Hockey

Perpetual Motion Failings – Hawks Lose 5-2, 5-4(OT) In Florida Series

By Andy Jonathan 1632

Game 1 Box Score / Game 2 Box Score

Game 1 Natural Stat Trick / Game 2 Natural Stat Trick

 

While this series was different in form and function from the other Florida series, the end result is the same: the Hawks got broomed out of the building (and the state) without a win to their name. The offense was less offensive to the eye this series, but the defense and goaltending continued to be eye-meltingly bad, with Nikita Zadorov impressively the worst of the bunch. Colin Delia and Kevin Lankinen did nothing to settle the argument over who should be the poor soul forced to take the reigns and handle the majority of the starts going forward, and honestly if I was one of them I’d probably already have PTSD from the amount of rubber thrown their way. On the plus side, the Hawks now have 1 out of a possible 8 points. Yay?

To the bullets:

 

-Let’s get this out of the way at the start: If the purpose of this season is to fail, but in a way that the supposed future core of this team is learning from it, then they should probably BE ON THE FUCKING ICE to fail and learn from it. Kubalik, Kurashev, Mitchell and Boqvist being on the ice for less than 15 minutes each while Patrick Kane gets as many minutes as Duncan Keith (20) accomplishes less than nothing. Ian Mitchell and Boqvist not even seeing the ice in the 3 on 3 OT is borderline criminal. Then trying to throw the scoreboard operators of the COVID Coliseum under the bus as to why everyone’s ice time looked kinda low is almost stunningly ballsy. McClure had it summed up perfectly:

-This team is not built to win games, but it’s also not built to lose them in a way that creates future winning opportunities. It’s just…there. None of the signings that StanBow acquired this off-season are going to be anything the Hawks want on their team long term, nor are they the kind of players that teams are going to be clamoring to trade said young talent for at the deadline. It’s like he just walked into IKEA and asked for the “Mark” collection of forwards because, ya know, they practically build themselves. Trading Brandon Saad to the Avs for the hockey equivalent of an Easter Island statue on skates and not getting anything else AND having to retain salary is mind boggling. The absence of a plan is what’s most frustrating about all of this. Say what you want about the White Sox and Rick Hahn, but you could always see what the end goal was and it made the suffering a little easier to take. Looking to the horizon now, all you see is the volcanic mountains of Mordor.

-Speaking of the human obelisk, Zadorov’s play in these first 4 games shows clearly why the Avs were more than willing to rid themselves of his services. Night one featured the following from him:

That’s Zadorov at the middle of the left circle after he plowed through the crease from right to left, taking out his goaltender and Adam Boqvist. This is after he followed Boqvist’s man (along with Boqvist) into the corner. His lack of positional awareness is bordering on performance art, and I really need someone to explain to me how he not only has a spot on this roster, but is worthy of the 2nd highest ice time on the team. GALAXY BRAIN.

-On the positive side, the Hawks have finally discovered what the Caps and Ovechkin figured out a decade ago: creating a shot lane for your best snipers (Kubalik and DeBrincat) by moving the puck laterally and letting them bomb away actually is a successful proposition. Not having Duncan Keith firing rubber into the shinpads of the point defenders or holding the puck on the half boards with Kane seems to be working. More of this please.

-Despite not cracking 15 minutes of ice time with Coach Smoothbrain, Dominik Kubalik is already proving that last season was not a fluke. His shot is filthy, and he has the speed and hands to create the space that makes him dangerous. But hey, gotta find those minutes for Ryan Carpenter to do whatever it is he does.

-Kevin Lankinen showed some flashes last night, most notably whenhe was left to deal with a 3 on 1 in overtime and he stoned Weegar after a nifty passing sequence. I don’t know if he’s the answer going forward, but with Colin Delia and Malcom Subban pretty much known entities at this point, you may as well throw him to the wolves night after night.

-Next up is the rekindling of the old rivalry against the Red Wings, which might actually provide the Hawks the opportunity to get into the win column. The Hawks and Wings should be battling it out for a lottery pick this season, though none of us should feel comfortable about how Stan Bowman would use such a boon. Moving on.

Hockey

The New What Next – Hawks at Lightning – Games 1 & 2 Preview

By Matt McClure 1614

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Game Times: 7:00PM (1/13) & 6:00PM (1/15)
TV/Radio: NBCSN (1/15), NBC Sports Chicago (1/15), WGN-AM 720
Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35%: Raw Charge

Despite every indication that this shouldn’t be happening from both the world at large given that pestilence still ravaging this country, and the fact that the league itself has said that they’d probably be better off simply NOT playing, the NHL regular season (such as it is) begins tonight. And the Tampa Bay Lightning will raise their championship banner in front of no one while an already decimated Hawks team looks on at a vague reminder of what once was and now seems so desperately far away.

