Hockey

Hey Everybody! An Old Man Full Of Himself Is Talking!

By Sam Fels 2404 0

I suppose it will be a real sign of growth and maturity (or I’ve just gone on to do something real with my life instead of playing in this sandbox in adulthood) when I just let an interview with John McDonough slide by. But I’m not there yet, not by a damn sight. McDonough loves to talk, especially when the subject is himself, and these days he’s got a lot of figurative ass to cover. Especially if he’s going to survive a third-straight playoff-less season, or justify that season without the major changes the front office looks more and more like it needs. So he’s already starting, and as always we will stand as the gatekeeper. We can’t go through the whole thing, as his interview with The Athletic’s Scott Powers goes for two parts. But we’ll go through some of the “highlights.”

“We don’t compensate the players. The players come in. Because our players, like the Cubs’ players, they get it.”

Yes, well, I’m sure there’s no benefit to getting free suites in a five-star hotel for young men in their primes of their lives. Can’t imagine what it would be. Maybe it has to do with the reason Sox players used to call SoxFest “SexFest.”

Powers: Have you had a chance to reflect on that season, what that Cup team means to the city?

Well, I think that was kind of the lightning strike.

Yeah ok, there’s a lot to unpack here, or a lot to unpack to find all the ways McDonough is trying to give himself credit for when he was mostly along for the ride. I’ll do my best.

First off, the 2010 nostalgia tour that you’re going to see a ton of this season is understandable, but also extremely awkward. Because most of the core of that team is still here, and if you asked them they would tell you they’re not done trying to win Cups. If Marian Hossa didn’t have that skin condition, he would almost certainly be still playing as well. He probably isn’t comfy looking at his career in the past tense yet either. So it’s an odd celebration when in some ways, you’re still in that window.

I get it. 10 years is a nice round number. And it’s rare that the core of a championship team is so young (except the Penguins were too) so that they would still all be playing in the same place 10 years later. And hey, the Hawks very well might have to be selling something come February and March if this defense is as bad as it could very well be and the goaltending isn’t as good as we think it will be.

As for McDonough’s “lightning strike” comment, that’s a load of shit and he goes on to contradict himself like five sentences later. As McD points out literally in the next sentence, the Hawks did manage to go to the conference final the year before, were just about everyone’s pick to win, and even the year before that had barely missed out on the playoffs, which was the true lightning strike.

While it happened fast, the Hawks had sucked for six seasons or so and had accrued draft picks like Keith, Seabrook, Crawford, Bolland, Brouwer, Hjalmarsson, etc. Even before Toews and Kane capped it off, and they’re the most important picks no question, people were starting to notice the Hawks had a fair amount of prospects coming through.

And the regular season in our sport doesn’t even resemble the postseason.

This is a continuing theme throughout the interview, and it’s really frightening for what’s happening to the team now. Yes, the NHL playoffs are different, if only because of structure, but to say they have nothing to do with the regular season is false. Two of the three Cup wins for the Hawks were as division champs, one Presidents’ Trophy winners. The other they were a 100+ point team that watched Kane miss the last quarter of the season through injury in his first MVP-level performance. Generally, the best teams in the regular season kind of remain the best teams in June.

The Hawks seem to be banking on the notion that the Blues have somehow disproved all of this, because they keep saying it. Jonathan Toews gets it, because he’s the only one in the organization who has rightly pointed out that the Blues first half was nothing more than a massive underachievement. After their ’18 summer, the Blues were picked by many to be near or at the top of the Central, which they would have been had they gotten their head out of their ass before January. And thanks to the Jets and Predators, they were anyway.

The Hawks keep making it clear they’ve learned all the wrong lessons from what they think the Blues did or are, and this idea that they have to be heavy to get through the playoffs they very well might not make is going to take everyone down. Which it probably should.

I think one of the events that helped changed the course of the franchise was the outdoor game at Wrigley Field.

Oh do you now? You mean the event you strong-armed and pleaded with the commissioner to get?  You think getting that game had tangible, on-ice results later? Look, it was a fun day and a definite marker that the organization was finally taking itself seriously and the team was on the rise, but it’s a marker, not a direction-changer. How many ribs did you have removed for this one?

