Everything Else

Game #1 – You Know I’m Still Here, the Faithful One – Hawks 3, Senators 3 (Hawks Win Sap Boil)

By John Pullega 2609 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey’s back. And to quote our Fearless Leader, whether it was fun or just fun-bad, it was, without a doubt, a fun game. Let’s do it.

– Everyone ought to be relieved by how good Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat looked tonight. Throughout most game, the only time anything happened for the Hawks was when those two were on the ice. Each scored goals by themselves (Future Norris Winner Erik Gustafsson got an assist on Toews’s, but it was a Toews effort from start to finish), and while those probably aren’t goals anyone scores against a team that isn’t the personification of a bad mushroom trip, they were still impressive. DeBrincat’s had a flash of “Fuck you, I got this” that spawned memories of the dearly departed Marian Hossa. He made Thomas Chabot look like a horse’s ass, using him as a screen to pot his shot over DA LOCAL GUY’s glove.

Toews’s goal was the result of Mark Borowiecki deciding that the best way to defend a 2-on-1 is to drag your ass on the ice like a dog with worms. You could hear Toews thinking “Is this fucking guy serious?” the entire time he drove through the circle. But you take what they give you, and Toews did that. He looked like vintage Toews, complementing power and speed with excellent vision all night. He and DeBrincat were dominant in possession as well, each posting 55%+ on the night.

– For all the nervousness we had (and still have) about Cam Ward, he looked pretty good tonight. The only goal you can really put on him is the PK goal, which Colin White stuffed right through his legs. But he buckled down and made a couple of surprising saves in the third, keeping the Hawks in it in time for Patrick Kane to start giving a shit. The first came off a redirect, and the second was the result of all five of the Hawks’s skaters either falling asleep or doing something monumentally stupid. And that one all started with Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning.

– Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I adopted a cat. She was a good cat, but she had a heart defect. I tried giving her medicine to make her better, but the day came when I had to put her down. She was just 4 years old. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, and I still think about it all the time.

I would rather put that cat down every day for the rest of the fucking year than watch Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning play another minute in a Hawks sweater.

There aren’t enough adequate superlatives to describe what an unmitigated disaster Brandon Manning was tonight. He’s the Bret Hart of being a complete fucking ass wart: The worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be.

Let’s start with the second goal the Hawks gave up, which occurred with Saad–Schmaltz–Kane and Manning–Seabrook. LOCAL GUY Ryan Dzingel had the puck on the near boards, and Manning went out to cover him. He gave him a body check, which, fine, whatever. But long after Dzingel had passed the puck to Matt Duchene behind the net, Manning continued to ride him into the boards for no other reason than Brandon Manning is a shit-sipping mongoloid who would drop his dick in a urinal if it weren’t attached to his dumb fucking body. Because he decided that dry-humping Dzingel into the boards was the best play to possibly make, it left a huge hole in front of the net. Seabrook tried to cover as best he could, but where the fuck do you think Maxime LaJoie was when he potted that goal? If you said, “Where Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning should have been,” you win the prize of not being Brandon Manning.

Then, on the penalty kill goal, while Cam Ward shares some of the blame, the only reason Colin White had all the space in the world to stuff a between-the-legs shot was because Brandon Manning stood slackjawed at the top of the paint. At no point did he even feign an effort to break up anything Colin White was trying to do. He stood there like a 3-year-old who just realized he can’t hold his shit in anymore and mother is going to be so mad that she has to handwash the corduroys again.

Holy fuck this guy sucks. If the Hawks hadn’t won this game, I probably would have quit my job, moved back to Chicago, taken whatever construction job was happening outside the UC, and rubbed my red Italian ass on StanBo’s clean windows until he relented and cut Manning from the roster. He brings nothing to the table except an opportunity for us to completely lose our asses, which you can bank on happening every time Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning laces up his rock-lined skates. Fuck this guy to the end of the Earth and back.

– Getting back to things that don’t cause a complete aneurysm, it was nice of Patrick Kane to show up 50 minutes into the game. For most of the outing, he was in mid-February “can’t buy me a fuck” mode, with a ton of lazy passing and stick handling. But when Patrick Kane decides to turn it on, there are few better. His seeing-eye pass from behind the net on Brent Seabrook’s goal was art, and the top-shelf backhander to end it is the reason most of us tune in at all. While 60 minutes of that effort would be nice, you’ll take what you get.

– I liked how Seabrook looked overall. That might just be because he was paired with Ass Wart all night, but there was a bit of pep in his skating. And he channeled early-dynasty Seabrook on his one-timer in the slot. He looks a bit thinner and quicker, so maybe all that “he’s working out” talk in the offseason was more than just another marketing ploy.

– We’re going to say this a lot, but Henri Jokiharju had a hot and cold night. He was overpowered in the first period, which led directly to Ottawa’s first goal, and he needed Cam Ward to bail him out after Dzingel broke away from him off an outlet pass in the third. But those two boners aside, HJ had himself a decent game. He finished at almost 60% on the Corsi share, took three shots on goal, and drew a tripping penalty in his own zone. You’ll take that just fine for an NHL debut.

– Brandon Saad had a ho-hum game. He was putrid early, but picked it up a bit as the game went on. He probably should have been more aware on LaJoie’s goal, and didn’t really bust his ass much to fill the spot Ass Wart left open. He had one of the lower possession shares among Hawks forwards (51%+) and deferred on a couple of prime chances. This is going to be something to keep an eye on, since there are rumors that he only plays up to the level of the guys he plays with, and Patrick Kane couldn’t be bothered for most of the game.

A win’s a win, but this shit isn’t going to fly against the Blues and the Leafs this weekend. Still, if the Hawks can at least be chaotic fun, I think we’ll all have something to occupy us until the Bears roll into the playoffs.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life/Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “As good as it gets.” – Pat Foley describing Dollar Bill Wirtz’s death and Rocky’s subsequent takeover as Hawks chairman on Rocky’s birthday.