Hockey

Abracadabra – Magic Training Camp 2021 Opens

By Matt McClure 1542

Now that the calendar has turned over from 2020, training camps across the league are now open, and the Men Of Four Feathers hit this ice this morning for their first practice of what will surely be many over the next week-plus where they will finally hone their man-to-man defensive zone coverage skills under the tutelage of Coach Kelvin Gemstone. Here are a few takeaways from what transpired on the West Side this morning and early afternoon.

 

  • Dylan Strome was on the ice after signing a two-year bridge deal worth $3.0 mildo per against the flat salary cap. Strome was one of the last RFAs league-wide to sign, and he didn’t have much leverage to get anything more either in term or dollars, so this is about right. Strome will have every opportunity to get prime power play minutes this year with both Kirby Dach and Jonathan Toews presumed out for the entirety of the season, and this could increase his value elsewhere in the event the Hawks want to move him to get help elsewhere, because they need help everywhere.
  • On the flip side of that coin, Zack Smith was placed on waivers today, and if he goes unclaimed, the Hawks could in theory demote him to Rockford (if the AHL figures their season out) they’d have about $2 million of dead money on the books, as only $1.075 million can be buried in the AHL. But most importantly it IN THEORY opens up a spot for a younger forward to get some time at the NHL level, and the Hawks need to figure out what they have in guys like Philipp Kurashev, Tim Soderlund, Pius Suter (who was “unfit” today), and others. And there is always the off chance that Smith gets claimed, as he is a depth center, and as he showed for a fair amount last year, he isn’t completely useless yet, though coming back from injury isn’t going to help that.
  • Other than Suter, Evan Barratt and everyone’s favorite expensive oaf Brent Seabrook were deemed unfit for today’s festivities. This isn’t a particularly good harbinger of things to come for Bottomless Pete, as he’s coming off basically having his entire body replaced by surgery last year, and has not seen any kind of NHL action in 15 months. With no exhibition games to even kind of get a look at him, if he does come back it’s going to be right into game action, and that’s not going to be pleasant for anyone involved. This is more than likely just another milepost that this slow-motion car crash has to skid by on its path towards the inevitable (and likely antagonistic) end of Seabrook’s storied Blackhawks career. It remains to be seen how everyone involved handles it, but given the lack of communication last year before he was shut down and not taking him to the Edmonton bubble, don’t expect this to end without there being some hard feelings.
  • Speaking of the blue line, while camp pairings mean nothing, it’s all anyone has to work off of in the absence of a single exhibition game. But that said, the pairings today of Boqvist-Zadorov, Mitchell-de Haan, and Keith-Murphy at least make sense from a free-safety/puckmover template. However, in order for them to work, that requires a) that de Haan and Murphy remain upright which is will almost assuredly not happen for any considerable length of time, and b) that Vinny del Colliton (or anyone in the organ-I-zation for that matter) has any idea how to develop a defenseman that isn’t completely turnkey and pro-ready. As usual, the future is blindingly bright.
Hockey

The Distance Perceived And Real, Jeremy Roenick Is A Big Fat Baby, And Whatever Else Is Floating Through Our Ears

By Sam Fels 2084 0

Some notes pieces before we decamp for the weekend…

-It’s been a dark week for  Hawks fans, there’s no point in selling anything else. As gratifying as the 3rd period may have been last night, we know it’s for naught. The Hawks themselves have made no bones about where they think they are, even if they can’t put a finger where that is exactly. They’ve declared the rest of the season about their young players, which means they don’t have anything real to play for. And this is the third straight season that’s basically been the case, which firmly lands you in the hockey desert.

A lot of the discussion over those years has been whether or not if this is the price fans would pay for the six years of glory. No one seems to be asking whether or not fans should have been asked that at all. As we said yesterday, Pittsburgh and Boston haven’t really asked that of their fans. But that’s a discussion for another time.

The scarier or more frustrating strand of thought that’s been leaking out of the Hawks’ offices these days, along with the gas that has been clouding theirs and the Bulls’ minds, is that all of the sudden this is going to take two or three years to fix. It feels like the Hawks are prepping fans for a full rebuild that they A. can’t actually do and B. don’t actually have to.

While we’re one of, if not the, darkest Hawks corner of the dark corners of the internet, we’ve also been pretty consistent that this team isn’t far away from being an entrenched playoff team. Now, it’s not that close to running with Colorado or St. Louis or Boston or Tampa, and maybe that’s what they mean by taking two or three years. That seems a hard path to negotiate given the ages of some of their best players, but they can still relatively easy put themselves around the discussion.

Still, that’s a strange note to strike when the previous note was the “all we have to do is get in” the Hawks had been playing the past couple years, using the Predators team that caved in their skulls in ’17 or last year’s Blues as evidence, even though that wasn’t close to the whole story on those two teams. Both of them were preseason favorites that just took longer than expected to get their shit together. The Hawks can’t seem to decide where they want the goalposts.

