Everything Else

Keith, Bolland, And Other Thursday Notes Except I Never Come Up With Notes That Aren’t In The Headline

By 1949

Couple of notes popping up the past day or so.

-Duncan Keith has dropped out of Team Canada, apparently to keep rehabbing or resting his knee that he had problems with last season. I think this is a good barometer of what these players think of the World Cup, where they sort of like it but they’re not risking much for it. If this were the Olympics I wonder what Keith would have done. And we’ll go more into the World Cup in September, but it feels like a real missed and biffed opportunity on the NHL’s part.

What’s more important locally of course is the condition of Keith. While Keith’s play didn’t really drop off from what we’ve come to expect, and he certainly benefitted from getting to play with Hjalmarsson the most, it was noticeable that he didn’t have quite the jump that he used to.

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Fishing In The Clearance Bin At Some Tragic Casual Corner

By 1660

“…and it’s sort of comical how you think you’ve made a choice that exempts you from an NHL forward when in fact, you’ll be playing the forwards selected by the very people in this room from this pile of stuff.”

-Miranda Priestly, or at least she should have

Let’s get something out of the way right at the top. Jiri Hudler was not a make-or-break player for the Hawks. He was not the difference between them winning a Cup and them not. They would almost certainly need one more forward or two even if he signed here. But he might have been the difference between gaining an automatic playoff spot and fighting for a wild card, which could mean something and which might not.

However, the Hawks not having $2 million to scrape together to get a player pretty desperate for a job tells you the dire straits they are in. While some Hawks fans would love to believe that A) the Hawks didn’t really want Hudler or anyone else and B) this was all part of the grand plan, that is simply foolishness. If the Hawks didn’t want Hudler they’re simply wrong, whatever his flaws. They are short two proven forwards on the top six, and if we put Hossa with Toews to make up that gap then there are two holes on Kruger’s wing on the third line and in the West you have to have a top 9 at minimum. As for a plan, well, the Hawks are making it up with what they have to, thanks to holding on to somethings for longer and more money than they should have. But we’ve been over that and over that.

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Tom Petty Wrote Something About This

By 1401

We’ve come to the precipice now. Jimmy Vesey hits the free agent market at midnight tonight. This is what hockey news in August is like, six teams fighting over a college free agent who probably maxes out as a second line winger. If you haven’t yet, check out Ryan Lambert’s piece on him today and what he can and can’t do. Ryan watches more Boston-area college hockey than most, so he knows of where he speaks.

I do find it somewhat funny that the main crux of the Hawks’ pitch to Vesey, because every team is going to offer the same two-year ELC with the same bonus structure, is essentially their biggest weakness. “We’re not deep enough at wing so you can play with Toews because basically we don’t have anyone else to do it.”

Everything Else

Vesey Derby, Rankings, And Any Other August Mishegas

By 1453

Things move slowly for me in the summer. I’m sure I’m not the only one. So it took me five days to get to friend of the program’s Greg Boysen’s post from last week. To be fair to Greg, he’s taking this with a grain of salt because it comes from HockeyBuzz’s John Jaeckel, so I’ll double the grains of salt. However, as we’ve said repeatedly this summer, Jiri Hudler is a perfect fit and the longer he waits his price only comes down. That is if he is indeed focused on coming to the Hawks.

Everything Else

Monday Bits And Bobs

By 1556

We’ve reached the Space Madness portion of the offseason, so you’ll have to excuse us if the posts get even more sparse around here. We’re all waiting for the Hawks to sign some forward still sitting on the shelves, and they’re probably waiting until the 15th when Jimmy Vesey goes free agent and see if they can get him. While I’m not sold, he probably comes cheaper than those who are still waiting and could be effective. I’m sorry if we won’t be doing posts about whatever Hawk put his fucking house up for sale. Because who gives a shit, really?