The importance of hiring Joel (Quenneville), how he was the perfect fit for all this. Bringing in Marian Hossa, that in my opinion, we don’t win three Stanley Cups without Marian Hossa. I don’t know if you win any. But you got Marian Hossa come in and Brian Campbell and other free agents that played a role, and other players that just emerged in the 2010 Cup team. It wasn’t just your primary players, you think back now and you had Andrew Ladd and you had Dustin Byfuglien and Colin Fraser and Adam Burish and all these guys who played a role, it was a significant role.

Funny how all the moves he was a part of are at the top here, where all the players that were drafted were here when he got here. And what did Fraser and Burish do again, exactly? I’ll hang up and listen for my answer.

That we’ve seen the game go in the last 10 years from being a heavier game, more physical game, fighting played a role in the game before, now it’s speed and skill, and it will probably at some point spin back again. 

No, it won’t, and you need to stop building a team that acts like it will.

So, you’ve got to make real good decisions, prudent decisions on the complimentary players, people that you know may not show up on the scoresheet every night, but they add a lot to your culture.

How’s that gone the past few years? The Russian judge just asphyxiated.

But we recognized, and we did recognize a few years ago, the conference is tougher.

You did? What have you done about it, then? You said a lot of things, we’re still waiting.

We talk about our process and our system every day, and I’m a real big believer that if you do have a good process and a good decision-making system, the wins are going to come, the results are going to come.

Here we go with this happy horseshit again…

It was difficult last year where obviously our penalty kill … we had a very poor season on the penalty kill. It was almost indescribable that we would be ahead in a game and relinquish that lead in many instances within 60-90 seconds or two minutes, and that kind of became a trend. And our penalty kill was just ineffective.

Y’know, all offseason the Hawks have addressed their problems on the kill as something that just happened to them, instead of rightly pinpointing that they had the worst defensive corps in the league and really haven’t improved it that much. Get better players, and you’d be amazed at how much better the kill would be. They think they can solve this systematically, and they can’t.

the St. Louis Blues had the worst record in the NHL on Jan. 1. That’s just the reality of our game. The L.A. Kings won the Stanley Cup a few years ago as the eighth seed in the conference. So, those things can happen.

Per my last email…

Over a period of time, he (Jeremy Collitoin  did a terrific job of earning the respect of our players.

Oh, I think I could find one that might disagree on that one…

I’m not even going to get into the soliloquy about the new scoreboard, but man is he taking credit for that like it’s a new signing.

The fact that we are able to tap into our season-ticket waiting list and they can fill that back up, I think that is remarkable and great credit to Jay Blunk and Chris Werner and their respective staffs to be able to come up with creative ways to do that.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret, folks. They didn’t just tap into it. They burned through almost all of it, and another season missing the playoffs and you’re going to see some shit.

I don’t want to emulate other franchises. I want us to be inventors. I want us to be trailblazers.

This might be my favorite part. He’s talking about game presentation here, the arena experience. And anyone who is even close to the Hawks knows that when McDonough took over, in order to improve the in-game experience at the United Center all he did was follow the Hawks on the road and lift what he liked from other arenas. Even the new scoreboard is following a trend, as Tampa, Denver, and a few other places have brought it the Tyrana-scoreboard years before. McD doesn’t have an original idea anywhere in his body nor within arm’s reach.

When I mentioned to you earlier, what I’m seeing now more than ever before and it’s been an eye opener I think for everyone in our sport, the regular season and the postseason, they don’t resemble each other. The Tampa Bay Lightning were tied for the best record in the history of the NHL. They were swept. There’s a cautionary tale there. You almost need to have two different teams, two different styles, and that’s not easy. 

Again with this. It’s simply not the case. Playoffs are different but they’re hardly uncoordinated to the team you’ve built to get through the 82. What you need is a flexible team, especially when you’re really good, because in a series teams are going to try specific things to beat you that they’re not concerned with in February. The Hawks didn’t fundamentally change their ways when they won in the playoffs, they just turned it up. They could wade through trapping teams because of their skill and they could out-run-n-gun anyone who tried that (except for the Kings that one time) They never out-heavy’d teams. If you tried to be the Blues against them, and the Blues tried it once in that run, they just skated around you, got the puck up the ice quicker, and took advantage of all the odd-man rushes they had.

It feels like this organization’s brain broke when it comes to building a team, and McDonough is all too happy to showcase that.