Clearly the Hawks don’t know what message to send, which is what happens when you don’t even know what direction you’re taking your team. Or if you’re John McDonough, who you are (I really wanna know…).

Still, looking at this roster, it’s easy enough to point to where the Hawks have to address in the summer to gain the 10-15 points they’ll need to not just make the playoffs next year, but perhaps compete for automatic spots instead of being in this muck.

Despite Jeremy Colliton’s thoughts most of the year, if you can even pin them down, the Hawks have in place quality center depth. I don’t know what Dylan Strome is exactly, but I do know that hiding behind Kirby Dach and Jonathan Toews next year is a pretty good place to be and one he can flourish in as well. Maybe none of Toews, Dach, or Strome are #1s either anymore or yet, but having three #2 centers seemed to work out pretty well for the Blues last year or the Predators in the past. It’s certainly a model you can win with.

The problem up front for the Hawks at the moment is that they only have four top nine wingers instead of the six they need. Saad, Kane, Debrincat, Kubalik, But if you’re using a “3+1” model, as the Hawks are pointing toward with their centers, you can get away with Drake Caggiula as a third-line winger. Or the idea of Andrew Shaw that he no longer is anymore. Or something like that. It would be fine.

So really, the Hawks need one more winger up front, and one that is a complete burner. This is why Andreas Anathasiou would have been perfect, but the Hawks need more speed. They’re not slow up front, but they’re also not in the same neighborhood as Colorado or Calgary or half a dozen other teams. Ideally they could add two wingers with gamebreaking speed, but I’m trying to be realistic.

At the back, we’ve been talking about the historically bad and slow defense for two years. Which makes it seem strange to say it doesn’t have to be all that far either. Part of that is Adam Boqvist hasn’t developed this year in the way that you’d hoped. But some of that is Keith not being really a great partner for him but also no one else being able to play with Keith. Calvin de Haan is a miss, whether we like it or not.

But simply the addition of Ian Mitchell helps. The Hawks can make noise about bringing him along slowly, but he’s been a top pairing d-man in the NCAA for three years. If he needs anytime in Rockford it’ll be an upset and probably means he’s not going to be anything close to what we hope. And he shouldn’t need that. How much he improves the blue line is up for debate, but he unquestionably will. If they can get him here.

If the Hawks are aggressive–i.e. buying out both Smith and Maatta, locking Brent Seabrook in his house, and simply letting Andrew Shaw retire–and use the $20M in space they might have in that scenario to bring in…oh I don’t know, Taylor Hall and Torey Krug or Mike Hoffman and Sami Vatanen or the like, they’re there again.

This idea that they’re just going to have to wait is them just giving themselves more rope for the fuckups they’ve made and the ones they’re going to make. Two more big contracts might make people worried, but they hardly have any other long-term commitments other than Daydream Nation. You can even see the end of Keith’s contract now. Strome or Kubalik are RFAs and aren’t due long-term commitments either, especially Strome.

It feels like the Hawks are preaching patience after they’ve already exhausted everyone’s. Which is about as backwards as everything else they do.

-The cognitive dissonance to separate Jeremy Roenick the player who presided over my world from ages 8-16 or so and Jeremy Roenick the person now is becoming a mountainous task. Thankfully we’re on the cusp of him having to go away forever.

Roenick showed up on The Score yesterday to whine some more about losing his job for being an unrepentant pig on a BarfStool show hosted by and for goo-brained warthogs. JR is now just every other older white guy complaining he can’t be an asshole without someone calling him on it and having real consequences when they’ve had run of the place before. Why you’d have this dope on your show is anyone’s guess, because he proved long ago he’s a shit-assed analyst and now his only job appears to be showing his ample ass. But of course Dan McNeil still needs to prove to everyone that he still knows famous people, and Danny Parkins was just disappointed that he wasn’t having an actual rapist on his show to get back at all the girls who didn’t talk to him in high school.

The choice quote of course is, “”I think anyone who knows the situation and who knows me, knows I got the biggest raw deal of all time.” I know when I’m sitting at home and thinking about JR I slot him right between slavery and the Jewish people in Egypt. Anyway…

JR doesn’t seem to get he was on a public forum with a public job. This isn’t some glib remark he made at the water cooler behind Kathryn Tappen’s back, and even that wouldn’t be acceptable in a workplace. He demeaned and objectified a coworker, making her job harder. It changes the conversation from Tappen’s skills as a broadcaster and presenter, and reduces her to just how she looks. JR is the same cigar-chomping boss you had who would go down claiming, “What? It’s a compliment! Don’t be so serious!” before smacking his secretary on the ass.

