Everything Else

Game #67 – Sabres vs. Hawks Preview/Arm Balance Workshop: Even The Yahoos Don’t Care

By Sam Fels 1520 0

vs.

RECORDS: Sabres 30-28-8   Hawks 27-30-9

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

IN A BARREL: Die By The Blade

I’ll give you the perspective as a season ticket holder. Normally, the Sabres game is one you can count on unloading for a profit. It usually doesn’t matter what state the Sabres are in, because Buffalo fans travel (or they’re already here and just come out of whatever abandoned factory they live in). Tonight’s game, I couldn’t sell for a song. Even Sabres fans couldn’t find a fuck to give about this one. That’s partly due to their own team’s slide ever since they won 10 in a row, and the Hawks not being able to be much of a draw to anyone else. The combination of the two renders this one a “non-happening.”

So let’s start with the Hawks, who return from a frankly embarrassing California trip. They needed a buzzer-beater to get past the Ducks, who have been a burned-up clown car for two months or more. They were flattened by the Kings, who had lost 10 in a row before that. Then they were simply outclassed by the Sharks, which isn’t a crime, but not something you can just shrug off when everyone didn’t care against the worst team in the conference the day before.

So now it becomes the watch to see how they respond. The season is lost, and they can say whatever they want. So can Coach Cool Youth Pastor keep his charges interested and motivated? Because he’s coming off a trip where pretty much everyone couldn’t be bothered in Los Angeles. He then had his assistant captain essentially air him out, in a way, to the press. So he’s not in the best spot here, with a team closer to giving him the Bolo Yeung wave-off than anyone in the organ-i-zation should be comfortable with.

So if the Hawks mail it in here for the last 15 games, yes that would probably be better long-term due to the draft position, but it will put Jeremy Colliton in an awfully weird position. Once a team quits on you, it’s nearly impossible to reel them back in. Whatever they may want, Keith is going to be here next year. So will Kane and Toews. You can probably count on motivation from the latter two, either due to sociopathy or professional pride, but even Toews has had his nights off this year. What if he checks out? Then you’re basically lost, and you have a lot of young players in what is becoming a more and more toxic atmosphere.

However, if Colliton can get them to recover and at least spasm one more death rattle, at least there’s hope that those who are gong to take this team forward in the future are listening. Which isn’t much, but it’s at least what I’m paying attention to.

As for on the ice matters, David Kampf returns, in for Dylan Sikura. That’s kind of annoying, but I can’t really defend Sikura too much more when he hasn’t scored. Kampf is actually more important than most realize, as his Baby Kruger ’13 act has been missed. So that’s cool. Corey Crawford gets the chance to recover from his technicolor yawn in Los Angeles.

To the Sabres, who have sunk like a stone since briefly being the talk of the league in the fall. Since that 10-gamer that was all OT and one-goal wins, they’ve gone 13-22-6, which is unsightly to say the least. And there’s not a lot to build on at the moment. They don’t score a bunch, they give up too many goals, but they’re not that close to the bottom in any category. Their summer hinges on whether they can keep Jeff Skinner, as he’s been the only winger to really dovetail with Jack Eichel.

Their big move at the deadline was to move along Brendan Guhle for Brandon Montour–the hallowed Brendan-to-Brandon upgrade–in a bid to get anything on their blue line other than Rasmus The Younger. The rest of the season will also be an evaluation of Phil Housley as coach. If the Sabres continue to break up like a too-steep reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, he’s going to be out of a job come May. If he can pull them out of this stall, he may get one more chance.

Like a lot of not-quite teams, the Sabres are one line. There’s Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart, and then whatever you find at the bottom of your trash can when you take the bag out. Evan Rodrigues is centering the second line, for god’s sake. Casey Middlestadt carries a lot of hope but not a lot of production yet. Kyle Okposo went back to his home planet. There’s nothing else really worth talking about.

This is one of a few games left on the schedule that will take place merely because they have to. There’s nothing riding on it, so just try and enjoy the spectacle of a hockey game. There’s not much else I can say about it.

 

 

Game #67 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Well Now You’ve Got A Boqvist Problem

By Sam Fels 2358 0

I should have learned long ago that your first instinct is usually the right one. You can review and hem and haw and contemplate, but generally the first thing you thought, or your first reaction, tends to be where you end up no matter how long and arduous the journey is. When the Hawks drafted Adam Boqvist with the eighth pick, our thought was that for a team that needed to get help as quickly as it could and didn’t really have time to wait for development, taking the biggest project in the top-10 didn’t jive. And that’s what the Hawks were saying before the draft. It didn’t make a ton of sense then, and I don’t know that it does now. To be fair to the Hawks and Boqvist, no one taken after him is turning heads, and really only Evan Bouchard looks a lock for next season.

So now we have this piece from friend of the program Scott Powers. It’s about what you already know. Offensively, Boqvist is dynamic, exciting, and already a force. And a force ready for the NHL. But on the other end, he’s a mess. He’s small, he’s not engaged all the time in his own end, and he’s got a lot to learn positionally. Which leaves the Hawks in something of a quandary.

This will be the height of captain obviousness, but they have to have major changes on the blue line next year. That is if they plan on being a playoff team again. But then again, I don’t know what their plan is. You don’t know what their plan is. And we don’t know if they know, whether intentionally or not.

They’ve pushed and pushed their FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE BLUE LINE all season to sell hope. But now it seems that Boqvist can’t be here next year. Jokiharju will be, but he has yet to prove that he’s top pairing material. Nicholas Beaudin is probably a bigger project than Boqvist. And there are conflicting reports on whether Ian Mitchell is going to sign or not, though he’s now looks the most ready for the top league and maybe by a distance, at least for those who aren’t already in the organization.

So the Hawks have to enter the offseason knowing they need a top-pairing. Not one half of it, but the whole thing. And they can’t count on Boqvist.

Or can they?

