Everything Else

Game #54 – No One Speaks English And Everything’s Broken, And My Stacies Are Soaking Wet – Hawks 2, Stars 4

By John Pullega 2238 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

The Hawks, in the words of the inimitable Tom Waits, are a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace, and a wound that will never heal. To the bullets.

– Brent Seabrook had a positively wonderful game tonight. His pass on Toews’s goal channeled 2013, and his purposely wide shot on Arty the One Man Party’s PP tally was a tangible example of the excellent passing we’ve always loved about him. Plus, his Corsi was a robust 67+ at 5v5. It’s no coincidence that he played the second-fewest minutes of all Hawks D-Men at evens, ahead only of Kempný. I don’t know about you, but even with the Hawks losing, I took solace in watching Seabrook play well. Like hot spiked cider on a cold, unforgiving winter’s night.

– The same can’t be said about Jordan Oesterle. He had a nice run coming out of the press box cold for a while, but the magic beans he’d been consuming to give him that extra giddy-up have gone stale. His turnover behind his own net let Stephen “One of the Ones Who Got Away” Johns do his best Russ Tyler impression, burying a knuckler—that Oesterle himself may have set the screen on—from the blue line for the Stars’s second goal in less than a minute. He also had a couple of miscues in the third that ended up not doing any direct damage, but did lead to extended pressure for the Stars early in the third with the Hawks down one.  Despite this, and his 44+ CF% on the night, he played more than anyone except Keith. This is your D-corps, folks.

– Anthony Duclair seemed half a step behind everything tonight. He whiffed on a wide-open shot off a Toews pass after stealing the puck from Pissbaby Benn late in the first. His turnover in his own zone led to the Stars’s first goal. From about midway through the second onward, he was a ghost. But his possession numbers were stellar (67+ CF%). He’s still got loads of potential and needs to stay up with DeBrincat and Toews, and eventually be re-signed.

– I want to be mad at Anton Forsberg, by my heart just isn’t in it. At the end of the day, he’s a backup goaltender on a team whose D-Men are either rapidly declining, still learning, or flat-out suck. There’s not much he can do on that first goal, with Radulov firing a perfect saucer pass to Tyler Seguin off the Duclair turnover. Having Oesterle screen him on Johns’s shot can sort of be forgiven. And yes, he needs to stop fucking Tyler Pitlick’s slapper at the end of the second. But then again, it’s perfectly fitting that a guy named Pitlick would score the game winner against the Hawks tonight, isn’t it?

– Connor Murphy started the game on the top pairing and looked pretty good doing it. His CF% of 54+ was inspiring. But he was on the ice for two goals. You can argue that he took a bad angle on the first goal, but given how often he’s been flipped and jerked around this year, it’d be a stretch. And we all saw the third goal: That’s on Forsberg. You’d like to see him get more time with Keith, but with the defensive carousel that Q is throttling into overdrive, it’s impossible to tell.

– Erik Gustafsson looks more like a 5-6 D-Man every night. He’s got decent vision with his passing too, at least when Kane’s on the ice with him. I’d be interested to see him with one of Rutta or Kempný at some point.

– David Kampf probably has a future as a bottom six defensive center. His stick checking was pristine tonight, and he won a few board battles to show off his strength.

– It was nice to see Toews score tonight. He also had a 73+ CF%. But he missed a yawning net in the first off a pass through the Royal Road from DeBrincat, either because he wasn’t expecting the pass or because his skate got caught. Microcosms.

– The chocolates and flowers for Tommy Wingels tonight were a bit much. Foley, Jammer, and Burish barely had time to come up for air between all the kisses they blew at him for TROWING HITS OUT DERE. He had one good hit in the third that separated the puck and drew a penalty, but other than that, I don’t get it. He janked an uncontested rebound off the far post and did nothing other than hit guys the rest of the night. I understand the frustration over this team this year. I understand that we don’t really have any answers. But this whole DA FIRE AND DA PASHUN garbage is already wearing thin. Hits have never been the answer for this team, and they sure as shit aren’t the answer now.

– Brandon Saad did not have a good game, again. He logged a 48+ CF% with Schmaltz and Vinnie. He did set up a few good chances that went unanswered. Like all of you, I want to see him come out of his funk. He’s probably best served playing with Schmaltz and Kane again, but I get how it can be hard to justify it right now. At the end of the day, he’s a good player having both a down and unlucky year.

As it stands, this season is circling the drain. As it stands, the Hawks have good young talent on the front lines but not the back end. As it stands, without Corey Crawford, this team doesn’t have the firepower to make the playoffs.  It’s frustrating, it’s out of the ordinary, and it’s hockey, baby.

Onward.

Boozes du Jour: Jefferson’s whiskey into High Life back into whiskey.

Line of the Night: “HIT SOMEONE.” –Adam Burish on how the Hawks could overcome a 3–2 deficit in the third (I usually love Burish, and I get the frustration, but it’s lazy).