Thankfully, NBC seems to be moving their hockey coverage toward the same style as their soccer coverage, which is everyone acts like an adult and just analyzes the game or the league. Milbury is still lurking around, but Boucher, Sharp, Hartnell, Carter, Lovejoy, Johnson are all younger, more reserved personalities for the most part. Fuck, this is the same outfit that just announced and all-women broadcast for Hawks-Blues on the 8th, so it shouldn’t be a huge shock that NBC might not want some drooling goober grabbing himself around.

Hockey has always been terrified of pissing off its neanderthal section of the fanbase, which is why fighting is still around and the disciplinary system is a joke. But it can’t get the fans it does want to welcome in without eliminating it. It’s a painfully slow process, but punting JR and his type into the sun is progress.

Hockey

It Actually Might Be A Little Worse Than You Think

By Sam Fels 1613 0

Last night, with their win in Boston, the Kings leapfrogged the Hawks to officially put the West Side Hockey Club in the basement of the Western Conference. The Hawks are one point ahead of the Ottawa Senators. That’s the Ottawa Senators, who had been the laughingstock of the NHL, purposely heading to the depths to try and turn around their future. With the owner who has a scuba tank full of paint so he can continually huff it, and turns it up before meeting the press. The Senators, who don’t have three players you can name right now. They’re right on the Hawks’ ass, in probably the tougher conference

And it’s almost a year to the day the Hawks were last in the basement of the West, which lets you know just about all the progress they’re making. All their moves and bluster and assurance they knew what they were doing and you would see. And not only are they running in place, they’re running place behind everyone.

And here’s the thing, the Kings are actually better than they are and by a decent margin, when you look at what’s really going on. The Kings’ possession numbers are actually some of the best in the league. So are their expected goal numbers. What they can’t get is a save or shots to go in, even with all the decent ones they’re creating and the ones they’re not letting up. They have one of the worst PDOs in the league. They’re a touch unlucky to be where they are, but that’s what happens when you count on Jonathan Quick and their aging snipers.

The Wings and Devils, the only two teams below the Hawks, also have shitty PDOs. But they have shitty goalies and a lack of true scoring talent as well. So that adds up.

Here’s the thing…

THE HAWKS HAVE BOTH OF THOSE.

They have good goalies. They have talented scorers. They’re not unlucky at all to be where they are, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense because if you have good goalies and you have talented scorers you’re supposed to be unlucky if you’re in the bottom of the standings. Something is supposed to have gone off the boil. Something is not aligning.

But now, that’s how bad the Hawks are structurally. Their goalies can make a very good proportion of saves, and their forwards can pot a decent amount of chances…and none of it matters because of the avalanche of shots and chances going against them. You probably realize how fucked up that is, but they certainly don’t.

So any other organization would conclude it’s all not working and would have to start over. We’ve talked and talked incessantly about how a start-over/tear-down just isn’t possible, but I become less and less convinced of that. Let’s see if we can’t get there.

I never ascribed to the theory that a GM gets only one coaching hire before he too has to hit the bricks. Every situation is different, and if it were completely clear that a roster were being completely mangled by an incompetent coach that just totally went off the reservation, well the GM should get to replace that guy. Take the Bulls…well, actually, don’t, because that front office might be even more fucked up. But in a vacuum, the roster isn’t that bad, has some promise, and if there weren’t two morons in there playing the Simpson Men Pot-on-a-head game constantly you could argue they should be allowed to hire a competent coach to see what they have.

But this Hawks roster is obviously not good enough, and it didn’t have to be this bad, so clearly Stan and Kelvin have to go. But what would someone with fresh eyes see here?

The going theory is that with the NMCs all the Hawks stars have, they can’t get out from under all of it. Well, here’s a question: How much longer is Patrick Kane willing to put up with this shit? He’s still playing at a near-MVP level, and he might not have that many years of that performance left. Maybe he feels he’s got all the hardware he could ever need, and he wouldn’t be wrong. But he’s also a sociopathic competitor and this has to kill him to be playing meaningless hockey for a third straight year.

That’s the main domino. The $10.5M cap hit for another three years makes it a tricky move, and the Hawks will have to eat at least some of it if not half, but do we really think that if Kane asks out–or volunteers out as it’s dressed up as some sort of favor to the only team he’s ever known–that no one would call? No one would at least see what they could do? If they only had to pay, say, $7M a year for him? Absolutely no one would think about that?

How many teams could use the kickstart? Nashville? San Jose? You can always convince Vancouver to do something stupid (and isn’t that an image!) If you took some of their bad money back too that came off the books sooner? It’s not impossible.

And really, that’s the only tear down you’re going to get. But if Kane goes, Keith probably does too or simply retires. Toews is here for life because he has way less value at his salary and questionable role in the future. But he’s also probably a good torch-bearer for those who will lead the next rush. And you could finally employ the Seabrook plan we’ve been pushing since last season.

