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Diamond Dallas: Hawks 3 – Stars 2

By 1465

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey Stats

I suppose when you lose most of your ammo, as the Stars have done throughout the season and then another tonight in Spezza, you have little choice but to revert to trying to Blues the Hawks (which the Blues don’t even really do anymore). The Stars certainly tried to shrink the ice by turning into heat-seekers all night. Sometimes, this early in the season we’ve seen the Hawks decide it isn’t worth it in early November and kind of just spit it. But when they feel like it, and certainly whenever it truly matters, the Hawks beat it EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME. Learn this, NHL.

As we’ve seen for the first month, games all over the league have been sloppier than usual for whatever reason you subscribe to. When you have two teams like this that want to play at warp speed, but they don’t have the sharpness to quite pull it off, you get a mess like you had for at least the first half of this one. Throw in some shitty Dallas ice and you’ve basically got a Saturday night on payday weekend in Muskogee (glove tap, JR). But the Hawks muscled through to a 3-2 lead, and then expertly shut the Stars down in the 3rd as we’ve seen so many times. The forwards drop a little deeper in the d-zone, forcing everything to the points. The dump-ins are more carefully placed. When there’s space they’ll make a play, but don’t force anything. Oh, and the Stars had to find a third goal against Corey Crawford and that’s just not happening these days.

Let’s clean it up.

DarylZero

The Two Obs

-One day, part of a philosophy class somewhere should be dedicated to Pat Foley pointing out the farcical nature in which hit stats are tracked and yet championing them a few sentences later. We can’t stress this enough. They’re bullshit. They mean nothing. And they’re tabulated in the same way Lovie Smith’s Bears used to track tackles and would come out every Monday to tell us both Urlacher and Briggs had 46 tackles each the previous afternoon.

-Speaking of that, it’s not that we’re against physical play. But a hit three seconds after an opponent successfully completes a pass doesn’t do anything except prove that you were slow and/or dumb. That was most certainly not Ryan Hartman’s game, who has the feet to get there in time to force a misplaced pass or an outright turnover. This was the Hartman the Hawks envisioned when they picked him, a bowling ball with some skill. That puck was rolling that he blasted by an admittedly slow-to-get-over Niemi, but the balls to try it is enough. Like Sgt. Hartman said (Hmmm…) sometimes guts is enough.

-Yeah your goaltending is fine, Dallas. Niemi saved everything like he was trying to cough something up and there were rebounds everywhere. The first goal 11 seconds in came after a bad one. Hartman’s goal came after another one led to more chances for the Hawks. And Lehtonen is no better. He’s not helped by a decidedly light-in-the-ass defense that let the Hawks just stand in the crease for far too long, but if they hope to make anything of this season they’d better fix it.

-There was a play in the 2nd that pretty much sums up why the organization loves Forsling. It was on a power play and Campbell gave him something of a hand grenade pass right at the center of the line. It bounced off his stick and into his feet, and there are countless young d-men that would have panicked while an on-rushing Benn was certainly envisioning a breakaway. Forsling calmly sorted his feet out, and with inches of space calmly passed the puck to a teammate. Now imagine what TVR would have come up with there. They would have been scraping pieces of him out of the ice for days.

-There is one disturbing trend. This was the third game in four where Keith and Campbell got buried possession-wise. It’s a strange pairing, and I don’t think either is playing to the level they will, but there’s definitely some pains as they try and blend their very similar styles.

-That’s balanced by Hossa and his brother Russian and his other brother Russian all being over 60%.

-The Hawks also probably won’t win too many games where Toews’s line is getting thrown around by the other team’s top line as they were tonight (26%… yikes).

-I know Schmaltz has been saddled with two plugs which decidedly do not compliment what he can do well, but he should have flashed more to get better linemates and I’m going to guess he gets the seat next to Pelico tomorrow to make room for Desjardins.