Anyway, some news today elsewhere:

Everything Else

Runds For The Exit

By 1472

This is what passes as news these days in hockey. A player who didn’t want to play for a team that didn’t want him was able to reach an accord with said team so he doesn’t have to. David Rundblad and the Hawks mutually terminated his contract and now he’s free to pursue opportunities elsewhere. As a side bonus, the Hawks get rid of all of his upcoming cap hit, so they don’t have to worry about buying him out or burying him in Rockford when they have a few young d-men they’d probably like to get as much time as possible (hi there, Gustav and Ville).

When reviewing Stan Bowman’s record as GM, you could make a case that Rundblad was possibly his worst move. At a trade deadline when the Hawks were simply screaming for anyone to play center that was not Michal Handzus or Andrew Shaw, Bowman’s only move was to give up a 2nd round pick, a pretty valuable asset as we’ve come to see, for a player that could only manage just north of 60 games over two and a quarter seasons for the Hawks. That deadline whiff clearly scarred Bowman, who has swung for the fences in the subsequent two trade deadlines, with varying success.

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Wait Until They Get A Load Of Me

By 3459

You know we’ve reached the depths of summer when the announcement of the national TV schedule, which doesn’t start for another three months or so, is basically the only news of the day. And once again, just as they are every year, the Hawks are in the middle of all of it.

The Hawks will appear 21 times on either NBC or NBCSN this season, most of any team. This is nothing new nor really all that controversial. The Hawks remain the league’s most popular and recognizable team. Of course NBC is going to center their coverage around them in search of ratings they’ll probably never get. But this always starts a raging debate about how the league markets itself.

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Actual Convention Tidbits

By 1255

Normally, the week of Prospects’ Camp and the Convention yields nothing more than a bunch of self-congratulatory hot air (though when it’s on the heels of a parade that’s usually pretty deserved) and a bunch of puff pieces about prospects that will never ever matter. This time around, the prospects that might matter only scrimmaged once so there wasn’t much to get a read off of. And the Convention actually yielded a couple things worth talking about, even if it’s just July Space Madness and we’re all speculating for the sake of speculating (and it’s better than talking about the asinine idea of trading Kyle Schwarber for a fucking reliever or the White Sox… well, the White Sox).

So first things first, and the drum we’ve been beating about Marian Hossa slotting down this season to be a checking line winger with Marcus Kruger.

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Culture Club

By 1557

There is a part of me that wants to turn this into a Canadiens blog for next season because their implosion is going to be utterly hilarious to witness and I’m probably going to want to laugh at it every single day. I won’t do that, but I will take the chance to chew up and spit out the latest piece of drivel that GM Marc Bergevin had spill out of that orifice in the front of his face. It was simply more ass covering. Let’s get the quote in full, just to admire how deep in his own excrement he’s actually launched himself:

“Two Stanley Cups in five years. I like guys who don’t like to lose. Everybody likes to win, everybody’s happy when you win. I want guys, when you lose, it gets them inside. It hurts. And then you go back to work the next day.

 I don’t want a guy who walks out of the rink thinking, “Everything is cute, everything is fine even though we lost the game, life goes on.” Yeah, life goes on, but I want guys who feel hurt by a loss. It’s the culture that I want. It’s the Chicago culture, that’s what I want.

Andrew Shaw has it. I was in Chicago long enough to know they don’t take losing with a grain of salt. I want guys who don’t like to lose.”

That’s nice. It’s also utter bullshit.

Everything Else

Please Stop With Panik Silliness And Other Assorted Thoughts

By 1733

The combination of Prospects’ Camp at Johnny’s West and then the Convention not too far behind it is the last oasis for Hawks’ thoughts and goofiness before the doldrums of August hit. Even that will be cut a little short this time with the World Cup teams getting together to start training in August (and everyone seeing just how bad this US team is going to be which is just hilarious). This is the last time before training camp that all the beat writers are together covering hockey, which means they’re getting bombarded with a lot of inane and silly questions. And there’s one that’s been popping up ever since the season started that really has to stop.

I don’t know how to be any clearer on this: If Richard Panik is on your top six, your top six sucks.