Hockey

Game #21 – Hurricanes vs. Hawks Preview: Throw A Molotov Cocktail And Have A Whole New Set Of Problems

By Sam Fels 1632 0

vs.

RECORDS: Canes 12-7-1   Hawks 9-7-4

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

REMEMBER, NORTH CAROLINA GAVE US TRUBISKY: Canes Country

In the ashes of the Bears demise, some hope has risen about the Hawks. They’re playing well, or at least they’re getting results. They’ve taken some scalps off teams that either used to give them a ton of headaches (Knights, Preds) or have name recognition (Leafs). They’re scoring goals. However, this week is when we’ll see just how much the Hawks can handle opening up the throttle. The Canes start it off and are still one of the best possession teams in the league. The Lightning are scuffling but also have the biggest collection of scoring around and throat-fucked the Hawks twice last year. The Stars are the hottest team in the league. The past two weeks has seen the schedule cut the Hawks some favors, as all of the Knights, Leafs, Preds, and Sabres have been fighting it of late. Not so much here.

The Canes kick it off, rolling into town on the back of three straight wins, though two were in OT over the just-vanquished Sabres and the simply unfortunate Wild. Before that, the Canes had some ugly losses to the Senators, Rangers, Flyers, and Devils, which are not teams the Canes should be losing to. It’s a bad look. This will also be the end of a mini road trip for the Canes, so the Hawks might catch them already thinking about the flight home.

As always with the Canes, they are a dominant even-strength team. They rank first in team Corsi-percentage, third in expected-goals percentage. And this time around, they’re only having problems at one end of the ice turning all that into actual results. The Canes are 8th in the league at 3.45 goals per game, and have spread it around nicely with seven guys having four goals or more. Erik Haula on their third line has eight, to give you some idea. Their power play has actually been a threat too, ranking eighth in the league at the moment.

But as is the Canes’ way, they keep buying into illusions of a goaltender. They got a remarkable run from Petr Mrazek last season, doubled down, and now stand gobsmacked that he suddenly turned back into Petr Mrazek. He has an .886 in November. He’s not this bad, but he’s also probably not last year’s .914 either. He’s been all over the map in his career, so it’s hard to guess. James Reimer was brought in to at least stabilize the backup spot and provide something of a safety net if Mrazek went to the dogs again. That hasn’t really worked out yet and suddenly the fear that last year’s flop in  Florida portends to a career-downturn are real. The Canes aren’t really getting saves, but filling the net at the other end to make up for it while limiting attempts and chances against so their goalies can’t torpedo them completely.

Again, this feels like a real test for the Hawks’ rediscovered UP AND AT THEM ways. They’ve passed the other ones to be fair to them, with the help of some shoddy goaltending at the other end. They may get that tonight as well. But the Canes defense is probably the best in the league and among the most mobile. They won’t be fearing getting caught with forwards behind them, and can pinch more aggressively in the Hawks zone because they can recover. The speed the Canes have at forward as well should be an utter nightmare for the Hawks’ defense, who will have less escape routes.

But again, the Hawks don’t have to break even on attempts and chances. They have the better goalie who is playing better (Lehner), and they have higher quality finishers. Stay in the neighborhood, as the Hawks have been doing, and they can rack up some more points. On the flip side, the Canes have utterly destroyed the Hawks the last three times they’ve played, because they just play at a higher pace than the Hawks can manage.

We’ll see how far this new “style” goes tonight against a team that’s been doing it better and for years longer. Get the feeling this one will have some goals in it.

 

Hockey

Angry At Numbers – The First Month

By Sam Fels 1629 0

I guess it’s the first month. We’re through the first week of November now really and the season started in the first week of October, so let’s just go with that. Anyway, time for us to look at some numbers, and then beyond that to the meaning of the numbers, and then decide the numbers have no meaning.

60.3/2.66

That’s the Hawks Corsi-against per 60 minutes at even-strength, and their expected-goals-against per 60 this season. The first is the third-worst mark in the league. The second is the second-worst. And both are either worse or exactly the same as last season. I’m going to get more heavily into this when we record the podcast tonight (so tune in! promotion!), but clearly this is not what’s supposed to happen. The acquisitions of Calvin de Haan and Olli Maatta were specifically to keep this from happening. And it hasn’t happened. There are reasons for this, and again, podcast tonight we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of it. But this isn’t the sign of a team moving forward. And this isn’t a team adapting to a new style again, because as we all know at this point…MAGIC TRAINING CAMP. This is just who they are, which is a team that essentially never has the puck and is giving up not just a lot of attempts but a lot of good ones as well.

Now, these numbers will calm down shortly because October hockey is very open while everyone establishes position and then it calms down when everyone gets bored. But still, fresh out of camp this is not what anyone thought we would see, at least inside the building.

52.8/2.15

And these are the “for” numbers in the same category, which are both down from last year. And again, this is October when things are more open and offense should be easier to find. You can find all sorts of mitigating factors here, but I would pin this on Jonathan Toews being a ghost most of the season, mismatched lines every game, and the lack of any puck-moving d-men now that Erik Gustafsson isn’t sort of pretending to be one anymore (more on him in a second). We accepted long ago that the Hawks wouldn’t be good defensively, but we thought it might be ok, or at least entertaining, because they would create a lot, too. But they don’t. They’re a middling offense in these terms. And I guess we’re starting to see that last year’s offense was more the product of individual brilliance from Kane, Top Cat, and Toews, than anything structural. Which we already kind of knew but tried to be in denial about. Well, Toews and DeBrincat haven’t been at that level, and here’s what you get.

