Everything Else

Game #54 – Hawks vs. Oilers Preview/Postcard Party: And Now Here’s Some Tripe

By Sam Fels 1589 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 20-24-9   Oilers 23-24-5

PUCK DROP: 8pm

TV: WGN

EdMo Dee: Oilers Nation

The Hawks conclude this post-break, three-game road trip in the NHL’s “Beyond The Wall,” the hellscape that is Edmonton, Alberta (I assume). And when I say hellscape, I really mean the team that you’ll find there. Though a city that cold can’t have that much going on, no matter how much oil money flows or freezes in the streets. I’m sure the Hawks will thank the schedule makers for a five-day trip that spans three timezones and a collective temperature of “go fuck yourself.”

You may have heard about the Oilers, Biggest laughingstock in the league, despite having two more points than the Hawks. If the Hawks were to win tonight most Oilers fans would take being level on points with them as rock-bottom, just to give you a clear vision of what the Hawks are right now. Have the best player in the league as well, these Oilers. Can’t seem to make that count. Recently fired their addled GM two years too late. Now everyone is waiting with giddy excitement to see what drunken, near-sighted clown they hire next. He’ll almost assuredly have played on the Oilers in the 80s, because the one time they tried not to do that they ended up with Peter Chiarelli and his bent vision of reality, which basically involved whatever signing caused him to grab his groin aggressively. So clearly they have to go back to what didn’t work before. God bless this organization.

On the ice, the Oilers have center-depth and literally nothing else. Run CMD, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are by far their three leading scorers, and at various times this season have played with each other. Now they’re all back at their natural center positions, but when you look at what surrounds them it’s enough to make your food turn septic in your digestive track.

Milan Lucic is “skating” with McDavid, except you can’t call what Lucic does skating anymore so much as “thrashing about as the air currents push him ever so slightly.” Alex Chiasson is a second-line winger. Jujhar Khaira and Zack Kassian are somehow on a NHL third-line together instead of loading up on Skittles at a truck-stop somewhere during an AHL bus ride. “Putrid” doesn’t even come close to starting to describe this, and now you know why they are where they are. They’ve broken Jesse Puljujarvi, if he was anything to begin with, and he’s skating with Kyle Brodziak and Brad Malone in a chilling vision of what the future as a tomato can will look like.

It’s not any better on the back end. This is a team that traded FOR Brandon Manning, remember. And he plays. Adam Larsson is parading around the top pairing with a Kings castoff. Darnell Nurse will occasionally flash the modern-Pronger bit we thought he was destined for, and then remembers he’s spent almost all of his career with Kris Russell and retreats into sadness done in blue and orange again. Andrej Sekera wanders the arena looking for whatever fell off of him this week. It’s bleak.

And when the Oilers have threatened to be good in the past, it was because Cam And Magic Talbot could bail them out. He hasn’t this year, and this is where they are. They’re trusting Mikko Koskinen, a 30-year-old whose flights got crossed up and ended up signing here from the KHL rather than try and figure out how to rebook. In Chiarelli’s final act of lunacy, he re-signed Koskinen for three years to kind of just stand there, which is what he does. But his .908 is better than Talbot’s .893.

The Oilers tried to salvage this by hiring Ken Hitchcock midseason, because his track record of success is so blaring over the past 12 years. They’ve gone 14-14-4 with Hitch, a massive improvement over the 9-10-1 they managed with Todd McLellan. You know it’s bad when Hitch is longing for Jay Bouwmeester and Alex OrangeJello again. He gave up his Civil War reading for this?

This is maybe the biggest mess in the league, and whatever stooge they install as GM is going to find it nearly impossible to extricate. There’s barely any money coming off the books in the summer, really only Talbot’s $4M+ hit. And this team has no wingers. Lucic is in Seabrook territory at this point, and Kris Russell isn’t far behind. That is if the Oilers were inclined to move Russell, but they still seem oddly infatuated with him, mostly to sneer at most of the hockey world pointing out he sucks.

And really, that’s all the Oilers have been for nearly three decades now. Most of the hockey world has been pointing out they suck since 1991, and they still point and gloat about five Cups won before most of you could form a sentence. They’re convinced that run that started 35 years ago still makes them ahead of the game and won’t hear otherwise. This organization has accomplished exactly dick since their glory days, save one goofed Final appearance the first year of the lockout when nothing made sense and is something Chris Pronger clearly erased from his memory (the Blues traded him for Eric Brewer, by the way. Take a moment to think about that).

Anyway, tonight’s challenge is simple enough. Hitch will throw McDavid out against Keith and Seabrook as often as he can, unless he still thinks it’s 2013, and he might. Failing that, Forsling and Gustafsson will be similarly tortured. If the Hawks can somehow keep McJesus on a leash, they should have a good chance at this one. The Oilers recently gave up four power play goals in a game, so the Hawks’ PP should barely be able to keep from slobbering when they get their chance.

As for the Hawks, no word yet on who starts but one would hope Delia gets wheeled back out there. Ward’s had two decent starts in a row though and we know Coach Cool Youth Pastor will shit himself if he has to tell any veteran other than Chris Kunitz anything bad, so you never know. Perlini should stay in ahead of Kunitz, but that’s about it.

As we said at the weekend, the schedule is pretty shitty now, so if the Hawks are insistent on chasing playoff spots that don’t really matter, this is where they’ll make their run. With the Canucks and Wings at home next, they could actually put together a substantial winning streak. Then again, this is just about the same outfit that got worked by the Wings at home last year. The Hawks have lost to the Oilers twice already this season, but hey, they’re both under .500 so maybe they’re not good enough to beat anyone three times.