Everything Else

Strange Thoughts On This Nervous, Pre-Curtain Raiser Night

By Sam Fels 2015 0

This is our last night before the great circus begins. And maybe we can only hope for it be as entertaining as a circus. More likely, it’ll be just like when you realize how unhappy all the animals are in a circus and you kind of wish they’d go away forever or all just be like, Cirque de Soleil. A few thoughts before we dive headfirst into our normal coverage of the Hawks and the NHL tomorrow.

-I’ve been meaning to get this for a while now. If you haven’t seen Scott Powers’s “scouts breakdown” of every player on the Hawks, I encourage you to do so.

I think you’ll find the Brandon Saad section awfully interesting reading.

I’m not going to attempt to defend Brandon Saad. We’ve looked at the numbers, and made our peace. And yet the more I think about his last season, and reading these comments…boy, you can see it, can’t you? The trade looks awful now of course, but when it was made I don’t think many of us thought it would. When we last saw Artemi Panarin around here, he was floating around, waiting for Patrick Kane to hit his tape from the other wing. It was very Patrick Sharp. And you can still rack up a ton of points that way if you’re skilled, as Panarin is and Sharp was. And Kane will always find your tape. No one anticipated Panarin scoring 80+ points without Kane after that. Whoops.

But this has always been the knock on Saad. It’s nothing physical. If you were to design what a power left wing would look like, it would probably look like Saad. Unbelievably strong, quick on his skates, with plus offensive-skill and defensive awareness. The tools are there.

And yet…you can’t close your eyes and see him dominating that many shifts, like the way Marian Hossa did. You know what that looked like. You can still see it now in your mind (hopefully without the tears, but that’s hard to do). Can you see it with Saad? Or do you see a guy just being equal on his shifts, who gets his points really though natural gifts?

The part about playing with lesser players got me, too. Because my initial reaction was, “Well of course he’s going to fucking balk when stuck with SuckBag Johnson and David Kampf.” But that’s not what a player does, is it? This is where I want to say his first three years were spent playing with prime Toews and Hossa, and of course that’ll skew how you see linemates and teammates, It can’t really get better than that.

But that’s horseshit, isn’t it? You play with who’s out there. Not that I’m a fan of when this happens, but when Kane downed tools at times last year because he was playing on a dogshit team and at times with balloon-handed teammates, you could see where it was coming from. That didn’t make it right or excusable, but explainable? Yeah, just a touch.

But Saad doesn’t have that pedigree. Saad has proven to be an above-average NHLer, but nothing more. He flashes being a star at times, but they’re only flashes. He’ll look good with good players, but did he ever really stand above them for more than a handful of games here and there? He’ll play to the level of those around, it seems like.

And the thing is, the Hawks knew this about him. That’s why, though they may have been reluctant, they were willing to trade him when his contract demands got above what they deemed economical. Throughout his first three years here, there were whispers that some in the front office just didn’t think he had “it.” “It” being the determination to fight through defenders every shift and every night to become, essentially, Max Pacioretty. And physically, Saad could be near Patches or Blake Wheeler. If he wanted. But some in the Hawks organization doubted he wanted.

So I’m not sure what changed in the two years before they brought him back. Did their scouts see something in Ohio? If they did, the Jackets’ sure didn’t. And this could lead into another discussion about the Hawks borderline-woeful pro scouting.

This is a huge year for Saad, whatever the Hawks do as a whole. Not in terms of his future, because he’s cashing $6 million for the next three years regardless. But is he going to finally stand up and take games by the collar? Because he can, and I don’t think anyone doubts that. The Hawks certainly need it. Or is he content with that check and his 55 points? Does he care what people think about the latter? Do his teammates think that? This will be worth watching all season.

-With the pieces about to move, my biggest fear about the Hawks is that even after being skated out of the building a lot of nights last year, they’re still slow. That’s how it looked in the preseason, though some of that could be the veterans simply not caring. But then again, the veterans are the ones who are slow.

My fear is that the front office and their scouts haven’t redefined what fast is to them. The Hawks used to be one of the fastest team in the league. But thanks to their success, that threshold changed. Teams got as fast and then faster than what the Hawks were to beat them. I wonder if the Hawks aren’t still working at the same standard.

Because they told us Dylan Sikura’s size wasn’t a problem because of his quickness. But he doesn’t look all that quick in this league. They told us that Victor Ejdsell’s skating would be just enough to find space in this league. They’re both in Rockford, and that could change but you wonder. When he was healthy, did Gustav Forsling really look like he had game-breaking speed to you? Or did he look like he would be fast on a 2012 team?

I think this is changing, because Boqvist and Beaudin and Jokiharju do skate at 2018 levels of speed. But that won’t help much now. The jury is very much out on Dominik Kahun and Luke Johnson (“SuckBag” to his friends), who are here because of the Hawks claims about their speed.

Anyway, whatever it’s going to be, let’s kick this pig.

 

Everything Else

Preseason Game #5 – Ottawanna Go Ta Bed – Hawks 1, Senators 2

By John Pullega 1781 0

Tonight’s preseason game was as invigorating as a toenail-clipping party. That’s about par for the course when both Ottawa is involved and Garbage Dick is on the sidelines. We did learn a little bit in this game though, so let’s get through it.

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– In true FFUD form, just a few hours after Hess wrote about how you’ll never really notice John Hayden out there, John Hayden was probably the most noticeable Hawk for most of the game. The Hayden–Marcus Kruger–Andreas Martinsen line was by far the best performer on the ice for the Hawks tonight, which is both good and bad: Good in that it’s always encouraging to see the fourth line dominate possession like they did, bad in that your fourth line probably shouldn’t ever be the most noticeable line, especially against a team contending for the first overall pick (IF THEY STILL HAD IT THAT IS). Hayden’s performance got him bumped up to the “second” line with Schmaltz and Anisimov later in the game, and while he wasn’t as noticeable in that role, he sure earned it.