+4.3/+3.95

Those are Duncan Keith’s relative marks in Corsi-percentage and expected-goals percentage, which are miles above what he’s been the past four seasons. The first mark would be the best of his career in fact, though a large part of that is due to the Hawks being a so much worse even-strength and possession team now. It’s hard to be that far above the mark when your team is at 55%-58% as the Hawks were once upon a time. Same with the xG% as well.

Still, Keith has done this with a variety of partners as we’ve seen, and it was fair to question if he still could or if he still even wanted to.

The problem is that Keith is averaging more than a minute at even-strength more of time than he has since 2012 (!) and overall is averaging more than two minutes per game than last year. Yes, we all know about Keith’s freakish physical endurance but he’s still 36. This can’t really continue.

46.1/41.7

This is where I really get frustrated with the analytic community. There was some cry from them when Jeremy Colliton scratched Erik Gustafsson in Los Angeles. Garbage like this:

The above numbers are Erik Gustaffson’s CF% and xG% this year, which are terrible. And yes, if you were to blend them with all 82 games from last year, his numbers would still look good compared to the rest of the defense. Because that was 82 games of sample and this was 11. And yet anyone who has actually watched Gus this year knows he’s looked a lot like that campsite after the Pikers leave in Snatch.

Secondly, you have to take all of these numbers with a grain of salt, because hockey analytics has yet to weight these things with zone starts. Or they haven’t in a way I’ve seen, and feel free to show me on Twitter. Gustafsson started 60% of his shifts in the offensive zone last year. Same as this year. It’s actually harder to give up more chances and attempts against that way, because of the distance you’d have to travel.

Sure, winning faceoffs and the type of forechecking forwards who are there play into it as well, but the numbers on Gus don’t tell the whole story. Watching him, you know he doesn’t get you from one zone to the other, at least the right way. He’s too slow. He’s a decent passer, but rarely can open the space up for himself to do that. His skill, at least from dim memory, is making things happen when you’re already in the offensive zone. And that has value, but it’s not the same as being a puck-mover.

This is not a “WATCH THE GAME, NERDS” decree, but it becomes rather obvious when you’re not watching the games at all. Yes, their arguments would be that 11 games this year shouldn’t outweigh the 82 from last year because one suggests more what the player Gustafsson is. But how many games does a coach need to wait before officially confirming his player is playing like horseshit? 15? 20? To me, Gus was that bad and his scratching totally justified.

We can blend our stats and our eyes, people.

Hockey

Game #12 – Hawks vs. Kings Preview: A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts

By Sam Fels 1505 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 3-6-2   Kings 4-9-0

PUCK DROP: 9:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BLEW INTO TOWN ABOUT AN HOUR AGO: Jewel From The Crown

We’ve remarked on it the past couple years when these two met, but it’s hard to believe that in just over four seasons, these two went from playing possibly the best and highest-paced seven-game series in recent NHL history to a game the rest of the league laughs at and scalpers take the night off. These have been two of the worst teams in the West, two of the worst in hockey, and they’ll get together tonight to do…something at Staples Center. The league is probably delighted this will take place in the dead of night and in the weird shadows where no one might just happen by it.

First the Hawks, who will at least be having a New Toy Night. Adam Boqvist will make his NHL debut, and the Kings are about as soft of a landing as you could ask for one. Many have remarked that there’s at least least an air of desperation about his promotion, if not a full-blown air-raid siren. And there is. But the thing is, the Hawks have to be desperate. Were they two whiff this road trip, the season might be over before Veteran’s Day. And while there might be one or two other d-men in Rockford who can provide more mobility (then again, any glass blower regularly makes products that would) and skill to the Hawks’ blue line, none of them have anywhere near the upside that Boqvist does. None are going to give you anything more than a third-pairing boost. If all the stars were to align for Boqvist, he can be so much more.

He could also be so much less. We don’t know, they don’t know, but the Hawks have played themselves into Hail Mary territory. That doesn’t mean that Jeremy Colliton can’t throw one in the wrong direction or take a sack, which he seems intent on doing with his lineup from practice yesterday. Keith is hardly a babysitter type, and asking him to clean up Boqvist’s messes won’t go well, and it’ll go worse if it has to go the other way. He has two, left-sided d-men who are perfect free safeties for a player like Boqvist in de Haan and Maatta, and has decided to pass on that for what’s behind Door #Stupid.

It gets better, as Patrick Kane is now a third line player and we’ve of course never seen him turn his nose up at such an assignment, and rightly so. The thing is this set-up isn’t too far from being pretty good, if Dach and Shaw were slotted up with Kane and Kubalik-Kampf-Caggiula can be a hybrid 4th line/checking line. We might get all that by the 2nd period.

Anyway, Brent Seabrook is back, and you can probably expect him to be until Connor Murphy returns. What that pairing with him and de Haan is supposed to do besides be an informercial for windburn balm…well, you figure it out.