Everything Else

Angry at Numbers: Murphy Go Down on the Merry-Go-Round

By John Pullega 2635 0

This post is not a referendum on anyone’s play last night. Last night was a decent effort by most, muddled by the NHL’s complete refusal to clarify what its own rules are, and peppered with the missed chances, lack of finish, and poor shooting percentages that have become the norm around here. What this post aims for is to figure out why guys like Kempný and Murphy seem to get scratched for no reason that makes sense, while our favorite whipping horse gets the ice despite his performances.

If you look at just last night’s numbers, it might make sense. Seabrook had a good possession game. But he also took a confounding boarding penalty that put the Hawks 5v3. He also couldn’t chase down Sean Monahan with the goalie pulled, allowing him to slide home the dagger. But those kinds of things are exactly why having Murphy sit yesterday and Kempný sit the game before seem so frustratingly random. If either of those two had been in Seabrook’s position, either on the penalty or the Monahan goal, is there any doubt that we’d need police dogs to start the search for them?

Now, the organ-I-zation wants you to believe that Murphy was “sick” last night, which explains why Crawford isn’t currently skating, why they pulled Toews off the ice immediately after his dizzy spell in 2012, and why they aren’t mentioned in the Montador suit. Because player health has been a top priority for this organization. You know how this looks by now.

While I may be an angry man, I can also be a reasonable man. So I decided to parse out some numbers to see whether Kempný or Murphy really deserved to sit over Seabrook. I looked at a few things over the last five games to see which trends I could snuff out. These stats do not include yesterday’s game.

I looked at each player’s total time on ice and the lines he played against primarily in each of the last five games. Then I compared his CF% against just that line to his total CF% for each game. Finally, I looked at the percentage of faceoffs he took in the offensive zone during the game, and logged how many goals he was on the ice for, just for fun.

First, I looked at Kempný.

* = Got domed by the Johansen line (42+)

Looking at the first two games, the raw numbers suggest that Kempný wasn’t playing that great. His full-game possession shares were below water, despite starting in the offensive zone a vast majority of the time. During these two games (and the next game in Nashville), Kempný tended to play most of his time with some combination of Sharp/Wingels–Anisimov–Hartman, otherwise known as the Smykowski line. He did well with them in Toronto (getting crushed behind the Toews and Schmaltz lines) and horribly in Detroit.

But look at the Nashville game: Against the Turris line—which, aside from Hartnell, is usually Nashville’s second line—he posted a 57+ CF%. What dragged him down was the Johansen line, and he was far from the only Blackhawk to deal with that problem. Recall that Quenneville purposely kept Toews away from the Johansen line as much as he could on the road, and that the Johansen line had a collective 60+ CF% for the game. It’s hard to be upset about what Kempný did there, especially with the shit zone starts.

The fourth game against Vancouver was a relative rebirth. He played most of his time against Vancouver’s top line and completely skulled them. The poor zone starts had little to no effect on his possession share, as he and Murphy led all Hawks D-Men in possession. Additionally, this was a game that saw Kempný backing up DeBrincat–Toews–Duclair just about as often as he did Wingels–Anisimov–Hartman.

After that game, by far the best of the bunch, Quenneville scratched Kempný. He was on the ice for one 5v5 goal through four games.

And what of Connor Murphy, the most consistent Hawks D-Man over the last few months?

* = Faced 4th line of Komerov–Moore–Kapanen at nearly the same rate of time for a 75 CF%

^ = Got domed by the Johansen line (42+)

~ = Tkachuk–Backlund–Frolik each had a CF% of 50+ against ALL Hawks except Jurco, Gustafsson, and Seabrook

Like his partner, Murphy had a rough go of it against Toronto. The Bozak line pushed him crotch-first into the corner of an end table. But the other line he played against at about the same rate of time, the Komerov line, got slimed by Murphy, with Murphy coming out with a 75 CF% against them.

He turned it around in Detroit, pasting the Larkin line despite a huge lead. This may seem odd, since he and Kempný were paired up throughout the game, but I think there’s an explanation. While both Kempný and Murphy found themselves behind the Smykowski line most often, Murphy backed up the Schmaltz line as his secondary forward line, whereas Kempný backed up the Kampf line. Given how Q tends to use those two lines (Schmaltz’s in the offensive zone as much as possible, Kampf’s as a Kruger Lite), it might explain the difference.

Murphy fared more poorly overall against Nashville, but for the same reason as Kempný: Johansen’s line ate everyone’s lunch. And when you consider the putrid offensive zone–start rate and the opponent, that game makes more sense in terms of possession.

Like Kempný, Murphy had his best game against Vancouver. But then Calgary happened, which saw Murphy get creamed by Calgary’s 3M line to the tune of a 17+ CF%. And while the overall CF% isn’t pretty either, especially considering the decent offensive zone starts, it bears mentioning that the 3M line had at least a 50 CF% against everyone except Jurco, Gustafsson, and Seabrook.

There’s no doubt Murphy had a bad game in Calgary, but relative to the team, it’s not as bad as it seems. It’s certainly not scratch-worthy in my view, unless you’re blaming the game-tying turnover entirely on him and believe that’s a scratchable offense. That seems a bit too punitive to me, but Murphy’s been Darkness to Q’s Rick James since he got here.