We’re in this together.

 

Game #54 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Is This The Realia Life

By Adam Hess 1852 0

One of the last remaining aspects of this Blackhawks season worth giving a damn about is the play and development of Collin Delia, who has worked himself into the conversation as the potential Corey Crawford heir. Were that prospect to come to fruition, it would be a rare bright spot in this season and carry the potential to accelerate the Hawks’ eventual return to relevance, even if they end up missing out on Jack Hughes, Kaapo Kakko, and/or Erik Karlsson in June.

It’s no secret and certainly not difficult to see that the NHL has become a goalie’s league, even moreso than the NFL is a quarterback league. It’ll never get proper recognition, and hockey playing 4th fiddle in the US will play a major role, but at this point NHL goalie has become the most important position in sports. Sure, quarterbacks get the praise and attention, but NFL teams can have success even with below average or even bad quarterbacks – The Ravens and Cowboys won their divisions on the strengths of their defenses this past season, and some would make the case our beloved Bears fall in here, too.

Of course in the NHL it’s possible to make the playoffs without an elite netminder, but that’s just cuz more than half the league makes the playoffs. No one goes anywhere come April without top level goaltending. Look at the top-4 from last year: Braden Holtby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Andre Vasilevski, and Connor Hellebyuck. That’s a top-3 goalie, a Cup winner, and two of the best goalie prospects from past few years who were finally coming into their own.

So that brings us back to our Irish Boy, who has only played 10 games so far and has been equal parts incredible and terrible at time. Look no further than that mid-day game two Sundays ago against the Capitals – he made at least one save he shouldn’t have, probably two or three or more you didn’t think he would, and was mostly solid throughout. But if you had just watched the goals he gave up, particularly the first two, you would’ve wondered how his ass didn’t get pulled.

His numbers tell an encouraging story – he’s got a .936 save percentage at 5v5, which is good enough for 8th among NHL goalies with 300 minutes played in the situation (Natural Stat Trick doesn’t let me do games played). He’s also got a crazy .927 shorthanded, which is really something behind that PK unit. That’s second-best in the damn league. Add in that he’s managed not to royally screw up when the Hawks are on the PP and you have his .923 overall, which is good. Even along with that, he’s got a GAA of 3.00 because the Hawks blue line is a mess.

Obviously all of that comes with a rather large grain of salt given that he’s played just 10 games. There’s a lot more to be shown here, but the early returns are clearly encouraging. The question is if it is going to end up meaning anything.

I wrote last week about how I still think the Hawks should go about tanking in whatever fashion they can (though it won’t look exactly like a tank given what they have to sell off), and touched on how Delia represents a really hard Catch-22 situation. He’s unlikely to be able to keep playing at the pace he’s been at so far this year without some good fortune, but assuming he does so there’s a good chance he could ruin your shot at Hughes. If he does that and ultimately proves that’s who is, it’s fine. If he does that and next year comes crashing back to earth, you’re still in a precarious spot.

Meanwhile, if he crashed back to earth and you get Hughes, that’s fine, but would it result in the Hawks abandoning hope on him being the franchise goalie? I’m inclined to believe they’d have more perspective, but I definitely don’t put it beyond a desperate Stan Bowman to make a rash decision like that given that his ass could be on the line next year. So if he really does have that top level ceiling and they give up on him, even if you have Hughes you are still in a precarious spot.

That being said, Delia does have a 3.00 GAA even with all those impressive save rates, and that’s because this team is ass. So, it’s possible he could still play well and this team could still be in pits of the standings come late March, and we have the best of both worlds.

In the end, the answer to the whether or not Collin Delia is the real thing is not going to be found this season. But he’s off to a good start and how the year winds down for him will be telling, and provide something for us to keep an eye on heading into next season. We just need the Hawks to not screw this up. What could go wrong?

Everything Else

Where To From Here: If Crawford Comes Back?

By Rose Rankin 2003 0

A few weeks back I wrote about how Corey Crawford should retire in light of his latest concussion. I still believe what I said in that piece, and with the accomplishments he’s racked up and what we know about the effects of multiple head traumas, it seems unnecessarily risky for him to return to playing a contact sport.

But much to everyone’s surprise, including mine, Crawford has been skating and working out with Jimmy Waite so a return this season certainly seems possible. And regardless of what I think, at the end of the day I’m just a fan with an opinion, as far removed from the inner workings of the team and as giardiniera-soaked as everyone else (possible more so—I have literally made a scene when actual giardiniera was unavailable in a sandwich place. I’m a peach).

So if Crawford chooses to return to the lineup, the Hawks will obviously play him as their starter, which they would be foolish not to. What would that mean for the team and the season? Let’s examine what should happen (based solely on how I would like things to turn out), and what will happen (based on cruel realism). Shall we?

Goaltending & Defense

What should happen: Crawford returns to his Vezina-quality form and plays obnoxiously well, turning the end of the season into a punctuation mark on how he’s one of the best and most underrated goaltenders in the league and has been for a damn good stretch of time. The blue line as a whole dials up its give-a-shit meter as a way to offer him additional protection, and they reverse the depressing trend of defensive play that’s left them league-worst in both scoring chances given up and high-danger chances given up. The Hawks finish the season out of the playoffs, but out of the basement as well.

What will happen: Crawford comes back and his performance will be middling, similar to where he was when he got hurt in mid-December. Some periods and some nights, he’ll be the Crow of old and be lights out; other times he’ll be human and not be able to win the game on his own, and he won’t make saves that he once would have. His save percentage will hover somewhere in the low nine-hundreds, probably around .905, as the Hawks’ awful defense strands him with 40 SOG a night. Their inability to handle Colliton’s man defensive scheme will leave guys with all day in the slot and around the crease taking those high-percentage shots. The Hawks finish the season in the basement.