Luckily for the Hawks, they’ll be playing as big of a mess as they are, if not bigger. Coach Todd McLellan called out his team after they got clubbed by the Hawks last weekend, and they responded by giving up 49 shots to the Canucks and their four players. So yeah, not great. They’ve also had a reshuffle, and McLellan tried to put everyone on notice by scratching deadline fodder Tyler Toffoli. He’s back, probably reminded he’s trying to cash in a big check next summer. Which will make his reaction to Ilya Kovalchuk‘s blank expression and koala-like effort something worth watching.

Despite their shit record, the Kings have actually pushed the play pretty ok this year, as McLellan teams do. They haven’t gotten a save from either Quick or Campbell all season, which has undone whatever good work they’ve produced. And considering the hair ball the Hawks just coughed up and how they’re being aligned tonight, don’t be surprised if the Hawks lose this possession battle. And badly. And if they don’t get some saves from Crawford that they did get from Lehner the past two games… well, you can probably start the foreboding organ music.

Saturday night’s all right for fighting…is it all right for whatever this is?

Hockey

Game #8 – Flyers vs Hawks Preview – Burn After Writing

By Matt McClure 1682 0

vs

RECORDS: Flyers 3-3-1   Hawks 2-3-2

PUCK DROP: 7:30PM CDT
TV/RADIO: NBC Sports Chicago, ESPN+, WGN-AM 720
BAM, LEAVE YOUR FATHER ALONE: Broad St. Hockey

The homestand at the United Center turns down the final stretch for the Hawks with tonight being the 6th of their seven straight on West Madison, and they’ll welcome their Prague travel mates the Philadelphia Flyers, wrapping up the season series between the two of them before the calendar hits November in another brilliant bit of NHL scheduling.

Since returning home from Europe, things have been back and forth for the Cold Ones, at one point losing four straight (three in regulation), and did so on a Western Canadian swing to boot, so at least they have a plausible travel excuse for their uneven play to this point. Most recently they pretty easily disposed of the Knights on Monday night prior to Vegas being here, though they did so early and often on Oscar Dansk appearing in his first NHL game in two years. Regardless, points in October and against overmatched goalies still count, and the Flyers are going to need every win they can get in a suddenly ultra competitive Metropolitan Division.

While Carter Hart hasn’t gotten off to a fantastic start (.907 at evens, .890 overall), which also included getting the hook in a 6-3 ass waxing in Edmonton, he’s going to get the bulk of the starts in net even if The Terminal Case Of Brian Elliott has been solid in his two starts. If the long term goal is to finally develop a stable goaltending presence in Philly, Hart is going to have to work through some of this stuff, and Alain Vigneault and the Flyera brass will have to resist the temptation of chasing spurious playoff hopes behind the aging and always flattering-to-deceive Elliott. It will he Hart’s net tonight, based on reports from the Flyers’ skate.

In front of him, AV seems to have figured out his defensive pairings with all three of them solidly in the black. Ivan Provorov is the defacto #1 here, at least when pointed towards the other net, though he’s not totally helpless in his own end. He’s paired with Matt Niskanen, whose cowboy days are probably over, but is still smart enough with the puck to keep things moving. Shayne Gostisbehere has been relegated to the third pairing with Robert Hagg, and getting the choice zone starts and matchups has helped give the Flyers push on all three pairings. That’s been possible with the emergence of Travis Sanheim as a legit top-4 defenseman, and he’s baby sat by Justin Braun on the second pairing.

Up front, the Flyers have been jumbling things around recently, and they at least worked against Vegas for a night fairly solidly. Claude Giroux has moved back to the middle with his familiar running mate Jakub Voracek on his right and JVR on his left. Neither Giroux or JVR have scored yet this year, but they’re both certainly in a position to break that bubble given how that line is constructed. Sean Couturier slots behind Giroux and will take whatever AV deems as the toughest matchup on a nightly basis. He’ll have Travis Koneckny on his right, who hasn’t stopped scoring since game 1 in Prague, and leads the team with 10 points. Oscar Lindblom is on the opposite side, and as a unit this line is currently sporting a 65 share of attempts in 50 minutes of even strength time together. Offseason acquisition Kevin “Captain Stairwell” Hayes has found himself as the third center already, which is probably where he ideally slots in on a good team anyway regardless of his paycheck. 2018 first rounder Joel Farabee is ahead of schedule on Hayes’ wing, and made his NHL debut against Vegas on Monday. Chris Stewart somehow caught on to the Flyers’ roster on a PTO, so he and Michael Raffl will assuredly contribute a very irritating goal at some point this evening from the fourth line.

As for the Men of Four Feathers, though the process against a better Vegas team on Tuesday was quite solid for 58 minutes, the results still need to be there, and Coach Kelvin Gemstone will now have to do some regrouping of things now that once again Connor Murphy is having crotch issues. With Murphy out, Slater Koekkoek will get his spot in the lineup, and Dennis “I Have The Name Of A Grandfather” Gilbert has been recalled to take the roster spot. Given the tools available, moving Calvin de Haan to the right side with Duncan Keith is about the only reasonable move here, as de Haan’s game is equally as positionally sound as Murphy’s though not quite as mobile. The hope is that trust can still be maintained from Keith, who has looked sprightly in cutting off entry attempts at his own blue line since being paired with Murphy, reminiscent of four or five years ago. Olli Maata will continue to bail water for Brent Seabrook, the only pairing that will remain unchanged. Koekkoek will play with Erik Gustafsson, whose play in a contract year has been unbelievably bad. Viewers at home with leftover pairs of eclipse glasses from two summers ago would be wise to throw those on when these two are out there.

