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

By Sam Fels 1891 0

 vs. 

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

PUCK DROP: 6:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT: Brian 5or6

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

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

Keith-Murphy

Forsling-Kempny

Oesterle-Rutta

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Game #42 – Hawks vs. Senators: Spotlight – Erik Karlsson, The Treasure We Need To Save

By Sam Fels 1758 0

At this point, it feels like either the hockey world has taken Erik Karlsson for granted, or the discussion is just about whether or not he should be traded. Before doing anything, it’s important to once again go over just the insanity that is Erik Sven Gunnar Karlsson. Yes, there are tons of Zevon references to be made there. Erik The Sven Gunnar Karlsson, he killed to earn his living.

Since coming into the league in the ’10-’11 season, Karlsson has four 70+ point seasons (and another 66-point one for good measure0> That’s over nine seasons now. In that time, only two other d-men have had that many points in season. Brent Burns did it twice, and Victor Hedman last year. Karlsson has FOUR. Keep that in mind. He probably would have had a fifth at that pace if he didn’t miss most of the lockout season with a shredded achilles, and even then his Logan-healing abilities brought him back far sooner than it should have.

Let’s take two years ago. Karlsson had 82 points, the first time a d-man cracked 80 points since 2006 and only the second time since 1996. He carried a +7 in Corsi-relative and a +3 in Expected Goals-relative. He led his team in scoring by 21 points. And yet they still gave the Norris to Drew Doughty because he’d been to a Tim Horton’s in his teens, where he assuredly marked the bathroom with really shitty graffiti that was almost assuredly unintentionally misspelled.

Save his rookie year and last year where his ankle turned into an origami demonstration, Karlsson has always kicked his team’s rates in the head and carried this team. And that’s the unfortunate part, is that Karlsson has barely ever had a teammate worthy of him, or coach. Karlsson somehow willed this team to a conference final last year, along with Craig Anderson, but that’s just about as good as a look as he will get in Ottawa. And this is where the heated debate begins.

All hockey fans, with no disrespect to Ottawa fans, need Karlsson out of Ottawa. Having this Ferrari being handled by Guy Boucher with only a few prime years left is akin to getting your Wagyu ribeye well-done. If Karlsson were a Predator he could seriously take a run at 100 points. Swap him with Hedman and he would almost certainly get there. This is simply a waste of a beautiful gift, to have this playing in a trap and trying to set up Derick Fucking Brassard. This is a team trying to find reverse on a Russian tank.

But if you’re the Senators, and you know you’re going nowhere fast, what can you do? Karlsson has one more season after this one on his contract, and then he goes UFA. He’s going to get $12 million a year from someone, as well he should. Maybe the Senators have already told him they’ll give him that, and Karlsson does love Ottawa so much he has already made it clear he’ll take it. Then again, given that the soft-spoken Karlsson felt the need to publicly make it clear he’s not taking any hometown discount, you’d have to believe these things haven’t been discussed at all.

And even if the Senators want to offer that, and that’s unlikely, does Karlsson want to take it? He’s been past the second round only once, and the future is not exactly bright in Ottawa with their shithead owner crying poor, demanding a new arena when he’s not shaming his own fanbase, and has already starting making goo-goo eyes at Quebec, assuming he can given all the facelifts. The Senators are bottoming out this year and there doesn’t appear to be much help on the way unless GM Pierre Dorion can pull some real miracles in shipping off Mark Stone/Bobby Ryan/whatever else.

If you really want to reset a team, you cash in a piece like Karlsson. His trade value will never be higher than it is right now. A team that acquires him gets two playoff runs with him, and if they’re in the middle or closer to the end of the window that might be worth the ransom you’d have to give up. We’ve talked about the Hawks offering their entire prospect line, but Dylan Sikura plus ballast probably isn’t near enough.

Who else? The Oilers probably could figure out something, but with their payroll next year can they even afford one year of Karlsson after this? The Leafs are an obvious fit, but the world would end if the Sens were to trade Karlsson there. The Islanders in a bid to woo John Tavares? Do they have enough?

The bigger complication is figuring out what Karlsson would be worth. In a world where Matt Duchene netted the Avs three prospects and a raft of picks, what’s Karlsson? This arguably the best player on the planet, where Duchene is a decent #1 center and a better left winger. Three NHL-ready or already young NHL players would probably have to be a starting point. Along with three or four draft picks. It would have to be Herschel Walker-esque. What GM has the balls?