Roster Moves

What should happen: The front office convinces Cam Ward to waive his no-movement clause and they trade him for a bag of pucks. If Bowman found GMs dumb enough to take Manning and Rutta off our hands, you gotta believe he can unload an experienced back-up goaltender who has only been a partial dumpster fire. Then, Collin Delia stays up with the top club and handles a little more than typical back-up duties, maybe close to splitting the remaining 31 games with Crawford (think a 17-14 split, Crawford-Delia).

This way, Delia continues to play at the NHL level and we have a relatively reliable alternative for any time Crawford throws out a turd for the night, or whenever he just needs a couple days to rest. The season is fucked anyway, so it’s not like we need a hot hand to have momentum going into the playoffs. Let Delia learn and improve while Crawford has extra support.

What will happen: One of two things will happen, thanks to the organization’s brain geniuses—either Delia will get sent to Rockford or he and Ward will switch off being healthy scratches. The former wouldn’t be completely terrible because at least Delia would be playing nearly every night. Granted, the Ice Hogs suck too and probably won’t make the Calder Cup playoffs, plus the AHL is goonville and I honestly fear for the safety of anyone playing in that league. But it would be better than the latter option of the Hawks keeping Ward and Delia here, and wasting a roster spot that could go to a young forward currently in Rockford.

And it would all be because they gave Ward a stupid contract. I couldn’t even blame Ward if he chose not to waive his NMC…that’s just looking out for his own interests and you can’t fault a guy for that. But it would be another glaring example of contract incompetence, as Delia would only get to play maybe six or seven more games, and when he’s rusty and not progressing, gets sent back to the press box where no one ever became a better hockey player, and/or has shattered confidence. It would spell the beginning of the end for him here.

Overall

What should happen: Crawford should retire and protect his future health, which will also allow the Hawks to limp to the finish line with an overpriced back-up and a youngster who learns to be an NHL-caliber goalie or proves he isn’t one. The front office makes moves accordingly in the offseason to address whatever situation they have with Delia, and whatever implications that carries for the rest of the roster.

What will happen: Crawford comes back at a level far below what we’re used to, and the coaching staff is put between the proverbial rock and a hard place with the roster. This bizarre ménage a trois becomes yet another depressing storyline at the end of the season, as everyone ponders what to do to get out of it.

Everything Else

Just Win, Baby and Other Notes

By John Pullega 2242 0

The bye week/All Star Break is about halfway over for our Men of Four Feathers, so it’s time to start thinking about Blackhawks hockey again. After a piss-poor but not entirely unexpected first half of the season, the Hawks sit last in the Central, 27th overall (two points out of the cellar, ahead of the Senators, Devils, Kings, and Flyera), and 30th in goal differential, ahead of only the Kings. Help isn’t coming, and the only reason the Hawks aren’t sitting in dead last in everything is because of a brief spell of competence spanning late December to early January. It doesn’t look good, dear reader.

And yet, I still want to watch this team win, lottery be damned.

On Friday, the Beast From the East (time zone) Adam Hess laid out a case for the Hawks doing everything they can to tank the rest of the year. To SparkNotes it, no, that doesn’t mean telling the players to Black Sox it. In its most extreme case, tanking would involve trading someone like Patrick Kane, assuming his dad would be OK with it, and starting all the way over. And as much as I would be happy with, say, a straight Kane-for-Subban trade, we all know that isn’t going to happen.

I understand why there’s a contingent that would push for a tank: It would lay the groundwork for the future, give Colliton a chance to play guys whom the decision makers believe are part of the future, and give those same guys a chance to adjust to the expectations foisted upon them. But with the roster as it stands, this team is about as close to tanking as it can be. The only way this roster can get much better as it is, is to rotate Seabrook, only play Ward in back-to-backs, and keep Anisimov on the fourth line. The guys who are a part of the future are pretty much already here: Strome, DeBrincat, Harju, Kampf, possibly Delia. All we’re really waiting on is Boqvist and maybe Beaudin and Barratt.

But even if it were possible for this team to tank any worse, I’m not sure I’d want to see it.

Even though this team sucks like a Kirby, I still celebrate the wins. I still jump off the couch and scare the bejesus out of the dog when Top Cat takes a cross-ice pass for a quick one-time goal. Every time the Hawks go on the power play now, I stand and pace in anticipation for a goal that’s more likely than ever to come. And you better believe I nearly lost my goddamn mind when Delia made that jumping save against the Caps a while back, even though it was the result of him completely losing his ass in the crease.

With the expectations as low as they were coming into the year, there’s still joy when the Hawks aren’t puking all over their shoes. Toews’s Renaissance has been a much-needed relief. Watching Alex DeBrincat outdo himself in his sophomore year (he’s on pace for 40+ goals right now) gives hope for a brighter future that might not be as far away as it seems. David Kampf is one of the best defensive forwards in the entire league, which is as shocking as it is exciting.

And though the defense has been a recycled marital aid this entire year, seeing Connor Murphy play well and with confidence is somewhat vindicating. Erik Gustafsson, for all his warts, has been fun in the offensive zone and on the power play, defense be damned. And Collin Delia’s performance, funk and all, has been a respite from the professional ass pickers the Hawks have trotted out since Corey Crawford’s untimely demise.