– With Hayden moving up, Dylan Sikura got bumped down to the fourth line in the second half of the game. The hawk-eyed Mark Lazerus suggested that this could potentially be a death knell for Sikura’s hopes of breaking camp, especially with Luke Johnson and David Kampf playing relatively lights out. It’ll be a huge disappointment if Sikura has to start in the AHL, as just about everyone assumed he would be an offensive contributor out of the gate. Something to keep an eye on.

– Anton Forsberg only gave up two goals, and the first one was on blown coverage from “Hard J” Henri Jokiharju and Dominik Kahun. The second was on a Joe Louis Arena-esque bounce off the end boards. Overall, he looked decent, but he always looks like an eighth grader nervously asking his crush to dance with him when under pressure. There’s a loudness to his playing style that always has you on edge it seems.

– Jokiharju is going to have a pretty steep learning curve to overcome on the defensive side of the puck, but that’s not the end of the world. His offensive instincts are there. He ended up with a 45 CF% on the night, spending most of his time with Keith.

– Thank fuck Alex DeBrincat is 5’7” and fell to the Hawks in the draft last year (with the pick they got for Andrew Shaw. Never forget that.). The pass he conjured through Chabot’s legs on the Jonathan Toews goal slipped past three Senators total, and was simply a sight to behold. They may have brought Saad in to reinvigorate The Captain, but Top Cat on his left side is going to be the Michelangelo to his Renaissance.

– I’ve been pissing and moaning about Brandon Saad on the third line with Chris Kunitz and Luke Johnson since it’s been announced, but his play was deserving of his status tonight. He had a few unforced turnovers early and never really got into a groove. He finished with a disappointing 44.44 CF%. There might be a couple of mitigating factors here: Namely, Kunitz and Johnson are grinders and Saad was playing on his off wing, which he’s never really done, but that’s not much of an excuse. With the Nick Schmaltz–Artem Anisimov–Sikura line being the only line to be more of a ghost out there, I still think putting Saad with Schmaltz and Patrick Kane will be best for everyone, but his performance tonight didn’t inspire confidence. The Fels Motherfuck knows no bounds, apparently.

– Let’s cut this “Nick Schmaltz on the wing” horseshit out now.

Join us next week when we watch the Hawks play the fucking Senators again, because nothing worth doing ever comes easy.

Everything Else

Preseason Game #3 – I Wanna Be Jackie Onassis. I Wanna Wear A Pair Of Dark Sunglasses – Hawks 5, Senators 2

By John Pullega 2041 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats (SKY POINT)

Natural Stat Trick

The Hawks logged their first preseason win against a team that’s an anthropomorphic therapy session. I watched the game so you didn’t have to. Let’s kick it quick, because I have a couple double Cheesy Gordita Crunches I want inside me, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

– Collin “Cucamonga” Delia and his superfluous L was one of the more surprising bright spots on the night. While he allowed both goals, neither were really his fault. The first came after Jokiharju (whom McClure tells me we are calling HJ from here on in, so remember that) and Dahlstrom decided to compare whose shit erupted out of the toilet bowl higher at the offensive blue line, leaving Alex Formenton alone on a breakaway. The second goal came after Delia made a strong save on Duchene during a penalty kill, only to have Duchene stuff the rebound past him. After that he was nails, shutting an admittedly shitty Senators team down, including a highlight-reel split save on Duchene in the second. He’s nowhere near ready for any meaningful time, but he’s nice to have in the back pocket.

– HJ looked abysmal in the first. He had a 33.33 CF% in the first while pairing with Carl Dahlstrom, whose only real skill appears to be winning second place in any Jared Dunn lookalike contests he enters. Away from Dahlstrom he was infinitely better, posting a 100 CF% (7 CF, 0 CA) primarily with Brandon Davidson for a grand total 54.55 CF%.

– Foley floated the idea of a Kruger–Johnson–Martinsen line out there, and after tonight, that might make sense at some point. Each had a goal and an assist. Again, this is against the Ottawa Senators, a team that traded Erik Karlsson for a pile of recycled toilet paper, but there was some cohesiveness out there. Kruger should be a lock to make the team, but Johnson and Martinsen might be OK in spots, too.

– It’s good to see Dominik “Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home” Kahun contribute as well. His third-period pass from behind the goal line to John Hayden for a goal was legitimately nice. It’s hard to figure where he’d fit on the roster, but it’s nice to know he’s not a complete schlub.

– Luc Snuggerud also looked decent tonight. He’s a lot bigger looking than I expected, and he came through with a solid 56 CF% at 5v5 in just under 15 minutes. He made a great sliding block on a 2-on-1 about midway through the second period. He also took the point shot that led to Kahun’s goal in the second. He’s another nice “if you need him” option back there, and with a little more seasoning, might become a nice third-pairing guy in the near future.

More than anything, I think we learned that even when they dress most of their good players—including Matt Duchene—the Ottawa Senators are an affront to not only the game of hockey but also theology and geometry. There were a lot of retreads and babies out there for the Hawks, but no one who matters looks utterly putrid, which is all you can ask for a game like this.

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage: ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews: Henri Jokiharju

By Adam Hess 2061 0

It has been a while since the Blackhwks last had a blue line prospect the caliber of Henri Jokiharju. He fell to the number 29 pick in the 2017 draft where StanBo quickly gobbled him up. He was instantly the best prospect in the organization, but really that’s just how things go when you hadn’t picked in the first round in the two drafts prior. Now, the Blackhawks hope he’s ready to make the leap from the WHL to the NHL at age 19, just one year after being drafted.

2017-18 Stats

With Portland Wintherhawks (WHL)

Regular Season: 63 Games – 12 G – 59 A – 71 P

Playoffs: 12 Games – 3 G – 5 A – 8 P

WJC (Finland): 5 Games – 2 G – 2 A – 4P

A Brief History: For those that don’t know, the WHL is the one of the three major junior hockey leagues that comprise the Canadian Hockey League. It’s essentially a semi-pro hockey league for teenagers who show a lot of promise at a young age, but typically it’s full of good ol’ boys from Canada and the odd American who spurns the idea of college. Jokiharju, of Finland, took a bit of an unconventional path for a Finnish player and decided not to honor a contract he signed to play in Finland’s top division prior to 2016-17 to head to Portland and the WHL, the CHL division considered to be the closest to NHL style, with tighter checking and lower scoring games than you’ll find in the other OHL leagues.