In our dreams, or nightmares, had Stan Bowman been able to manage assets like Teuvo, Johns, and Danault properly, they would have the pieces. But now you’d almost certainly have to include one of if not both Schmaltz and DeBrincat, and then what kind of team would Karlsson be joining anyway?

In truth, the Senators might be fucked. They either trade the best in their history (and it’s not even close) for 75 cents on the dollar at best, or they ride out the last year and a half and watch him walk for nothing because he wants to win something and play in a system that rewards what he does. 75 cents on the dollar probably doesn’t rebuild an organization, and it certainly doesn’t get more people to drive out in the Sea of Green where Canadian Tire Center is to watch dreck-on-ice.

So looks like for another year and a half, our beautiful treasure will remain buried in the muck.

 

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Game #42 – Hawks vs. Senators: Q&A With Brian. Nope, That’s It. Just Brian

By Sam Fels 2042 0

We don’t know where exactly we found @Brian5or6. That’s the case with most of our friends. We just ended up this way. Anyway, you can read his stuff at Brian5or6.com. 

 

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Your Friends and Neighbors – ’17-’18 NHL Team Previews: Erik Karlsson and some dudes

By 1954

If you asked me what I thought the best move I thought the Ottawa Senators made this offseason was, I wouldn’t be able to answer the question. This team is so damn pointless that I just found out they signed Johnny Oduya this offseason when I was doing my research for this post. Seriously, looking through their roster on their team site and CapFriendly I discovered some players that #1 – I had never heard of and #2 – I am still not convinced are actual NHL players. If it wasn’t for Erik Karlsson I think we’d all forget this team exists. And we’d be much better off for it.

OTTAWA SENATORS

’16-’17 Record: 44-28-10  98 points  2nd in the Flortheast

Team Stats: 48.57 CF% (22nd)  50.1 SF% (17th)  48.15 SCF% (24th)  7.01 EVSH% (23rd)  .926 EVSV% (1oth)  17.0 PP% (23rd)  79.7 PK% (22nd)

Goalies: Craig Anderson had one of the inspirational stories in hockey last year, and deservedly won the Masterton Trophy. He stepped away from the game for good reason, being with his wife while she underwent treatment for cancer. He returned to the team near the end of January and went on to finish the season strong, with a .926 save percentage and an impressive .942 mark at evens. Mike “Trojan” Condon played in most of the games that Anderson missed and was rather mundane .914 save percentage overall and a slightly better but still flaccid .915 at evens. Anderson likely won’t miss time this year barring an injury, and even at 36 years old should be solid for them in net.

Defense:  The Senators are blessed to have been gifted the best defenseman since Lidstrom when they got Erik Karlsson 15th overall in the 2008 draft. He has risen head and shoulders above the rest of the NHL blue-liners the past two years, and is no doubt one of the five best players in the league today overall. Karlsson has proven to be able to carry this team of nobodies for years, and he’ll probably do it again this year, because the group they’ve assembled around him on this blue line is pitiful.

Dion Phaneuf is somehow still a thing, and still making half a million more than EK65. Cody Ceci was supposed to be something at some point, I think, but he sucks too. They signed Oduya apparently, but as we saw last year his best days are long behind him. After that I am not sure the rest of these dudes are real. I think I have heard of Mark Borowecki, but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. There is no way Frederick Claesson isn’t a rejected Game of Thrones character name. Seriously, without Karlsson this is a group of beer league dudes getting caught way out of their depth. But because they have Karlsson they’ll be a middling defensive unit yet again.

Forwards: Welcome to Part Three of today’s episode, “Who In The World Plays For The Ottawa Senators?” I can’t believe how many of these players I have never heard of. They’re paying a dude named Zack Smith $3.25mildo; his career high in points is 36, in 2015-16. They’re paying Clarke MacAruther, he of a combined 8 games played and zero points over the past two seasons, a hefty $4.65mildo. Dumb motherfucker Alexandre Burrows is still around, and then there is something called Jean-Gabriel Pageau. Other alleged hockey players on their roster include Tom Pyatt and Ryan Dzingel.

In reality, though, the Senators aren’t that bad up front. Kyle Turris is a fine center, and entering a contract year at age 28 it wouldn’t be surprising if he had a career year. Bobby Ryan should be able to bounce back from his underwhelming 2016-17 season, although if he gets his comeuppance for being a major shithead and MAGA trash heap, he will blow out a knee or something. Mike Hoffman is legitimately good, and Mark Stone might be. Derrick Brassard is an okay but not overly impressive 2C. So they have some fine top-end forwards, but their depth is a bunch of dudes. Karlsson is still the best offensive player on the team.