For all the pissing and moaning I do about this team, there’s still joy in watching them win, even if that shaves at their chances of winning the lottery. I want to see some deadline moves, particularly involving Anisimov; any one of the Shitty Bash Brothers in Hayden, Martinsen, and Kunitz; and possibly Gustafsson if the price is right. But all in the name of winning as many games as possible, because it’s still fun to watch them win, especially when they’re not supposed to. We may have problems with the people running it, some of the players on it, and the countless off-ice embarrassments it’s self-inflicted, but we still derive joy when this team wins. If you didn’t, why would you bother with it?

When the Hawks won the lottery in 2007, they were slated to pick fifth. Even if they lose out, nothing is guaranteed. Whenever possible, I’d rather not leave things up to chance. So, just win, baby.

– Kendall Coyne Schofield is less than one second slower than Connor Mc-fucking-David. Brianna Decker was the best of the best among passers at the NHL All Star Game by more than three seconds—and if you’re taking the NHL’s word that her time was “unofficial” and that her “real time” was slower than Draisaitl, I don’t know what to tell you. This is a league that doesn’t know what goaltender interference is and can’t get goal calls right with all their technology, and now, you want me to believe they know what they’re doing? Anyway, with the league kind of moving toward more skill and speed, you wonder which team is going to give a woman her shot to play in the NHL first.

Think of it this way: If an amateur male hockey player did what Coyne Schofield or Decker—both Olympic gold medal winners—did, front offices would be busting down the gates, right now, to talk to that player about playing in the NHL, or at least getting a try out. There wouldn’t be angst about, for instance, Decker not getting paid prize money, because that amateur guy would likely have a league-minimum contract (currently, $650,000) in front of him by the end of the week.

The NHL took a step in the right direction by letting Coyne Schofield and Decker show off their skills, which are objectively impressive regardless of the context. I very much liked that and would like to see even more of that, by which I mean I would like to see skilled and successful women playing hockey in the NHL in real games throughout the season. I would rather give someone like Coyne Schofield or Decker a look over someone like current Chris Kunitz, Ryan Reaves, or any of the other trash pail assclowns front offices try to trick us into thinking are hockey players today. That they—along with Fast and Johnston—got money to donate to charities, endorsements from adidas, and a chance to show their stuff is awesome, and I want to see more of that. Getting to watch skilled hockey players who aren’t in the NHL upstage hockey players who are in the NHL is 100% my jam.

I’m sure there will always be concern trolls wringing their sticky hands over “What happens when a woman takes a hit from Tom Wilson?” or “How will women cope with the way hockey players act around each other?” or whatever other socially inept excuse they want to peddle to cover for their disdain of women. I do not give a single lingering fuck about what those people think at all. If a hockey player is as talented as Coyne Schofield or Decker proved to be (once again) on one of the most-watched hockey stages around, the question shouldn’t be, “But how can a woman fit into a real game?” It should be, “How can we get this talent on the ice?”

Ain’t no one worried about how Alex DeBrincat will deal with a hit. And if your behavior around “the guys” is so reprehensible as to draw questions about how women would “cope with it,” then fix your fucking behavior. There’s too much talent at risk to waste time fostering whatever illusions these hockey-playing hayseeds have about their masculinity.

Still, I’ll move forward with cautious optimism that the NHL will keep showing us the best Women’s Hockey has to offer until the league takes the logical next step and offers it themselves.

– The Hawks traded Arizona’s fifth-round pick to the Kings for “Another” Dominik Kubalik. He’s a 23-year-old winger whom the Kings drafted in the seventh round back in 2013. He’s playing in the top Swiss League and has 20 goals and 23 assists so far this year. He’s still youngish and, like most guys who hop the pond, needs more ass to his game, but it’s fine. It’s a low-risk, high-reward trade if everything breaks right.

Everything Else

That Dirty Little Word

By Adam Hess 2432 0

Here in the middle of the NHL All-Star Break, I find myself in a familiar place as last year – we’re 51 games into the Blackhawks’ season, and I’m about to talk about how they should probably tank. No, really, click this link and I literally wrote about the tank last year at the same 51 game mark. Funny how these things have a way of, erm, working out. At least I get another chance to use that ridiculous photoshop I made last year.

When I did this last year, I was basically contemplating an impossible. The Blackhawks were probably a bit too far out of the running for last place to make a true run at it, and even then they ended the season with the 7th-best lottery odds and actually ended up getting jumped and ended up picking 8th. They did address the main need area of the blue line with their pick of Adam Boqvist, and his ceiling appears to be rather high.

This year, the potential for “tanking” is much higher, because the Hawks are a measly two points ahead of the last place tie between the Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils. The problem is there are five other teams who can make that claim as well, and three others that are only six points ahead of the Sens/Devils. That being said, our local idiots have played at least one more game than every other team below them in the standings, and three more than the Devils (who boatraced them last week, lest we forget), so the case for them being the worst team in the league and the front runner for the last place sweepstakes is not a hard one to make, though Detroit has a case as well considering they’re tied with the Hawks through 51 games played themselves.

The situation is eerily similar to last year as well. If I wrote the following today, it would still apply , but I assure you that this cut and paste from the article referenced above:

The Crawford situation has become a lose-lose for the Blackhawks. Crow’s health is obviously the most important thing, and you don’t want to rush him back and risk anything going wrong in the future because he is going to be the key to this team contending in the years to come. And we’re seeing how well things are going without him – you have two dudes who never spent significant time in the NHL trying each game to not play as bad as they did last game. So you don’t want to rush Crow back, but without him you’re up shit’s creek without a paddle.