Onwards…

Everything Else

Dallas and Chicago From A DC-9 At Night: Hawks vs. Stars Home-and-home Preview

By 1385

Hawk Wrestler vs. stardust

RECORDS: Hawks 7-3-1  Stars 4-4-2

PUCK DROPS: 7pm Saturday, 6pm Sunday

TV: WGN Saturday, CSN Sunday

HONKY TONK HOCKEY: Defending Big D

PROJECTED LINEUPS

blackhawks-lineup-card

stars-lineup-card

SCORE-ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI: Hawks – 49.6% (16th)  Stars – 49.9% (15th)

POWER PLAY: Hawks – 22.7% (11th)  Stars – 14.3% (22nd)

PENALTY KILL: Hawks – Almost Respectable!  Stars – 75.7% (25th)

TRENDS: Seguin had four assists against St. Louis on Thursday… Klingberg was paired with Lindell two games ago and in those two they have a 55 CF%

Another old-fashioned home-and-home with a division rival, though neither team is going to be too thrilled with having to fly from Dallas to Chicago overnight. At least no one has an advantage? Anyway, the streaking Hawks will see something of a MASH unit that’s still trying to play heavy metal hockey, and the results as you might expect have been somewhat wonky.

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We Like To Watch – May 12th: Scary In Its Predictability

By 1176

Stars-Blues Game 7:

We said it in September. I remember tweeting that old hockey adage, “If you think you have two goalies, you probably don’t have one.” Everyone knew where this was going with Dallas, and it never veered off that course. Everyone knew that at some point in the spring their goaltending would eventually be their downfall. They occasionally flashed that they might be the one team since the ’10 Hawks to overcome bad goaltending to win it all (same goalie too. That’s weird), and some of us bought into it at times. But it always came back to this.

The Stars were even with the Blues in the 1st period last night. They had the same quality chances. There’s didn’t go in. The Blues’ did. And that’s it. It doesn’t really need any more analysis than that.

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We Like To Watch – May 11th: One Nearly Down, Another Tonight?

By 1112

Pens defeat Caps in Game 6

Here comes the narrative… call out your name…

As I talked about yesterday, the Caps loss to the Penguins last night is going to kickstart yet another batch of soul-searching within DC and a bunch of piling on from outside of it. And I’m not sure any of it is necessary, but I’m also not sure some of it isn’t either. I wrote this in my editorial when the Caps were here in late February that I hate when we define a team by some mythical narrative which usually boils down to simply, “They can’t get it done.” For me there always has to be a tangible explanation, or we should work harder to find it. But when it’s the Caps or some team like them, one that constantly is losing in a certain fashion (blowing 3-1 leads in a series as an example) then maybe there has to be something unquantifiable there. Some gremlins playing in their minds when things turn. It’s not the end-all be-all explanation, but it has to be a factor.

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We Like To Watch – May 10th: Go The Distance

By 1216

We’re getting two Game 7s, and the gut feels like we may get rewarded with a third after tonight, based on nothing but where I feel the tides are at the moment. Let’s run through it.

Stars-Blues Game 6:

You should read Down Goes Brown’s column yesterday on Vice, because it’s something I’ve thought a lot about this past season. It does start to seem like we’re just watching for bounces and luck and hope that they all go our team’s way. Sure, there are things you can do to get yourself more chances of a puck hitting some skate and landing somewhere advantageous, like create more attempts and lessen the ones against you obviously. But in a year where so many were complaining that there were too many teams doing what they could to get more chances in the draft lottery, it feels more and more that the playoff teams are just doing what they can to get more chances in a different kind of lottery.

I couldn’t escape that feeling when watching this game last night. I’m not sure the dichotomy changed all that much. The Stars’ defense still had massive problems breaking out of their own zone. The Blues still got tons of chances. And yet for one night, the goalies reversed. I’m not even sure Brian Elliot was all that bad, he just wasn’t good. Kari Lehtonen certainly was, as most NHL goalies can at least be excellent for a game here or there. So is that the fault of either team? Did the Stars “solve” Elliot? Or were they just fortuitous in that he had an off-night timed to keep their season alive? Did the Blues not do enough to beat Lehtonen? Or were they just unlucky in that he had his best game of the playoffs, maybe season, maybe career, at the most opportune time? You can lose your mind with this stuff.

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We Like To Watch – May 9th: The Business End Of Round 2

By 1348

Getting down to it now. Let’s go through it:

Lightning v. Islanders – This series… is… OVAHHHHH!

Well we didn’t get this one right. Both Feather and I thought the absence of Stamkos and the presence of Tavares would tell the tale on this one. We kind of forgot about nuclear Victor Hedman, which we shouldn’t have given what we saw last spring. Hedman carried a 56.0 CF% for the series, without his normal partner, and essentially left the Isles scorched and limbless in his path. We saw this last year but the Hawks had Duncan Keith to counter. The Islanders don’t… have one of these, do they Jack? Hamonic is a fine player but he’s not in that class and neither are Thomas Hickey or Nick Leddy. The Isles have basically a bunch of second pairing guys.

