Hockey

Game #35 – Avalanche vs. Hawks Preview: Only One Way To Go

By Sam Fels 1298 0

vs.

RECORDS: Avs 21-9-3   Hawks 13-15-6

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN

ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY: Mile High Hockey

You can’t get a more clear illustration of one team with everything in front of them, and one that can’t stop staring down than on Wednesday Night Hockey tonight. Heightened by the fact that the Avs have already Macho Man Elbowed the Hawks twice this year, and it’s hard to find a bigger chasm you can watch. But hey, they make you play all 82.

The big story probably lies with the Hawks tonight, as once again Brent Seabrook is a healthy scratch. And according to Jeremy
Colliton, this isn’t about making some statement. I don’t know if this signals some massive youth movement for the Hawks, but either way this is correct. With Duncan Keith returning tonight and Adam Boqvist needing minutes with a real d-man, there’s little option really. Sure, bending over for Dennis Gilbert is not a good look for anyone, but this was going to happen when the Hawks have other actual promising kids around and it’s probably not the worst message to send to everyone that they will get looks if they’ve earned it over sputtering vets. Hell, if de Haan were every going to be healthy again, Seabrook might be looking at being #8 on the depth chart.

The other story is Keith returns as well and will pair with Murphy, which for a handful of games early in the season actually looked like a thing. Whether this is the team you’d want to return against when your groin is iffy is another question. But there probably isn’t much choice.

If there was hope the Avs might take this one lightly, those probably disappeared with them getting soundly beaten by the Blues 5-2 on Monday. And the last thing the Hawks need is an ornery Avs team that they can’t handle. They probably can’t handle them heavily medicated.

The Avs are beat up on the blue line. Cale Makar and Erik Johnson have missed the past few games and won’t play tonight. That leaves a first pairing of Samuel Girard and Nikita Zadorov, which you would think even the Hawks could get at. But you’d think a lot of things.

The problem is that unlike their double-header after Thanksgiving, the Avs are just about fully operational at forward now. Gabriel ThreeYaksAndADog is back, so’s Matt Calvert, and the Hawks couldn’t handle the Avs when they were rounding their fourth line out with AHL flotsam. So that’s fun.

Nathan MacKinnon is definitely off on one, so good luck to Keith’s groin. He’s got 34 points in his last 21 games, has vaulted into the top-five in scoring, and is going to make a case for yet a Hart Trophy before too long. One that has somehow eluded him to this point in his career. He’s got running buddy Mikko Rantanen back, and Burakovsky has loved being on the other side.

The Hawks simply couldn’t deal with the Avs transition speed, and also couldn’t find the Avs’ centers when they were set up in the Hawks’ zone. Both MacKinnon and Kadri benefitted from waiting out near the blue line while the puck was down low behind the Hawks’ net last time, and then crashing down when possession was won and the Hawks looking for them and not finding them. Watch for this tonight and whether one of the Hawks wingers abandons a point to cover this or the center leaves the front of the net to get out high against them. Either is probably a better choice than simply letting MacKinnon run around free all he likes.

The Hawks are now the wooden spooners of the West. That should embarrass everyone, but we’ll see if they have a response. It could be an ugly week, as they have the Avs twice with the Jets sandwiched in between. Perhaps fear of embarrassment is what they need.

Hockey

It Actually Might Be A Little Worse Than You Think

By Sam Fels 1567 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.

Hockey

Game #34 – Wild vs. Hawks Preview: Collecting Fallout From The Blast

By Sam Fels 1602 0

vs.

RECORDS: Wild 16-12-5   Hawks 12-15-6

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BEYOND THE WALL: Hockey Wilderness

Well, should be quite the tasty atmosphere at the United Center this evening, no?

Tonight is all about finding out if this is bottom or not. The Hawks will be in front of what has to be a cantankerous home crowd after their worst loss of the season last night (which is saying something, given the variety of defeats already on offer). And it might not be all that full, though it probably won’t be anywhere near Bulls-levels (yet). Any sign of more incompetence is going to be met with boos and a hearty amount, you would think. Have the Hawks ever faced that from their fans? Their previous seasons have mostly been met with indifference. This will not be that.

