in points. And as the Preds quickly proved, that gap was basically utter horseshit.

What’s funny is how hard the NHL makes this to look up. You can’t look up regulation wins on the main site, because they don’t want you to see that. You can only get ROW, but again, overtime is basically a bullshit, carnival game now so it’s hardly a measure of what kind of team you are. It just measures how many 2-on-1s it takes you to score. So you kind of have to Excel it from HockeyReference, which I’ve done here and perhaps not perfectly. So excuse me if I’ve fucked up. Here’s the list of straight regulations wins this season:

 

 

It makes for interesting reading on some levels. On the local level…well, not so much. If you throw out everything that happens after 60 minutes (just like all my late-night encounters HAHAHAHA SO VERY DROLL!), the Hawks are 23-32. Yikes. Anyway you slice that, it’s U-G-L-Y YOU AIN’T GOT NO ALIBI. That’s what happens when your goaltending and blue line blow, I suppose. So the Hawks can’t claim much bad luck overall, at least when it comes to overtime and such.

At the top of the standings you see the teams you’d expect. What’s also a bit curious for those of the red and black persuasion is that the other six Central teams are all in the top ten in regulation wins. Which shows you just how bad of a year it was for the Hawks to choose an off year. In the Metro or Pacific, they may have been far better off.

The Metro is funny, as the Penguins have the most regulation wins in that division but only the 12th most in the NHL. The Hurricanes only have one less win in 60 than the Penguins, but won’t sniff the playoffs because they’re getting clocked in overtime. Which you could say is fair because they lack true, top line scoring. Or you could say it’s a damn farce because 3-on-3 is a joke. It’s a little infuriating for Hawks fans I guess, because the Hawks only have one less regulation win than the Jackets and two less than the Devils and Flyers, and all three of those teams are competing for playoff spots while the Hawks have had a thumb in their ass for a month or more now.

Anyway, food for thought for you.

 

Everything Else

What Do You Do With Duncan Keith So Early In The Morning?

By Sam Fels 2431 0

A couple weeks ago, our colleague and probably the most flowing lochs in the Hawks blogosphere Chris Block gave his state of the Hawks post. There’s a lot in there, some of which you might not have known, but there’s one part of it I’ve been meaning to dive deeper into. I do encourage you to read the whole thing though, and then give Chris a hard time for bailing out of doing Wrestlemania with me even though it was his idea.

At the end of this, Block ruminates on whether or not the Hawks should at least kick the tires on moving Duncan Keith this summer. The reasons are pretty clear. The Hawks have to get out from under some of their ridiculous contracts (although Keith has been worth every penny, any contract that runs 13 years has to be considered ridiculous). Keith is getting older. While the hit remains the same the actual salary starts diving next year making him even more affordable than he already was. And Keith is aging, and not all that gracefully at that.

We’ve talked about it a few times over the years, but looking for Keith precedents in previous players is a hard thing to do. Few d-men have dominated games and seasons simply on quickness and instincts, as Keith did for far longer than he had any right to. One name we have used is Scott Niedermayer. He retired after his age-36 season (Keith will be entering his age-35 season next year). And Niedermayer was more offensively gifted than Keith and by some distance. The hands don’t go away even if the feet do. Keith has no such attributes to fall back on.

Yes, Nick Lidstrom played until he was 41, and comedically won a Norris at 40 simply because voters didn’t know they could vote for anyone else. But Lidstrom’s game was much more calm than Keith’s, sort of letting things come to him and simply being ahead of everything in his mind. There was no high-wire with Lidstrom. Keith’s game has been all high-wire since the moment he arrived and looked like a kindergartner who got hold of Jolt Cola (dated reference alert).

Watching Keith this year has been mostly an uncomfortable experience. You can see his computer trying to recalibrate with how to play knowing he can’t take all the risks and be as aggressive as he used to be. Keith could actually do a lot of things wrong in the past and his quickness would allow recovery to see him get away with it. He could venture outside the circles in his own zone, he could chase more in to the corners or behind the net, he could skate into more traffic with the puck and squirt out. He can’t really do all of those things anymore, but the internal mechanism is still saying he can too often. His instincts and brain constantly seem to be at odds.

That doesn’t mean Keith is useless or a complete anchor, as say Seabrook has been at times this season. He hasn’t been anything like a ghost like Sharp has been on most nights, to use two his contemporaries. To me, the worst case scenario with Keith is that he can be an effective second-pairing d-man, and probably can for a couple more seasons. And I think he could do that in a couple of ways. Against easier competition he could still push the play up the ice as he used to. Or you could just use him as a human shield as Oduya was used here, or Dan Hamhuis is used in Dallas right now, or Pesce and Slavin are used in Carolina, or a few other examples. You’d ask no offensive or puck-moving responsibility of him, and just have him basically keep the puck out of his net against top lines while whoever is designated for the top pairing role can simply run over what they see.