Then you also have the question of whether Crawford coming back this year at all is really even worth it, even if you don’t rush it. We’ve already seen reports that he might miss the whole season, so it may not be a stretch to say that the Hawks bringing him back at all could be a form of rushing him back. And even if he does come back and squeeze you into a playoff spot, is it really going to be worth playing those extra games just to more than likely get bounced by Nashville or God forbid WINNIPEG? Even if your draft lottery odds are the longest shot, that’s better chance at the apparently generational talent of Rasmus Dahlin than zero.

Clearly Rasmus Dahlin is not available this year, but insert Jack Hughes – or Kaapo Kakko if that’s your fancy – in for him (and maybe remove generational, cuz Hughes is good but certainly no McDavid/Eichel/Matthews) and it’s current. The Hawks are in a really nasty spot with Crawford and it’s arguably worse this year than it was last year, because now we’re in round two of a serious concussion problem. He’s been skating already so there’s a decent chance he returns, but as the podcast crew talked about this week he probably isn’t giving you anything more than half of the remaining games if he does come back, and even then he hasn’t had the kind of season that would see him carry them back into the playoff hunt.

Who has that kind of season is Collin Delia, who’s posted a .923 save percentage in his 10 games this year, doing so behind a defense so bad that even with that impressive save rate he still has a 3.oo GAA. If Delia proves to ultimately be a franchise goalie, then him de-railing any kind of last place finish race would definitely be okay by me. That being said, we probably won’t really know quite yet if he is a franchise goalie, even if he does help them go on some kind of run and keeps them well out of last place this year. So that’s a bit of a Sophie’s Choice for us in the pro-tank crowd – do we prefer the potential franchise goalie plays bad to help secure a franchise 1C, or do we prefer Delia ruin our chances at a franchise 1C even if he won’t ultimately be a franchise goalie? If you have a firm answer to that, I envy you.

Further complicating things is the simple fact that you can’t coach a team to tank – though Coach Cool Youth Pastor running this man-to-man system with a roster not nearly fast enough to do it properly is about as close to doing so you’ll find. Despite the system, Colliton can’t convince Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews or Alex DeBrincat to stop being extremely good at hockey, and he certainly can’t tell anyone else not to try. Even if most of these players are not long for the roster if this franchise is going to return to competing, they’re still auditioning for NHL jobs either here or elsewhere and they owe it to themselves to play well. On top of that, a lot of this team is young and we still need to see what we have in them – Dylan Strome, Henri Jokiharju, and Delia are all examples of this. So we need them at their best.

So it comes down to if Stan Bowman is going to ultimately admit that everything he and McD have tried to force feed us this year about this team competing was just a bunch of bullshit. It’s kind of started already, but they’ll never come out and explicitly say “actually this roster sucks ass and we wanted it this way,” and they certainly won’t cop to signing shitty players in an effort to give Joel Quenneville enough rope to hang himself – which, based on what we’ve seem from this team since Q was fired in favor of CCYP, he didn’t even truly manage to do.

And if Bowman does decide to that he’s going to sell off what he can in order to maximize lottery odds, what does he really have to sell? Do you really think shipping Erik Gustafsson out of here is going to be the final straw that bottoms out this team? Has Chris Kunitz really brought enough to the table for this team to such when he leaves (the answer is no, they’ll actually get better with that)? If you can even convince Cam Ward to leave, and convince some team to take him, does that make the Hawks chances of winning the games he would’ve played that much higher?

So yeah – personally I think that tanking, in whatever form the Hawks might be able to do so, is the best way forward for this year’s Hawks. They have a decent crop of forwards locked up for the future, but there’s no 1C of the future here, so Jack Hughes is more than welcome. Even if you end up with Kakko, that’s an improvement for the future and he might even wind up as this year’s Patrick Laine.

The thing is, like last year, there is no clear and obvious way to go about “tanking” that really results in a tank, because outside of the unrealistic Kane trade that Rose talked about on Wednesday, you’re not shipping out much talent worth anything. So, like last year, we’re almost stuck hoping that the team ends up bad enough – and the teams below them string enough wins together – to have the Hawks end up with the highest possible lottery chances, and then we again hope and pray for the ping pong balls to favor us. It’s – still – the good ol’ hockey game.

Everything Else

Atop the Sugar Pile – Three-Day Weekend

By Rose Rankin 1753 0

It’s time once again for our version of the Blackhawks hot-or-not: 

The Dizzying Highs

Jonathan Toews: With a hat trick plus two assists yesterday, we’d be remiss if we DIDN’T put Toews in the Dizzying Highs. I can’t think of a performance more worthy of the name than a five-point game, and one that was against the current Stanley Cup champions no less, even if they were still drunk from the night before. Beyond just yesterday, though, Toews has been playing consistently well—obviously for the season as a whole but in particular the last week or so, other than the shit-fest at Madison Square Garden the other night. He had a point in each of the three games prior to that. He’s already surpassed his point total for last year and he’s tied his total for 2016-17. Yes, his possession numbers are a little questionable still (50.7 CF%, 1.9 CF% Rel), but shit, the guy had a hat trick and five total points yesterday.

Patrick Kane: Kane gets an honorable mention here this week because he too had five points against the Capitols yesterday and the little shit has been playing out of his mind. Again.