That’s not going to happen, of course. The Hawks plan is one more run with #2, #19, and #88. But how’s that going to happen? We’ve constantly outlined how even with Mitchell signing and being crowbarred into the lineup and maybe Beaudin that the Hawks max out as a wildcard team. They don’t have the room to do anything up front to have the depth they need to be a contender. .

That’s not a plan. Good thing they’ve told us they don’t have a plan, then. It’s time for the Molotov cocktails.

Everything Else

Ian Mitchell Ain’t Comin’

By Sam Fels 2100 0

Well, this offseason is off to a great start.

For the link-shy, what that says there is Ian Mitchell is returning to Denver University for his junior season. That has been speculated on these pages and elsewhere, but now it’s official.

Which puts the Hawks in something of a bind. Of their magic quartet of defensive prospects, Mitchell is the closest to ready and probably could have cracked the Hawks lineup and skipped the AHL next year if he so chose. Certainly in the current configuration, and depending on how (or if) the Hawks make any changes there this summer. Adam Boqvist may have the highest upside, but Mitchell is probably the surest thing. Highest floor, let’s say.

It could be as simple as Mitchell telling the Hawks he wants to play just one more year, making up for Denver’s national semifinal loss last week, and then come over and almost assuredly walk onto the NHL roster. Except the Hawks wanted him in the system after last season, certainly after this one, so it doesn’t appear Mitchell is inclined to be all that interested in the Hawks’ interests. Which is his right, and mostly what you hear is that he wants the education, which one day will make him one of about five NHLers who can read and write above a 7th grade level. Fair enough, his life.

It does put the Hawks in something of a quandary. As we’ve said over and over, they’ll never fit all of Mitchell, Boqvist, Henri Jokiharju, and Nicholas Beaudin on the roster together, not while they still have a chance of being relevant at least. Five years from now doesn’t matter.

But Mitchell staying in college drops his trade value through the floor. After his junior season he’ll only be another year removed from being able to sign anywhere he chooses, and if he truly does like being at college and getting a degree and he’s already defied the Hawks wishes twice, there’s little reason to believe he’s not going to see it out. No one’s trading for a player they can’t sign eventually.

So he’s not helping next year, he’s 50-50 to help the year after that, and he’s not going to help via trade. That doesn’t make him a useless chip, but the only hope the Hawks have is that he still comes after three or four years in college and plays for them. That’s about it.

Which punts Boqvist and/or Jokiharju more into the trade window, if indeed the Hawks are serious about getting good next season. They’ll have the most value, they’ll have really any value (it’s just a hunch that Beaudin’s is lower). And they may be expendable depending on what the Hawks do with the third pick. Say, if they decide they’re taking the surest thing of all in Bowen Byram, as in he’d vault right to the top of their defensive prospect tree.

It also might push the Hawks even more to Byram, as he does seem a surer bet than either The HarJu or Boqvist and now Mitchell’s future is murky. Again, a lot of this depends on what the Hawks really want to do and not just what they tell you they want to do. If they’re looking at a serious turnaround next season, then one or both of the two above have to go. Or the third pick has to. If the Hawks are still embarking on a multi-year rebuild, then they don’t really have to do anything and we don’t have to pretend that next season is worth anyone’s time.

Who’s excited?

 

Everything Else

Weak-Ass Jokiharju Thinking, Ian Mitchell, And The Jam To Address

By Sam Fels 1922 0

I think we can all agree, which sadly the organization won’t, that if you’re a team that has given up two of the eight 30-shot periods in NHL HISTORY, your blue line probably needs rebuilding from scratch. Blow it all up, start over, you lost. Maybe you can pick through the scraps and keep one or two pieces after you clear the soot, but you have the longest possible distance to go to form a credible or representative NHL blue line than anyone right now, and maybe fewer in history have either.

Let’s use a rough measure. According to evolved-hockey.com, the Hawks 2.9 expected goals-against at even strength per 60 minutes is the worst mark in the analytic era, which goes back to 2008. That’s 11 seasons, and no one’s done worse. Their 3.34 xGA/60 in all situations is also worst in 11 years. No team that we’ve been able to measure this way has been worse defensively than the Hawks, at least when it comes to the amount and types of chances they’re surrendering. So while you may hear, “THIS IS THE WORST DEFENSE I’VE EVER SEEN!” a lot from a lot of people who can’t find their own ass with both hands as they spill a Miller Lite on you, in this case it’s actually true.

Which is probably why the Hawks have been pushing their Four Horsemen Of The Defensive Prospects Apocalypse (we’ll come up with a better name, I promise) all season. They have to sell you on something, and they have to try and convince literally anyone they have any idea how to build a defense after foisting this upon you for a season (and really two seasons). Everything will be all right when they get here, is what they’re telling you. We know what we’re doing, just wait and see.