But therein lies the problem. Whichever you choose to do with Keith, you then have to solve your top pairing problem. I’m one of the few who is comfortable with Connor Murphy as one half of that, but you need the other half and that’s the half that has to be the possession monster. That’s the half that has to get up and push the play, join the offense, and score. And right now, that’s nowhere near in the Hawks system. Unless by some miracle they think Henri Jokiharju can do that next season. I suppose Ivan Provorov went straight from the WHL to the Flyers, so it can happen. But he wasn’t asked to play on the top pairing either. We know it ain’t gonna be Gustav Forsling either.

Keith would still have value to other teams, if he were to waive his NMC. Off the top of my head, the Islanders, Leafs, Flames, Oilers, Canadiens are all teams that have defensive depth issues that want to win sharpish. We could probably figure out a couple other teams that would at least make a call, even with Keith’s age and expense.

But still, does Keith get you back a young, top-pairing potential d-man? Skeptical of that. If you’re just swapping him out for more mid-pairing or bottom-pairing flotsam, I don’t know that moves you forward. Yeah, if you can get the Oilers to give up on Nurse, go right ahead. And I guess they’re capable of any kind of stupidity.

For the Hawks, Keith is almost certainly the most movable of “the core.” They wouldn’t ever dare move Toews or Kane, given how their entire marketing strategy has been built on them, problematically at times, for going on 11 years now. Seabrook’s play has made his deal immovable. Keith has never had the connection with the Hawks that the two forwards do. You don’t see him on the Chevy ads or the posters, and that’s mostly because he doesn’t have much interest. Keith is also the only one you see openly flouting McD’s rules about how to be presented during interviews and such. He clearly just does not give a fuck about that aspect of being a pro hockey player, and honestly more power to him. While on the ice Keith has been the most important cog to the Hawks success (and he has, don’t even play), he hasn’t been nearly as important to the Hawks off it. And don’t think that wouldn’t play a role.

Still, I doubt the Hawks and Stan Bowman would do this unless they got some offer they couldn’t refuse. But it seems more plausible than it did even just a month or two ago.

Everything Else

Game #69 and #70 – Hawks vs. Bruins Preview/ :

By Sam Fels 1895 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 29-31-8   Bruins 42-15-8

PUCK DROPS: Noon on Saturday, 11:30am on Sunday

TV: NBCSN Chicago Saturday, NBC Sunday

WHAT IS IT, YAH’ PERIOD?: Days Of Y’Orr

As you can see, given the home-and-home nature of this and the fact that they’re both in the afternoon when we will most certainly be sleeping it off (I’m seeing Screaming Females tonight for fuck’s sake), we’re going to combine both previews. Also, the potential for this one to get very ugly for the Hawks also doesn’t inspire us to spill more words than necessary, because everyone needs to prepare for the gore that might ensue here.

It’s been a while since the Hawks have seen a member of the league’s glitterati. The Lightning and Leafs visited at the end of January. That’s the last time they saw the Predators, too. Remember that? When the Hawks deservedly beat the Preds in Nashville and had hope? You probably don’t. I assure you it happened. It’s just been washed away in a tide of sadness and incompetence. So this will be a new-ish feature.

And the Bruins are certainly among the league’s best. They have the third most points in the league with 92, though that still has them only within six points of the Lightning in their division. It also is going to reward them by playing perhaps the fifth or sixth best team in the league in the first round in the Leafs. Great playoff system we have here, where we’ve known the Leafs and Bruins were going to see each other to start things off since before we deep fried our turkeys. Love this league.

This version of the Bruins comes in a bit beat up. Patrice Bergeron is out for a couple weeks. Charlie McAvoy might be out until the playoffs. David Backes is suspended (I’m Jack’s sense of shock). And Bergeron and McAvoy have been the main engines among the skaters as to why there’s been a revival in The North End. Bergeron is having his best offensive season in 10 years, thanks to Riley Nash and Sean Kuraly being able to take a portion of his checking assignments off his hands. Combined with having David Pastrnak and his faithful gargoyle in Marchand on the other side, and they’ve been simply feeding it to teams.