That’s a whole lot of background for me to give you just to say that Jokiharju scoring 71 points in 63 games from the blue line last year in the WHL might not sound all that impressive, but really it should probably make your pants tighter (or damper, for the ladies in the audience). I don’t really have the patience or time to dig through WHL stats history and draft position for blue-liners, but I am willing to guess that it’s not often that defensemen who put up that kind of production make it to the 29 pick in the draft. If he had done that in his draft year, he might’ve been top-10 pick. But, in Joker’s case (come on, that nickname was obvious) he had a bit of an adjustment after coming to North America and had a slightly less production 2016-17 with 48 points in 71 games for Portland (3 points in 11 playoff games as well) and with that he was there at 29. We call that one good fortune for the Hawks.

It Was The Best of Times: So what is the best case scenario for Jokiharju in 2018-19? In training camp, he shows that he is one of the three of four best blue liners the Blackhawks have available to choose from to fill their roster. He makes the squad and gets bumslaying minutes, maybe with Seabrook (though Nacho would have to play his offside, and we might not want that) or Forsling. He’ll probably struggle to pick up the defensive side of things, as nearly every young defenseman does, particularly the offensive-minded ones, but he shows the right instincts and grows as the game goes on. He holds his own in the shot attempts department with a 52 or better CF% and uses some PP time to pad his score sheet and ends up with 30 points in the NHL this year, more if he’s the real deal. Outside of lighting the world on fire or me bring unrealistically optimistic with this ideal scenario, I’d say that’s a damn good season for Joker.

It Was The BLURST of Times: There are two possible worst outcomes here. One, the Blackhawks keep Joker on the roster to open the season, and decide after ten games that they want to keep him around, meaning they don’t send him back to the W and burn a year of his entry level deal, but then a few months later decide he sucks and isn’t ready and then send him back. Burning a year of the ELC for no reason would be terrible asset management and worst talent evaluation, because if you can’t tell if he’s NHL ready or not after a training camp and nine NHL games, you need new evaluators. The other worst case scenario is that he stinks to high hell this year, regardless of where he plays. Maybe its the NHL and he is just a turnstyle in the defensive end who never finds his feet or hands on offense. Maybe he goes back to the W and forgets how to hockey. I don’t the latter scenario there is particularly likely, but if you wanna get dark, before talking injuries, starting to suck in the W would be troublesome.

Prediction: I think Joker has a real shot at making the Blackhawks out of training camp, in part because there are just so many question marks on the blue line right now. Is Gustav Forsling good? Is Erik Gustafsson good? Is Jan Rutta good? Is Brent Seabrook alive? All of these are up for debate. That leaves a big enough opening for Joker to make the team with a strong camp. If he can do that, all signs from his history point to him blooming where he’s planted, if you will. He took to the North American game very easily in his first WHL season, and then dominated that league the next year. I don’t think he’s like to do that in the NHL, but there’s no reason he can’t produce something like 15-20 points, and perhaps more like I said in the best case. If he’s not in the NHL, the Hawks have some options in terms of what they can do with him, but the best decision would probably be to send him back to Portland for a year. They might be able to exploit some loan loopholes and get him the AHL, but is that really the best place for him to develop? I am not convinced. Either way, Joker is at least one interesting player to keep an eye on, and might just be worth getting excited about.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Manning

By John Pullega 2107 0

Motherfucker.

Diving into the 2018 free agency pool for defense was never going to go swimmingly for the Blackhawks. Sure, there were rumblings about John Carlson’s availability, but even if he hadn’t re-signed in Washington, paying him $8 million per over a two-term presidency was neither realistic nor wanted, given all the griping we’ve done about Seabrook. Calvin de Haan may have been nice, but he ended up in Carolina for $4.55 million per over four years. Thomas Hickey also could have maybe been a thing, but the 2007 #4 overall pick signed with the Islanders at $2.5 million per over four years. Once those three came off the board, you’d have thought the Hawks would scrape the bucket for a PTO guy like Franson to throw maybe $1 million at.

Instead, the Hawks went out and gave a two-year, $2.25 million per contract to Brandon Manning, a PTO talent at a Thomas Hickey price. ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET?

2017–18 Stats

65 GP – 7 G, 12 A

50 CF%, 45.6 oZS%

Avg. TOI 17:57

A Brief History: First off, fuck this guy. Brandon Manning spent most of his junior career sucking, and in an effort to get noticed, he—in his own fucking words—”fought nine or 10 times that year and stuck up for my teammates and made some big hits.” Jesus Christ bare-assed on the cross, Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville actually called Brandon Manning and told him, “We need a guy who doesn’t really score and can play physical.” Just keep giving Q the biddy, StanBo, it’s worked so fucking well in the past. Really good start here.

Manning went undrafted before latching on in Philadelphia—a place nothing less than perfect for a booger-eating buffoon whose calling card was protecting grown men on skates from other grown men on skates—in 2012. He spent most of his career with the Flyera doing nothing aside from tripping and breaking the collarbone of Connor McDavid in 2015, allegedly telling McDavid that he hurt him on purpose during a game in 2016, recanting when McDavid talked about it publicly, then getting his ass punched in by the aptly named Patrick Maroon as retribution in 2017. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THIS SIGNING?

In his first two full years, Manning spent most of his time in the offensive zone not contributing offensively. Last year was a bit different. He spent just 45.6% of his time in the offensive zone but contributed a career high 19 points. He broke exactly even at 50% on the CF% front. That’s somewhat encouraging, especially since he played most of his time next to living ghoul Radko Gudas and his aircraft carrier forehead.

But as we are wont to do, once you dig into the fancier stats, things look less than good. His xGF% (expected goals for percentage) was 48.89, which means that Manning’s opponents were expected to score more often when Manning was on the ice than the Flyera were. The closest Blackhawks comp Manning had in this category was Jordan Oesterle (49.00), who, as we all know, is one of the suckiest sucks who ever sucked on defense.

