Everything Else

Post-Convention Grab Bag

By 1842

-There seemed to have been a bit of furor–in that whenever anything happens in July you have to make something out of it to pretend anything is happening at all–that at the convention Patrick Kane and Artem Anisimov expressed disappointment that Artemi Panarin had been traded for Brandon Saad.

It’s clearly obvious why Kane would be. His numbers are going to suffer. And that doesn’t make Kane out to be selfish or uncaring about the team. Most if not all hockey players are acutely aware of their stats, just as any athlete is any other sport is as well. Believe me, Jimmy Butler knows exactly what his points and assists are per game and Kris Bryant knows what he’s hitting. It’s part of the job.

Everything Else

Your FFUD Convention Primer

By 1692

Every year we take you through the Convention schedule to give you the real low-down on what you’re in for if you’re headed downtown this weekend. For reasons we’ll never understand, but people do feel the need to be surrounded by sweaty people in Hawks jerseys in the middle of July. Also, it’s going to be stupid steam-bath hot this weekend, making it even more fun. The combination of Convention goers and Cardinals fans downtown… WOOF. 

Friday Night

5pm: Opening Ceremonies

Basically an excuse to defrost Jim Cornielson from whatever freezer they keep him in during the summer so he can for some strange reason sing the national anthem. Seriously, how many conventions do they sing the anthem at? I really don’t know, I’ve never been to a convention. I went to a ComiCon (ComicCon?) in Rosemont when I was a kid once. That’s it.

Then the players will be introduced and will come and give that awkward five from the stage, and in no way will be ogling a portion of the audience. They’ll also be in their jerseys, because we can’t recognize them without them. You’ll also get to see how awful the new collar on the new jerseys look in real life. Which won’t stop three-quarters of the fanbase running out to get one.

Everything Else

Hossa Fallout, Schedule, And Argle Bargle

By 1648

Few things to clean up today:

-Stan and Q had their press conference today to discuss Marian Hossa and the draft. Q had the look of a man who just saw his one top six winger who can backcheck effectively ripped away from him, because he is. There’s not much Q can do at the moment, as we get the feeling he’s going to be less involved on free agency and trades and personnel decisions than he’s been.

So it came to Stan, who had to wax poetic about how complicated it’s going to be using Hossa’s cap space in LTIR. And he’s right, it isn’t as simple as most believe.

Everything Else

Potential For Aggressive Expansion

By 1545

The day finally arrived yesterday, and it feels like almost as many people were waiting for the announcement of protected lists for the expansion draft than they were any playoff game. I suppose only a few fanbases get to be involved in the playoffs while everyone is in on this, but still. We’re talking about a team that’s going to suck for a bit, no matter how much the NHL tries to pad it. And if George McPhee believes he can really go for it off the bat, just like he did Lorne Molleken’s face, then they could suck for quite some time.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

There weren’t too many surprised from the Hawks, at least given what the buzz has been for a while. We know Marcus Kruger is pretty much a goner, which allowed the Hawks to protect Tomas Jurco. That’s interesting in itself, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Everything Else

Bringing It All Back Home

By 1751

We’ve had some fun here the past couple months, leaving the Hawks in the background for the most part while they study and fidget about what to do to reclaim what they once felt was theirs. Obviously there’s not much you can do once your punted from the playoffs except have a press conference where you express just how angry you are and promise changes. Then you go back into the offices and realize you’re pretty much boned but thank your lucky stars you didn’t say that in public.

So we don’t have much to work with yet, and the answers probably don’t start really arriving until next week when the expansion draft, which for some inane reason is woven into the NHL Awards, takes place. But that won’t stop us from guessing!

Everything Else

Diamonds… And Dust

By 1800

Well, the Hawks news creature briefly woke up from its springtime slumber to give us this little nugget today. Apparently the Hawks are trying to goad/threaten/beg, I’m really not sure which, the Vegas Golden Gods (I never said I was a golden god) into taking Trevor van Riemdsdyk off their hands. And they’ll do it by getting them to take Marcus Kruger along with him. Somehow, if the Knights don’t promise to take Kruger in a trade, the Hawks will then trade TVR to someone else who will… protect him? The nuts and bolts of this are a little fuzzy.

This is the NHL, and you can always find a dumbass GM who thinks your player is a hell of a lot better than he actually is, especially when you’re not that far removed from championship glow as the Hawks still just barely are. But this one is hard to figure.