The forward lines for the Hawks will stay the same, and while these groups haven’t been offensively bad at any juncture, they’re certainly not getting home as much as they need to. Alex DeBrincat is fighting it for the first time in his young career, and as was covered on the podcast last night, he’s still within the margins of getting his normal looks/attempts/chances, so it could be just a case of being snake bitten. But ADB is one of two “bad shot makers” that the Hawks have, and if it one of them isn’t finishing, then the results look like they have so far this season. That’s not likely to change tonight, as Coach Vinny Del Colliton would be very wise to keep Kirby Dach away from Coots as much as his humanly possible before he extinguishes any desire the rookie might have in continuing a career in the sport. Robin Lehner gets the net again tonight after another strong performance, though let it be said that Corey Crawford hasn’t exactly been benched, as Crow currently has a .930 mark at even strength, but the .615 while shorthanded might just be torpedoing that a little bit, and SHOULD rebound a little the longer the season progresses.

Alain Vigneault might be a lot of things (a penis and a crybaby for starters), but he’s not a moron, and he basically pioneered the usage of drastically unbalanced zone starts in Vancouver, and he has such a weapon in Couturier now here in Philadelphia. This stretch at home has shown that Beto O’Colliton is at least willing to get elbow deep into matchups when he’s got last change, but tonight he’ll be playing chess against a guy who has a lot more experience in doing so. There are matchups to be found against this Flyers bottom six, but he’ll need to be diligent in finding them. And stay out of the goddamn box (looking at you, 65). Let’s go Hawks.

Hockey

Press The Button On The Kids And Let’s Go

By Sam Fels 1642 0

Not that I think Connor Murphy‘s injury will turn out to be a Wally Pip moment, because nothing really ever is. But it does open a window for the Hawks to try and get started on their future. And their future wears #27, at least on the blue line.

I’m sure the Hawks won’t call up Adam Boqvist to take Murphy’s spot. They’ll call up Dennis Gilbert because he’s the loyal foot soldier, and they can play him 12 minutes a night without scrutiny to not do a hell of a lot on the third pairing for three weeks. We’ll get more of Fetch Koekkoek, because he’s the new Rundbland and Stan is going to prove he knows what he’s doing no matter how much closer it brings us to the first instance in history of a goalie breaking his stick over his own d-man’s head on the ice. I know this, you know this.

But last night, as encouraging as it was at times, once again showed the speed deficit the Hawks have when it comes to the best teams in the league. If they red-line and play as if their pubic hair was on fire, they can almost keep up. But you can’t do that for 82 games. You can’t play that hard and that desperate, because you’ll be puddles and goo by February. You need more baseline speed.

And that’s what Boqvist is. And the defense, as strange as it might sound, could absorb him right now. Whatever they do, the clear answer is to move Calvin de Haan up to play with Duncan Keith, as de Haan can mostly emulate the safety net Murphy provides (though without most of the mobility). At the moment, that leaves Seabrook and Maatta together, which is still getting crushed even if Maatta has been better than we thought, and Gustafsson and Fetch for shifts that will have all of us walking funny and carefully to the bathroom.

Maatta and de Haan have definitely stabilized a defense that really had no other direction to go, as well as the Murphy-Keith pairing you just lost. But all it is is just defending. The Hawks don’t get up the ice any better than they did. They still need help with that. The only candidate for that is Boqvist. They need transition.

Pair him with Maatta. Let Seabrook and Gustafsson be on the third pairing, which as ugly as it might sound is better than the alternative. Maatta’s form this season at least allows for the possibility that he can be the free safety for Boqvist’s flaming guitar solos (there’s some mixed metaphors for you). It’s what the Hawks need.

We know thanks to DeBrincat’s bridge contract that the Hawks have basically zeroed in on the next three-four seasons–the length of Daydream Nation’s collective contract. Boqvist’s is already running. No waiting around. Let’s go.

-Which also means keeping Kirby Dach around. Does that mean he’s ready? No, it doesn’t. But I also don’t need too much more than the two games we’ve seen to know that he’s beyond the WHL too. And seeing as how Rockford isn’t an option…

One thing Dach is going to have to do better is get his legs pumping. NHL forwards basically spring for their entire shifts, and so far Dach has gotten caught gliding a little too often. That doesn’t mean he’s a loaf, as it’s probably more to do with him calculating what’s going on around him and then reacting instead of those two things folding seamlessly into each other, which they will. He’s going to have to map things out while moving full speed.

Dach being a bigger guy, it’s always going to look like he’s playing at a slightly slower speed because he’ll cover ground that much easier. His style is just going to look languid even if it’s not. I don’t need his legs to look like Road Runner, but they do need to move a touch more.

Still, the hands and vision and instincts are obvious. And if the Hawks are patient, I can’t see how after 30-40 games he won’t look like he belongs. And 30 games in the NHL have to be more valuable than 60 games in the WHL beating up on children because he’s that much more talented. That won’t really get him to move at higher speeds. So keep him here and get moving on these next three seasons. Let’s go.

Hockey

Game #7 – Gotta Coke Up My Nose to Dry Away the Snot – Hawks 1, Knights 1 (Hawks Crap Out)

By John Pullega 1938 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

For the first 30 or so minutes, the Hawks looked like a true NHL hockey team, if not a playoff-bound team. They kept pace with the Knights’s unbelievable-if-you-weren’t-watching-it-with-your-own-eyes speed, a team that has had the Hawks’s number since their inception. But nothing gold stays, Pony Boy, and even the most valiant effort from Robin Lehner couldn’t deliver the Hawks’s first win over Vegas. Still, there’s a lot to be hopeful about. Let’s suss the hope out.