Further, his Rel xGF% (relative expected goals for percentage) was -2.22, which means Manning brought the likelihood of the Flyera scoring a goal down about 2% while he was on the ice. The closest Blackhawks comp from last year is Jan Rutta (-2.24).

And fuck it, let’s go even deeper, because the Hawks brass obviously couldn’t be bothered, as evidenced by the fact that they signed Brandon Motherfucking Manning. Manning’s HDCF%, which measures the percentage of high-danger chances for vs. high-danger chances against, was 47.31, good for second worst on the Flyera. This means that when Manning was on the ice, opponents were more likely to take shots from high-danger zones. High-danger shots are more likely to become goals. Since Manning himself doesn’t generate offense and apparently isn’t great at suppressing high-danger shots, it would seem that having him on the ice against anything but bottom lines is a recipe for disaster, especially if anyone but Crawford is in net.

So, he’s a combo of Oesterle without the KEEP FIRING ASSHOLES mentality and Rutta. And all this for just $2.25 million a year for two god damn years. Whose loins aren’t frothing?

It Was the Best of Times: Best case, Manning becomes part of a trade package for Erik Karlsson. Or, with contract negotiations for Darnell Nurse reportedly breaking down, they do Hall for Larssen II with Manning for Nurse. Barring those miracles, Manning plays fewer than 10 games because Jokiharju pulls a DeBrincat and makes it impossible not to play him. In the time he does play, Manning puts three or four points up and wins a fight or two, and the Hawks can trade him for something not called Brandon Manning. If he can’t be traded (he can’t), Quenneville shocks us all by learning what a sunk cost is and makes him a consistent healthy scratch.

It Was the BLURST of Times: We cannot stress enough how asinine this signing is. The fact that he was signed at all is a worst-case scenario. But he’s here now, he’s going to play, it’s going to suck, and it’s up to us to imagine how badly it’s going to suck. Worst case, Manning slots with Seabrook on the second pairing, because Manning played Top-4 minutes in the playoffs for the Flyera last year, a series in which Manning tossed a 48.77 CF%, 35.83 xGF%, and a hilarious -14.88 Rel xGF% against the likes of Crosby and Malkin.

StanBo throws his entire dick into his pet theory that Manning has gotten better with age and is on the verge of a breakout. That doesn’t happen, of course, because Brandon Manning sucks and would be better served in the boxing ring having his dome caved in nightly like the palooka he is. He channels his inner John Scott and becomes an insufferable monolith, both on and off the ice. After serving as a $4.5 million paperweight in his two years here, Manning uses his money to buy and close Al’s so he can open a Wawa there.

Prediction: Brandon Manning is the most Tom Smykowski signing the Hawks have had since Jordan Oesterle. He spent most of his career doing much of nothing, couldn’t hack it on a team that started Radko Fucking Gudas with a straight face, then got a seven-figure settlement as Bowman (read: Quenneville) went drunk driving and smashed into him with a HOCKEY REASONS contract.

So, he’ll spend time on the Top 4 with Seabrook. He’ll be an unmitigated disaster at all times and still get looks over Jokiharju and Murphy because HE’S HARD TO PLAY AGAINST. He’ll stumble his way into 10 points and then be considered for an extension. We’ll get all sorts of think pieces about how much his teammates like him, yet none of his teammates will offer that thought without priming from whoever’s in charge of pushing that narrative that day.

Just burn the whole building down.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Everything Else

Gustav Forsling’s Surgery And Absence Makes Me Wonder Why The Hell I Should Care

By Sam Fels 2336 0

I don’t know how it ends up you have this a full three months after your season ended, but…

 

So whatever plans you might have had for the Hawks’ defense that included Forsling, you can put them on the backburner for now. Forsling will miss training camp and the beginning of the season, as just his recovery would have him only practicing again in the middle of November. That assuredly will take place in Rockford, as Forsling had long been cast there to end last season and unless the blue line is even bigger clown dysentery than we think it will be, he’s going to stay there.

Which sucks for Forsling, as this is something of a make-or-break year for him. We know how the Hawks sour on prospects, generally, after a certain amount of time in the organization. This would have been Forsling’s third season at least floating around the periphery of the roster, and now he’s going to have to wait until likely 2019 to even be in that position again. And that’s assuming some other player doesn’t take his spot (*cough* Jokiharju *cough*).

Personally, I’m having a hard time locating a fuck. Even at Forsling’s tender age and experience-level, they have flashed something somewhere to make you think what the future could be. Really, Forsling hasn’t done that at all, except for maybe walking the blue line once in October. He was horsed consistently in his own zone and never looked offensively dynamic enough to counter that. Put it this way, even when Nick Leddy was having his skull turned into pudding in his first year or two in the NHL, you could see the skating and vision. Forsling hasn’t even come close to that. If I squint I see maybe Kyle Cumiskey. And I don’t want to see Kyle Cumiskey. Neither do you. I had enough the first time.

Now looking at the training camp blue line, there are the three veterans in Keith, Seabrook, and Murphy. There’s free agent signing Brandon Manning, doing whatever it is he does. Jan Rutta is still here for reasons Stan Bowman can no longer or remember or understand. Forsling’s injury makes it easier on Erik Gustafsson to make the top-six, which is…just…great. It also opens up a path for Jokiharju to make the roster, and really I don’t know what the Hawks would be holding onto by not letting him at this point. Beating up on children isn’t going to do anything for his development. And they can tell Blay Killman to do one because he’s only here to go out drinking with Ian Mitchell when he arrives in the spring of ’19 or fall of ’20.

Who’s excited?

Everything Else

The Silence Is Deafening

By John Pullega 2396 0

It’s been 19 days since the Blackhawks drafted Adam Boqvist with their first pick. It’s been 10 days since they signed Cam Ward, Brandon Manning, and Chris Kunitz. It’s been at least a week since any new flareups of the Hawks discussing a trade for Justin Faulk. And until someone of significant carriage traverses into the Convention to reach out a taint-damp hand to low-five the only player who can save the Hawks by himself, we won’t be able to confirm that Corey Crawford is even alive, let alone fit to play hockey.