He was on the ice for two 5v5 goals through five games, and was “sick” last night (OF DIS TEAM, YA KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN’?).

And then, there was Seabrook.

* = Got buried by the Baertschi–Horvat–Boeser line (18+) and the Sedin–Sedin–Virtanen line (40)

^ = Split time against two lines.

This is where it gets frustrating, because none of Seabrook’s numbers justify sitting Kempný or Murphy over him. Against Toronto, Detroit, and Vancouver, Seabrook had decent-to-plush zone starts and garbage possession. In the one game he played the fewest minutes of any D-Man, the Hawks dominated. And if we’re going to claim that Murphy should have been scratched for Calgary’s game-tying goal (he shouldn’t have), then the goal Seabrook fell down for against apparent-future-Hall-of-Famer Brendan Gaunce ought to be grounds for banishment to the center of the sun.

Compounding this problem is that in the four games prior to Calgary, he found himself behind the Schmaltz line. And we know what happens when those guys lose the puck. So in an effort to shield him, Quenneville also managed to set him up to look foolish, which he often did.

Anyway, the first Flames game was an odd mishmash regarding whom Seabrook saw at 5v5. While he spent the most overall time against the Mangiapane (2:55)–Bennett (7:04)–Brouwer (6:19) line, he also saw a not-negligible amount of time against Gaudreau (5:06)–Monahan (4:22)–Ferland (4:49). The Johnny Hockey line also saw the most time against Keith–Oesterle by a long shot, which makes me think that any time Glen Gulutzan’s trust-fund face could chase matchups, he was sending his best at Gustafsson–Seabrook. Ironically, Seabrook held his own against Johnny Hockey & Co. better than against the Bennett Brouwer line. But over all five games, Seabrook was on the ice for five 5v5 goals.

Perhaps most damning are the WOWY numbers for these three over the last five (or four in Kempný’s case). Away from the Smykowski line, Kempný and Murphy consistently logged CF%s of 52+ to 54+.

Seabrook’s numbers with the Schmaltz line cut two ways in terms of bad. In the 31+ minutes he’s played with the Schmaltz line (with Saad on the left side), the entire regiment has had a 35+ CF%. Conversely, Gustafsson and Seabrook have a 57+ CF% away from the Schmaltz line. It’s almost like that line and that pairing don’t belong together.

And that’s not even getting into Gustafsson’s WOWY with Seabrook since he’s been called up (46+ WITH Seabrook, 58+ WITHOUT), or the fact that Gustafsson and the Schmaltz line have a 100 CF% in their four minutes away from Seabrook over the last five. That’s probably more of a sample size mirage, but it makes you wonder.

In short, it’s hard to find a statistical reason to sit Kempný or Murphy over Seabrook. It would make at least some sense to rotate Seabrook and Rutta, given their similarities in style and handedness, and since Rutta looked good by the numbers against Calgary the first time (54+ CF%). Instead, we’ll watch Q and Ulf trot Seabrook out like he’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, even though he’s decidedly not that anymore, in the name of genius, leadership, or whatever other White Castle fart excuse they can find to justify this journey toward mediocrity in 2018.

Stats from NaturalStatTrick.com

Line rankings & positionings from dailyfaceoff.com, with cross-referencing on NaturalStatTrick

Everything Else

Game #51 – Hawks vs. Canucks Preview, Luggage Purchase – Seaward With The C-Words

By Matt McClure 2642 0

 at 

Game Time: 9:00PM CST
TV/Radio: WGN Channel 9, WGN-AM 720
Baby, I’m An Anarchist!: Nucks Misconduct, Canucks Army

Because no road trips make any sense anymore, the Hawks will head to Western Canada for a return engagement starting tonight in Vancouver with whatever the fuck the Canucks are these days, complete with NHL ALL STAR 3 ON 3 CHALLENGE MVP Brock Boeser.

Everything Else

Game #49 – They took the train going anywhere because your city is trash – Blackhawks 5, Red Wings 1

By Adam Hess 2342 0

After three weeks of the Hawks essentially either getting their dicks kicked in or playing well enough to win but finding a way to lose, tonight was a welcome outburst of good hockey. Especially after Detroit was one of the teams that did the dick-kicking-in just last Sunday. This is what the Wings get for putting their shitty team in a shitty town and naming their arena after shitty pizza. TO DA BULLETS MY FRENT

– Give me more DeBrincat-Toews-Duclair. Give me all of it. The three of them went 56.25-62.16-58.82 on CF, respectively, and each found the score sheet (finally, in Captain Woke’s case). DeBrincat recorded a Cat Trick (yeah I said it, fuck off) and an assist, Duclair found the net after an absolutely orgasmic passing play from Keith and Top Cat to go with 2 assists, and Toews notched a helper on a nice rush that led to Top Cat’s second goal. As John said yesterday, as long as Toews can figure out he doesn’t have as much time as he wants to think he does to make plays, this line has chemistry, and the speed and skill of the two wingers will hopefully help Toews find more production.