The calculation to me-and I’m something of a nutjob, admittedly–is whether Boqvist is going to push the play enough that he’ll outscore/out-possess whatever stains he makes on the carpet in the defensive end. Remember what Erik Karlsson looked like in his own end when he first came up (and he’s still not really all that good there, but better). He was a disaster defensively. But it didn’t matter, because he kept the play in the other end 55%-60% of the time, or at least miles above what the rest of the team is. I don’t know how you make that calculation, but if you’re saying that his offensive game is already NHL-level, then fuck it, what do you really have to lose here? Just accept that for three to four years you’ll have to watch his defensive work through your fingers, and take the 50-60 points that come along with it as well as the puck moving in the right direction most of the time. Accuse me of hyperbole if you want, but the Hawks haven’t shied from the Karlsson-comparison themselves.

And even still, that doesn’t solve your problems. The Hawks won’t think like this, but in reality for next year they have Murphy flipping to the left side with Jokiharju, and Keith and Gustafsson on a ride-or-die third-pairing. Boqvist can’t be elevated above that, but you could arrange it somehow. Tell Forsling, Koekkoek, and Dahlstrom to go screw.

So let’s say they’re going to be boring and careful, and let Boqvist beat up on children in London for another season. You need two players. Whether that’s an offer-sheeted Trouba, or god please Karlsson, or the middle-of-the-road Jake Gardiner, or something else. You have to do something.

And yet I don’t know that they have to. I can’t tell you what Kane, Toews, and Keith would think about a third season in the toilet, though I’m pretty sure Kane doesn’t want to waste another MVP-worthy performance on the remedial class. I have no idea what their season-ticket renewal rate is for next year, we’ll find out I’m sure, but a second-straight playoff-less season has to put something of a dent in it.. A third would have to cause an actual tear, no? And are you really planning on making your move when Toews is 33 and Kane is 32? Toews is already declining in his defensive game, how much farther does he have to go?

But then, and it’s like we’ve said all year, you simply don’t have room for all of these kids. Even if you buyout Seabrook, even if you use Keith undermining his coach as a wedge to drive him out of town, there’s still not enough room. Where do you put them all? The other problem is that if Mitchell is going to be a signing-challenge, he’s basically unmovable. There are hard decisions to make.

And there’s nothing to suggest the Hawks have a plan to address this all (we know there’s a process). We won’t find out until draft day, and until then, it’s going to be urpy.

Everything Else

Game #66 – Hawks 2, Sharks 5: This Is The Best We Can Do, Folks

By Sam Fels 1893 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

The one bonus of covering a bad team is that you rarely run out of material. But we’ve come to a point where I’ve run out of things to say. I’ll you need to know about this Hawks team is that they really did try tonight. They fought back twice against a Cup contender. And the Sharks barely got out of second gear, never looked truly troubled, and seemed always assured they would run out easy victors, And they did. They turned it on for like eight minutes, got the two goals they needed, and that was that.

So now that the Hawks have in fact sought and found their own water level, the question is what to do with the rest of the year. The truly progressive team, the one that sees things as they are (and no NHL team has ever done this before so they won’t either) would basically start scratching Toews, Keith, Seabrook and even DeBrincat and Strome semi-regularly for the last 16 games. You’ll never be able to scratch Kane when he’s competing for a Hart Trophy, unless you want a full-out mutiny on your hands.

But right now you’re on pace to draft 7th, which doesn’t do you a whole lot of good for next year at least. You already know you have something with Strome and Top Cat, and there’s no one else to develop. So why bother?

But they won’t do that, so let’s get through the rest of it…

The Two Obs

-I guess maybe it says something that after all his vets went to the zoo on him yesterday in LA, Coach Cool Youth Pastor saw them actually try tonight. Then again, knowing they were playing the Sharks, they probably were just afraid of getting totally embarrassed again like San Jose did here at the United Center. There are far more questions about the coach than answers.

-Brandon Saad was replaced on Daydream Nation’s wing by Chris Kunitz, and he played the game like he was sulking over it. And honestly, I don’t blame him. He didn’t do anything wrong yesterday, and watched his spot given to a corpse. And then Kunitz contributed to the back-breaking goal by forcing a pass on an odd-man break that was somehow both behind Toews and between his legs. They told you they thought this was a playoff team.

-Brendan Perlini was tried with The Otter Boys, and they actually had one of their rare plus-possession games. I guess this is worth more of a look, but Perlini is starting to give off serious Jack Skille waves in that he’s fast and can shoot and can do literally nothing else.

-After he couldn’t locate a fuck to give with FBI support yesterday and then airing out his coach in the press, Duncan Keith got completely turned into cat vomit for the Sharks’ first goal. It’s not the best look. He also had a 34% Corsi tonight.

Keith’s number will get retired. And I’ll cut him as much slack as possible, But you can’t stand in defiance of your team and coach publicly when you’re playing as badly as this. He needs to pick a lane, which is something he hasn’t been able to do all season.

-A questions we’ll need to ask the rest of the season is who exactly Colliton has made better. The first answer will be Strome, but you could easily point to playing with greater talent for the main reason for his signs of life. The defense is worse, and whatever forward doesn’t get to share time with Kane either at evens or on the power play has at best stalled out.

-Oh, and the Hawks took a reaching, neutral zone penalty on Michael Haley, because that’s someone you really have to stop steaming into your zone. That’s recognition at its highest.

-Brent Seabrook and Gustav Forsling ended up with 60%+ possession marks. But Seabs topped that off with a no-look, behind the back pass to no one leading to the empty-netter. Bottomless Pistol Pete out here, motherfuckers.

-Back when I used to do these after too much imbibing I didn’t have to switch glasses. This is growing up.