And it’s really about how the team responds to not just that. After a crushing setback and their recent form, we’ll know if they have totally quit tonight. Or do they still have some professional pride left, which can be just called fear of embarrassment, and scrape together something to at least let everyone know they aren’t in fact dead? They may hate the coach, they may think the front office has steered them wrong, but surely they don’t want to keep getting their dicks kicked in and save some face? If they can’t manage anything beyond limp for most of the contest tonight, major changes have to be made the very next day. They won’t be, but they’ll need to be. If you’ve ever wished for Jonathan Toews – Player/Coach, you just might get it Monday.

As for the Wild, this nothing squad has managed to go 14 games with only one loss in regulation, going 9-1-4 and zooming up the standings to the fringe of the playoff spots. They’ve overcome inevitability catching up with Devan Dubnyk, and then injury, and have made do with Alex Stalock and Kaapo Kahkonen. They’ve have a revitalized and healthy Parise scoring goals. Somehow Eric Staal is still a genuine #1 center, and Jason Zucker is also pouring them in.

And once again Bruce Boudreau has employed a system that is fine with giving up attempts and shots from the outside, but gives up very few quality chances. The Wild are a middling at best Corsi team, but have the second best xGA/60 in the league. They can’t create a ton, but they don’t give up much and are more than happy to collapse to the middle of their zone and let you have it on the perimeter. What an interesting idea. When the chance comes, they will get up the ice off turnovers and mistakes and have the d-men to join in as well in Suter, Dumba, Spurgeon (when healthy) and Brodin. And even if Boudreau’s “structure” at times gets loose, his charges show up every night and skate hard because they have to.

In the end, it’s not likely to go anywhere, but he usually gets the most out of what he has. The Wild can’t ask for much more, as they try to figure out how to transition their next phase.

For the Hawks, there aren’t that many lineup changes they can make. Robin Lehner will start. Alex Nylander should be thrown into a trash pile somewhere along Damen Avenue, but it seems orders from on high will dictate that he be jammed into the lineup in the faint hope that he magically turns into something. Dylan Sikura should be back in the lineup, but he’s run afoul of both coach and front office in just two games it seems.

If Colliton were really going to go down swinging, he’d promote Boqvist with Murphy and put Dach in between Saad and Kubalik. Why? Because you’re already suffering lapses defensively and missed checks and turnovers, so how much worse can the kids be than what the vets have given him? What are we hanging onto here? If it’s time to move on from what came before, and it is, why wait around? Want to make sure you’re in dead last first?

Really curious to see how the whole organization responds to this weekend. Something tells me they won’t be able to stick their head in the sand much longer.

Hockey

Game #33 – Hawks vs. Blues Preview: This Used To Be A Playground

By Sam Fels 1467 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 12-14-6   Blues 19-8-6

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

A HIVE OF SCUM AND VILLAINY: St. Louis Gametime

We never thought this day would come. But nothing lasts forever, especially anything good and beautiful. So for the first time, the Hawks will walk into any arena in St. Louis that houses the Blues and see a championship banner hanging above the ice. And you can be sure that any traveling Hawk fan will be made acutely aware of it repeatedly. Godspeed, you weirdos.

Things haven’t gone all that smoothly for the Notes since they swatted away the Hawks at the UC with laughable ease in the first game of the month. They’ve lost three of four, getting brained by the Penguins, Leafs, and even Sabres. They recovered somewhat by beating the Knights on Thursday, though that was more of a case of better finishing as they were on the back foot for most of the night.

Injuries have been something of a problem. Vladimir Tarasenko has been a long-term casualty, and some depth forwards like Zach Sanford, Sammy Blais (TO BLAIISSSS, WHICH WE ALL KNOW MEANS TO BLUFF), and Alex Steen have been out, though Steen will return tonight. While the Blues have useful players up and down the lineup when healthy, they don’t have a ton of depth scoring, so when Perron, O’Reilly, Schenn go cold as they have of late, the goals dry up. Thus their four goals in those three losses mentioned above.