– Robin Lehner was incredible tonight, stopping 33 of 34 shots, including a Tony O-esque pad stack in OT. He was calm and fluid throughout the entire game, even as the Knights ratcheted up their attack in the final 30 minutes of the game. It’s nothing more than a bummer that he let Holden’s shot squeak through the five hole in the waning minutes. Without Lehner, this is a route. Thank Christ NYI had no more use for him.

– Kirby Dach scored his first career goal off his knee. Aside from that, he looked like the future centerman the Hawks need him to be. He nearly had two goals, as he was wide open in the crease for a Garbage Dick pass that was blocked. Dach also set up two excellent chances for teammates: one in the first in which he entered the zone with power, corralled a Flower poke check, then peeled off the near boards for a pass to Gus that turned into an A+ Kane chance; and another chance for DeBrincat in the third that should make whatever equipment you have move and shake. He chased down a loose puck in the offensive zone and tapped it to a streaking Top Cat, who just missed getting it by Flower’s toe.

His only real boners were immediately after his goal, when he fell asleep in his own zone and rolled out the carpet for Jonathan Marchessault, and then turned the puck over after Lehner stopped that shot. His minutes were extremely low thanks to a glut of special teams play, and you hope that Coach Kelvin Gemstone will switch out Nylander for him at some point.

– Olli Maatta was outstanding tonight. He set up Dach’s goal entirely on his own, taking a quick feed from Strome, curling behind the net, and then firing a shot-pass to a wide-open Dach. The fancy stats don’t flesh it out at all (34+ CF%, 24+ xGF%), but for once I can confidently say “Fuck your analytics.” Olli Maatta was relatively impressive tonight, and I would like to sign up for this newsletter.

– This was a vintage performance from Duncan Keith. He was everywhere and for all the right reasons. He led the Hawks in ice time by almost six whole minutes (28:03 total) thanks to a mysterious Connor Murphy injury. His 46+ CF% is a result of the Knights swirly-ing the Hawks in the third, as he had a positive share through the second. He made a strong feed to Saad in the third that Saad couldn’t finish, too. If this is the version of Duncan Keith we’re going to get regularly, hope springs eternal.

– Brandon Saad FUCKS. Well, until his failed clear late in the third, which is probably a harsh assessment per se. He had multiple chances that a locked-in Flower denied, and he killed off a ton of time by himself on the PK just before the 4-on-4 in the second. He and Carpenter were nails on the PK tonight, and Saad and Kubalik have obvious chemistry which would probably go really, really well with a quiet Jonathan Toews.

– Dominik Kubalik was all over the place and is proving once again that the Hawks’s European scouting team is a gold standard. We all sort of expected the offensive potential (as he showed with his 10 SOG against Washington), but the defense looks like it might be just as stout, the best evidence of which came off his slot-pass breakup toward the end of the third.

– Outside of the shootout goal, Jonathan Toews had another piss-poor outing. He and DeBrincat should work in theory, but they don’t work in practice. I know it’s cherry picking here, but his 37+ CF% and 30+ xGF% were much more indicative of his play than, say, Maatta’s numbers. He and DeBrincat are ghosts out there, which might be more worrying for Toews’s performance than DeBrincat’s. Either way, it might be time to put DeBrincat with Dach and Kane, and give Toews Saad and Kubalik.

–Are we all sure we want to give Strome money and years? Yeah, he’s playing on the wing, and yeah, Colliton is jerking him around on the PP1 in favor of Alex Nylander for some dumbass reason, but he’s been awfully quiet lately. Not ready to throw him out yet, but I’m curious about when the curtain comes up on him.

– Any time Erik Gustafsson wants to start being the 60-point defenseman everyone was tripping over their own genitals to remind us he was last year would be nice.

– Connor Murphy spent most (or all) of the third in the locker room for undisclosed reasons. If he’s out of any extended period, I would like to see Adam Boqvist in his spot rather than Slater Koekkoek.

–  Brayden McNabb can suck the shit directly out of my ass and call it Golden Corral. His knee on Kane was filth.

The first half of this game was fun, but the Hawks got run over by a better team as the game went on. While there’s a lot to be excited about after this game, there’s still a lot to improve upon.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Maker’s Mark and High Life

Line of the Night: “And he’s still growing.” –Konroyd describing Kirby Dach’s physical largess.

Hockey

Atop The Sugar Pile – Week #1

By Sam Fels 1653 0

Ok, so it was the second week but the Hawks only played one game in the first week so it’s the first week of the Sugar Pile and fuck you. That’s how we do things around here.

The Dizzying Highs

David Kampf – While Marcus Kruger‘s rep was at least a little tarnished by his years away from Chicago and then his second tour of duty here (though they were better than you might remember), what shouldn’t be forgotten is just how much of a unicorn he was and how vital he was to the second and third Cup teams. He was a purely defensive center who flipped the ice consistently, and you just don’t find those. Just last season, of the 20 centers who had the worst zone starts, only two had positive, relative Corsi-percentages to their team. They’re just not that common.