– More on the Duclair goal. Please go watch it here. Granted, it is off a faceoff, which helps a little bit in catching the Wings on their heels. But can you imagine if the Hawks moved the puck with that sort of urgency on a power play instead of everybody standing around with their dick in the hands every time. If I’m Q, I’m sitting the whole team down in front of the video screen when they get back from break and just saying “DO THIS ON THE POWER PLAY.” Maybe they could score a damn PPG against a team not from Canada.

– The third line of Wingels, Anisimov, and Heart Man was one of the few low spots for the Hawks in this game. And they were a very low spot. All three of them got absolutely skull fucked on shot shares, with Heart Man and Anisimov both posting 33.33 rates and Wingels below that at 32%. Those were -22.83 and -24.94 compared to the team rate for the game, which is just pathetic. Even adjusting for score and venue, Natural Stat Trick has all three around 40%. To echo John from last night’s wrap again, this is further evidence that the Hawks aren’t gonna be able to roll a 3+1. And if maybe for some reason this third line was intended as the 1 and rather than part of the 3, that might actually make this look a lot worse.

– Guess which defenseman led all Hawks blue liners with a 60% CF. Connor Murphy, bitches. It’s becoming evident that Sam’s assertion that Murph is this team’s best defenseman this year is correct, and Q’s diaper filling over Hjammer is just sad. Murphy also tallied the primary assist on Top Cat’s first goal, which got the night started. Fuck you and your press box, Joel.

– Ant Man Forsberg was fine in the net tonight, but he still too scrambly-panicky for me to truly comfortable with him, even as a main backup. I am not sure what options there are out there, but I almost wonder if Stan shouldn’t investigate adding one of the league’s better backups via trade. There’s still enough here for the team to maybe sneak into the playoffs if they get reliable goaltending, and I am not sure you’re getting that from Glass/Forsberg. But it’s also about more than this year. Again, I am not sure Forsberg is really a good backup, and those can prove to be important throughout a regular season. Points won or lost when your backup is in can impact playoff seeding. So a good backup who might have some controlability moving forward, and maybe some potential to take the starter’s mantle in the coming years (Crow is only getting older and that brain can only get more mushy) could be a wise investment.

– For being “HOCKEY TOWN,” Shitty Pizza Arena sure had a lot of very obviously empty seats tonight. Shit, you can see a lot in that photo above. Not that Chicago is one to talk cuz ticket prices are dropping like bricks around here and seats are opening up in the UC like mad, too. But with opening a brand new arena, and this being the only Chicago-Detroit matchup in the Motor City this year, I was a little surprised to see how empty the arena was. Just another fly dropping to the NHL attendance plague. Ho Hum.

– Look, it’s only Detroit. They’re not great. But this kind of effort is one we hadn’t really seen from the Hawks since the ass whooping they gave Ottawa, who is also bad. And this is also the same Detroit team that kicked the Hawks dick in 11 days ago. If it is indicative of what’s to come for this team (and that is a BIG if), there is reason to think this team can find the playoffs. Maybe.

Everything Else

The Secrecy To Nowhere Leads To Me, Q, Kid Rock, Why Hockey Is The Circus Clown Of Sports

By Sam Fels 2516 0

Took a few days off myself during the bye and let the proletariat handle it. So clearly there’s some stuff to get through since if you give the Hawks enough time without any games they probably will trip over their own dicks.

-I can’t add too much to what Pullega and Rose have put up over the past couple days about Corey Crawford. It’s once again proof that trying to shroud yourself in secrecy just isn’t going to work.

Some people want to claim that the Hawks and really most NHL teams’ sprint to the stronghold of information blackouts springs from the NFL’s. NFL coaches are a poisonous combination of paranoid to the point of tin foil chapeaus, while also convinced of their own genius that their systems and gameplans should be studied at Wharton if not The Louvre for generations (though a fun game might be getting NFL coaches to define The Louvre, if not spell it). This is what happens when you give guys a full week of nothing to do but convince themselves of threats as they work 19-hour days and can’t remember the names of their daughters.

I don’t think hockey’s comes from that. It’s part that, sure, but hockey coaches and execs have always been too dismissive/stupid/mealy-mouthed to actually share information. The fear has always been that if you announce a player has an ankle problem, every player on your next opponent is basically going to do everything up to and including chair-shots on said ankle. Hockey being hockey, this isn’t totally far-fetched.

But with the Hawks, they should have learned long ago that if you have a period of silence, anything and everything is eventually going to fill up that void with all sorts of noise and you’re going to end up speaking about it anyway. And that’s where the Hawks find themselves.

I don’t know what they hoped to gain by plugging their fingers in their ears and shouting the chorus to “Caravan” as a team policy. This was always going to happen. Maybe they feared exposure of once again not handling a head injury correctly. Here’s an idea, and I know this is totally out there but maybe next time just handle the head injury correctly?