Fuck the rest of it. Onwards…

Everything Else

Game #64 – The Surface Shines While the Inside Rots – Hawks 4, Ducks 3

By John Pullega 1926 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Money Puck

The last four minutes were a speedball that saw the four best players the Hawks have decide, “Enough of this bullshit.” But everything up to that point was a one-too-many-Vicodin full-body dry heave. The Ducks have won just five games in the last 10 weeks, and it took divine intervention for the Hawks to come away with two points. The Hawks looked like horseshit for 56 minutes, but because the Ducks are the living embodiment of a botched C-section, they got away with it. Let’s try to tidy this up.

– Corey Crawford is back, and he looked mostly good behind a blue line dead set on putting him back in the dark room. Twenty-nine saves on 32 shots in his first game back is something you’ll take, especially since, save for one bad play, he looked pretty good throughout. That one mistake was egregious, as he misplayed the puck behind the net, allowing Derek Grant (who?) to make a blind between-the-legs pass to Troy Terry (WHO?), who had a wide-open net to shoot on. Still, Crawford looked confident and spry, and he kept the Hawks in it despite their best efforts to throw it away. Plus he had an assist on Artie’s shorty.

– This might have been the worst game Duncan Keith has played since before the lockout. He was constantly out of position, and it was no more evident than on Anaheim’s second goal. With Seabrook covering Rowney on the near boards (which is questionable in itself), Keith—for no good reason—meandered into the same area. Rowney outmaneuvered Seabrook, causing a turnover on the boards. While the puck was loose, Ritchie laid a clean check on Seabrook, giving Rowney room to leak out Seabrook’s backside. Rather than sagging back down in front of the net where he should have been in the first place, Keith weakly stuck his stick into the Seabrook–Ritchie scrum, leaving both Rowney down low and Kessler up top plenty of room to embarrass him. You can blame Crawford for being overzealous on the poke check attempt, but you would be wrong. Keith’s miserable positioning left Rowney all alone for a slick redirect.

Things only got worse in the third. Keith got walked by Troy Terry, leading to a good chance that Seabrook had to break up with a slide. He had an awful clearing attempt, under very little pressure, that led to another great scoring chance for the Ducks. He was fortunate that Crow was up to the task, because if the Ducks weren’t a team that couldn’t successfully piss in the ocean, we could have been looking at a 5–2 final.

– Though Keith looked exceptionally bad, no one on the defense looked good at all. Dahlstrom and Murphy both had a CF% above 56, but it never really looked like that. Everyone was everywhere except where they were supposed to be, which makes Colliton’s claim that “These seven defensemen give us the best chance to win” even more maddening. Harju won’t solve everything, but after the last three games, and especially tonight, anyone who tells you Harju wouldn’t be a top-4 D-man on this team is a fucking cop.

– Artem Anisimov was noticeable tonight. On his shorthanded goal, he managed to outskate Cam Fowler, which should result in mandatory retirement for Fowler. He led all Hawks on the possession ledger (besides John Hayden, who had a better share but with fewer than 10 minutes played), because fuck all of us.

– Top Cat is a treasure. His power play snipe was a clinic. He took a pass from Gus between the blue line and top of the far-side circle. He took his time moving into the far-side circle, because the Ducks blow and didn’t even try to cover him, and picked his spot high stick side. His second goal was him being in the right place for a Toews pass, which he’s shown a penchant for since forever.

– Toews’s pass to Top Cat was special. He curled around from behind the net and threaded the puck between HAMPUS! HAMPUS! and Josh “Don’t Call Me Charlie” Manson. There are few people who can dominate the area behind the net like Toews.

– Perhaps the only Hawk better than Toews on and behind the goal line is Saad, when he wants to be. He’s been doing that thing where he puts his shoulder down, walks the goal line, and tries to stuff the puck in more often recently, and I’d like to subscribe to that newsletter. And of course, his pantsing of HAMPUS! HAMPUS! on Kane’s game-winning goal is the kind of stuff that made us all think he could be Hossa Jr. He’s having a nice year, and until the last four minutes, looked like the only Hawk who wasn’t exploring the vast reaches of space on the third hour of a boomers binge.

– Garbage Dick is at 40 goals and 94 points. He ought to hit 50 and 100. That would be just fine.

– Caggiula left the game with a concussion. Hopefully, he gets better fast.

The win was nice, as were the last four minutes. But this might have been the worst game the Hawks have played since the Old Man died. It was a sloppy sluice of slippery shit, even if the outcome was good (ALL PROCESS, NO PLAN). The defensive scheme is a zoo without cages, and the Hawks have proven that they can’t outscore those woes against real teams. Enjoy the comeback, but this isn’t sustainable. This is a shitty team that just has a few Hall of Famers on it, so they’ll tread water for a little while. But tonight reinforces the refrain we’ve been singing all year: Whether in free agency or by trade, the Hawks need real defensemen to supplement Murphy and Harju next year. Anything less is malfeasance.

Onward . . .

Booze du Jour: Tin Cup & High Life

Line of the Night: “Fans might get impatient with him, but Seabrook is underpaid for all the things he brings to the dressing room.” –Patrick Kane, future NHL GM, according to whichever bozo was doing the national broadcast

Everything Else

Game #62 – Sammy Was Low, Just Watching the Show, Over and Over Again – Avs 5, Hawks 3

By John Pullega 1919 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

The Hawks controlled play almost all game. They had the Avs on their heels for most of it. They had one player below 50% in the possession share (Sikura). It was one of the better games they’ve played recently, and that stupid goddamn motherfucking woman-beating piece of shit asshole goalie the Avs had made it worth nothing. Goddamnit. Let’s do this fucking thing.

– Let’s start with the play that changed it all. Slater Koekkoek channeled his inner Fernando Pisani and handed the game away. The Hawks had managed to maintain pressure in the zone and force a turnover to keep the pressure on, and Koekkoek, under no pressure, just threw the pass away. The idea wasn’t bad: He had Kahun open across the ice, and if he hadn’t passed it directly to Patrik Nemeth, Kahun might have had a shot at a wide-open net. But Koekkoek couldn’t execute, despite having no pressure on him whatsoever.