Ok I’m tired now. Enough.

 

 

 

Hockey

Stan Bowman Is a Moron and Henri Jokiharju Is Better Off

By John Pullega 11240 0

In case you didn’t know, the Blackhawks are coming off a year in which they iced one of the worst defenses in the NHL. That isn’t hyperbole. Last year, they gave up 292 goals as a team, which is only better than the Senators, who gave up 302. If you are in the realm of the Senators in anything, you fucking suck. Their PK finished dead-ass last at 72.7%, after finishing 20th at 79.1% the year before. They continue to throw Brent Seabrook out there based solely on his contract. They had a chance at Bowen Byram, who will likely be ready to contribute THIS YEAR, and didn’t take it.

Instead, they traded a perfectly serviceable Dominik Kahun for Olli Maatta, who can’t stay healthy and skates like slugs fuck. They then turned around and got Calvin de Haan, who’s a nice second-pairing guy who might not even be ready for the first month due to a major shoulder surgery.

And then, dear reader, they traded Henri Jokiharju—one of the Hawks’s best D-men in limited time last year—for Alex Nylander, a 21-year-old forward whose shitty stats are only outdone by his stagnant-puddle-of-horse-piss work ethic.

If there were any doubt before, we can relieve you of it now: Stan Bowman sucks shit at finding defensemen, and he can’t do a goddamn thing right unless someone else hands it to him. That includes the Lehner signing, so if you want to bring that up, fuck you.

I’m usually not one for palace intrigue, but everything that swirled around Jokiharju last year made a stupid trade like this seem inevitable. I worried about it on a few podcasts recently: Harju was vocally upset when the Hawks sent him to Finland to play in World Juniors. Colliton constantly played him less and less when he got back, despite the fact that his season-long numbers were the best among all Hawks D-men at the time. Harju wasn’t happy when they sent him back down to the AHL when he got back for that very reason. He had every right to be.

It’s simply unfathomable to trade a 20-year-old defenseman who had a 54.3 CF% (5.4 CF% Rel) on a team that couldn’t corral an iron puck with a magnetized stick and not get any defensive help back. Harju may have needed some seasoning. He may have been light in the ass. But he was probably a Top 4 guy on this team, even WITH de Haan and Maatta coming in. He may not have been an in-his-prime Duncan Keith-esque savior, but he could have been very good. His limited stats showed that last year: When he was on the ice, the Hawks had the puck more. When he wasn’t, they didn’t. Guess fucking what? When your team sucks golf balls out of garden hoses on defense, anyone who can possess the puck is valuable. And now, we will have the joy of watching him turn into Buffalo’s #2 next to Rasmus Dahlin, because that’s absolutely going to happen.

This is a move out of fear. Colliton, Bowman, and McDonough are afraid of Brent Seabrook. They’re afraid to scratch him, they’re afraid to platoon him, they’re afraid to even broach the topic with him. They and everyone around them knew that fitting Jokiharju into the lineup would mean pushing him out, and they’re all too fucking cowardly to do that.

The thing that’s most frustrating about this is that for all the shit we gave Quenneville for not giving young guys a chance, he did the exact opposite with Harju. He played him consistently, let him make mistakes, and Harju looked overall fine doing it. The numbers flesh out a better performance than the eye test, but either way, Harju looked decent at worst.

Then along comes Beto Motherfucking O’Colliton, with his shitty man system and recent regurgitations about needing MORE GRIND to the game. I want to have it both ways, wherein Colliton has no say in anything (likely the case) and all of the say in this move, but I know that probably isn’t it. Still, watching Colliton bury Harju on the depth cart in favor of replacement-level guys like Carl Dahlstrom, Slater Koekkoek, Brent Seabrook, and the rest of the defensive Bring Down Bunch makes me wonder if this is Colliton’s first Big Boy Decision. And if it is, that motherfucker needs to put his Pampers back on, because this is shit.

So what did the Hawks get in return? One Alex Nylander, a 21-year-old left wing with 19 NHL games to his name. Right off the bat, he’s not a defenseman, so what the fuck are we even doing here?

Second, his AHL stats aren’t particularly impressive. In 165 games, he has 86 total points, 30 goals. That comes out to .52 points a game. From a guy who’s touted as a skilled shooter. That’s WORSE THAN HENRI JOKIHARJU, who had 17 points in 30 games AS A DEFENSEMAN, which is .56 points a game. I know that’s a stilted comparison, but holy fucking shit what is this trade?