And Jordan Binnington has dipped of late. While the Blues hold down attempts among the best in the league, the chances among those attempts flow a little more freely than they’d be comfortable with. He was better against the Knights but pilfered by the Penguins and Leafs, and the Blues need superior goaltending to get by at the moment. Sadly, Jay Gallon has picked up the slack in that vacuum, as life as a backup seems to suit him pretty well.

As for the Hawks tonight, the only change will see them swap goalies again, so Matthew Highmore will stay in over Dylan Sikura to do whatever it is he does and not do whatever it is the Hawks think he does. With the injuries around the defense sort of picks itself, and complaining about Dennis Gilbert over Slater Koekkoek is akin to two children fighting over a damp and putrid sponge. What the fuck does it matter?

When these two teams last met, the Blues found it very easy to keep their hands on the Hawks’ forehead and let them swing their arms lightly. If there’s one thing the Blues can do is follow a plan when necessary, and they chose the path of just standing up at their blue line, forcing the Hawks to dump the puck in, and wait for the chances they knew the Hawks would present. It worked to a T, and will again if they stick to it tonight. At home they might be tempted to unleash the forecheck more, which can also work against the Hawks, but it does leave the Hawks the one window of finding some space in the neutral zone if they can get through the initial wave (Narrator: They can’t).

Not that games in St. Louis were ever pleasant when the Hawks were good and the Blues were not. These were something of a Super Bowl to the Blues, and the bullshit ran high on the ice and in the stands. You were happy when they were over, no matter the result. That remains the same, but this is now the entire Blues Nation to rub the Hawks’ nose in the new arrangement of things. And they can also consign the Hawks even deeper into the muck, and one wonders if the Hawks look embarrassing against in both games this weekend just how much longer Jeremy Colliton‘s stay of execution will last.

Let’s get through it together.

Hockey

Game #32 – Hawks 2, Coyotes 5: Darker Than A Black Steer’s Tookus On A Moonless Prairie Night

By Sam Fels 1714 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

As has been the way under Jeremy Colliton, whenever the Hawks get entangled with a team they’re supposedly tussling with for a playoff spot, they scream at their shoes. The Knights are much better than the Hawks, but they have a wildcard spot the Hawks claim they want. They crushed the Hawks. The Yotes are likely to be in or near the wildcard spots. They have now beaten the Hawks twice in a week, and pretty much ran them over tonight. Continuing theme.

It’s obvious the Hawks cannot handle the absences of Duncan Keith and Calvin de Haan. Without them, they have exactly one guy who plays defense at an NHL level. That’s Connor Murphy. Clearly he can’t do it all himself. They will continue to get shredded until those two return, and no team should ever depend on those two players so much.

I guess the best way to view the Hawks from here on out is both in a redevelopment fashion and a win-now one. Since we don’t know which path the Hawks have chosen, and they very well may not have chosen either, it’s kind of our only choice.

So…

Rebuild Phase

-An up and down night for Adam Boqvist. Dominant possession-wise, which is why he’s here. But an iffy pinch led to the first Coyotes goal, though Gustafsson could have had a better angle and Lehner could have made a save. He and Gilbert were split for Keller’s breakaway, and I don’t know how playing either with the other is going to help one of them at all. But this is how you learn.

-Um…Kirby Dach looked threatening at times, and the training wheels of playing him on the fourth line have to come off now, because the Hawks need goals.

-Strome had a power play goal. That’s nice.

The Rest

-It’s hard to figure out what is Jeremy Colliton’s fault and what isn’t. But you’ll notice when a Hawks puck-carrier is under any pressure, be it on the blue lines or along the boards, do the other Hawks come close to give him an option or do they fade behind opponents just hoping the puck will find them in space? You’ll see it’s the latter more often than not. That’s cheating. That’s playing for yourself. And that speaks to a team with no structure. The Hawks are trying to manufacture transition by having their forwards cheat out of the zone instead of just being fast out of it. That’s a good deal on the coach, and the lack of talent too. It’s all a problem.

-The give-a-shit meter was on absolute zero for Kane tonight, which isn’t surprising and understandable. It was kind of a piss poor effort on the Schmaltz goal, and he seemed to be taking the easy option most of the time. I don’t expect Kane to be on high alert for all 82, but just know the Hawks will never create enough when he’s not.