-This Crawford stuff has buried another nugget from Hawks fans’ favorite radio host Dan Bernstein on 670 The Score. While discussing the Crow weirdness he also let it be known that behind closed doors Joel Quenneville is still seething about the trade of Niklas Hjalmarsson. I couldn’t help but joke in my head that when the discussion on the afternoon show turned to whether or not Hawks fans watched other teams that maybe they should ask if the coach does as well.

By any measure, Hjalmarsson has been bad on a really bad Coyotes team this year. And if you were paying attention you saw a precipitous decline in the second half of last year. While his shot-blocking certainly got the most slobber treatment from Eddie O and apparently Q himself (and this is something that really needs to stop because you shouldn’t aim to be blocking shots as a go-to), that was far from Hammer’s most important attribute. While he was a stay-at-home d-man, he had greater mobility than most who fit that role. Which meant much like Keith and Oduya and even Seabrook back in the day, he could step up at his line and squeeze the space for opponents while not having to fear being beat to the outside. In addition, there may not have been a better Hawk d-man at making that 5-10 foot pass under duress, often blind, from the corner or below the goal line to the front of the net to a waiting Hawks center to release all the pressure and get the Hawks out of the zone.

Well, Hammer lost the step that allowed him to step up at his line. He lost the half-step to make that and other breakout passes as often as he could. And that’s not going to get better.

But it certainly explains the Connor Murphy scratchings at the slightest misstep #5 makes. It would hardly be the first time that Q has tried to either make a point to his GM, or simply stick it to him. Brad Richards starting behind Andrew Shaw on the center depth chart to start a season comes to mind, as does Steve Montador starting a season on the wing or Antoine Vermette playing a wing after arrival. There are others. Murphy is being held to an at-times unfair scale simply because his coach cries on a framed picture of a certain Swede before going to bed at night. Even with that, he’s been the Hawks best d-man by some distance this season.

This is where you wish the Hawks though they could be as transparently operated as both baseball teams in town are at the moment. Because if Stan truly envisioned this as a “transitional” season, and his quotes suggest he very well might have, he’d finally have a cudgel over his coach. If this is about getting the Schmaltzes and DeBrincats and Forslings of the world grounded, as well as getting Murphy into the Hawks’ “Martz-ian” system, Stan would have evidence to take to his bosses/fans about how his coach is getting in the way. And it would keep Q in line or maybe Stan would finally get to hire his own coach that he actually has a relationship with.

Instead, we get more of the same push and pull between coach and GM, and at this point it’s tiresome for all.

-I don’t know there’s much more I can add to the hysterical-if-it-wasn’t-sad choice of Kid Rock to perform at the All-Star game. The best case scenario for the NHL is that they’re just wildly ignorant, which isn’t encouraging. The simplistic explanation is that someone simply saw a google photo of him in a Red Wings jersey at a game and thought that was enough. Does he still do that now that they suck? Or is he more in the CM Punk fashion where he’s only around if it helps his brand?

Once again hockey has quivered in fear of a portion of the fanbase it would actually probably rather do without, and that’s the old angry white guy. And yes, if you listen to Kid Rock you’re old now. Sorry. You also suck, and I would gladly trade my life to bring Warren Zevon back to his only long enough so he could impale Kid on a flaming spear for stealing his song.

It’s that fanbase that keeps hockey from banning fighting which it would really like to, or enforcing the rules even harder to open up the game, or heavily suspending players for hits to the head/dirty play. But no, the NHL is terrified that the angry white dude who measures his own dick by how “tough” he perceives the sport he watches to be we’ll up and leave if they ever did any of this. You and I both know he won’t, because he has nowhere else to go (unless they did all this and Vince McMahon was convinced he could start an XHL and oh god this is going to happen isn’t it?), but the NHL has always operated out of fear and ignorance. Which is why they won’t backtrack on this either, although they’ll continue to celebrate Will O’Ree and Hockey Is For Everyone and You Can Play right along with it. Good stuff there.

Which is why it will always be a joke to most everyone else.

 

Everything Else

Game #44 Destroyed Your Notion of Circular Time – Hawks 2, Jets 1

By Rose Rankin 3108 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Remember a few years ago when the Hawks were really truly good, and they’d lose some dumbass game to some dumbass opponent that you knew they should have won, and you thought to yourself, how are they losing this right now? Well, it appears we’ve become that dumbass opponent for the seemingly-legitimately-good Jets. To the bullets!

– Let’s get right to the new guy: Anthony Duclair had a solid first game as a Blackhawk. He sported a 57.1 CF% at evens (70 CF% in all!) and got an assist. And overall, the third line was fast and kept the puck in the offensive zone. It was Duclair maintaining possession in a sequence that got it to Top Cat, who got it to Murphy, who got it to the net with Kampf redirecting it in along the way. A speedy and skilled third line? Please and thank you.

– Speaking of the third line, David Kampf had a big night (and on his birthday too, yay). The aforementioned redirection was his first NHL goal, and he got an assist on Rutta’s goal as well. Everything I just said about the third line, I would repeat here (don’t worry, I won’t).

– Kyle Connor on the Jets was snakebitten tonight. Dude had three points in his last game (granted, it was against the Sabres), but the correction came tonight. Oesterle and Glass both foiled his breakaways in the second period.