There’s no excuse for what happened. Yeah, the idea was fine, but when you’ve got enough time to watch two drops of pitch fall to make a pass, you just can’t miss it by as much as Koekkoek did. It was a terrible, terrible excuse for a pass from a guy who’s paid to be an NHL-caliber D-man. I seriously hope Seabrook gets healthy soon, because that’s how done I am with this guy.

– Despite the outcome, this was one of the best games the Hawks played. They were aggressive and controlled the pace throughout. They had a 58+ CF%, and only Sikura was on the negative side of the ledger, which is weird, because he looked good early. After taking the lead in the first, the Avs were happy to pack it in as much as possible, and it ended up working. If you’re a believer in karma, this is it, because the Hawks have won a few games they probably shouldn’t have recently. But once again, their defense let them down.

– Delia’s first two goals weren’t on him. They were on Duncan Keith. On the first, Keith skated out way too far to cover Kerfoot, which left the middle of the ice wide open for Soderberg’s first goal. It didn’t help that Gus got hypnotized by Andrighetto on what was a developing 4-on-2, but Keith’s angle was the main culprit. On the second goal, which was on the PK, Keith somehow ended up outside of the far-side dot for reasons unknown to anyone. That left Murphy alone in front against three skaters, including Compher, who potted the shot no problem.

The third goal was on Delia. Toews did turn the puck over, but he and Jokiharju recovered well enough on Landeskog. Delia found himself angled way too tightly on the near post (relative to Landeskog), and Landeskog went over his shoulder on the far side. I want to be mad at him, but Landeskog is an excellent shooter and Delia is still a rookie. That’s one he has to have though. And you would have liked to see him stuff Soderberg on the backbreaker.

– With Seabrook and Dahlstrom out, Colliton had no choice but to start Jokiharju. Harju only had about nine minutes at 5v5, but he still posted a 62.5 CF%. I’m not sure what it is that Colliton doesn’t like about him yet, but it’s getting old fast. It’s not quite the bullshit that Quenneville pulled on Murphy last year, but it’s getting there. Harju didn’t look out of place out there, even if he didn’t really stand out either. But he sure as shit didn’t make any plays like the one Koekkoek made, so what’s it gonna take to give the guy who deserves the spot that fucking spot already?

– Fuck Semyon Varlamov.

– Garbage Dick had himself another game, pushing his scoring streak to 20 games. That creep really can roll, but I can’t help but wonder whether the Hawks leaned on him too much late in this one. I know that sounds stupid, given how good he’s been, but hear me out. Early in the third, the Hawks had two almost-consecutive power plays. On the first and for half of the second, the Hawks stepped back and waited for Kane to try to enter the zone just about every time. The Avs would collapse on him early, forcing a pass, and leading to a clear.

Late in the second power play in the third period, instead of taking it himself, Kane passed to Top Cat before hitting the blue line, which jostled the Avs’s PK. Within 15 seconds, the Hawks had tied the game. By using his release value, Kane managed to open up more space than he could Carmelo’ing. Kane may want to do it all, but he’s got enough offensive talent around him that he doesn’t have to do literally everything. Still, he’s the best player on the Hawks right now by far, so I get it.

– Dylan Strome was excellent tonight. The metrics were great (63+ CF%, 8.64 CF% Rel). He scored a game-tying goal off an end-board bank shot from Gus (who sucked out loud most of the night). He would have had two had he not janked a shot off the post while shooting at a yawning net in the first. He nearly had a highlight reel assist in the second, laying out for a DeBrincat pass and sweeping it, from his belly, to a crashing Kahun, who got stuffed by that ovarian cyst that is Semyon Varlamov. He is without a doubt the #2 center the Hawks have been looking for since Sharp decided he was too pretty to play center anymore.

– The Hawks’s second goal at the end of the second might be the best one I’ve seen all year, and it was all because Jonathan Toews simply decided it was time to fuck. After gathering the puck in the corner, Toews powered from the near boards to the slot with overwhelming power puck handling. His initial shot was blocked, but he recovered and beamed a pass through the slot to a waiting Kane, who could have written a dissertation on Karl Hungus’s role in Logjammin’ with all the time he had to take the shot. This year has been a relief to watch in one sense, as Toews is certainly back to being Toews.

This is a heartbreaking loss, because it’s a game they should have won. It’s also a game that shows how desperately the Hawks need to pursue Karlsson, Dougie, or HAMPUS! HAMPUS! this offseason. If they can scratch one out against the Stars, we’ll be right back to where we were before this game started: anxious and far too sober to handle it.

Oh, and fuck Jimmy Buffett and his stupid goddamn boomer music. Whoever decided to make a night out of celebrating the aural horror he calls a career should be caned.

Booze du Jour: Great Divide Hercules Double IPA with a Drano back following Koekkoek’s horseshit.

Line of the Night: “Matt Calvert’s legs and heart made that happen.” –Marc Moser, doing his best Mike Milbury impression.

Everything Else

Game #59 – Blue Jackets 5, Hawks 2: I’m Sorry I’ve Come For An Argument

By Sam Fels 1779 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

It’s ok, the Hawks will still get a solid slate of bums for a while yet. But what we’ve seen is that when they don’t get bums, and they have to play anyone serviceable in this streak, they’re just not up to it. Boston and Columbus have shown the world their true colors, and the Bruins and Jackets aren’t even really near the cream of the crop of the league (pulls out single-serving of half and half and starts complaining about Jack Tunney). The Hawks can actually do some things when the other team turns off, or put in a great 10-20 minutes, but overall, they still have some weaknesses they can’t hide against teams that have the patience, coaching, and skills to exploit them. Let’s dive in…

The Two Obs

-The biggest difference last night, at least in most of the goals, was the difference in game-breaking speed. Other than Panarin’s lucky, blind deflection off a draw, every other goal for the Jackets was off a rush. Either they beat the Hawks on a change, or they capitalized on a turnover, or they got to the outside. When there is an opening, the Jackets have, at minimum, Atkinson, Panarin, Dubois, Anderson, Wennberg who can get away from you. Or at least the Hawks can’t catch. Who do the Hawks have with game-breaking speed? …still here….yeah, exactly. And that’s especially true on defense, where the Hawks don’t even have one d-man who you’d even describe as fast. At least now that Duncan Keith is either thinking about metal songs he’d like to listen to or flailing desperately at cleaning up Seabrook’s messes. There isn’t even one on the roster. Until the Hawks fix this, they’re going to be justifiably in a position they’d rather not be in (ok, I swear that’s all of them).