Third, Nylander isn’t good on the defensive side of the puck, which is super great for a team whose possession was verifiable dog shit for most of the season. Where the fuck you gonna put him? On one of Anisimov’s wings? The fourth line is probably set with Caggiula–Carpenter–Kampf. Shaw’s likely gonna be on the top line because fuck you. You’re not breaking up DeBrincat–Strome–Kane. And we haven’t even accounted for Wedin, Kabulik, and Quenneville, all of whom portend to get a shot before Nylander. You gonna put Nylander on the top line with Toews instead of Saad? Holy shit, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do. Pray for Mojo.

Fourth—and you should be furious that we are at a fourth complaint about the return following a trade of the Hawks’s ONLY young, mobile, NHL-ready defenseman—the scuttlebutt is that Nylander has motivation issues, that he half asses it sometimes. So he’ll be a great fucking fit here with Duncan “Fuck You” Keith and Brent “Best Shape of His Life Because Spheres Are Shapes Fuck You” Seabrook, whom the brass is so scared of that they traded Henri Jokiharju for some joker who struggles to compete in the fucking AHL. Good. Very good. Tickets still available.

They’ll call this a swap of prospects, but it is anything but. Harju showed last year that right this instant, he’s at worst a third-pairing bum slayer. Nylander hasn’t shown no one nothing, other than he has an older and much more talented brother playing in New York (or Toronto, if you’re into the whole factual thing -ed.), which is apparently all it takes to become the return on the kind of player the Hawks need right now.

Stan Bowman doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s afraid of his bloated, angry, shitty #7 D-man, and because he’s a coward, he kowtowed to him. The Hawks defense wasn’t good going into this year, and given two chances to improve it THIS YEAR with Byram and Jokiharju, Bowman completely fucking missed. And for what? A forward with motivation issues whom the Hawks have no need or use for while the core is still intact. What a good offseason for Stan Bowman, master negotiator.

Harju is better off, but that doesn’t do much for us here. You wanna argue that all of Harju, Boqvist, Beaudin, and Mitchell won’t make the team? Fine. But if that’s the argument, then the three that remain better be good, and fast. Stan and his Band seem to think that’s the case, but why should any of us believe that they have any idea what they’re doing with the blue line? What have any of them done to show that they have any fucking idea what they’re doing at all?

They have no plan, and their process is shit. Just cut my fucking head off and kick it into the lake.

Everything Else

There’s No Plan, But There’s A Process

By Sam Fels 2101 0

Dear reader, I want you to remember those words as the Hawks go through the offseason and whatever they do. Repeat it to yourself after every move, every pick, every move that isn’t made. That’s what John McDonough told The Athletic right after the season, and I think it’s important to understand how the Hawks operate. Or don’t operate, as it were.

It’s hard to parse what the Hawks are thinking after the acquisition of Olli Maatta, itself we covered here. The fear is that the Hawks think their problem is they didn’t block enough shots. When the actual problem is preventing those shots at all, or gaining mobility or skill or…you know this could keep going and I’m going to get upset. And I don’t want to do that.

There’s also a fear that the Hawks think they’ve created this “strength” by having a logjam on the blue line. But they don’t. They have a clogged toilet. Remember, and I can’t stress this enough, Olli Maatta was nothing more than a third-pairing d-man on a team that’s been much better than the Hawks for two to three seasons now. Maybe even four. And last season ended with Maatta not even on their third-pairing. He’s not a difference maker. He’s a warm body, and that’s something he can barely claim because he’s a generally a pylon when he’s even upright.

And he’s just another third-pairing-or-below player. There are maybe two d-man amongst the NINE(!!) that are in contention for spots next year. And that’s not even counting Boqvist or Byram (a wish) pushing in training camp. Keith can still probably give you second pairing minutes and assignments with the right partner. Connor Murphy definitely can. That’s it. So seven players for what should be two spots. Good work there.