-Erik Gustafsson is simply awful.

-The power play only scores when DeBrincat move the puck quickly, either to the net or to the open man, or if Kane makes his James Harden routine work. The latter is not a tactic they should be using. Kane needs to be a threat for a one-timer coming from the other way than the teams cheating to DeBrincat. Until that happens, you’ll get this choppiness.

-Any team, especially when they’re ahead, that is well coached enough to follow the plan of simply standing up at their blue line has the Hawks buffaloed. If the Hawks have to dump the puck in, they’re simply not fast enough nor have the players who can win the puck back consistently. The ones who can are all on one line, and Toews isn’t quick enough anymore to get there. They also don’t have enough creativity to break through that kind of defense, which is why Boqvist’s possession numbers are among the best on the team tonight because he’s the only one who can.

-Did I mention that Gustafsson is awful?

-The season very well could be over by the weekend. Maybe it’ll force the Hawks into real decisions.

Onwards…for some reason…

 

Hockey

Game #27 – I Don’t Wanna Talk About It, Want to Forget About It, Wanna Be Intoxicated With That Special Brew – Blues 4, Hawks 0

By John Pullega 1877 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Terrible.

– Jeremy Colliton is not a fucking NHL coach. Bring on Sheldon Brookbank, I do not give a fuck. Jeremy Colliton is a smarmy asshole who made friends with other smarmy assholes and got a seven-figure job out of it, which is about as on brand as you can get for this fucking team now. He managed to coax a rigor mortis erection out of this fucking team for a few consecutive games in November, but tonight has once again hammered home the fact that he doesn’t know how to coach this team whatsoever, poor roster construction be damned. We could go on and on about his decision to put Carpenter between DeBrincat and Kane instead of Dach, but we won’t because you’ve heard that song before. But look at this goddamn clitoral sty:

David Perron leaves the puck in an area that Toews can’t be bothered to cover, giving Ryan O’Reilly all the time and space in world to pick it up. He demurs to Perron, and not one, not two, but yes, three fucking Blackhawks go out to the far boards—which is a very low-danger area, in case, like me, you were wondering—to cover Perron. This leaves O’Reilly whatever is beyond wide open right in front of Crawford. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen an opponent get so wide open on a designed play since five games ago.

This is what the HIGH-OCTANE DEFENSE this mead-drinking bozo farts out produces. This is by fucking design. It is time to fire Jeremy Colliton. It’s brutally clear his team doesn’t want to play for him, and his designed system produces garbage like this. All we ask for is fun. This isn’t fun. Utterly embarrassing.

– They told us that Olli Maatta was an improvement. Olli Maatta, in fact, fucking sucks. His turnover at the end of the third was a travesty. Under absolutely no pressure, he threw a pass directly onto Tyler Bozak’s stick in the slot. Bozak, in what we can only assume was a reaction to such a bald-faced insult, pounded a shot past Crawford.

– But that wasn’t the only instance of the Hawks clearly giving up. On the very first goal, Seabrook and Nylander got caught floating back on defense, which gave MacKenzie MacEachern an open lane to swat a funky end-board bounce past Crawford. If you want to argue that there’s no way they could have predicted that bounce, fuck you. A bare minimum effort would have clogged up the slot and at least made that shot a little bit of a challenge. Glad to see Seabrook still has something to give and that we got this fucking Nylander loser for the mere price of an effective 20-year-old defenseman who was traded because his stupid fucking dweeb-ass moron coach didn’t like his attitude or whatever. Can’t wait to read the tell-all book where we learn that Jokiharju’s response to everything Colliton said was “Fuck off, nerd, you suck at this.”

– And we haven’t even touched the real shit. Stan Bowman should be fired immediately for not doing his due diligence on Marc Crawford. It’s clear that they brought Marc Crawford in to take over for Colliton if he shat the bed (and not only has Colliton shat the bed but also rolled around in it). But now, three separate players have accused Marc Crawford of physical abuse and regular use of homophobic language throughout his career. If you’re the kind of person that isn’t bothered by this, fuck you. This was a Stan Bowman decision. If his shitty off-seasons over the last two years weren’t enough to show you that he’s a total goddamn moron (Brandon Manning, Olli Maatta, Andrew Shaw, Slater Koekkoek), this should.