-This game will do nothing to stop the flow of Panarin-longing, which isn’t annoying at all. It’s not that Panarin wouldn’t help, because obviously he would. But he wouldn’t help enough, and certainly not for the price he’s going to command. I’m betting the minimum is $9 million a year, and could well go higher than that. You may scoff at that, but he’ll be coming off at least back-to-back 80+ point seasons, which not even Tavares could boast last summer.

Panarin doesn’t play defense. That’s where the Hawks focus needs to be. Sign Karlsson, Offer-sheet Trouba. Trade for Dougie. Pry Hampus out of the sinking ship in Anaheim. Any of these or of this ilk have to be priority one, two, and three. Not signing Kane’s fellow good-time boy.

Secondly, if winning were really central to Panarin’s thoughts, he’d stay right where he is. If Bobrovsky wasn’t dry-heaving his free agent year into the gaping maw of the universe, the Jackets are likely comfortably ahead in the Metro. They have a young, dynamic blue line and a good crop of young forwards. They’re not all that far away. But Panarin’s camp keeps whispering, or louder, hinting at “being on a coast.” Ok, let’s look at teams on the coasts:

Panthers – suck

Lightning – don’t need him nor can afford him

Capitals – technically on the coast but not what he’s talking about

Flyers – suck

Rangers – suck

Bruins – ok maybe? The Boston press will get a huge kick out of him the first time he doesn’t backcheck.

Kings – suck

Ducks – even worse

Sharks – can’t afford him

So yeah, you tell me what matters to Panarin. He’ll always put up numbers, but you can have him.

-The metric numbers are skewed due to the dominant second period the Hawks put up, but at least that was fun. But that didn’t stop Keith, Seabrook, Toews, and Kane to have sub-even numbers. Coach Cool Substitute Teacher simply has to split up Keith and Seabrook, because they’re getting buried every goddamn night. They can’t play together, and the more they do the more likely it is that Keith just chucks it.

You’re going to be terrible defensively anyway, so get Jokiharju up here, and then your top four is some combo of Gustafsson, Keith, Murphy, and the kid. It can’t be any uglier than this.

Toews is a different problem. Much like the team, the results are better than last year but the foundation of the process beneath it is faulty. Sometimes you lose a draw clean, and I don’t want to get on him about that back-breaking fourth goal where that happened. But Toews has been cheating on the fastball all year, not quite getting as low on his defensive duties and looking to get out of the zone quicker. And hey, that’s how the game is played now and if he had any d-man worth a shit that might work even better, as they would just get the puck out and up to him.

But going forward, the Hawks already have one center they have to spot judiciously in Strome. They can’t really have Toews be another, though age may leave them with no choice, or they’re going to have to find another center whom they can dungeon along with Kampf.

-Brandon Saad with another 70% Corsi-share. No, the Hawks didn’t win that trade. But they still have a very good player as a result of it. Both of these things can be true, and we should all just accept it.

Seems like enough for this morning.

Everything Else

Why Are They Still Talking?

By Sam Fels 2756 0

This would be a good time for a confession. I don’t know what I want, people. Would I be happy if I never heard from Stan Bowman and John McDonough? I mean, maybe? Probably not. They have to talk at some point. And yet when they do the best reaction I can hope for is laughter. I also don’t know what it is exactly I want them to say. While Theo Epstein-like transparency would be nice, that hasn’t exactly worked out that well for Theo of late either.

But I also find it curious you can find in-depth interviews with both of them when the Hawks are in their only streak of looking like…well, barely competent. Should they lose the next five I wonder if we’ll hear from McDonough. I’m guessing no, at least until the announcement of some other useless event the Hawks have procured from the league. Anyway, Stan Bowman gave Tracey Myers of NHL.com some decent time, and we’re going to go through it piece by piece (much like Man On Fire).

On reports the Blackhawks will ask defenseman Duncan Keith before the trade deadline if he wants to stay in Chicago or waive his no-move clause and accept a trade to a contending team:

“I’ve been asked that since the report came out. What I say is the same thing: whenever we’ve had those types of discussions, I wouldn’t comment. It puts the player in a tough spot. I’m not going to get into whether we have or haven’t, will or won’t. The fair thing to say is, both of those guys (Keith and defenseman Brent Seabrook), we’ve played our best hockey in the last stretch when they’ve been playing together. I think [Keith and Seabrook] have been a pair for this last stretch when we’ve played well, and they’re playing well. That’s what we need from them right now.”

Well, huh? Here’s Keith’s CF% during these past eight games: 41.6%  scoring-chance share: 41.7%  high-danger chance share: 40.9. I’ll spare you what Seabrook’s numbers are, but I assure you they’re also burning piss. Oh, and the save-percentage these last eight games when Keith and Seabrook are out there? .989. But I’m sure they are totes responsible for that.

Again, I don’t expect Stan to shit on the first winning streak of the year or try and talk anyone out of getting excited (good seats still available!). But the fear is that they actually believe this shit. And it wouldn’t be a crime to say something to the effect of, “The results are nice, and the players have worked hard and stuck together to earn them, but there are still aspects of our game that need improvement. We’ve been lucky, but we can build on that.”