And one of those centers was David Kampf, which means the Hawks have a knack for finding these players (or at least their European scouts do).

In the Hawks first four games, Kampf–along with Brandon Saad and Dominik Kubalik–has been identified as a straight checking center. Finally. His only rough game came against the Jets, where he wasn’t deployed as that straight-up against Mark Scheifele, though the Jets obviously have other threats.

But last night was a perfect example, as his line matched up with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl exclusively and rolled out with a 3-to-1 difference in attempts and doubled them up in expected goals, and most importantly played them even in actual goals (+1 if you count the empty-netter, where Toews centered him and Saad). Which no one had done this season in the Oilers 5-0 start.

If the Hawks do anything this season that matters, Kampf will be a very unheralded but very important part of it. If used properly, and if he continues in this fashion, he relieves Toews of the duty of taking on other #1s, which at his age he can’t do and score as much as the Hawks are probably going to need him to. If he keeps turning over other top lines, he forces coaches to make some weird adjustments, as we saw last night with Dave Tippett triple-shifting McDavid just to give him room against someone else.

How Colliton manages Kampf on the road will be a watch. It’s probably too early in the season to start pulling guys off immediately to get Kampf out there against the biggest threats on the fly, but it is a tool Colliton should go to later in the year. For now, starting him in his own zone should see a decent enough amount of matchups against other top lines.

The Hawks have a real tool (in a good way, jerks) here. Pretty sure they know it, now let’s see if they maximize it.

The Terrifying Lows

Jonathan Toews – No reason to panic, as before last season the slow start was something Toews just did. October over his career sees his lowest amount of goals and points, He has averaged .,31 goals per game and .72 points in October, which are below his career averages overall. Last year’s seven goals and 12 points in 13 October games are the anomaly, not this.

Still, in the first three games of the year, Toews got absolutely clocked. 28% Corsi against the Flyers, 16% against the Sharks (what?), and 45% against the Jets. His xGF% was 33%. He was better last night as Kampf spared him having to play against the one center the Oilers have. When you spend most of your night against Riley Sheahan, good things should happen.

Still, Toews has looked a half-step or worse off the pace this year, which was the problem a couple years ago. Again, could just be a slow start. Could be some goofy linemates too, as combined with Alex DeBrincat and Caligula he has too much to do. He has to be some of the puck-winner and some of the playmaker, and that’s not really his game anymore. Caggiula is a good soldier but the Hawks need something more dynamic there (Kirby Dach on a wing?).

Toews has earned all the leeway, but they’ll need more from the captain soon.

The Creamy Middles

Connor Murphy and Duncan Keith – This was probably how it was supposed to look three seasons ago, given that it’s only been two games. But as Niklas Hjalmarsson was moved out, and Joel Quenneville‘s heart with him, Hammer had already supplanted Brent Seabrook as Keith’s main partner. It was the two of them getting turned into person-shaped piles of ash with blinking eyes by Nashville in ’17 that inspired Stan Bowman to look for someone more mobile than Hjalmarsson. Mostly due to  being Q’s red-headed step-child, Murphy only got sporadic looks with Keith, and they didn’t go well. But we imagine this is what Stan envisioned when he made the deal.

Only two games, but Colliton has opted for this as his top pairing and through those two games they’ve been great. They were matched up with Wheeler and Scheifele on Saturday and came out ahead, and did so again last night against McDavid (with help from Kampf, of course). Given what’s on the roster, this is the best the Hawks can do right now. And in these past two games, it’s been more than enough.

Murphy is just about the only other d-man on the roster with the mobility and defensive awareness to cover for Keith when he goes out a-walkin’ after midnight, and gives Keith something of the cushion to still try it. Which he’s going to anyway, but when he’s panicky it only gets worse and Murphy at least takes that away. For now.

Hockey

Maybe Magic Training Camp Takes A While To Have Effect

By Sam Fels 1580 0

We joke a lot around here. Mostly it’s to keep from crying. It’s certainly better than thinking about anything you’ve seen seriously with this team the past couple seasons. Anyway, if you’re somewhat new or just missed it, we refer to “Magic Training Camp” because every excuse for the Hawks last year seemed to get back to the fact that Jeremy Colliton didn’t have a training camp. It’s why the penalty kill sucked. It’s why they were defensively awful. It’s why Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook essentially un-velcro’d from the season. And we could keep going. It asked us to ignore that the fact that Colliton had five months in charge to install…whatever it was he was trying to install. The problem is we don’t really know.

So tell me, is this good?

Now it’s only two games. But it’s two games against one team that isn’t any good (Flyers) and another that wasn’t particularly interested in anything other than maybe getting their coach fired but couldn’t turn down the gifts the Hawks felt it mandatory to hand them (Sharks). So yeah, this is a problem. There’s all the time in the world to fix it, but it is a problem.

If it makes you feel better, the Hawks don’t have the worst PK in the league. Yet. The Devils have killed less than half their penalties. So we have that going for us. But still, batting 50% over two games, wherever they fall on the calendar, is less than ideal.

We probably all have a theory on why the PK sucks, and the thing is they’re probably all correct. Talent-level is an issue, Crawford probably could have made a save or two more, structure, entries, whatever. It’s all a problem. Ok, the goal on the PK against the Flyers was a fluke that bounced off Koekkoek, so let’s not hold that against them.