– It’s getting more obvious that Jonathan Toews wants nothing to do with any of this. He dragged around all night, such as in that clip we had earlier. But he was also aloof on the Blues’s third goal. After Kane’s pass for Toews got intercepted in the Hawks’s oZ, Toews couldn’t be bothered to get back to defend. This left Connor Murphy to cover Schwartz on the far boards, DeBrincat to cover Walker in the slot, and no one to cover the eventual goal scorer Brayden Schenn, because Olli Maatta was busy being too slow and shitty to adjust.

I can’t blame Toews, but if you’ve lost him, you’re fucked.

– On the plus side, Brandon Saad did what he does best: everything but score. He split a couple defenders in the third for a good chance that he couldn’t finish. He was one of only three Hawks who were noticeably good tonight.

–The others were Dominik Kubalik—who will undoubtedly be scratched on Thursday for REASONS—and Alex DeBrincat, who set up a nice scramble in the first with some nifty skating and a slick backhand shot that led to a Ryan Carpenter chance. He also hit iron off a good Toews pass in traffic. Perhaps if he had someone other than Ryan Carpenter centering him, he’d have more luck.

The Blues never had to leave first gear to grind the Hawks down like a twisting and dry leaf in a dog’s shitty, dragging asshole. The cherry on top is that the Hawks could only ice 17 players tonight because of salary cap restrictions and a sick (of this team) Robin Lehner. Truly a sign of a well-run org, that. If Rocky gave a single shit about anything, Colliton, Bowman, McDonough et al. would be on their asses tonight. But that sellout streak continues, so fuck you.

We need new pornos. Guess I’m still writing.

Beer du Jour: Half a bottle of 1792.

Line of the Night: Mario Lemieux didn’t have the heart, didn’t have the tenacity, didn’t have the drive of a Gretzky or Kane. – Steve Konroyd

Hockey

Atop The Sugar Pile – 11/25: Not Much Of A Pile

By Sam Fels 1609 0

Not easy to do this when they biff all three games in the week, but hey, our is not to reason why…

The Dizzying Highs

Patrick Kane – It’s not really all that different for him, but when the Hawks score five goals all week and he sets up four of them, this is going to be your spot pretty much every time. Even though it felt like he was just kind of “there” in the season’s first month, there he is in the top-10 in league scoring, even though he likely doesn’t have the amount of talent around him as the players ahead of him do. Or their teams actually have the puck, when the Hawks generally don’t. While the Hawks had to attempt two dumbass-luck comebacks this week against Carolina and Tampa, two teams that are just vastly superior to them, they actually have a chance to do that because Kane’s around to either set up Gustafsson with a chance he can’t miss or get a shot through that Strome can pot the rebound of or the like.

The Hawks would be utterly fucked without their goalies, but they might not ever score if it wasn’t for Kane.

The Terrifying Lows

Team Harmony? – The Hawks weren’t offensively bad at least against Tampa or Dallas, so it’s hard to single out a particular player. But still, something was off with Jeremy Colliton scratching a clearly not-deserving-of-it Domink Kubalik, in order to get Slater Koekkoek into the lineup against his former team where no one remembers him. Toews called him out on it, the players openly derided going with seven d-men, and it all just harms the overall picture.

The reasoning was poor, the outcome probably worse, and now it just feels like Colliton is making things up on the fly. There’s no reason to scratch Kubalik ahead of Zack Smith or even Andrew Shaw, but these are both now entrenched vets that Colliton has also become afraid of. Shaw you sort of understand, and he’s been better of late, but Smith doesn’t draw any water. Meanwhile Kubalik has been your second or third most consistent forward at both ends of the ice.

That doesn’t mean the players have up and quit on Colliton, based on Saturday’s effort alone. But it seems that comes out of professional pride or a duty to each other or both more than a belief in the whole structure. That won’t last forever.

Also, this:

Maybe this deserves its own post, but why is the first thing an opposing coach notices about the Hawks is that they spin their wheels better than anyone else?