Well, one of them already was here, and that’s Henri Jokiharju. He’s currently in Rockford, playing on their top pairing, got 12 points in 15 games and everyone pretty much agrees he looks good there. And as we’ve said before, it’s not Jokiharju’s fault that the Hawks have built a defense where a 19-year-old kid who needs seasoning is also one of their three best d-men. If you have any arguments about that, Duncan Keith, I’ll point you to Wednesday’s turnover and then politely ask you to wait in the corner and think about what you’ve done.

Here’s the thing I’ve been wrestling with in the past few days, though: If the reasoning, or part of it, for sending The HarJu down was so that he could be part of a playoff push and play games with something on the line, then shouldn’t he be here now? The Hawks keep telling you they’re in it, and whether we like it or not a win tomorrow combined with a Coyotes loss (playing the Oilers so don’t count on it) pulls them within four points with a game in hand. And they still go to Arizona yet. So, no matter how loosely, they’re “in” it.

So what is it? If you’re saying these games matter and you’re trying to win, and at this point your draft pick is borked anyway, then you should be icing your best team. You wouldn’t put Jokiharju’s long-term development over what’s here in front of you. And if making the first round and then getting turned to plasma by the Sharks is really a worthy goal to your veterans, how exactly do you sell them on Jokiharju not being here? They’re not blind, they know the defense sucks, and they know that #28 is better than at least three guys you’re icing every night.

Flip Murphy to the left side, put Jokharju with him, and be done with it. Or, better yet, strap a feedbag to Seabrook, let him loose in some parking lot in Bucktown, and come back for him sometime in April, and let Jokiharju get some sheltered shifts on a third-pairing. Otherwise, you’re full of shit.

But we already knew that.

-Speaking of which, Scott Powers was on his travels again, speaking to Ian Mitchell in Denver (and if you’re upset you didn’t get to hang out with Mr. Powers in Denver, join the club). The main gist here is that Mitchell doesn’t know how the rumors of him not signing got started, and he at least hints at saying he’ll come to the Hawks soon without actually suggesting when. So fine, let’s say the Hawks will get their wish and Mitchell signs whenever Denver bites it in the postseason (and it had better be this one, because if he stays for a junior year there’s really no reason to not stay for a senior and then he can have his pick).

As we’ve said countless times, the Hawks have big decisions to make. And soon. Jokiharju, Mitchell, and Boqvist are all right-handed and all will not fit on the roster together. One, if not two, are going to have to be used this summer to get the other things the Hawks need.

While Boqvist might be a project, he also promises generational offensive talent from the back end (which to me means he should be up next year pushing the play and you just live with the defensive problems, but we’ve had that talk). Mitchell sounds like a diet version of that, and his uncertain signing status makes moving him tricky. And his value wouldn’t be all that high. You also wouldn’t sign him and then immediately trade him, not that he has any say over that. It’s a bad look and would make future draft picks a little hesitant. Which leaves moving Jokiharju. Which is yet another reason he should be up, unless the Hawks have concluded that will hurt his trade value, which means…great work here.

The Hawks record of moving prospects or younger players for actual value isn’t great. The Teuvo wound won’t ever heal, and you could see where any of these guys are sweeteners to say, get Anisimov’s contract off the books. Danault brought nothing back, and Hinostroza brought back cap space yet to be used. Ryan Hartman got you a lottery ticket in Nicolas Beaudin and an apparently dead EggShell. The Schmaltz deal looks to be the only recent winner.

So while the Hawks have decisions to make, you’ll forgive me if I’m a little tense about the one they make.

Everything Else

Well Now You’ve Got A Boqvist Problem

By Sam Fels 2374 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

Now Calm Down, Jeremy-Diddily-Diddily-Diddily-Diddily – Colliton’s Future and Weathering the Storm

By John Pullega 2628 0

Stats gathered from NaturalStatTrick.com, NHL.com, hockey-reference.com, unless otherwise linked.

Imagine you’re Jeremy Colliton. You’re young, allegedly great at communicating, and coming off a deep Calder Cup run. You’re the lad in waiting behind a legendary coach who looks to have lost the room, and who’s certainly and ironically fallen out of the Brain Trust’s circle of trust. When the front office drops the hammer on the Joel Quenneville Era—and along with it the groin-grabbing ecstasy of a dynasty bygone—they turn to you, the 33-year-old, out-of-the-box hire who’s had success everywhere he’s gone.

Then you go 12–18–6. And now, the question is, “Who’s to blame,” or, more specifically, “Is Colliton a long-term answer?”