If you’ve watched this team most games, you see that Keith and Seabrook can’t get out of their own way (Seabrook couldn’t get out of a sloth’s way right now). Say, this strange, yellow, warm liquid on my ear must mean it’s raining!

On the report that the Blackhawks asked Seabrook to waive his no-move clause, something Seabrook said isn’t true:

“Same answer. The hard part is if I say, well that’s true, the next time you have to keep doing it. You shoot a few [reports] down, then if you decide not to comment on the other one, people think that’s the true one. That’s not always the case. I get it, I realize why the fans want to know. I just think it’s more fair to the players to not be put in that position. It’s unfortunate it went that way, but I realize that the world we live in now is that way. Reports become facts until proven otherwise. Sometimes it should be the other way. I don’t want to specifically comment, other than to say he’s played his best hockey lately and I hope he keeps it up.”

Not exactly a hard-denial, is it? Stan’s right here, that it does put the player in an awful position. Which…would be the exact reason a team would leak that sort of thing? Get the onus off of the organization? Just spitballin’ here. And again, if “this” is Seabrook’s best hockey–as he was an absolute hemorrhoid last night–then Stan knows exactly why these reports are surfacing/being leaked.

On the job done thus far by coach Jeremy Colliton, who took over after Joel Quenneville was fired Nov. 6:

“The biggest thing I can applaud him for is his disposition and positive approach, even in light of a tough start. He never got frustrated, never got down, didn’t allow our group to feel sorry for itself or get upset about things. We still aren’t near where we want to be, but we’ve made a lot of strides. When you start to see those things together, and I think the players are starting to now see and starting to get excited. It’s one thing to believe what someone’s telling you and you want it to work, but it’s not working. Now it’s starting to work, and they start to feel like, ‘wow, now I get it. Now I understand what he’s been saying.’ When you’re around our team, you can pick up there’s a good vibe around the guys. They’re excited and can’t wait to play the game.”

Again, there’s no reason to think Stan is going to hang out his chosen to guy to dry, and nor should he. And some of this is right. Colliton did stay positive, hasn’t singled out anyone, and basically kept his head down. The power play is better, as we keep saying.

But overall, the structure is still rotten. This team is still woeful defensively, and while the personnel will never allow it to be a good defensive team, we repeatedly point out changes that could be made to help it that aren’t being made. It’s fine if the guys are more excited because results happen to bounce their way for a couple weeks, but there is still very little to suggest that this is being built on a foundation made of anything other than sand. While the Hawks blue line is truly terrible, there are some equally terrible blue lines around that are keeping things a little tighter than the Hawks are. That’s because every team is better defensively than the Hawks. It doesn’t really HAVE to be like this.

Ok, Strome’s development can be credited to Colliton, I guess. But we need more than a few weeks of that, too. The idea that this is “starting to work” flies in the face of everything that’s happening on the ice aside from the goalies playing really well and more pucks going in than have been. And you saw last night what happens when one of the goalies doesn’t go Siegfried and Roy.

On assigning 19-year-old defenseman Henri Jokiharju to Rockford of the American Hockey League:

“Sometimes guys get sent down because they aren’t playing well, and sometimes they get sent down because of circumstances. In Henri’s case, it was more circumstantial. He’s played over 20 minutes every game in Rockford and that’s what we’re looking for. Our defense has evolved over the course of a year. We didn’t have [Gustav] Forsling and [Connor] Murphy at the start of the year. If they had been here, Henri may have been in Rockford the whole time. It’s not because he’s not deserving of the NHL; it’s a hard League to play as a teenage defenseman. I think there are only two teenage defensemen in the league (Rasmus Dahlin, 18, of the Buffalo Sabres and Miro Heiskanen, 19, of the Dallas Stars). When you get to be 20, 21, you see those guys filter their way in. They’ve gained experience at the AHL level, they’ve finished college, whatever they do. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid, and he’s not far away. We can bring him back at any point. It’s not disappointment; far from it. He’s exceeded my expectations with how well he’s played.”

This isn’t wholly incorrect either, but if you’re trying to sell me that Gustav Forsling would have kept Jokharju in the AHL at the start of the year had Forsling been healthy, I would use that as grounds for canning your sorry ass right then and there and calling it a love story. Gustav Forsling is Brendan Smith levels of bad, and those of you who have been around here for a while know that I don’t say that lightly. I think Smith is the worst player in the NHL and have since he came up, and I’m telling you Forsling is right there.

Stan is right on circumstances, though. Jokiharju is right-handed and the only Hawk capable of playing on the left and letting Jokiharju be aggressive and get up the ice and support him a bit is Connor Murphy, who was hurt and then didn’t play with him. While the numbers were promising with Keith, we saw far too often a teenager having to clean up #2’s messes all the time. The pairings with others were nothing short of a disaster. So on some level, I get it.

If Jokiharju does come back, it had better be to play with either Murphy on his off-side or Dahlstrom as a third-pairing. But the Hawks have some culpability here in not putting a very young player in the best possible place to succeed. I think that’s what Q was doing when he was here, and I think Q thought that Keith might adjust his game a bit to compensate. He didn’t, we saw what happened.

The interview goes on to talk about the Hawks prospects, and the Holy Troika of Boqvist, Mitchell, and Beaudin get mentioned. And Stan should talk up these guys, because he’s going to have to trade one or two of them. All three will not fit on the roster in the next three years, unless Seabrook is bought out, Murphy traded, Gustafsson gets sold while the price is up (which should be happening now but whatever) and the Hawks add people for these kids to play with. But we’ll have all summer for that talk.

 

Everything Else

Game #57 – I’ll Drink Even More, I’ll Hate Them Even More Than I Did Before – Hawks 3, Bruins 6

By John Pullega 2087 0

Box Score

Corsica

Natural Stat Trick

It had to happen sooner or later, but who would have ever guessed the Hawks’s seven-game win streak would end at the hands of a team that can do more than just feign competence on the ice? Oh, you did? The Bruins ran over the Hawks from start to finish, who were a complete open sewer in their own zone tonight (more so than usual, even). Compound that with a relatively weak showing from Delia and the fancy stats finally match up with the outcome. Let’s dig around this one.

