Everything Else

It Keeps Getting Funnier Every Single Time I Hear It

By 2248

If only that were true.

Yesterday’s signing of Jordin Tootoo continues a trend which the Hawks themselves keeps having to disprove to themselves pretty much every single season. Before we delve further, let’s be clear that Tootoo is no guarantee to make the team, or to play regularly. However, there is the trend that Joel Quenneville has of trying to prove just how much smarter he is than everyone who has coached a player like this before. At least until the spring when he stops when someone locks in a room full of smelling salts and he comes to and actually starts playing a proper lineup (sometimes this doesn’t happen until May or June).

Let’s take a ride, shall we?

Everything Else

About This Time Of Night, 51 Phantom Gets To Feelin’ Right

By 1408

This was just about the worst kept secret around here in a while. The only question for the Hawks and Brian Campbell was just how cheaply they could bring him back. $2 mildo and the answer is, “pretty fucking cheap.” I hope Beavis and Butthead in the booth don’t pull a muscle having to backtrack all the things they said about him since he left.

In case you don’t watch the Panthers much, and there really wasn’t much reason you should unless you’re demented like me, Campbell spent the past two years playing with Aaron Ekblad and the two of them basically kicked the competition’s nuts up into their throat. They were +5.2 and +5.7% relative in Corsi to the rest of the Panthers, with pretty evenly split zone starts. Gudbranson and Mitchell (for some reason) took on the toughest competition most of the time for the Cats, but Campbell isn’t going to have to worry about doing that here either.

Everything Else

On The Blocks

By 1515

So the frenzy begins tomorrow, and the Hawks are doing last minute stretching and warming before they pick their targets. Both Michal Rozsival and Brandon Mashinter were re-upped today for dirt cheap, barely $1.1 million between them.

The Rozsival one is slightly interesting considering that no matter how much Q loves him, he was absolutely railroaded in the playoffs last year, supposedly what he was being saved for during a regular season where he wasn’t really all that bad. How he’s going to improve in the spring, even if he plays 40-50 games. Whatever.

The Mashinter signing is frustrating because we do this every year. Every year the Hawks have some tomato can on the roster who plays too much during the season and by the playoffs Q has discarded them into the ether, basically telling you that “the element we like” means jack and shit. Or either they/Mashinter/both is an actual player now, which will get hilariously exposed. Again, doesn’t really matter.

So where do the Hawks stand, lineup wise now?

Everything Else

Playing Hardball And 51 Phantom

By 1742

Before we start to focus on what the Hawks might start to do on Friday in free agency, there’s been something I’ve wanted to address since the trade of Andrew Shaw. This marks the second straight summer that the Hawks waved the white flag on bringing back a player they really wanted to before the free agency period opened. Last summer it was Brandon Saad. Now, one was obviously a much bigger impact but the similarities are there. Both were headed to only restricted free agency, both were desperate to stay (at least they say so) and both were wanted by the Hawks (or at least their coach). And yet it didn’t work.

And it seems the Hawks have no interest in playing hardball with anyone.

Everything Else

Fare Thee Well, Chicken Hawk And Other Drafty Day Musings

By 1548

It wasn’t hard to be immediately smitten by Andrew Shaw. Within his first couple shifts as a Blackhawk, he’d already scored and gotten into a fight (guess which one Q noticed more?). You watched him skate around that first game in Philadelphia and thought, “This kid is nuts!” Hockey is probably the one sport where watching a player makes you say that, and that’s a good thing (though Willson Contreras might be carrying this tradition into baseball, and a young Charles Tillman did it for the Bears SKY POINT). In his second playoff game he ran over Mike Smith, fulfilling the fantasy of most Hawks fans (and I assume players as well). Sure, it didn’t help the Hawks much but that didn’t mean we didn’t glean a perverse joy from it.

Everything Else

Good God Man, What’s The Plan?

By 1649

Last night, during the usual car crash that is the NHL Awards Show (and why does the NHL need a show? No other sport needs one), Chris Kuc from the Tribune tweeted out that the Hawks are actively shopping Marcus Kruger and even Andrew Shaw, though what he could bring back as a pending RFA really wouldn’t be all that much.

The Kruger one is especially baffling.

Everything Else

The Chicago Bruins

By 1667

Day late to this, was traveling yesterday so apologies for the delay.

As we spent a season watching the Hawks fuck up pretty much every chance to make themselves likable as an organization, or even appear competent in the ways of PR or understanding, yesterday’s post-trade bus-tossing of Teuvo Teravainen shouldn’t really be disappointing considering the heights of incompetence and deafness they’ve already scaled. And yet it’s another minor notch on the post showing that the Hawks aren’t really anywere near the first-class organization they love to tell us that they are. Maybe they were once again too busy filming an ad with a sick kid they use to sell tickets where they don’t tell us what disease or condition that child has and/or provide information where others might find out where to learn and help.

Everything Else

It’s Hard To Leave When You Can’t Find The Floor

By 1685

Most of Hawks Nation is still clearing the cobwebs from the news that Teuvo Teravainen had to be included to rid themselves of Bryan Bickell’s contract. It’s yet another case of the Hawks choosing to go with their veteran’s floors instead of their prospects’ ceilings. Teuvo is probably the highest ceiling of the players the Hawks have had to lose next to Brandon Saad, and that’s why the sting is so great. Then again, the real sting is that while the Hawks probably HAD to lose Saad given his salary demands, they didn’t have to lose Teuvo. They decided, or more to the point Q decided, that Andrew Shaw was the higher priority.

We’ve done this before, but it’s worth examining whether that’s really the case.

Everything Else

Be Here Now

By 1971

It was rumored a week or two ago but a lot of us didn’t want to believe it. The Hawks pulled the trigger on trading Bryan Bickell and having it cost them Teuvo Teravainen to do so, shipping them to Carolina for 2nd and 3rd round picks this year. Remember, Patrick Sharp can’t get you picks in return for a salary dump but Bickell and Teuvo can. MMMMMM THAT’S GOOD GM-ING!

There are various levels on which to view this, and you can’t really judge it until we see what the Hawks get to do with the cap space they now have. Though you have to ask yourself if the $1M in savings this does over simply buying out Bickell, and the $1.5M next year, is worth losing Teuvo. I don’t think it is.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – After All Is Said And Done, Gotta Move While It’s Still Fun

By 1482

So it took one game longer than I thought it would, and most thought it would. And for at least two periods, it was probably the best the Sharks have looked in this series last night. But because their coach couldn’t stop playing Polak and Dillon, they immediately surrendered the tie they had just gotten, and couldn’t find a way through the smothering Pens defense. It’s too simplistic to pin it all on the Sharks’ third pairing (though awfully tempting), because the Penguins were clearly the better team in this series. But still, that was opening the door and rolling out a red carpet sprinkled with flowers for Pittsburgh to stroll on in.

Whenever we have a new Cup champion, there is a rush to see what we can learn from them and how teams should apply their plans going forward. That’s a little harder to do with this one.