Before we dive asslong into the why and why not regarding whether Colliton’s the answer, let’s get a few things out of the way. First, 36 games do not a coach make, but it does give us an idea for what a coach can be, so consider this a halfway review of sorts. Second, despite what Bowman and McDonough wanted you to believe, this team was a fringe wild card team if everything went perfectly, a 70-point team max if not. Third, Colliton has a contract that runs through the 2020–21 season. With these givens in mind, let’s putz around for a proof for both scenarios.

The Case for Colliton as the Answer

1. Time: In a November 25, 2018, interview with Scott Powers, Stan Bowman had this to say about Colliton’s slow start (emphasis added):

Coming in, we didn’t want to change a lot of things off the bat, but we want to try and change some of the tendencies. The hardest part is guys have played one way for a while. You get habits engrained with you. It’s hard to change them without a lot of practice time, without also thinking on the ice, and I think we’re seeing some of that.

While there’s a ton to unpack in this quote alone, the part I’m focused on is the time factor. Colliton has had very little time to implement the systems he wants to implement. The wholesale changes he has tried to make—man-to-man instead of zone defense, primarily—have been done on the fly. Only one systemic change, the power play, has worked so far (and given the depth of scoring talent the Hawks have always had, that shouldn’t be so surprising). As The Maven so eloquently pointed out a few weeks ago, if Bowman had any courage whatsoever, he would have fired Quenneville before the season began and given Colliton more time to try to implement his systems in a more controlled setting, rather than making him shit his pants, dive in, and swim.

Whether those systems work or not is a question more adequately answered with more preparation. With this season swirling down the drain like piss in the Wrigley troughs, one of the things to look forward to is what Colliton can push out after a full offseason of tinkering. Right now, it’s obvious that the man-to-man system is a diaper fire. It’s possible that that’s just what it is, but it’s also possible that the guys he has just haven’t been comfortable making such a marked change in in-game situations (on top of the sucking, instincts tend to take over).

If Colliton is given at least one offseason to prepare—rather than hoping that guys older than him will change the way they’ve played for a decade on a dime—it’s plausible that the system is only as bad as players within it, which is a bit easier to solve than a broken system.

2. Talent: You and I both knew that unless everything went perfectly, this Hawks team wouldn’t be a playoff team. You can’t really blame Colliton for having a roster whose blue line is the personification of a middle finger in Quenneville’s face foisted upon him. (You can blame him for how he uses it, which we’ll do shortly.) But there might be hope.

At the rate the team is going, they’re likely to be in the running for a top-2 pick in the draft, which could inject young, NHL-ready forward talent into the mix immediately. By most accounts, Boqvist could be ready next year, as might Beaudin. The Hawks have cap space to use for a genuine top-4 defenseman in the offseason, which needs to be the foremost priority for Bowman, lest he’s trying to get fired.

If Colliton’s system requires speed, the Hawks have some waiting in the wings, and they have the salary cap means to go get some.

3. The Power Play: Of all the things Colliton has done right, this is it. Since December 18—which is when the current iteration of the PP1 took over—the Hawks are the absolute best power play team in the league with a 39.6% conversion rate (19 goals/48 opps.). They’re on a nine-game PP goal streak. They’ve climbed from deadass last to 16th in the league in that span. The next closest team to them in that time frame, the Penguins, are nearly 8% behind them at 31.8% (14 goals/44 opps.).

This is what gives me the most hope that Colliton is the answer. For nearly 11 years, the Hawks have had some of the best scoring talent on the planet yet only finished in the top 10 for PP% three times. Their woes on the PP were without a doubt systemic. It took Colliton about a month to fix that. When given the talent, Colliton tapped into it quickly. The power play is just a part of the whole, but if given enough time, you can’t help but wonder if he can fix other systemic problems the team has. So, I’ll argue that that power play is a case study in what Colliton can do given the appropriate talent and time.

The Case Against Colliton as the Answer

1. Firing Bowman: Bylsma–Murray in Buffalo. Hakstol–Hextall in Philly. Peters–Francis (Geraci) in Carolina. While it isn’t a hard-and-fast rule that a new GM will bring in a new coach, there is a history of it. And the drum that beats louder and louder every day is FIRE STAN BOWMAN. There’s certainly a case for it: From trading Teuvo, to signing Manning and extending Rutta as a “fuck you” to Quenneville, to claiming that he saw this team as a playoff contender, Bowman’s recent decision making has been, to put it politely, pigshit.

If Bowman is fired after this season, it’s possible that whoever replaces him will want to go Bret “Hitman” Hart and wash out the old-man smell Bowman left behind. That could include tossing Colliton. This is the most likely scenario in which Colliton doesn’t stick: a new GM throwing out the baby with the bathwater because the baby was born in the bathwater.