The Terrifying Lows

Carl Dahlstrom: OK, Dahlstrom is inexperienced and getting absolutely buried with his zone starts: 28.75% offensive zone starts as of today, per Natural Stat Trick. However, he’s also playing with one of the 2.5 competent defensemen the Hawks have right now, and he’s sucked out loud for a couple weeks, after what had been a promising start that now just screams adrenaline-and-good-luck. We can parse the stats any way we want and get a muddled answer: His GF% is 54, but they give up more scoring chances when he’s on the ice (47 SCF%). On top of that, the Hawks give up a shitload more high-danger chances than what they attempt when Dahlstrom is out there—his High-Danger Chances For percentage is a woeful 38.5%. But my immediate issue is not just numbers (although I am angry at those too), but it’s how doltish he’s played lately, i.e., against the Rangers last week, and the Knights a few days before that. He’s either standing around watching opponents score, or he’s in the wrong position, or he’s chasing helplessly, or he’s leaving his man open. I realize there are no good answers with this defense, but whatever hope there was around Dahlstrom is fading fast.

Duncan Keith: Keith gets an honorable mention here this week because his turnover to Chris Kreider in the Rangers game last week was so abominable, I’m still not over it.

The Creamy Middles

Collin Delia: Let it be known that I don’t like listing the same guy in the same part of this post two weeks in a row (and I’m now doing it twice in this one). But like or not Delia and the goaltending situation as a whole is an unavoidable point of emphasis so I don’t want to ignore it simply for format’s sake. Anyway, you know we’re fans of Delia around these parts, but yesterday he had a mix of highlight-reel saves and soft goals that should never have happened. Out of his last six starts, Delia has given up three or more goals in five of them. That’s troubling. However, his save percentage is still .923%, so you know a lot of this is the defense hanging him out to dry (see: Dahlstrom in the aforementioned Vegas game). In those six previous starts, the lowest number of shots he faced was 32, and the highest was 50. Good lord. So Delia is keeping them in games and basically has one arm tied behind his back thanks to the putrid blue line, yet he’s still undeniably coming down to earth after an insane start.

Brandon Saad: Saad gets an honorable mention here because his goal against the Caps yesterday was a thing of beauty, and he’s had three goals in as many games. He still fucks.

All stats via Hockey Reference and Natural Stat Trick

Everything Else

Game #50 – Capitals 5, Hawks 8 – Snowman On A Snowy Weekend

By Adam Hess 1922 0

Box Score

Corscia

Natural Stat Trick

Well, that was refreshing. The Hawks finally showed up for a “big” game, if they still count as such, and played extremely well as they shitpumped the Capitals all day, save for a quick stretch in the third period where they let it get interesting. Let’s do the bullets:

– Jonathan Toews continued the Fuck You Tour today with a five point game that included a hat trick. It’s starting to feel more and more like he should just be doing this every game, even though I know it’s not that simple. But when he takes over a game, it’s something special to behold, really. His final possession numbers weren’t phenomenal with a 48.65 CF%, but that was likely brought down by the dominance Washington showed in the third period (which was largely score effects) and the fact that Toews was playing a hell of a lot in that period. Plus, the Hawks had a 4-0 advantage on goals at 5v5 with him on the ice. His numbers where it mattered most were damn good and that’s all I care about.

– To go along with that killer game from Toews was another monster performance by Patrick Kane, who matched Toews with a five point game of his own. He continued what has been one of his best seasons in the NHL and maybe the best year of his career in the process, and that brought me to a good but very sad realization – the Hawks’ blueline being shitty is wasting an all-time year from this duo. I’ll never take the glory years for granted, but given that these two are going off in this way, this really should have been another glory year. Damn.

– I’ve only watched two games of the Slater Koekkoek era and I’m already sick of it. I don’t hate the move for him at all, because dropping Jan Rutta and moving up the draft is nothing to complain about. Also, he does bring some speed that at least fits more of what Coach Cool Youth Pastor is trying to do. But even with that, the guy sucks ass. I haven’t seen him doing anything good yet and he was practically sitting on top of Collin Delia on the Capitals 5th goal. There was another breakdown in the defense along the way but it was still rough from him. Add in that he played over Henri Jokiharju, who inarguably needs to be in the lineup every game, and I’m tired of it already. Fucking sick of it. Get rid of it.

– Delia meanwhile had a game that reminded me a lot of Mitchell Trubisky, in a weird way. He made the big plays, performed well in the most important moments, but he still had some major screwups on the simple shit. The first two Washington goals were absolutely inexcusable, but then he continued to make the crazy saves that he had no business on. It was weird. But if he, like Trubisky, starts fixing that small shit, there’s definitely something there – more for Trubisky than Delia, but still (and no I am not doing well with Bears season being over.

Everything Else

Atop the Sugar Pile – Winter Slog

By Rose Rankin 1560 0

It’s time once again for the good, the bad, and the mildly entertaining in all things Blackhawks. This has been a rather relentless part of the schedule, and even though the Hawks will see New Jersey and New York for what may be a bit of a respite, they still have four more games before the All-Star break. Let’s see where we’re at as we get to the end of this death march through January:

The Dizzying Highs

Alex DeBrincat: Sounding a little like a broken record here but in the best way possible. Top Cat has been a force lately, and lord knows we need all the help we can get. He scored twice last night and has five goals in the last week. He’s a fixture on the first power play unit, and he’s a huge part of why the man advantage has actually been, well, advantageous lately (five pp goals since right before Christmas). His shooting percentage is 17.2 right now, and while you’d expect that to decline a little, last season he ended with a 15.5, so there’s every reason to expect he can sorta keep this up. Let’s fucking hope so.

Patrick Kane: You know he’s good, we know he’s good. Sam wrote about the year Garbage Dick is having so I won’t re-hash it here, but in the last week and a half he’s racked up 10 points, including a goal and an assist last night, and he had a playmaker a week back, just for good measure.