–Which brings me to: the defense had some flashy plays tonight. Forsling was the proverbial bat out of hell getting down the ice to save what would have been an empty net goal in the first. Duclair had drawn a penalty and Glass left the ice but the puck, as they say, squirted loose (I hate that characterization) and was hurtling toward the open net, and Forsling hurtled himself faster to pull off a last-second save. Then, in the second period Oesterle was marooned with a 3-on-1 as he came off the bench, yet he managed to poke check Kyle Connor while laid out on the ice. Connor Murphy’s huge shot led to the first Hawks goal. (Way too many “Connors” in this game.) And Jan Rutta scored a soft goal that you can be sure Hellebuyck will see in his nightmares.

Now make no mistake, Forsling and Rutta had plenty of dumb-fuckery in the defensive zone, and Seabrook fumbled a pass into a turnover also in his own zone (which Foley and Konroyd of course spun as a positive thing when he managed to scrape the puck out of the crease), but at least we got some relief from the defensive circus with some acrobatics that were actually landed.

– I know Jeff Glass only gave up one goal, but you’re still not going to convince me he’s an NHL-caliber goalie (he’s a nice guy, it’s a great story, I’m not arguing that). He certainly shouldn’t have been the first fucking star. Oesterle in particular bailed him out multiple times tonight—he deserved the damn first star. In general Glass’s positioning is just wonky, for lack of a better term. Yes he kicks out a leg to make a second stop but it’s because he’s lunging all over on the first stop or giving up rebounds. I get nervous any time the puck comes near him because he’s shimmying like a backup dancer for Tina Turner.

However, the Hawks need every point and especially when they’re playing a division opponent, despite the fact that they won’t come close to catching this one but hey, whatever. Ideally this will give them some momentum going into Sunday when they play the crappy-ass Red Wings, and we can hope they don’t have a repeat of what happened earlier this week when they followed a win with a foolish loss to a team that’s not any better than them. Good start to the weekend; onward and upward.

Beer de Jour: Two Hearted by Bell’s

Line of the Night: “Not many good entries when you’re standing still.” —Pat Foley, describing a shitty power play zone entry (or lack thereof).

Everything Else

Game #43 – Wild vs. Hawks Preview , Toenail Trimming – Labour Issues In The Toy Department

By Matt McClure 2207 0

 vs 

Game Time: 7:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBCSN National, WGN-AM 720
Strictly Leakage: Hockey Wilderness

After going above and beyond the call of duty in dispatching with the dreadful Senators last night in Kanata, the Hawks turn right back around for a RIVALRY NIGHT game against the divisional opponent Minnesota Wild, who are currently tied with the Hawks, but have played more games and have fewer regulation wins. What a time to be barely alive.

Everything Else

Game #42 Runnin’ a Little Bit Hot Tonight – Hawks 8, Senators 2

By Rose Rankin 2933 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Sometimes you want something so badly that you become fixated on it, you turn the image or idea over and over in your mind, and eventually you build it up into a magnificence that’s totally out of proportion. And when you finally get it, the reality can’t possibly live up to your imagined ideal, and the chasm between desire and result is painfully clear. I am happy to report this situation did NOT happen tonight with my defensive pairing fantasy-turned-reality of Kempny-Murphy while Seabrook sat in the press box. Let’s get right to it:

– I was, dare I say, elated to hear that Seabrook was getting sat tonight. No, I don’t hate him—in fact I have an inordinate amount of affection for anyone on the Cup-winning teams (I know, I know, I’ve bashed him all season but you’ve got to believe me). So honestly, I felt pangs of guilt over how happy I was. And I still feel some now over how happy I am with the defensive play tonight generally. Yes, Rutta got de-pantsed by Duchene in the first, yes, he and Foreskin were scrambling like meth-addled gerbils in the second which led to the first Senators goal, but we knew they were going to pull shit like that. What I care about was that Michal Kempny and CONNOR MURPHY! had, respectively, a 71 and 69 CF% (NICE). Two of the Hawks’ goals included assists by both defensemen on the ice at the time. This was a defense I could live with, even if I’m still confused by Forsling-Rutta (whatever). As my esteemed colleague Adam mentioned earlier today on Twitter, we can make fun of Seabrook and still think good things about him. I’ll be thinking of warm fuzzy memories while he enjoys nachos from the comfort of the press box (fingers crossed).

– Wtf where has this power play been? The Hawks scored three—count ’em three—power play goals tonight, which I’m pretty sure ties their pp goals for the season. Schmaltz had two of them, which more than made up for his rather dismal possession numbers (25 CF%?? Hey, you get a pass tonight, pal!). All the way around, they had better traffic in front of the net, and while the Senators’ PK definitely blows (28th in the league), the Hawks power play actually blows worse (29th). So if this is what it takes to get some creativity and confidence on the man advantage, so be it. Better they’re the punching bag than us.