While it is the doldrums of hockey summer, what the Hawks haven’t done stands at odds with all the scowling and growling about how things need to change and the unacceptability of quick-ending or absent playoff runs over the past three years. The dearth of activity is mostly in line with what the rest of the Central has done so far, save the Blues, but the Hawks were never really in a position to do as others have done this offseason.

But what it is that they can do now? They were spurned by John Tavares, and even if they had been allowed into the room in the first place, can you see the Brain Trust signing Tavares for more money and a higher spot on the depth chart than Jonathan Toews? Erik Karlsson—however unrealistic it is to hope for him—is still out there, but what would it take for Ottawa to even consider that? Are you comfortable shipping DeBrincat and Schmaltz out as part of that deal? The Hawks likely don’t have enough to offer even if DeBrincat and Schmaltz were both part of the deal, but if they did, would it worth it, especially if Karlsson wouldn’t want to re-sign?

The last big rumor we heard on the Faulk front was that Tom Dundon—who is working hard to establish himself as Not a Moron™ with his acquisition of Dougie “Don’t Call Me Yancey” Hamilton—wanted Brandon Saad in return, which the Hawks declined. So, we have an idea for what Dundon would want for Faulk as it stands, and it doesn’t look like he’s willing to sell short on him. The Hawks don’t have anything close to a player comparable to Saad (who would have thought that large, fast, 25-year-old, two-way wingers would be hard to come by?), so what can they even offer that’s in the same ballpark? Can you justify trading Schmaltz or DeBrincat for Faulk? In a perfect world, you’d jettison Wide Dick and Sikura. But given the original asking price of Saad and all the reports that say that the Hawks prefer to keep Anisimov, that seems vain (and maybe undoable, since we don’t know which 10 teams Arty has on his no-trade list).

Of course, all of this is probably moot if Cam Ward takes the lion’s share of starts. The continued silence around Crawford is a huge cause for concern, even when the Hawks go back to their boilerplate, “We expect him to be ready.” They’ve been expecting him to be ready since January, so the song remaining the same doesn’t really tell us anything.

And that’s where you might start to get itchy. The Brain Trust has been pounding their fists on the table about how things are going to change, but the only changes they’ve made so far include signing two guys who are old enough to use their ages as a basis for a calendar and a REAL HARD-WORKING defenseman who doesn’t move the puck and whom not even the Flyera wanted. As the summer churns on and the Hawks sit stagnant like an above-ground pool in Naperville during divorce proceedings, it becomes more and more likely that those were the changes they wanted to make. That’s a terrifying idea for next year.

I get that the Hawks have no obligation, and probably no desire, to keep any of us abreast about what they are or aren’t doing. It might be possible that they know for sure that Crawford will be OK and just aren’t telling anyone for HOCKEY REASONS. They might believe that this team as constructed is a playoff team. If I squint, I can maybe see it. But that requires Saad to show that last year’s shooting percentage was an anomaly. It requires Toews to dig himself out of an offensive decline that’s gotten worse over each passing year. It requires DeBrincat, Schmaltz, and Vinnie to further elevate their offensive games, and for guys like Sikura, Ejdsell, and Hayden to prove they belong in the NHL.

And then there’s the defense. Without a puck mover like Faulk or Karlsson, what is this D-corps supposed to be? Past a pairing of Keith–Murphy, which is by no means guaranteed in the first place, you’re working with what, Gustafsson–Rutta and Manning–Seabrook? That’s a whole lot of borderline 2nd pairing guys at best, AHL fodder at worst. It’s possible, and perhaps necessary, that Jokiharju can make the leap to the NHL at the tender age of 19, but even if he does, is Q going to use him?

There’s still some time and opportunity for the Hawks to make a splash at a puck-moving defenseman, which they desperately need as Keith’s engine starts to falter. Whether they can make a trade for one of them with what they have is becoming increasingly doubtful. But if they don’t, the silence that we want to interpret as calculated trade scheming must be viewed as the silence of men without answers whose asses will be one big blister if this year is a repeat of last year. And because no one from the front office can or will clarify exactly which direction the Hawks are going in, all we can do is assume that we’re in soft rebuild mode and hope that guys like Jokiharju, Boqvist, Schmaltz, and Top Cat are a core they can build around.

They told us change was coming. It might already be here.

Everything Else

Jokiharju, Saad, And Figuring Out The Puzzle

By Sam Fels 2521 0

It feels like Stan Bowman is going to have another “June 23rd” in the coming week. That was the day last year when he went more aggressive than we’d seen before, some might say he went “a little funny in the head,” and shipped out Artemi Panarin and Niklas Hjalmarsson (hilariously not telling his coach) for Brandon Saad and Connor Murphy. We’ve already been down the road on whether these were good trades or not, so we don’t have to do that again right now.

What’s clear is that Stan knows the temperature under his office chair is getting turned up, and Rocky Wirtz going “Kiss Of Death” after his flavorless Manhattan of a season in Crain’s made that abundantly clear, as well as John McDonough stomping around the Hawks offices like Dracula and Miranda Priestly’s lovechild.

So earlier in the week we talked about Justin Faulk, as that’s been the big rumor. Yesterday, the Sun-Times’s Mark Lazerus (closer than you know…love each other so…Mark Lazerus) put forth a rumor that Faulk might cost the Hawks one Brandon Saad. When reading that for all of us here, we cringe a bit, mostly because we love Saad and mostly because we feel that trading him after this season would A) be selling low and B) evidence that the Hawks don’t really have any sort of plan.