The Terrifying Lows

Artem Anisimov. You know he sucks, we know he sucks. Apparently everyone does and yet there he still is on the second line. Despite starting nearly 60% of the time in the offensive zone, and despite playing on a line with one of the best players in the game having one of his best years, ‘ole Wide Dick is underwater in possession (48.9 CF%) and makes multiple dumb mistakes every game that cost his line quality chances. I’ve lost count of the times I make a note during a game about him fumbling a pass, losing a puck in his feet, and basically just standing there staring at things. He’s officially reached “glacial” as the speed at which he skates, and overall is a complete waste of space while also being doubly annoying as the moron not helping them take advantage of Kane’s current performance, and taking what should be Alex DeBrincat’s spot. I know it’s not Arty himself making that decision, but as the useless oaf inexplicably placed there, he’s going to face some wrath.

The Creamy Middles

Collin Delia. I honestly want to put him in the Dizzying Highs really just as a mark of appreciation for what this guy’s putting up with, but let’s be honest about the win/loss column lately. Still, three of his four recent losses came in OT which is stupid anyway, and his play is a big reason why they even made it to those overtimes (particularly against the Flames last week) in the first place. He’s got a .932 SV% with THIS defense in front of him, and with Jokiharju not being around the last couple weeks they had all of about 2.5 functioning defensemen. Delia’s been good.

Jonathan Toews. It’s been a little while since Toews has made the Sugar Pile and I guess we’ve just accepted that he’s good again and taken it as a given. He’s got five points in his last five games, including a gorgeous short-handed goal against the Predators the other night. His 50.8 CF% isn’t mind-blowing but it’s getting the job done, and that’s with just over half his starts in the offensive zone. If he can score consistently and the top line can stay as reliable as it’s been most of the year, this team will remain much more bearable to watch.

 

Everything Else

Game #47 – Dreams Turn to Nightmares, Heaven Turns to Hell, Burned Out Confusion, Nothing More to Tell – Vegas 3, Hawks 3 (Vegas Wins Who Can Slap the Business Card Loudest Contest)

By John Pullega 1978 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

Vegas pulls a Kano on the Hawks, throwing knives and ripping hearts out. It’s gonna be a long, cold winter.  To the bullets.

– Certainly not one for Carl Dahlstrom’s highlight reel. You can easily blame him for all of Vegas’s last three goals, including the one where Shea Theodore pissed his entire name, including his fucking Confirmation name, in Dahlstrom’s snow. On Vegas’s goal at the end of the second, Dahlstrom confusingly backed off of Carpenter coming down the boards, giving Carpenter just enough room past the near-side dot to snipe the gloveside corner. On the game-tying goal, Dahlstrom was on the completely wrong side, forcing Murphy to try to over everything. Then on the OT goal, Dahlstrom was either flatfooted for simply too slow to keep up with Theodore, and the puck went off Dahlstrom’s stick through Delia’s five hole.

Dahlstrom and Murphy haven’t looked great together lately, and the reason is clear: Dahlstrom had his flash in the pan, and now he’s going back to the milquetoast Jared Dunn lookalike we always knew and were indifferent toward.

– On the plus side, Connor Murphy did look good for most of the game. Aside from a weak holding call in the second, he gummed up several chances from Vegas, especially in the third. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him line up next to Davidson or Koekkoek on Monday.

– Collin Delia once again did the best he could with what he was given. Vegas’s first goal is partially on him though. After stopping Nate Schmidt’s shot from the blue line, Delia failed to cover the puck even though he had his glove hovering over it like someone who has “Hooters photo op” circled on his calendar. Combined with Jokiharju getting pushed aside like the 19-year-old he is by Alex Tuch, it gave Tuch all the time he needed to post his 16th of the year. Hard to be mad about his performance otherwise.

– As Fels keeps saying, the Brain Trust and Coach Cool Youth Pastor are eventually going to have to tell Seabrook “It’s not us, it’s you.” Putting Jokiharju on his off side to accommodate Porkins isn’t going to help Harju’s development in any way, shape, or form, and it should not be considered again after tonight. Jokiharju had a 36+ CF% next to Seabrook and was often overmatched in his own zone. Asking him to cover for Fatso while on his off side is simply asking too much. If they’re going to fluff Seabrook for everything he’s done for them in the past, they should do it with someone like Murphy, who’s proven he’s up to the task. Having Harju with Seabrook is doing to destroy his development.

– On the plus side, Alex DeBrincat is now the one doing the fucking. His game-opening goal was an absolute masterpiece, and if you don’t believe me, just look:

He managed to tip Kahun’s shot out of mid-air and disrupt Flower’s timing on the stick sweep, then reached out as far as his 5’6” frame would let him and backhanded the puck in. You could hang that in the Louvre and it wouldn’t be out of place.

Then, he and Garbage Dick did what they’ve been doing on the power play. Kane drew everyone to him, leaving DeBrincat so embarrassingly open that Foley made the call before the shot came off his stick. The next time someone says RE-SIGN PANARIN, after you’re finished telling them to fuck off, show them the clip of that goal and ask “Why?” The Hawks have a younger, cheaper, more defensively responsible version of Panarin on the team right this second. As I am wont to say, thank fuck he’s 5’6”.

– Even though Kane’s original goal got called off because of Saad’s offside, there was a lot to like about everything that led up to that. First, Gustafsson made a crisp pass to Saad at the Hawks blue line, and then Saad kicked it out to Kane. Kane made just one too many hesitation moves for Saad to stay onside, which is something that wouldn’t happen if, you know, Saad were playing next to Kane regularly instead of the gigantic, useless obelisk that is Artem Anisimov. There was a nice fluidity to everything outside of the offside, and it’s something Colliton should look into.