Everything Else

Quite Rightly

By 1623

Of what was on offer, Penguins-Predators is by far the most palatable matchup, and will probably provide the best hockey. And it will look really odd on high definition televisions, which I’m here for. And it also probably provides the most talking points. I’ll try and get through them all, if I can remember them.

-This postseason has seen the most discussion of “styles” that I can remember, whether it was how boring the Senators were to whether or not the Penguins have somehow cracked a “counter-attacking” style against the Caps and a few other things. I suppose the one downside–there are assuredly others that I want to ignore–of a lot of hockey writers being soccer fans was making connections between a team like Leiceister City winning the Premier League and a hockey team trying to do the same thing.

The problem with this thinking is it’s a lot easier to sag back in soccer and still be a good defensive team than it is in hockey. If you’re causing all the shots to come from 25-30 yards in soccer, that’s fine and if someone crashes one in that’s more just bad luck. In hockey goals from points shots that are screened or deflected are far more common, so it’s best to just not give them up at all.

Both Ottawa and Pittsburgh are in the bottom half of playoff teams when it comes to scoring chances against per game, so both have needed strong goalie performances to get where they are. Same with high-danger chances. They’ve been ok, but hardly great. Meanwhile, the Predators have been highly effective in limiting the types of chances teams get, which is probably the big advantage in this upcoming Final.

Everything Else

Something Something About Taking The Heat Something Something About Firing Kitchen

By 1299

We have our first shot fired in what will apparently be Hawks-acalypse ’17. Today Mike Kitchen was fired as assistant coach, and it’s kind of amazing he was still around to be fired. But we’ll get to that. There are a lot of angles that would be a ton of fun to speculate on from this and could turn out to be utter horseshit. But we’re going to do it anyway because…FUN!

First off, I’m dying to know whose decision this actually was. There’s almost no way it was Quenneville’s, because Kitchen has been an extension of Q his entire career. It’s hard to believe that Kitchen could have been doing anything that drastically different this year than he ever has, and even Q would have to recognize the historic and epic failure of the penalty kill in the season’s first month was A. a perfect storm of events and B. really had no bearing on their playoff ouster.

So did Stan Bowman fire Kitchen himself? Or did he make Q do it? How much of a fight did that cause? Oh god just hook it to my veins!

Everything Else

You Don’t Have The Balls To Keep Me Down: Hawks at Predators Game 4 Preview/Emissions Test

By 1495

 vs. 

Predators lead 3-0

PUCK DROP: 7pm Central

TV: CSN, NBCSN, Sportsnet up Nort’

THOSE IN THE BLACK MASK: On The Forecheck

PROJECTED LINEUPS

 

All right, if I’m going to carry this wrestling analogy out to its natural conclusion, let’s do that. Those were Undertaker’s final words to Roman Reigns before he was hit with one last spear to end his career. But then, I’ve called the Hawks Roman Reigns because everyone hates them and they usually find a way to hang around longer than anyone wants. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about this is extremely confusing, and you probably think I’m a total loser. And you’d be right! Just fucking go with it, ok?

Everything Else

The Night Dixie Drove Us Down: Hawks 2 – Predators 3 (Preds lead 3-0)

By 1399

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

When I look back on it, I guess my predictions on this series, and the ones I assumed would follow, were based on hope more than I realized. I hoped Duncan Keith was merely pacing himself for what mattered. I hoped that Toews’s midseason scoring binged signaled he had not been infected by the Kopitar gremlins. I hoped that Quenneville would realize what he had in Oduya and TVR, and more importantly what he didn’t have, and would adjust accordingly. And I hoped that the weight of all Corey Crawford had to carry at least in the first half of the season wouldn’t be too much to leave him incapable of more miracles now. Of all those, he got the closest.

While there will be a lot of ink spilled tomorrow about “grit,” “want to,” “determination,” and whatever other bullshit we’ve built our career in dispelling, the answer is more simple than that. It’s speed. The Preds can trap, or they can forecheck, they can collapse, but whatever they do they can do it so much faster than the Hawks. When the Hawks simply mishandle a pass, or take an extra beat to get it under control, there’s a Pred there. When they do manage to get it deep, the mobile Preds defense is there. When the Hawks think they have a passing lane, it’s filled faster than they can compute.