And yet, when you begin to think about it, this might make more sense. While Faulk didn’t have his best year last year, that kind of return for Saad certainly wouldn’t be selling low, per se. As previously stated, the Hawks don’t have a lot of pieces. While we dream about centering a deal around Artem Anisimov, fooling some GM with his goal totals and size for the far too many GMs who are still concerned about that sort of thing, it’s unlikely. The Hawks simply can’t lose Schmaltz, because they don’t have much depth down the middle. DeBrincat is almost certainly untouchable, given that he could very well be a 35-goal scorer if deployed properly. To give you some idea how valuable that is, there were only seven 35-goal scorers in the league this year. Dylan Sikura wouldn’t have much value, one would think. Below the main roster, it’s hard to see what else the Hawks can throw at a team. There’s no surefire prospect, though we’ll get to Jokiharju in a second.

Still, the loss of Saad makes the Hawks look awfully short at forward. You have….this?

– Toews – Hinostroza?

DeBrincat – Schmaltz – Kane

Sikura – Anisimov/Ejdsell – Duclair?

Jurco – Anisimov/Ejdsell – DUHHHHHH?

No offense, but I’m not going to make plans for that team in May. I guess this is the balance. Toss in David Kampf and an almost certainly returning Tommy Wingels (it’s a name, not a condition) and you’re still not inspired to write poetry about it. If the Hawks had another kid you were confident could step in to a top six role, you’d be more comfortable losing Saad, but he doesn’t exist yet.

You could argue the Hawks should just load the top line and let the rest fall where it may and have Top Cat, Toews, and Kane up there and just pray they jump into hyperspace, and maybe that’s the plan. I guess I can live with a second line of Sikura-Schmaltz-Hinostroza… I just won’t live comfortably. Or happily. Or healthily.

Which brings us around to Henri Jokiharju, who signed his entry-level deal yesterday. Now, normally, I would bet pretty good money the Hawks bring him to camp, throw him out in a couple preseason games, and then punt him back to Portland for his last year in the WHL. But this is not a normal time, and both Q and Stan might have to get outside their comfort zone here.

Yes, Jokiharju is only 19. But his numbers compare favorably with Mikhail Sergachev, who played a role on the best regular season team in the league. And Jokiharju did it in the WHL, which is a much tougher scoring environment than the OHL where Sergachev was. He also squares with Ivan Provorov, who has been the Flyers best d-man the past two years (and don’t give me any Ghost Bear bullshit).

Basically, what I’m saying is the Hawks are desperate, and it may come to toss Jokiharju in the deep end and leave with it. That doesn’t mean pairing him with Keith, but a heavily sheltered role with Murphy on his off-side or Dahlstrom or something I haven’t thought of and see where you are after 40 games. If he plays his way up the lineup, even better. But even at his tender age, he almost certainly can give you something in the same usage that Sergachev provided, assuming that Quenneville wouldn’t turn psychedelic purple at the thought of using a d-man who isn’t 20 yet. He did it before with Leddy…though we all know how that went at first.

While Stan might say something about “development,” he isn’t going to be here for the end of Jokiharju’s apprenticeship at lower levels if the Hawks don’t turn it around.

It would take quite the set of tires to pin that much on Jokiharju before he’s ever played professionally, but if the Hawks sold out on him in their minds they might consider cheaper additions on the blue line, like de Haan or Hickey from the Islanders or whatever they could fashion out of Anisimov (which is clearly Nurse from Edmonton because Peter Chiarelli would totally do that) and keep Saad around.

It’s not going to be boring.

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Not Until You Eat The Peanuts Outta My… – FFUD’s ’17-’18 Player Reviews – Connor Murphy Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Our Large Irish Son

By John Pullega 1908 0

When the Hawks brought Connor Murphy in, he was the presumptive favorite to replace the puck-pocked husk of what was once Niklas Hjalmarsson. And as the season went on, and the Hawks found their heads deeper and deeper in the toilet, the narrative began to range from “the Hawks will need a Top 4 defenseman next year” (true) to “the Hawks really miss Hjalmarsson this year” (categorically false in terms of on-ice performance).

After some early season struggles, a few confounding healthy scratches, and a mostly successful experiment on his off side, Murphy settled in to produce a couple of interesting career highs and team rankings. Let’s kick it.

Connor Murphy

76 GP, 2 Goals, 12 Assists, 14 Points, -3, 34 PIM

53.44 CF% (Evens), 1.2 CF% Rel (Evens), 53.47 SCF% (5v5), 51.57 xGF% (5v5), 2.99 xGF% Rel (5v5)

 50% oZ Start (Evens)

What We Said: Behind Keith and—if you look at him with enough glare from the sun—Seabrook, Murphy is probably the Hawks’s third best D-man. He’s fine if not underwhelming for the price ($3.85 million cap hit), but on the edge of 24, he will need to prove that his numbers really are the result of playing in America’s chafe rather than wasted potential. Given that the Hawks have won three Cups on the backs of their defensemen . . . Murphy will need to develop into a shutdown D-man fast.

What We Got: We’ll start with some numbers (feel free to skip the bullets if all you want is the explanation).

– Murphy posted an even-strength CF% of 53.44, finishing above water for the first time since his rookie year. Of Hawks D-men who played at least 20 games, he finished fourth, behind Franson (59.91), Gustafsson (55.39), and Kempný (53.95). If you bump the minimum threshold up to 40 games, Murphy is your leader in CF% for Hawks D-men.

– His 1.2 CF% Rel was only the second time he’s been in the positives on that ledger (1.0 last year). Of all Hawks defensemen who played at least 20 games, only Franson (9.2), Gustafsson (6.6), and Kempný (1.4) had higher CF% Rels. Again, bumping the threshold up to 40 games, Murphy’s your D-man leader for the Hawks.

– The caveat there is that Franson, Gustafsson, and Kempný started in the offensive zone at respective rates of 65.8%, 57.4%, and 55.4% to Murphy’s 50%.

– Murphy also finished with a High Danger Chances For Percentage (HDCF%) of 48.56. That’s fourth among Hawks D-men with at least 20 games—behind Kempný (52.86), Franson (52.34), and Gustafsson (50.59)—and above the team rate of 47.11. Once again, bumping the threshold to 40 games, Murphy leads all Hawks D-men.