– Because seriously, Artem Anisimov sucks. I challenge anyone to show me what he brings to this Blackhawks squad aside from the mental vision of a comically and barbarically large dick swinging like the pendulum of a clock that makes too much noise and can’t keep time. He makes plate tectonics look like something a premature ejaculator would critique as too fast. He took a hooking penalty late in the first, forcing the Hawks’s completely horseshit penalty kill to do what it has proven time and again it can’t do (they did kill the penalty, so hooray?). He contributed absolutely nothing. Dylan Strome does all the things he’s supposed to do, except better and for less money. If you can trade Manning and Rutta, you can trade Anisimov.

– If Erik Gustafsson ever decides to even feign defensive responsibility, he can be something special. His assist on Kane’s goal gave him an assist in eight straight games, something that hasn’t been done since Keith in 2013. He’s catching up to Chelios and Pilote in that little stat race, and while no one will ever mistake him for Chelios or Pilote, there is something there.

– Colliton opted to go with Kruger over Strome in the last seven minutes. Colliton is obviously a bright dude, but sometimes, you can’t help but wonder how much smarter he’d look if he’d stop trying to show us how big his galaxy brain is. You can argue that Strome had a team worst 25 CF%, but no one on the Hawks managed to crack 44% on the night. In that context, you can’t tell me Kruger centering Kane over Strome is a good idea.

The Hawks would have been lucky to win this one because they were so thoroughly thrashed throughout the night. But hey, it wouldn’t be Vegas if they let you come out with your shoes.

Onward.

Booze du Jour: Tin Cup & High Life: The Christmas gifts that keep on giving.

Line of the Night: “Was that John Scott?” – Eddie O., because John Scott is a gigantic joke whose presence you have to question at all times.

Everything Else

Game #47 – Golden Knights vs. Hawks Preview/Lemon Cleanse: There’s A First For Everything

By Sam Fels 1649 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Golden Knights 27-16-4   Hawks 16-22-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: WGN

SEARCHING FOR ELIZABETH SHUE: SinBin Vegas

It sounds strange to say that the Hawks have never beaten an expansion team. You’d think you’d have gotten one by accident, all things being norma.. But the Golden Knights aren’t really a normal expansion team, and these haven’t been the normal Hawks. So in five tries, the Hawks have drawn an 0-fer. And they rarely have been close. Last out where they took the lead against the Knights in the 3rd is about as good as they’ve done, and they promptly hocked that up like a smoker’s phlegm as quickly as they could. This is also the same team that put a snowman on the Hawks at home. So yeah, let’s just say it’s not a great matchup.

The Knights come in after just having a seven-game win-streak snapped at home on Thursday by a San Jose team they’re having a tussle with at the top of the standings. After some wonky health and dips in performance, the Knights were getting both back at the time, with Marc-Andre Fleury shaking off some of the malaise that’s draped on him most of the year. Paul Stastny returned to give the Knights a second line worth worrying about, though now Reilly Smith and Cody Eakin have ended up on a trainer’s table. Eakin looks like he’ll slot back in tonight on the third line, though.

It’s not quite the fireworks of last year. Vegas’s leading goal-scorer is Alex Tuch with just 15. They’re only middle of the pack, averaging an even three goals per game even though they have some of the best possession-numbers around. And it’s some of the same problems that Carolina has had for years. You have to have some front-line snipers to turn that possession into goals, and not just William Karlsson vomiting up a 25% shooting-percentage for a season out of nowhere. The Knights have a bunch of good players, but perhaps not enough premier scorers to avoid some ruts at times, especially when Pacioretty has been subpar.

That hasn’t stopped them from being a major headache for the Hawks, as they simply can’t live with Vegas’s speed. With Brent Seabrook returning from illness tonight, that doesn’t figure to get any better either. The Knights move the puck out of their zone quicker than the Hawks’ forecheckers can bother them, and their forwards can beat the Hawks’ D all over the ice. especially to the outside. This causes the Hawks’ defense to back up and provide more space at the line, which is where the creative destruction happens. The last time these two met Connor Murphy and Carl Dahlstrom weren’t in the lineup, and Brandon Manning and Jan Rutta were. We’ll see if that makes any difference.

For the Hawks, Slater Koekkoek, their new toy from Tampa won’t play tonight but they say he’s going to get a look. So one would have to believe that Brandon Davidson can start packing his bags. How Koekkoek will then get into the six is another questions, but one thing at a time, people. Henri Jokiharju will flip to the left side to accommodate Seabrook, and one has to wonder how much more accommodation and how much longer the Hawks can afford Seabrook. We’ll start to get answers on that soon.

Collin Delia will get the start again as he should, and shouldn’t see too many other lineup changes from the team that played well against Nashville. That means Caggiula and Saad on a third line and Top Cat in the top six. So y’know, fine.

Whenever the Hawks plan on being relevant again, they’re going to have to find a way to play a game this fast and play it well and beat the teams that already do it. Maybe that’s not tonight, maybe it’s next year. But I for one am a little tired of the Knights’ act, especially against the Hawks. So it would be enjoyable to finally get one over on them, just to see there’s been any progress whatsoever. That means none of this bullshit, three-passes-out-of-the zone ploy. Get it out and up and to your forwards as fast as possible. As little passing to someone standing still or moving backwards as possible, because that’s what the Knights feast on. Forward, forward, forward. You’ll give up chances, sure, but you’ll get Top Cat, Kane, and Toews in space too. Let’s have some fun.

 

Game #47 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built