To me, the entries for the Sharks last night were way too easy. Again and again, the QB–generally Karlsson–would skate up to around the red line, hit a man along the boards on the blue line, and that player would immediately pop it to a charging teammates at the line through whatever Hawks forward thought it was a good idea to go charging out to the boards on the PK. Not only were they in the zone, they had possession and speed. From there you’re always chasing.

The first goal was off a scramble, but look at how it starts:

Somehow, Kampf ends up with three guys to cover. Karlsson at the point he’s fronting, then LeBanc on the wing, and Kane in the middle. Murphy and Toews both go out to Couture at the point. Now I’m no expert, but two guys covering one when you’re down a man already is a Custer-esque strategy. Maybe that’s just an individual goof…but when you’re fresh out of training camp–that got something of a bonus week thanks to the schedule–shouldn’t individual goofs not be a thing that happens? Also Keith never moves here, though never really takes anyone either.

So to the second PP goal against:

Again, another ridiculously easy entry, that has the Hawks chasing. Zack Smith (who is awfully close to the Bobs question of “What is it, you would say, you do here?”) chases Gambrell (who?!) far too low in the zone, and because he’s slow he can’t get back to the point to cover for Karlsson’s shot. Seabrook and Maatta can’t recover from the rush from Gambrell, then trying to get set up for the point shot, leaving all sorts of free sticks everywhere.

There were times last night when it also looked like the Hawks were moving out of the way of shots on the PK, which is…a choice. The idea of any kill is to front the point-men, force the puck to the wide areas and block off the cross-seam pass. You want the shots coming from beyond the circles from that angle. It’s easier to block off whoever’s in front of the net there. There is far less net to shoot at. The angles are easier to cover up. And yet it feels like the Hawks never force the puck there.

The other excuse I’m supposed to give you is that Calvin de Haan hasn’t played. That’s cool, but Calvin de Haan is Calvin de Haan. He’s not Larry Robinson circa ’77. He’s also not all that quick, so if everyone else is getting pulled out of position–or not in one to begin with–there is little he can do.

Not exactly the start they were hoping for.

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brent Seabrook

By John Pullega 2036 0

Five more years.

2018–19 Stats

78 GP – 5 G, 23 A, 28 P

46.77 CF% (-3.5 CF% Rel), 49.8 oZS%

46.46 GF% (-5.92 Rel GF%), 45.32 xGF% (0.45 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 19:06

A Brief History: There are so many ways to measure what a negative effect Seabrook had when he was on the ice last year. Let’s start at the most obvious, which is his defense.

All Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

On the left is WITH Seabrook. On the right is WITHOUT. Both are bad. But it’s somehow and exceedingly worse when he’s out there. The analysis here is simple: Seabrook gets mauled when he’s forced to play in his own end.

The only Blackhawk D-man whose threat percentage while on the ice was higher than Seabrook’s (higher is worse on defense) was Gustav Forsling, and he won’t ever see the ice inside PNC Arena, barring a glut of Hurricanes injuries. Defensively, Seabrook is slightly better than Gustav Forsling. Ringing endorsement.

Worse than being bad by yourself is making your teammates worse. Seabrook excels at this aspect of the game.

This chart shows score-adjusted shots per 60 minutes, both against (inverted y-axis) and for (x-axis). That red diagonal line is the 50% point for shots for and shots against (i.e., the breakeven point). The blob of blue in the middle is Seabrook on his own, which leans toward bad. The black squares are a given player WITH Seabrook. The red squares are the given player WITHOUT Seabrook.

Aside from reiterating how bad this team is at defense as a whole, this shows that when Seabrook is on the ice, opponents take more shots than give up. When you take Seabrook off the ice, literally every single Blackhawk ends up facing fewer shots.

In short, Seabrook is a black hole for defensive performance, and there’s nowhere to hide him. He sucks so much that he has his own fucking event horizon. That’s fucking something.

You bet your sweet crimson ass there is. Perhaps the worst part of Seabrook’s game is his penalty killing.

Jesus Christ, just look at how bad the PK is when Seabrook is on the ice (left). He played just 21 seconds fewer than the Hawks’s leading PK time getter, Duncan Keith, on by far the worst PK in the league. This is an utter dereliction of duty on Colliton’s part. There might not be a worse regular-time-getting penalty killer in the league than Brent Seabrook, and yet there he is, almost leading the team in playing time out there.

Maybe you’re sitting there buying the myth that he’s still useful on offense. But guess what?

That’s not really true. In terms of shots at 5v5, Seabrook is entirely replaceable. The offensive threat (higher is better on offense) is the same whether he’s on the ice or not. Combine this with his GF%, and it’s even worse. Of Hawks who played at least 41 games, only Gustav Forsling (there’s that name again) had a worse GF% among Hawks D-men.

“Well, he’s still got a booming shot and can be useful on the power play,” you might say.

Pretty much any power play with Seabrook on it dies on this “still useful, booming” shot of his. This shot directly produced AT BEST 10 power play goals if you want to include the possibility of tips (two goals, three first assists, five second assists). That’s not nearly useful enough to make up for everything else he makes bad.

The only positive thing that happened with him last year is that he played under 20 minutes per game on average. That’s a start, but he really should be playing about 20 games per year.

It Was the Best of Times: Boqvist breaks camp and takes Seabrook’s spot. Seabrook plays 20 games all year as a 7th D-man, along with Dahlstrom.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Seabrook plays more than 20 games.