McAvoy has relieved Zdeno Chara of his #1 d-man duties, and has given the Bruins a puck-moving d-man that can dominate games that they really haven’t had since #77 packed it off to Denver. His metrics are some of the best in the league, and Chara can now just concentrate on his own zone which he still blocks most off with his gargantuan reach. It’s allowed Torey Krug to bum-slay on the second pairing, which is what he was built for. It’s a pretty fine-tuned machine when fully on display.

And somehow, being without these two haven’t slowed them down. They’ve won five in a row, with four of those coming without those two. It certainly help when Tuuke Nuke’Em in net is back to his best, with a .920 overall. Rask had been middling the past couple seasons, which has led to the Bruins being middling overall. Not anymore.

Riley Nash has taken Bergeron’s center spot and done pretty well. David Krejci has Rick Nash as a winger and give Krejci real finishers and he’ll do damage. Rookie Jake DeBrusk is on the other side and he’s got a fair amount of dash to him. Remember, Krejci is the only player to lead playoff scoring in two years and never win a Conn Smythe. When Backes returns they have a nifty checking line with him and rookie Danton Heinen.

If there’s a silver lining for the Hawks, it’s that the Bruins won’t have the urgency as some other teams they’ve seen of late. They’re entrenched in second, the Leafs aren’t going to catch them unless they completely come apart and the Lightning are probably out of reach as well. So…there’s that?

For the Hawks, there really aren’t any changes to make now that Carl Dahlstrom has been sent down for being too steady. The lineup you saw on Thursday is what you’re going to get for these two.

Bruce Cassidy is more aggressive than Claude Julien was, which is why you’ve seen the Bruins scoring go up. They get up and go and the blue line is encouraged to join in on the fun. There’s little dump-and-chase here. Even without Bergeron and McAvoy they’re still going to press and pressure. It’s a big test for the Hawks’ defense, and we know how those have gone this season. At least with afternoon games you get a lot of time to erase it from your mind.

 

 

Game #69 and #70 Preview

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

By Sam Fels 2227 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything Else

Game #68 Strong Men Also Cry – Hawks 2, Hurricanes 3

By Rose Rankin 2153 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

My all-time favorite movie turned 20 years old this week, and seeing as Our Special Boy was the one to score the game-winning goal tonight, it seemed appropriate to recall this piece of wisdom from the other Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire. To the bullets:

–The Hawks got killed in possession and shots tonight, so even those who played well (more to come on that) seemed like they had a dismal night if you just look at those stats (so don’t bother). We’re used to the Hawks dominating in those numbers while still managing to lose, but tonight they had a 37.5, 22.2, and 36.7 CF% in each period. Added to that, for most of the game the Canes had double or more than the number of shots that the Hawks did. The Hawks barely got to over half the amount of Canes’ shots, finishing with 24 to 40. Now, given the Canes’ consistency in giving up so few chances, I can’t say I’m exactly shocked by this. The fact that the Hawks only managed 24 shots but scored twice really drives home the point that Scott Darling has been quite bad.

–On that note, J-F Berube stole the show, and except for the one number that matters most, he led in every metric both qualitative and quantitative. I should point out that the first respective goals for each team couldn’t really be pinned on either goalie. Jurco tipped in a monstrous, classic Seabrook shot from the point, and a few minutes later Lindholm did exactly the same off Slavin’s own very Seabrookian shot. Redirects are tough to deal with. However, the second Hawks goal demonstrated what second-rate goaltending will get you. Sharp’s goal was all thanks to Duclair wresting the puck from under Darling’s pads, who then proceeded to completely lose his positioning which allowed a clumsily falling Sharp to put it in the open net.

Berube, on the other hand, finished the night with a .925 SV% after facing 40 shots. Williams just beat him one-on-one in the second, when today’s spotlight Justin Faulk sprung him the perfect pass as he left the box, and there also wasn’t much Berube could do on Aho’s power play goal off Finnish Jesus’ shot. All of this is to say that Berube’s positioning was far superior to Darling’s all night, and he had pretty saves throughout the game, with both the pads and the glove, which kept this from being an embarrassment. Notable among those were his stops in the third on Staal at point-blank range, and Skinner who, every time they said his name I just heard “Skinner, Skinner, faster than liiiiiightning…”

–Anthony Duclair had a strong performance, and I honestly was confused whether having Foley and Eddie say complimentary things about him during the broadcast was some kind of reverse-motherfuck, or if they were genuinely praising him and not following a script. This is how many strands are in old Duder’s head. But the point is, Duclair’s persistence in the crease led to the second goal, and he and Sharp had moments of chemistry. Granted, Duclair fumbled a pass at his feet when he had Darling one-on-one, and he botched a pass to Kampf in the same sequence. But, for being on the fourth line he was on the puck consistently, had a few shots and an assist. If you’re trying to work your way back up after a demotion, making Patrick Sharp look serviceable is a pretty nice feat.