– I know there’s been a lot of chatter about the Hawks somehow waving a magic salary cap wand and getting Erik Karlsson at the trade deadline, and the merits of this idea are best saved for another time and place, but I can’t get over his dejection at taking a needless interference penalty in the second which led to Rutta’s goal. Karlsson finished the night with a 63.9 CF% so it wasn’t all doom and gloom—he just pulled a great Denis Lemieux.

– Speaking of Ottawa defensemen, I truly forgot that Dion Phaneuf was still in the league. I found he’s still a useless oaf, and I hope he goes away soon.

– Patrick Kane had five points tonight, and apparently that’s the first time he’s done that, which seems odd. It would have been better if Schmaltz had gotten a hat trick instead of Kane getting the 8th goal in the third period, but isn’t this a nice thing to be complaining about?

– Anton Forsberg was solid again tonight. He finished with a .926 SV%, and I couldn’t even hold the first goal against him. The Senators had about 35 chances while Forsling and Rutta do what they do in the defensive zone, and Mark Stone eventually capitalized after about 17 of those 35 chances. Forsberg made key saves when he needed to and he looked confident and well-positioned. Keep it going, guy.

You couldn’t ask for more than a DLR when going through a rapid sequence of games right before the bye week. It’s not only that points are important, which they most certainly are, but the Hawks also need to take advantage on nights like this and beat shitty opponents (check), and some momentum through this week when they’re facing the Jets in a few days definitely helps too. Also, you can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that on the night when the entire team sees that membership in the Circle of Trust actually has limits, they explode like a pimple and score eight goals. Yes, the Senators suck, but the Hawks have played plenty of shitty teams and not had a DLR.

On that note, I’d just like to point out that the last DLR this season was game #1, when I was doing the wrap, and now at the halfway point of the season, as I’m writing the wrap, they do it again. Clearly it’s me, so you’re all welcome.

Beer of the night: Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ by Lagunitas

 

 

Everything Else

Game #42 – Hawks vs. Senators Preview/Architectural Rendering: Kanata, ON. Doo Doo Do Do Do…

By Sam Fels 1921 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Hawks 20-15-6   Senators  14-17-9

PUCK DROP: 6:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT: Brian 5or6

Well this seems like a momentous day for really weird reasons. We’ll get to that in a second. After getting to recalibrate their weapons by firing on the stationary target that is the Edmonton Oilers, the Hawks can double that up by doing so against the Eastern Conference version, the Ottawa Senators. And they may get to do it against a severely hampered Senators team, and believe me when I tell you this team didn’t have a lot to hamp. With the 2nd half of the season kicking off tonight, this would be a good way to get it started the right way. Then again, the Hawks couldn’t have started the first half off any better (TEN! TEN! TEN!), and look where that got them.

No reason to not start off with the biggest piece of news, and that is Brent Seabrook will be a healthy scratch tonight for the first time…well, ever. I don’t recall this happening in his rookie year, though it might have and we’ve just blocked most of that season from our memories. In fact, Seabrook has been something of a rock of durability, missing only 11 games in the ensuing 11 years since. But you can’t say that Seabrook hasn’t earned this, and the Hawks pairings would make a lot more sense if they looked something like:

Keith-Murphy

Forsling-Kempny

Oesterle-Rutta

Of course, that’s not what they’ll look like tonight as Oesterle will stay with Keith, the two kids together, and Kempny and Murphy returning to their natural sides on the second pairing. This way Q doesn’t have to rearrange three pairings. While Murphy took the blame for Friday’s loss unfairly, Seabrook has been this all season and now can’t even get the space to do the things he does well, i.e. shoot and pass. He’s been either slow or uncaring or both down low in his own zone, and that’s just not good enough. At the moment, he’s not one of the best six d-men the Hawks can send out there.

The hope is that this shows Seabrook that he’s not untouchable and has no guarantees. At almost 33, he’s never going to be what he was but he can certainly be more than he is. At that age he really should be able to handle third pairing or even sheltered second pairing minutes ok, and he hasn’t done that all season without Connor Murphy (CONNOR MURPHY!) saving his ass. Seabrook will draw back in soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, and there better be a fire under his ass when he does.

As for the rest of the lineup it looks like Tomas Jurco will be the forward scratched as the suddenly spiky Patrick Sharp sticks around.

None of this should matter of course, because the Senators are the NHL’s little league right fielder with the glove on his head twirling in a cirlce. They’re second-bottom in the East and three points adrift of the team above them, the Canadiens. And while this isn’t much of a roster outside Karlsson, it’s not helped by SUPER GENIUS Guy Boucher running a system suited for 1999 and boring the shit out of everyone involved. And the system doesn’t work when it’s not getting lights-out goaltending, and Craig Anderson is 36. This a team that doesn’t really have a top-liner anywhere unless you count Matt Duchene, and he’s basically a top line wing playing center and a really good rhythm guitarist at center instead of a lead.

Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman are great second line scoring wingers too, but now that Bobby Ryan is turning colors in the sun they need them to be first line scorers and that’s just not who they are. Karlsson can only do so much.