2. Lineup Management: Sometimes, the new boss looks awfully similar to the old boss. We’ve recently watched Henri Jokiharju take a healthy scratch in favor of Slater Koekkoek and Carl Dahlstrom of the “not part of this team’s future” collective. When asked why he did that, this supposed Great Communicator babbled about “fast forwarding his development” by benching him, claiming “you can’t play everyone” (skip to 5:43 in this audio clip). What started off as a somewhat believable answer about Harju’s scratch (82-game season, takes time to adapt, don’t want to burn him out [though sending him to the WJC kind of fucks that narrative, doesn’t it?]) devolved into the question we can’t stop asking: “When is it Seabrook’s turn,” or, more accurately, “Why isn’t it Seabrook’s turn?”

And it’s not just that. It’s making DeBrincat play not-top-6 minutes with guys who are only skating because they won a fucking drawing (which is something Colliton has changed recently, which is good). It’s starting Cam Ward in situations that aren’t back-to-backs. It’s slotting Anisimov over DeBrincat and Saad (which is finally changing, too). The talent is what it is, but it’s the management of that talent that’s questionable. In a perfect world with this lineup, you’re looking at something like:

DeBrincat–Toews–Kane

Saad–Strome–Kahun

Caggiula–Kampf–Kruger

Perlini–Anisimov–Hayden

Murphy–Jokiharju

Keith–Gustafsson

Dahlstrom–Seabrook, Koekkoek (rotating)

Delia

Although time is a factor in figuring out what you’ve got, it’s not really a mystery anymore. Load up the top 6, let Jokiharju create, and if you want to rotate your D-men, rotate the ones who either suck or aren’t a part of the future (this possibly includes Gustafsson). Until Colliton shows us that he can scratch Seabrook or Keith after a bad game, his “we might rotate guys” schtick will be hard to take seriously. He’s been put in an impossible situation with the defense, but if they’re really trying to win, when Seabrook and even Keith’s play warrant it, scratch them. (And kiss my ass with any cynical “asses in seats” arguments you want to make. If McDonough is as good a marketer as he says he is, he’ll find a way to market the team as it transitions away from the Old Guard. Even name recognition stops drawing after too much losing, so position the team to win more now.)

3. The Stats: Let’s look at this in two ways: Colliton vs. Quenneville this year; Colliton vs. Quenneville last year after Crawford’s injury. We can control for Crawford’s appearance this year because he wasn’t very good in the time he was here.

Team Stats CF% SCF% HDCF% PDO Points%

Colliton

2018–19

(36 games)

 47.85 (26th) 45.73 (29th) 41.76 (31st) .994 (T-21st) .417 (30th)

Quenneville

2018

(15 games)

 51.5 (10th) 49.17 (20th) 43.64 (27th) .989 (22nd) .500 (22nd)

Quenneville

2017–18

(47 games*)

 51.96 (8th) 51.99 (6th) 46.88 (25th) .979 (29th) .394 (28th)

* = After Crawford Injury

CF% = Corsi; SCF% = Scoring Chances For Percentage; HDCF% = High-Danger Chances For Percentage; PDO = Shooting Percentage + Save Percentage

No matter how you slice it, the Hawks are statistically worse across the board than they ever were with Quenneville, and that’s with marginally better luck (i.e., higher PDO) than Quenneville ever had (and Colliton’s PDO would likely be higher if he weren’t throwing Cam Ward and his .888 SV% out there with aplomb). They possess the puck less, have fewer scoring chances, and give up more high-danger chances. It’s no coincidence that they’re the worst in the league in HDCF% and second-worst in points percentage, in front of only Ottawa, a team that should be relegated to the AHL.

What’s even more worrying is that the team is getting statistically worse under Colliton despite marginally better talent. This year, Quenneville didn’t have Murphy or Strome (whether he’d use them properly is another story). He had Manning and Rutta, and we don’t need to sing that song again. He didn’t have Collin Delia to throw a .923 despite facing 35+ shots per game. While neither Murphy, Strome, nor Delia are saviors, they are better than what Quenneville had to work with.

So, What Are We Doing Here?

In the end, despite the record and the stats, you let Colliton ride out his contract at the very least. Watching what he did with the power play is enough to wonder what more he can fix, given time and talent. Whether it’s Bowman or someone else (other than Chiarelli), the key to Colliton’s success will be getting something resembling defensive talent on the roster. Connor Murphy can’t do everyone’s job.

Boqvist, Beaudin, and Mitchell (once he finishes college) are supposed to be those guys soon, but you still need to bring someone in via trade or free agency. Karlsson is probably a pipe dream. We know that Carolina wanted Saad for Faulk. Would they take Saad, Gustafsson, and a prospect like Beaudin for Hamilton? If they would, would you do it? All of these guys could fit the system Colliton wants to implement. The question is, “Will he have enough time with them?”

We always knew this team would be bad, but Colliton was supposed to at least stabilize that. He hasn’t really done that yet. With more time and a full offseason, we’ll have a better idea for what Colliton can do. I want to see.