The Creamy Middles

Connor Murphy – It wasn’t his most solid week, and the Tampa game was kind of ugly, and he’s being wasted on a pairing with Olli Maatta, and I could keep going, but this season is going to end with me screaming from whatever hill I can find in this godforsaken flatland that he’s the most underrated player in the league. Murphy was excellent against Dallas, and turned over the ice with mostly Miro Heiskanen on the other side and an anchor on his. And he at least kept Andrew Cogliano from scoring against the Hawks again, and Fifth Feather from tumescence. He’s the Hawks best d-man, and I can only pray that Kelvin Gemstone treats him like it sometime this season instead of playing Erik Gustafsson into a five-year extension.

Hockey

Game #23 and #24 – Hawks vs. Stars Preview: Visiting The Family For The Holiday

By Sam Fels 1925 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 9-9-4   Stars 13-8-2

PUCK DROP(S): Tonight and Tuesday at 7pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago Saturday, NBCSN Tuesday

TEXAS FLOOD: Defending Big D

It’s a bit strange that almost two months into the season, the Hawks have only played three divisional games. They haven’t seen St. Louis, or Colorado, or Minnesota, or Dallas yet. That will change over the Thanksgiving holiday, as the next five are within the Central and four of them will be amongst home-and-homes. It kicks off tonight with the first saunter of the campaign down to Texas, where the Hawks will start two against the hottest team in the league.

It’s been a miniature version of last season for the Stars, who won one of their first nine and now have ripped off 12 of their last 14. But whereas last year Jim Montgomery switched gears midseason to go all Trotz/Lemaire to shoot the Victory Green up the standings and into the playoffs, this year he’s loosened the reins a bit to give his team a little more freedom. But basically what both seasons boiled down to is either Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn are scoring or they’re not.

Montgomery even pulled the same switch as the owner last year, calling out his two stars in the press. He walked that back immediately, because he knows they’re the reason this team will be good or not, especially with John Klingberg out injured (again). Not that it didn’t work, as Seguin has piled up eight points in six games since and Benn seven. These two were playing well before of course, just weren’t getting the bounces.

It also helps that THE BISHOP has started flashing Vezina form again, which is the real strength of the team. Whatever the Stars do he is the backbone, and a .942 in November will backstop just about any system or teammates Montgomery would choose. The Hawks will duck Bishop tonight by the looks of it, but will probably see him on Tuesday in the return. Not that Anton Khudobin is some easy task either, as he also has a .942 in four November starts.

The Stars are a bit beat up, as Klingberg is a big miss and Roope Hintz being out erodes some of their depth as well (both returned on Saturday and both scored last night, so it’s pretty much the full strength Stars now). Miro Heiskanen has made up for a lot of what Klingberg would do, and has even inspired Jamie Oleksiak into some form of competence, which is a true upset.

That doesn’t mean the Stars are without depth. Joe Pavelski has gotten used to being in green and not teal of late, and is dovetailing with Alex Radulov on the second line. Even shit-demon Corey Perry has chipped in on the bottom six, and you know what Andrew Cogliano (NBA Jam voice: COGLIANO!) can do to the Hawks (and Fifth Feather’s little cartoon hearts).

Perhaps the main feature of the Stars forwards is they can adapt to a variety of styles given their IQ and speed. Montgomery certainly hasn’t shied from trying just about everything.

To the Hawks, who shouldn’t see too many changes from Thursday aside from putting the seven d-men plan into the freezer for good. As we’ve said, in a vacuum it makes sense and would make more with Adam Boqvist around. But this isn’t a vacuum, the players clearly hate it, and we likely won’t see it again for a while unless Colliton has a point to prove tonight. Certainly Dominik Kubalik has no business being scratched other than he’s the lowest hanging fruit to do so being a rookie. Enough of that shit.

The Stars are almost already out of touch for the Hawks, six points ahead though having played a game more. Still, the Hawks aren’t going to climb the standings if they can’t get wins within the division, and if they fall on their face in the next five they could be season-boned as it is. The Stars aren’t quite as stout as they insisted on being last year, but their goalies are so the Hawks will need a big performance from Lehner tonight you would think. And probably Crawford again on Tuesday. Montgomery might sense that without a puck-moving d-man, the best route for the Stars is to back up for these two and just trench the neutral zone and see what the Hawks can do about it.