– None of us here at the Program are too wild about this man-to-man defensive scheme Colliton is dead set on making happen. Tonight is a perfect example of why that is. The Hawks posted an embarrassing 34+ CF% at 5v5. They didn’t end a single period on the positive side of the ledger. Sikura and Seabrook (?!) were the only two Hawks who had a positive CF% on the night. Over and over, the Hawks were caught double teaming because they either can’t or won’t communicate with one another when someone loses their man, which is often, because as a team they’re so goddamn slow.

This was evident on Boston’s second goal, when Murphy got caught playing Bergeron too far out along the far boards. Toews came over to cover along with Murphy, leaving Dahlstrom hanging out to to dry against Marchand and Heinen. Either Murphy needs to stick with Bergeron all the way, leaving Toews to cover Chara at the point (which is where Bergeron threw it after reading the double cover, and which doesn’t really solve the problem of who’s covering one of Marchand or Heinen down low) or Toews needs to call Murphy off and let him retreat. They did neither, and Chara had all the time in the world to throw the puck down low to two open skaters.

This was evident on Boston’s third goal. Delia gave up a comically bad rebound right in front of the net, which looked like how a dense and painful fart sounds. Of course Gus and Gusser were on the ice for that, covering absolutely no one and giving Heinen and Marchand all the time in the world yet again.

This was evident on Boston’s fourth goal (are you sensing a pattern?), with Murphy coming out way too far to cover Krejci on the near boards, leaving Jake DeBrusk all alone in front of Delia for an easy tip. This one’s a bit more excusable, since it was at the end of a PK, but still, Murphy doesn’t need to skate almost entirely past the near-side dot to cover Krejci from that bad an angle.

Those three goals were all a result of someone losing their coverage and no one covering his ass. Whether they’re communicating or not (they’re not) doesn’t really matter, because even if they are (and again, they aren’t, as evidenced by how profoundly open these goal scorers were), this team simply doesn’t have the speed to cover when coverage is blown. You’d think those thick rims Colliton borrowed from Rivers Cuomo’s dumb ass would help him see that, but here we are. This system will not work for this team as presently constituted, especially against teams who are better than “gas station toilet overflow,” which Boston decidedly is.

– This was probably Connor Murphy’s worst game of the year, and if he’s not playing well, they’re fucked. He was caught out of position more often than not and took that terrible cross-checking penalty that ended up leading to Boston’s fourth goal, which, surprise, Murphy’s poor positioning capped off. They can’t all be winners.

– Forsling and Gustafsson were festering scabs tonight too, each with a 22+ CF%. On Boston’s third goal, Forsling did that thing where he’s facing his own goaltender when his opponent scores, which is a very normal thing for an NHL defenseman who’s being showcased to do. There’s not really anything Forsling does right out there, but when your alternative is Slater Koekkoek, all you can do is wait for the sweet embrace of death to blot out the misery, because Chiarelli can’t save you anymore.

– The PK was a urethral wart tonight too. Sure, they technically killed off a 5-on-3. But Caggiula’s awful positioning on the first PK led to Boston’s game-tying goal. Then, in the third, Torey Krug drew both Kruger and Dahlstrom along the near boards, leaving Murphy alone against Heinen and Cehlarik. There’s no reason for a D-man to fly to the near boards on the PK like Dahlstrom did.

– John Hayden sucks, and the sooner they trade him to whoever takes over Peter Chiarelli’s mantle as head dumbass, the better.

– Brendan Perlini played seven minutes at 5v5 and had 0 CF and 15 CA for a 0% CF on the night. That’s fucking something. I’ve never seen it before and never want to see again.

– Kane keeps his scoring streak alive at 15 games, dropping a nifty pass to Keith, who then handed it off to Gustafsson on a 4 on 4, allowing Gus to RuPaul his way toward his 12th goal. Other than that, though, Kane was a ghost, but given how he’s quite literally carried this team over the last several months, you sort of get it.

– Watching Brent Seabrook lose the puck to no one and have to take a tripping penalty as his recovery—which led to Boston’s first goal—was very on brand.

This is what this team will look like against anyone who’s actually sniffing at the playoffs, not simply the beneficiary of the NHL’s lust for faux parity. They aren’t fast enough to play man and aren’t smooth enough to recover against teams that pressure them. Fortunately, the only marginally good teams the Hawks play for the rest of the month are Dallas and Columbus, so it’s possible they keep this playoff-run farce up for a bit longer. That would be OK, because the winning was fun, like trying to eat four dipped combos from Al’s in one sitting.

Onward. . .

Booze du Jour: Makers 46 and Pedialyte (The De-Rehydrater)

Line of the Night: Hung out in the Mute Lounge tonight.

Everything Else

Look Who’s Talking

By Sam Fels 2172 0

I’m sure you’re surprised that in the middle of the team’s first winning streak in a season and a quarter (they last won five in a row or more in December of 2017), John McDonough pops up for an in-depth interview with The Athletic. That’s a little harsh on McD, who doesn’t hide totally when things are going poorly. But it also does seem a tad convenient.

The other caveat is that I’ve always thought it was folly to read too much into what McDonough has to say about on-ice issues. He has been, or may still be, involved in some decisions. And he is the boss. Whatever “plan” the Hawks have (and we’ll get to that), basically starts with him at least giving it the ok. That said, I doubt he could tell you what the difference is in defensive systems from Q to Jeremy Colliton is, or why this winning-streak is empty when you look at process. Still, his voice matters.

And there’s some real gobbledygook in here. Let’s go through it:

Well, you’ve got to feel better about where things stand now than you did four or five weeks ago, right?