–Of course Teuvo’s shot was the one that won the game. I know Aho is credited with the goal but it was yet another redirect. And it seemed destined to happen, but it still hurts.

The Hurricanes are fighting for a playoff spot, and with the exception of TVR, I can’t really root against any of the Parade of Former Hawks. So good for them, good for Our Special Boy, and good for Berube who still comes out looking decent from all this. Onward and upward.

Everything Else

Let’s Find Some Hope: Vinnie Smalls

By Sam Fels 2634 0

I don’t mean to do this every day, and seeing as how we’re now just a month away from likely player reviews, we’ll go back over this. But I was perusing around the stats pages the other day because my life is an empty desert of the real and I stumbled across something highly interesting.

We here at the lab like Vinnie Hinostroza. He’s quick, seems to be in the right place at all times, and if nothing else is an entertaining watch. We’ve opined that if he were to max out he could be a third-line winger, and grab your checking assignments and not let you down. He could be a Michael Frolik if you need to compare him to someone, as the Hawks are seemingly wont to do. Maybe even slightly more finish, as strange as that sounds given Frolik’s pedigree and billing.

Maybe that was a touch unfair to Vinnie.

As I pointed out on Twitter last night, Vinnie Hinostroza is 19th in the league in attempts per 60 minutes at even strength. The names right behind him? Taylor Hall, Patrick Kane, Kevin Fiala, Josh Anderson, Alex DeBrincat. The names directly ahead of him are: Timo Meier, Jonathan Marchessault, Arturi Lehkonen, Craig Smith, James van Riemsdyk. If you want to finish out the rest of the top 20 from there, it’s Atkinson, Ehlers, Bergeron, MacKinnon, Nash, Arvidsson, Ovechkin, Toffoli, Skinner, Gallagher, Tarasenko, Burns.

Other than a name here or there, those are all top six forwards, except for the unicorn that is Brent Burns. It doesn’t immediately equate that simply firing off a lot of shots makes for a scoring winger, but in reality it kind of does. It means you’re on the right side of the ice more than you’re not, it means you’re finding the space to at least get off a shot, and it means you’re not afraid to fire away. This is perhaps one of the reasons the Hawks thought Ryan Hartman was expendable, because we know going forward three of the top six wingers going forward are Saad, DeBrincat, and Kane. Sikura is certainly going to put his name in the discussion, and maybe they thought Vinnie had a better case than Hartman and thus decided to cash in where they could.

Also, it doesn’t just stop with attempts. Vinnie is ranks just as high when it comes to individual scoring chances per 60 as well. He ranks 20th. The names right behind him are Craig Smith again, Josh Anderson, and Brayden Point. The names ahead of him are Top Cat, Taylor Hall, Arturi Lehkonen, and Patric Hornqvist. Again, all the names in the top 20 are at worst top six forwards (Brandon Saad is 8th, leading more credence to the theory that Saad has been more unlucky this year than unproductive).

We should probably go over the caveats. One, it’s still not much of a sample size. At the moment, Vinnie has only racked up just over a season’s worth of NHL games. So we can’t say this is the norm yet, because all of these numbers are up from last season significantly. You’d like to think that it’s just a continuation of growth as well as getting to play up the lineup a little more this season. And his possession stats are spiking up from his 36 games last season as well. And the “better players” argument can go both ways, as you can say he’s benefitting from that but also that not every player watches his game and numbers balloon simply because he’s installed on the top six.

Still, looking at the names he’s around in these categories, you don’t see a lot of one-year wonders there. Almost every name you see there has been a consistent top six scorer for a few years, or are promising kids projected to be that anyway like Lehkonen or DeBrincat or Point.

While I don’t want to compare them fully, when I think of speedy forwards who shoot a lot it’s hard not to think of Patrick Sharp in his younger days. And you forget what a defensive dynamo Sharp was both at wing and center back when he first arrived in Chicago. Vinnie’s 13.6 attempts per 60 this year is right in line with Sharp’s 14.0 in 07-08, which was his breakout season. And Vinnie is dusting him when it comes to scoring chances per 60 from that season. What Vinnie doesn’t have is the shooting percentage (8.1 to 12.5 for Sharp then) or the power play goals.

Maybe Vinnie won’t ever have that shooting percentage, because we know what a rocket Sharp’s shot was then. Maybe Vinnie won’t get the goal totals because of that. But given the chances and attempts he’s generating now, thinking he can be a 20-goal guy on your second line or third line doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it did.