The most familiar rivals for Thanksgiving. Isn’t it that way for everyone?

Hockey

Game #22 – And Every Time You Think You Know Just What You’re Doin’, That’s When Your Troubles Exceed – Lightning 4, Hawks 2

By John Pullega 1522 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Evolving Hockey

A ho-hum affair through 40 turned into a small heartbreaker in the last 20. The Hawks gave up three goals against a team that ended up skating 10 forwards from the second period on, which isn’t great, but they kept it interesting. Let’s clean it up.

– Sue me for leading with Corey Crawford again, but of all the things the Hawks have done consistently well, goaltending is it. The highlight of Crow’s night came on the heels of Slater Koekkoek (more on him later) not doing whatever it is that Jeremy Colliton thinks he can do. After taking a stretch pass from Mathieu Joseph, Anthony Cirelli played catch with Alex Killorn on a 2-on-1 breakaway against Brent Seabrook. Christ on Earth what a horrifying thought. But Crawford managed to stop both of Cirelli’s attempts, which even a slightly lesser goalie would have been beaten on.

And once again, it’s hard to fault Crow for any of the three goals he was on the ice for. One came against a top-flight power play, and the other two came off bad positioning and turnovers.

– The next time Coach Kelvin Gemstone wants to inexplicably scratch a forward in favor of seven defensemen, he should scratch Alex Nylander instead of Dominik Kubalik. Unless Kubalik was hurt, refusing to serve A Bit of the Kubbly is bad on its own, given what Kubalik can do on both sides of the puck. But what, exactly, has Alex Nylander done lately, other than scoring two garbage-time goals against a backup goaltender? That’s not a hypothetical, because Nylander’s lackadaisicalness led directly to Tampa’s response goal in the third.

Following a failed Maatta clear that unfortunately hit the linesman, Nylander floated to the near boards to cover precisely zero skaters. This of course left a huge lane open for Victor Hedman, whose shot redirected off Cirelli and in. We knew that Nylander was a loaf on the defensive side of the puck, so it’s not so much surprising as it is disappointing, following the Seabrook miracle goal as it did. Surely, whatever system Colliton thinks he’s running doesn’t help, but picking your ass on the near boards doesn’t either. So.

– Piggybacking off that point, this whole playing Slater Fucking Koekkoek for any reason whatsoever horseshit needs to end yesterday. He contributed absolutely nothing positive, which should surprise no one, and was nearly responsible for a Lightning goal late in the second with the Hawks already down. This should be enough to bring your piss to a boil, but it gets even worse, dear reader.

Remember those two huge saves Crawford made that we talked about earlier? You can blame Fetch for that. With Mathieu Joseph beginning the breakout from the defensive zone, Koekkoek hovers in the neutral zone, then points at Joseph to signal to David Kampf to cover him. Yes, David Kampf, one of the steadiest and most reliable defensive players the Hawks have. While Slater MacArthur was giving his directives, wouldn’t you know it, Joseph fired a pass right by him, leading to two high-quality chances.

I don’t need Slater Koekkoek on the ice. I especially don’t need him making suggestions to one of the Hawks’s best defensive forwards about how to play defense. And the cherry on top was that he got playing time over Kubalik. I can only imagine that Colliton did this because Koekkoek was drafted by the Lightning and wanted to let him start against his former team, but that’s fucking stupid. Koekkoek was never a stalwart there. He was an afterthought. That’s why he’s here at all. Great work.

– Olli Maatta even slides slow. He sold out trying to defend Point and Palat’s 2-on-1 following a Kane turnover in the neutral zone and was both too early and too short on the uptake.

– Patrick Kane did keep his scoring streak alive with an assist on the Hawks’s second goal. He also led the Hawks in ice time with 27+ minutes, because Jeremy Colliton definitely knows what he’s doing and absolutely isn’t out of ideas just 22 games in.