Outlook: They still have the best player in their division in Karlsson, and the combination of him and solid goaltending might be enough to keep them in the playoff hunt. That said, they’re well behind Toronto and Tampa Bay (a common theme in this division), and Carey Price is probably going to drag the Habs into the third spot in the division. So the Senators will probably have to either catch lightning in a bottle again, or hope they can do just enough to capture a wild card spot. But starting the year without Karlsson will put them well behind the 8-ball, and if his injury lingers or becomes an issue throughout the season, they’ll have a better shot at the draft lottery than they will the playoffs.

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Friday Foofaraw: These Are The Words I Can Do Without

By 1291

As a writer, “professionally” so for about 10 years now, I’m always fascinated by how the language is used in some places. I’m always on the look for words bent into adjectives or trying to find better verbs and whatever else (and the fact that I usually resort to “whatever else” means I’m not all that good at this). On the flip side of the coin, watching sports programming most of the time means I’m seeing the language get butchered. The problem usually lies in that those doing a lot of the talking are former athletes which probably means A) they stopped going to school for any real purpose somewhere around 7th grade and B) have been repeatedly hit in the head, knocking loose whatever education they did get.

But they’re not always the culprit. So here are the things that bother me the most when watching broadcasts:

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Life Goes On: Eastern Conference 2nd Round Preview

By 2196

The West kicks off tonight, so let’s get the previews done before we settle in for what really is shaping up as a pretty intriguing second round (except for Sens-Rangers, and that has Erik Karlsson).

HOLY FUCKING SHIT CAPITALS-PENGUINS!!!

Look, any hockey fan worth his or her salt has known this was going to happen in the second round and that it’s essentially the Stanley Cup Final. Barring some injury weirdness or Henrik Lundqvist going Fantastic Four in net or something equally unpredictable, either of these teams is going to annihilate the Rangers or Senators. These are the two best teams in the NHL by some distance. This is the Steamboat-Macho Man to the Final’s Hogan-Andre The Giant. I doubt we’ll remember the Final as much as we’ll remember what might happen here. Instead of rolling our eyes at the same matchup for the second year in a row and our exhaustion of the NHL trying to force this down our throats for years before both teams were ready to provide classic series years in a row, we should just be anxious to watch the best the sport is going to offer.

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Great Caesar’s Ghost – Hawks at Senators Preview, Full Synthetic Oil Change

By 1444

 at 

Game Time: 6:30PM CDT
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
Justin Trudeau Is A Fucking Con Man: Silver Seven

Given that the Hawks have been hockey monarchy for going on a decade now, with President/Cardinal John McDonough fancying himself its emperor, it’s probably best that they missed being on the Senate Floor in Kanata on the Ides of March by a day. Either way, the Hawks make their way further due southwest along the St. Lawrence seaway to the “capital” of the “nation” of Canada to take on a Sens squad that shockingly still has plenty to play for.

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World Cup: Fantasy Booking

By 1413

It’s hard to get a gauge one how this tournament is going over. We know Twitter can be something of an echo chamber (ha, “can”). So if you thought this thing was stupid  you definitely can find enough people who agree with you to get the impression that everyone thinks it’s stupid. If you like it, because hey, it’s hockey in September and these are still the best players in the world out there you can find enough voices too.

I’ve enjoyed having hockey back this early, enjoyed laughing at Team USA, and while The Young Ones have been endlessly entertaining I can’t escape the feeling of it being misplaced and manufactured. I feel the same way about the Young Ones that I do about 3-on-3 OT. It’s a gimmick, an entertaining gimmick, and the gimmick-nature of it kind of robs it of its meaning and misses the point of the competition.

So of course the two would merge yesterday afternoon, and anyone watching it couldn’t take their eyes off of it, no matter the internal struggle.

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I’m Miss World Cup, Watch Me Break And Watch Me Burn: We All Live In A Yellow Submarine

By 1282

If there’s any hope for anything other than a procession for Team Canada to win this thing at home, it’s going to be wearing yellow. That didn’t work out so well in Sochi though, and now the Swedes would have to topple the hosers two out of three on their own turf. But hey, that’s only three games, and they just might be capable.

This is a sneaky solid squad, with probably the best blue line in the tournament (and it’s not even as good as it could be), bolstered by one of the two best goalies in the world, and a forward corps that might lack true star power but is littered with solid contributors up and down the lineup. It’s like the anti-USA.