Yeah, I feel better about it. We got off to a rough start. I recognize that this is a roller-coaster, that we’re going to have those ups and downs. But being tested like you were for seven or eight games where you’re down two or three goals, I learned a lot about our team. I learned a lot about our coaching staff. I learned a lot about our management. There was no finger-pointing. There were no alarmists. We rode it out. There was a sense that this could get worse before it gets better, and it did. But I don’t think we’re in a much different place. I’m really pleased with the five-game winning streak, that’s good to see. But this going forward, I think, is going to be all about the process as opposed to the plan. People want to know, what is the plan going forward, like there’s some master plan. I think it’s a really healthy process. I’m very proud of Jeremy (Colliton). He was put in a very tough situation, replacing a legend, an icon, an institution, a Hall of Famer, a classy guy that was a primary reason that we won three Stanley Cups. I’m very proud of the job he’s done and I’m excited about our future. Very optimistic about our future with Jeremy behind the bench.

Um, ok, but did you miss all that finger-pointing your GM did at your former coach? Does that count? Because he was pretty clear on it. It’s rare that finger-pointing comes in the signings and then discarding of actual players, but hey, the Hawks are cutting edge, remember?

Hey, it’s great your coach, who has been coaching on this continent for barely 14 months when you hired him, didn’t hang his players out to dry. Because that’s something he totally could have done without losing them forever. And you got lucky that your players didn’t do that to him, which they easily could have. Then again, let’s watch Duncan Keith’s play from that time and decide what that was about.

I have no idea what the “process as opposed to the plan” line is all about. The Hawks have never outlined any kind of plan. They can’t even decide what word they want to use to describe where a plan would go. Can you have a process without a plan? Isn’t a “process” executing a set “plan?” Then McDonough basically says that there isn’t a master plan–which, great–but that it’s a really healthy process. What in the ever-living fuck could that possibly mean? This is right up there with Stan Bowman’s assertion years ago about Marian Hossa returning from injury, “There’s no timetable, but he’s on schedule.”

I believed that this was a playoff team. I believed in our roster. But we’ve had circumstances to deal with. Corey’s been in net for, I think, a third of our games in the last year. There’s been a lot of roster turnover. 

Ok, but if you thought this was a playoff team, and you fired Quenneville because you didn’t think he was going to lead them there, why was there so much roster turnover? Did you think the old roster was playoff-worthy? Or this one? And you’re wrong on both counts anyway. But hey, sellout-streak!

No, because we weren’t there then. We weren’t there then. I was disappointed in last year, but I didn’t think and Stan didn’t think that, in fairness to Joel, that was necessarily the right time, either. And we get back to what we talked about before — what is the right time? Is it based on a losing streak? I think it’s more based on feel. There was a sameness that had crept in. So we made the change and I think we’re going in a good direction right now. But we don’t get caught up in the bounce that we have right now with the winning streak, and we ride out the tough times and we try to improve the team every day.

I just can’t buy this. The Hawks wanted to fire Q in the summer, and you know that because 15 games is never enough of a sample to decide it’s not working. You’re looking for an excuse to get where you wanted to anyway, but it allows you to do that after single-game tickets have gone on sale.

Also, and I don’t expect this to come from McD but I can only hope and pray that Bowman and Colliton know better, is that the “good direction” the Hawks are on now is really nothing more than a few good bounces. The process on the ice still sucks, and giving up over 90 shots tot the Canucks and Red Wings, whose players have to wear helmets off the ice too, is proof of that (which to be fair, came after this was published, but the trends were still there).

We want to be a playoff team and then once you get in, anything can happen. 

This is a garbage sentiment and a team that’s been plastering “One Goal” on our psyches for a decade should know better. The two 8-seeds in recent memory to make big runs were the Predators in ’17 and the Kings in ’12, and both were preseason favorites that underperformed for most of the regular season. They became what they should have in the spring. They didn’t “come from nowhere.” The idea that anyone can just get in and run the table is an old myth. Generally, you’ve got to be amongst the big boys consistently, even if that means finishing second or third in a division. Because that usually comes down to OT bounces anyway.

This is an organization that prided itself, and couldn’t wait to tell everyone, about the consistent greatness they were striving for. Not “We’re gonna roll the dice because hey, maybe it’s our day?” Think harder, Homer.

I think he’s smart enough to get the opinions of his group, and then he ultimately makes the final decision. And then we kind of talk about it and we go with his feel and his recommendations. 

So Stan is the final decision maker…until he runs it by you? That’s…not encouraging.

On Seabrook and Keith: I think both of them are very valuable members of the organization. I’m thrilled that they’re part of this. They’re decorated, potentially future Hall of Famers. They’ve been through a lot. And I’d like to see them be a part of the group that helps us surge again…(Seabrook) has had a brilliant career and he’s great in the locker room. He’s a terrific human being. I think he’s the ultimate leader. So yeah, it does bother me, because he really, really cares. But I am confident he’s going to be a part of this going forward.

Then why did reports of the team asking him to waive his NMC get out? That doesn’t happen on accident, especially with the Hawks. Obviously, McD isn’t going to come out and say, “Despite his accomplishments we have to get this bloated nacho graveyard off the roster immediately!” But look at this with any sort of critical eye and you see right through it.

On Quenneville: These are very tough decisions that are professional decisions, they’re not personal decisions. He and I spent a lot of time together. A lot of time. Didn’t agree on everything.”

I am dying to know what it was McDonough and Quenneville didn’t agree on. Please tell me the hockey arguments that went on here. I need this.

And how he handled it, how graceful he was in how he handled winning — he never pointed fingers or felt that the roster was inferior when we went through tough times.

Ask Connor Murphy about this one.

It’s McD’s job to try and say things without really saying anything. And there’s not much to be gained from the president decreeing much from the mountain top, because we can only hope he’s not that involved with what we really care about, the on-ice product. So much hinges on the summer. But this was some Grade-A funny shit at times.