– Speaking of Colliton knowing what he’s doing, the first period was chock-full of examples of why his defensive system doesn’t work with this team.

On this play, Palat passes up to Shattenkirk, who drives down the near boards. Palat then picks Dach as Shattenkirk gets around Murphy. Then, de Haan comes out to cover Shattenkirk, despite the fact that Brayden Point was standing right in front of Crawford and also WAS THE GUY DE HAAN WAS COVERING. Why abandon Point there? Is that what he’s supposed to do? If so, is Dach supposed to take Point at that point? What the hell are we doing here?

Here’s another fun one. Cernak takes a shot from the blue line and misses. Murphy can’t corral the puck behind the net. Conacher picks it up, and Dach and Koekkoek both try to cover him, leaving Joseph wide open in the slot. If this is what the system spits out, then the system sucks. If this is NOT what the system is supposed to spit out, then the Hawks cannot run it, and it should cease immediately.

– Brent Seabrook’s goal was fun. You rarely want to see Seabrook skating below the goal line, but he banked his shot off McElhinney’s back and in. It was a nice sliver of hope while it lasted.

They made it interesting at the end. That’s all we really ask.

Onward.

Beer du Jour: Jefferson’s and Bell’s Best Brown

Line of the Night: “I love any kind of bar, but the popup ones are fun, too.” –Foley

Hockey

They Want To Talk About Offense? Let’s Talk About Offense

By Sam Fels 1523 0

The chatter of late, if you have your ear to the Hawks’ wire, is that they’ve really tapped into their offense, unlocked the cheat code, their heads have gotten super huge and now all they do is the flying triple-flip dunks (man I need to play some NBA Jam soon). You can find symposiums on it here, here, or here.

We talked about it on the podcast, and before the Vegas game we did notice that the Hawks were looking to get out into space more…which is just about the aim of every team that’s worth a shit. But hey, we want the Hawks to be worth a shit, too! Colliton did let it out that they’d moved their weak-side forward closer to the point-man, because when the Hawks were recovering pucks they found that having him four feet away wasn’t leading to a lot of breakout possibilities. They were starting out with the opponent’s d-men and third forward already in front of them. The hope was that they could get behind them a bit more with a second forward ready to spring. Makes sense.

Is it really working out, though? Get ready folks, I’ve got more charts! Oh do I have charts! First, their attempts per game:

Corsi For/60

Hmm, not really much there. Kind of trending down all season. Ok, let’s try just actual shots-on-goal…

Shots For/60

Not much there either. I know, let’s got to expected goals for, because that will tell us if they’re getting better chances even with the same or slightly less amount of attempts and shots.

xGF/60

A little better. Some of this is score-effects of course, but overall the Hawks are still trending down. Now, it’s important to mention that as the season goes along, pretty much every team trends down a touch, because October hockey is the most open and then teams really start to lock it down, or stop caring about getting up the ice as fast, fatigue is probably a factor, as are injuries to key players. But still, for all the noise you’d like to think the Hawks are trending a little better than this. Could it be something else?

Shooting Percentage

Houston Hello!

Now, again, we have to be fair to the Hawks. For most of the season they were shooting below 7%, and with the snipers they have that simply was never going to continue. There was always going to be a market correction, though it would have been hard to predict this violent of one over three games.

But let’s be positive, while admitting this is far too small of a sample size to know what’s really going to happen. But check this out:

xGA/60

Whatever the Hawks have been doing, this has held pretty steady over the season. So you could say that the threat the Hawks have carried of last has kept some teams on their heels. Both the Knights and Leafs piled up shots but not exactly a ton of great chances until score-effects kicked in, and even then it wasn’t huge. The Knights especially, given how immobile their defense is in spots, were hesitant to get them too involved, and when they did we saw the amount of odd-man rushes the Hawks got in the other direction.

Will that work tomorrow in Nashville against perhaps the most mobile defense in the league? Most likely not. But the thing is, few teams have the mobility on the blue line the Preds do, and they can get overly adventurous here and there. We need more games to know for sure, and probably isn’t worth revisiting until the new year, but so far the Hawks have benefitted from their marksmanship returning to their normal levels more than some systematic change.