– Murphy finished fourth in Expected Goals For Percentage (xGF%; 51.57) among Hawks D-men who played at least 20 games (behind Franson, Kempný, and Gustafsson). When bumped up to 40 games, Murphy was the leader.

– Finally, Murphy finished third in Expected Goals For Percentage Relative (xGF% Rel; 2.99) among Hawks D-men who played at least 20 games (behind Gustafsson and Franson). When bumped to 40 games, he’s the leader again.

All of this is to say that in terms of possession, Murphy was good if not great overall. He was better than the Hawks’s average in terms of giving up high-danger chances, but not great in a vacuum. And when he was on the ice, the Hawks could have expected more goals for than against.

That said, one of Murphy’s glaring weaknesses, especially at the beginning and end of the year, was his struggle to clear the puck in his own zone under pressure.

The above graph, which was tracked by Corey Sznajder, tells us that of these nine Blackhawks, only Brent Seabrook had more failed zone exits per 60 minutes of play. This means that the opposition was more likely to sustain pressure when Murphy had the puck in his own zone, which, of course, tends to lead to more opportunities to score goals. And while these data aren’t comprehensive (only tracked through 38 games), it does give us a good sample size for what’s pretty obvious through the eye test: When Murphy was pressured in his own zone, he sometimes panicked.

While Murphy absolutely must keep his spurs from jingling and jangling in his own zone if he’s going to develop into a true Top 4 shutdown D-man, it’s hard to ignore the carousel of D-men he was jerked around with this year and wonder whether that affected his play.

Murphy played primary time with five different defensemen this year.

All stats 5v5

Given how often he got jerked around, including playing his off side in his 25 games with Seabrook, one thing that stands out is the relative consistency in his possession numbers, aside from Keith. And despite the fact that the Hawks were the seventh worst team in giving up High Danger Chances, Murphy still managed well when away from Oesterle and Keith.

But therein lies the problem: Since the assumption is that Keith takes on the toughest competition (and he usually does), Murphy’s piss-poor numbers with him might suggest that he isn’t a Top 4 guy like Hjalmarsson was.

But this dovetails nicely with the overall point I want to make: The Murphy-for-Hjalmarsson trade wasn’t the loss for the Hawks some people want to say it is, and having Hjalmarsson over Murphy would have made things worse, not better.

Check out some of Hjalmarsson’s numbers when he played with Keith over his Hawks career:

All Stats 5v5

Like Murphy, Hjalmarsson had a rough go of it in the first 100 or so minutes with Keith, and that was when Keith was starting to go full Oppenheimer on the league. Coincidentally, it wasn’t until Hjalmarsson turned 25 that things really started to click any time he played with Keith, and next year Murphy will be 25.

Clearly, this is simply a coincidence, as raw age will have no effect on how (or whether) Murphy plays with Keith going forward. But this idea that Murphy doesn’t have Top 4 potential because he didn’t play well with a declining Keith over seven games this year is one of the more confusing implications I’ve heard this year.

The last point I’ll make regarding the implication that the Murphy-for-Hjalmarsson trade was a loss for the Hawks and that the Hawks miss Hjalmarsson is this:

Using more of Sznajder’s tracking data, it’s obvious that Murphy brought more to the table for the Hawks than Hjalmarsson did for the Coyotes this year. One of the two things that Hjalmarsson did that was marginally better was in terms of the breakups he caused at the blue line, preventing opponents from entering the zone with possession. (Note: They only tracked Hjalmarsson for 10 games this year against Murphy’s 38, so consider the sample size.)

Going even farther—because I have no sense of moderation whatsoever—even when comparing this year’s Murphy to last year’s Hjalmarsson, the differences aren’t as big as you’d think, mostly:

So even when we recognize and admit that Murphy had trouble with his exits from his own zone, the revisionist history that Hjalmarsson was an indispensable cog whose absence contributed to this year’s downfall doesn’t really hold water. Last year’s Hjalmarsson certainly had a better performance in terms of breakups and the percentage of entries he allowed, but he did it primarily with a not-yet-in-full-decline Duncan Keith covering him (or vice versa). Murphy spent most of his time with the glob of ambergris that is Brent Seabrook.

In short, Murphy had a good year with the Hawks despite his coach’s best efforts to jerk him around, was better than Hjalmarsson would have been, and stayed generally consistent despite spending almost a third of his year on his off side babysitting Seabrook. He’ll never be a game breaker, but he doesn’t have to be.

Where We Go From Here: Connor Murphy ought to open next year next to either Keith or Erik Gustafsson. If the Hawks are going to look at Keith as a Top Pairing Guy next year (they probably shouldn’t), they have to give him someone to cover his ass when his brain says he can make a play but his feet disagree, as we saw more often this year. I’d argue that Murphy, more than Oesterle, is that guy, despite how poorly they played together last year.

Whether you think Gustafsson is a second pairing guy is a conversation for another day (for the record, I can see it if I squint, and I’m willing to try it). But what’s undeniable is that in 135 minutes together at 5v5, Murphy and Gustafsson had a 57+ CF% while starting in the offensive zone at a 49.45% rate. With Murphy and Gustafsson entering their primes at 25 and 26, and each having paper that runs at least through 2020, pairing them might be worth an extended look, but it probably requires outside help to pair with Keith.

If the Hawks manage to sign a guy like John Carlson, or swing a trade for an OEL, Darnell Nurse, Justin Faulk, or maybe Oscar Klefbom, you’ll feel more comfortable about having the new guy and Keith as the top pairing, with Murphy covering Gustafsson. Or, you can pair the new guy with Murphy on the top pairing. This would let Keith slot in the second pairing with some iteration of Gustafsson on his off side, Forsling on his off side, Jokiharju (which is probably too much to ask), or Oesterle, because you know that’s going to happen again, despite our wailing.

Regardless, the Hawks have to saddle Murphy with more responsibility next year, whether they like it or not. The Hawks have a Top-4-potential guy in Murphy, and when he wasn’t getting the runaround, he showed flashes of it last year. Whether they use him that way is anyone’s guess.

All stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, or corsica.hockey, unless otherwise noted.