Prediction: Seabrook’s gonna get second-pairing minutes and look terrible doing it. Everyone’s gonna keep going back to the undefinable “leadership” he brings, saying, “You just can’t understand it unless you’re in the locker room.” Everyone will make excuse after excuse for his performance. It will be agony because none of this is really Seabrook’s fault.

This is just what he is now: a bad all-around hockey player. As much as I want to hem and haw about how a real leader would take himself off the ice, that’s not fair. It’s stupid, in fact. Instead, that’s a decision his coach—a man who likely has the same sort of respectability in Seabrook’s eyes as a soiled diaper—needs the stones to make. But Colliton probably doesn’t have the stones to do what anyone with even a cursory understanding of hockey would do: scratch Seabrook more often than not.

The only thing that Colliton, Bowman, and every other decision maker should be afraid of regarding Seabrook is how much damage he does to the Hawks as a direct result of playing ice hockey. It doesn’t matter how you slice it. Brent Seabrook is not a good hockey player anymore. He’s a sunk cost. You get nothing for continuing to ice him, except a below-replacement-level performance.

They’ll retire his number one day because he deserves it. We’ll revere him as a cornerstone of the Hawks revival, because he is, was, and always will be. The first time he comes back after his retirement, he will get the raucous standing ovation he’s owed. That’s what makes watching him be quite possibly the worst regularly playing defenseman in the NHL today as agonizing as it is.

We’re just as tired of this as you are. And it really doesn’t have to be this way.

Five more years.

Stats from HockeyViz.com, hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Slater Koekkoek

Olli Maatta

Connor Murphy

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Olli Maatta

By Adam Hess 1998 0

For going on damn near three years now, it’s been obvious to anyone with a brain that the Blackhawks have had lacked a lot on the blue line. We knew that good ol’ Duncan Keith would never be able to keep up his cowboy ways at the elite level he had played at before, and there seemed to be little to-no-help on the way. Last year the Hawks desperately lacked an effective puck mover on the backend who could also defend well. Going into the offseason, they needed to find someone who could shut down the opponent in the defensive zone. Who could, ideally, take away half the ice the way Keith used to, even if not quite as well. They needed someone who could do all that while also being able to get the puck out of the zone once he had it, either by skating or passing. And if they could get all of that in one guy, that’d be ideal.

So they traded for Olli Maatta, who can do none of that.

2018-19 Stats (w/ Penguins)

60 GP – 1 G, 13 A, 14 P

46.51 CF% (-4.42 CF% Rel), 43.36 oZS%

53.75 GF% (-0.08 GF% Rel), 51.53 xGF% (-0.27 xGF% Rel)

15:27 Avg. TOI

A Brief History: At one point Maatta was considered one of the better prospects in the NHL, but due to a series of injuries both on and off the ice, including an unfortunate battle with cancer, he never fully delivered on all the promise. Once considered someone with high offensive upside, especially after having 9 goals and 29 points in 78 games during his rookie season, Maatta has struggled to produce since and has never topped either of those numbers, though he did have 29 points again in 2017-18 when he played all 82 games for the only time in his career. Last year he failed to match that scoring pace and ended up going on IR with yet another injury in March, this one an upper-body injury after taking an uncomfortable hit. He missed all but 5 games from that point on.

Maatta has settled somewhat nicely into your typically “defensive defenseman” role, as despite missing 22 games last year, he finished third on the Penguins in blocked shots and hits. If that sentence sounded positive, it was not meant to. Basically what that means is that despite being a quarter of the season, Maatta spent so much fucking time in his own defensive zone that he had no choice but to throw his dumb body in front of pucks, likely because he was tired of skating around, because that isn’t exactly a strength of his. Blocking a lot of shots is good when you’re Niklas Hjalmarsson, who is good at both preventing shots and getting in front of them, but when you’re getting face-fucked by the opponents at a near-54% clip and 4% below your own team rate, blocking those shots is less impressive skill and more necessary duty.

It Was the Best of Times: Just staying healthy for the full 82 would be a best-case scenario for Maatta as an individual, because again, he’s only done that once. As a player and contributor to the Hawks, it would be ideal if he can return to his scoring pace from ’17-’18 and could end up somewhere in that 23-29 point range. Expecting more than that is foolhardy, but it’s not unrealistic to think he could do that. Moreover, it’d be nice if he cleans up his shit in the defensive zone and is able to fight above the 50% mark on shot attempts. If he can do all of that and be a steady presence on the back end, this could end up being a not-terrible acquisition. On the other hand….

It Was the BLURST of Times: If Maatta plays like he did last year – getting brained by the other team and playing well below team rate on shot attempts, and getting by-and-large lucky on the overall goal differential, while also providing little to nothing of note from a production standpoint, Maatta runs the risk of compounding the issues that ailed the Hawks’ blue line last year rather than offering himself as a solution. If that does end up being the case, him getting injured – which he probably will – would not be such a bad outcome, as bad is that is to say and as harsh as that sounds.

Prediction: Maatta deals with some minor injury stuff but nothing too major, and plays more than 65 but less than 75 games for the Hawks. He makes a modest improvement in the CF% but still finishes below team rate and probably leads the team in blocked shots, which will earn him praise even though it probably shouldn’t. He won’t get back to 2017-18 production but will score 5 goals and 15 points, which will be fine but not make much of a difference.

Stats from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick.

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Slater Koekkoek