Making it even better for the Hawks tonight is that several Sens are either sick or hurt and gametime decisions. Duchene (you’re holdin’ up the show!), Oduya, Ceci, Brassard all might not make the bell tonight, though all could play as well. This is not a juggernaut. This team is bottom 10 in goals per game, goals against per game, and shot for per game. They do limit shots against them ok thanks to Boucher’s strangulation of anything interesting that might happen, but Anderson just hasn’t been up to the challenge of stopping the ones they do see. Again, 36.

No excuses here. The Hawks have to get this one, and they really have to sweep the week before the bye hits and teams pass or get farther away from them simply because they’re not playing. They’ve missed enough hanging curves of late with losses to Vancouver, blowing a lead against  Vegas when they had played the night before, and arguably missing the first 30 minutes against a wonky Calgary team. No more bullshit.

 

Game #42 Preview

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Just Tell Us

By Sam Fels 3607 0

Been stewing over this one since Friday night. It’s no secret that we are not huge fans of Eddie Olczyk’s analysis work here at the FFUD labs. While I’m tempted to give him a break this season due to his current health struggles and stop-start schedule, this particularly angle is one that demonstrates not just his shortcomings in the booth, but the inaccessibility of hockey coverage as a whole. I’m sure Eddie is having to put forth a huge effort just to get through a game these days, and I salute him for it. This is just a nugget in a much larger problem.

In the 3rd period of Friday’s loss to the Knights Who Say Vegas, Pat and Eddie began to discuss Connor Murphy. Of course, nowhere was it mentioned that Murphy has been the Hawks best d-man for about two months, which of course didn’t stop him from being scratched yesterday because TREE CUPZ. Anyway, they were discussing his transition to the Hawks and settling in with a new team.

During the discussion, at least twice and I think three times, Olczyk said, “The Hawks have a complicated system.” At no point did Eddie dare to explain what was so complicated about it, what was so different about it from the one Murphy played in Arizona, or what specifically Murphy struggled with at first. All we got was basically Lewis Black’s, “It’s really hard. Makes me wanna go poopy!”

This is the problem with hockey analysis everywhere. Either all analysts assume we’ll never understand, or they’re full of shit and they don’t really have any idea what they’re watching anyway. So how exactly is anyone supposed to learn anything about the game they’re watching and become more attached.

Here’s the thing, and Fifth Feather is fond of when we say this, but no hockey system is The Mike Martz Route Tree. There are differences with each team, but no one’s doing anything revolutionary here.

Maybe there’s more nuance to the Hawks’ tactics, but would it have been so hard for Olczyk to point out that the Hawks like to have their d-men step up at both blue lines whenever possible? That they rely on back pressure from the forwards to do that? That they’d rather cause turnovers in the neutral zone or in the offensive zone then force dump-ins to their own zone as a lot of teams, like the Coyotes, do? Would it have been so hard to explain that the Hawks want their d-men to be able to make that five-to-ten foot pass to a waiting center in front of their net when under pressure below the goal line and/or in the corner? Hawks fans have watched Keith, Seabrook (he did once, I swear), and Hjalmarsson make that play for about a decade now. Would it have been so impossible to explain that on breakouts, the Hawks like their d-men to hit a curling forward in between the circles, and on the move, and if that’s not there to use the forward on the boards who will then hit said curling forward out of the zone? If you’re talking to a Hawks audience, we’ve all seen that. And if you have a new fan, isn’t that something they’d want to watch for?

One of the problems hockey has in attracting new fans is that to a lot of them it just looks like a mad scramble. And if you’re watching the Hawks in their own zone this year, it really looks like a mad scramble. It could only help if everyone had a clearer idea of what teams and players are actually trying to do.

But you never get that. I’m not a huge NBA fan, though getting bigger, and yet I can tell you how Tom Thibodeau teams play a pick-n-roll or how the Warriors move the ball or how James Harden does what James Harden does. Because they take the time to tell you. Fuck, aren’t we all NFL experts on how to run an offense (except for Dowell Logains, of course)? Hockey doesn’t even give you the depth of knowledge that would allow you to know the difference between a 4-3 and 3-4 defense.

It would hardly kill NHL analysts to show us how maybe one team covers the front of the net with the weakside d-man for the most part, though some want both their d-men chasing the puck and cover the routes to the net with forwards.

Because there aren’t nearly the variables in how to run things in hockey as there are in other sports. Maybe that’s a lack of new ideas but it’s the reality.

And yet we just get, “It’s a complicated system.” Which basically hangs Murphy out to dry because barely anyone can understand what he’s trying to adjust to. Or could it be these guys just don’t know and take Q’s words for it? That might explain why Olczyk wasn’t much of a coach, though that can’t be it. Or at least all of it, for sure. Fuck, we knew why the Mike Martz Route Tree was so fucking hard because it took so long to develop and also nearly got Jay Cutler killed.

It just can’t be that hard to find someone who can do that. It’s not Olczyk, and it isn’t Pierre McGuire who I’m sure doesn’t know the difference because he’s too busy memorizing OHL stats from 1997. Which means less people will know what they’re watching, which means they’ll be less inclined to do so, and who does that help?