Throw in some brilliance from Ben Bishop and the Lightning getting goals up and down the lineup, and that’s how you have something that goes this quickly. Whoops.

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We Like To Watch – May 5th

By 1506

Last night: Penguins 3 – 2 Capitals (OT)

It’s never a good sign when your goalie is bus-tossing the rest of the team, but there was Braden Holtby doing just that. I’m not sure how you don’t run over a team without Letang and Maatta at least in terms of possession, especially when the replacements are Justin Schultz and Derrick Pouliot. Trevor Daley had to skate big minutes and yet the Pens were not buried. That’s… that’s not good. I’m not sure the Caps are doing that much wrong but they’re certainly not doing enough right. They have one goal from the bottom six this series, and this was a team that spread out the scoring all year. It can’t buy a power play goal. Holtby’s been good, but he’s getting outplayed by Matt Murray who wasn’t in the league until two months ago. And it was the fill-in for Brooks Orpik who Brooks Orpik’d the Pens the winner last night, with a sweet set up from Mike Weber for Patric Hornqvist. Now we’ll see what they’re made of and if Barry Trotz can overcome his usual conservativeness and unleash the hounds. They’ve played scared of the Penguins on the counter attack, but they should be able to score enough being aggressive to overcome that. We shall see.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – May 4th

By 1349

Let’s do it again:

Lightning 5 – 4 Islanders (OT)

While there are some crusty old guys who love the fact that officials become a personification of a urine puddle late in playoff games and overtime, I’ve always thought it was dumb and contradictory to the sport. As I’ve said many times, “Letting the players decide” is a phrase that makes no sense. When one commits a penalty to stop another, the players have decided. They’ve decided that one got beat so badly or made a mistake that the other should be rewarded with a power play for his team. While the refs may say they don’t want to decide games, they are deciding them with inaction. They’re just coming out way worse on the other side.

Brian Boyle’s hit on Thomas Hickey was late and it was to the head. The ref was about as close to it as I am to my coffee table right now which I have my feet up on at the moment (thug life). And he couldn’t locate his spine to make the right call. The Bolts get a 2-on-1 because one of the Isles’ defenders who would be defending was trying to pop his nose back out of his brain. Boyle scores from the exact spot Hickey would have prevented him from getting to. Sure, you could argue it’s karma from what the Isles got away with in Game 6 against the Panthers. But I doubt that went through anyone’s head at the time.

Anyway, this game was awesome and it sucks it was decided on this. The Isles seem to be discovering that you need more than a top line and a good 4th line to win.

Everything Else

We Like To Watch – May 3rd And Farewell To Hockeenight

By 1419

Well, that kicked up a notch, didn’t it?

After Brooks Orpik’s pretty gross hit on Olli Maatta in Game 2 you figured that there would be some kind of retribution. You would have gotten pretty short odds on it being known-hothead and lunatic Kris Letang taking a late run at Marcus Johansson, because that made sense. Once again the refs made things worse when they thought they were making things better by keeping Letang in the game. When you don’t eject someone for a hit that late and that malicious, you’re basically asking the other team to take runs at him all night which is just going to escalate the silliness into something no one wants. And that’s what they got. Maybe one day the NHL will hire refs with balls, but I’m fairly sure I’ll be nothing but dust in the wind by the time they do.

Everything Else

Playoff Weekend Wrap And May 2nd Preview: It’s Shaping Up

By 1318

As we will do through the rest of the playoffs, just wrapping up the other action and previewing what comes tonight.

Islanders 1 – 1 Lightning

The East’s stepchild series, as no one seems to be paying any attention. And yet it has the potential to be as good as the other one. Game 2 was seemingly the only one that John Tavares didn’t simply grab in his hand and wield it however he saw fit. That’s been the most exciting thing about the Isles’ run so far, obvious as it is. There’s something about watching a player simply transcend all those around him, and Tavares has done that through his team’s first eight games.

There’s also something pretty satisfying about watching a coach have to eat it over previous treatment of a player, like Jon Cooper and Jonathan Drouin. The latter has been crushing it when finally given a scorer’s role, which you might think would come pretty naturally to a #3 overall pick. But in a league that looks to stifle creativity it took this long. But don’t worry, Cooper is still a genius who will get all the plaudits for making Drouin “earn it.” Though considering Tyler Johnson was broken last year and Stamkos misfiring, might Drouin made a bigger difference last spring?