Do they think they can package some amount of this crap and get anything in return? Who thinks anything more of Slater Koekkoek than the Hawks do? The answer is no one, because if anyone did they could have gotten him from the Lightning for a song, too. They didn’t. Gustav Forsling? Everyone has seen what that is. And of course the main problem is they’re terrified of a demoted to a part time player Seabrook causing hell in the dressing room, so he’s going to be in the top six. His play has forfeited that right, but saying it out loud in the organization is somewhere around saying, “BEETLEJUICE!” three times with them.

More worryingly, although every GM says this after whatever team wins, is that Stan today was beating the, “ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS GET IN AND ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!” drum, which is horseshit. Yes, a team from nowhere does occasionally win. In fact, before the Blues won the last team to win a Cup that wasn’t consistently at the top of the standings was…hang on, I’ll get this…I’m sure it’s there…the Hurricanes? Except they had 112 points that year. Oh here we are, the Canadiens in 19 NINETY-FUCKING-THREE.

The myth of any NHL team being able to win once the playoff field is set is perhaps the most annoying in the sport. That doesn’t mean you have to win the Presidents’ Trophy or even a division. The league’s gimmick-heavy standings system makes it hard to distinguish between 100-point teams, really. But you do have to be near the top. The Cup-winner generally comes from a group of five or six. The Capitals had been around the top of the league for basically a decade. Same the Penguins. The Hawks, the Kings (and don’t start with the ’12 Kings because they were a preseason favorite that played with their head up their ass most of the season, and then were consistently near the top of the standings for the next three seasons). The Bruins were kind of a surprise, but then spent the next few years at the top of the standings too.

Simply “getting in” isn’t a sustainable plan. it’s not a plan at all. It’s the absence of one. Being a consistent, 100-point team or more is, and then maybe things break your way in the playoffs. And you need less of them when you’re actually really good. Look all it took for the Blues. A team quitting on its coach, a team not trying to score and a Game 7 OT, a team where everyone was hurt, and then that again in the Final. That doesn’t happen every year.

On the other side, it’s hard to tell what you need on the blue line anymore. There are many ways to skin a cat, so it’s very possible a team with a great blue line can and will win again. The Hurricanes look poised, the Predators have been contenders. But the last four Cup-winners have had suspect or underwhelming collections of d-men. Letang was hurt for one, remember, leaving Dumoulin as the only genuine, top-pairing guy on that Penguins team. Fuck, you could argue he’s the only one of the last four, though John Carlson and Alex Pietrangelo have strong arguments. Maybe you just need a collection of guys who won’t self-immolate at the first sign of trouble.

But the Hawks don’t even have that. They’re not even close to that! And the acquisition of Maatta doesn’t convince anyone they know how to get to that. Whatever our complaints about the Blues defense, and there are tons, Dunn, OrangeJello, and Parayko aren’t concrete-shoe slow. The Hawks are. Maatta only adds to that. What are they searching for?

And the worrying thing is they might not even know.

 

Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Brent Seabrook

By John Pullega 1743 0

When we divvied up who was going to write about whom a few weeks ago, we totally forgot to include Brent Seabrook in the mix. Call it wishful thinking or a Freudian slip if you must, but we can all agree that we all want to forget about the year Seabrook had. Strap in. This one’s long, and it’s gonna get weird.

Stats

78 GP, 5 G, 23 A, 28 P

46.77 CF%, 44.71 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

One good thing that happened is that Seabrook was close to his career average in points. Another thing was that as the year went on, Colliton started pulling back on the number of minutes Seabrook played. Whereas Seabrook was posting 20+ minutes with regularity in November and mid-December, once mid-December hit, the minutes started falling off.

The last time Seabrook played 20+ minutes in 2018 was on December 14. From that point on, he eclipsed 20 minutes just five times in the next 45 games he played. This has long been the argument that Hawks beat writers and talking heads have foisted upon us. If Seabrook only played less, he’d be more effective. Well . . .

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

From December 15 on, here are some of Seabrook’s stats:

  • 47.07 CF%. Only Dahlstrom was worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes (47.03%), but Dahlstrom also started in the oZ about 39% of the time, compared to Seabrook’s near 50%.
  • 40.07 HDCF%. Only Dahlstrom (37.24%) and Murphy (38.41%) were worse among D-men with at least 500 minutes. Again, the zone starts weigh heavy, with Seabrook starting in the oZ almost 50% of the time, while Dahlstrom and Murphy sat at around 39%.
  • 44.44 HDGF%. Worst among Hawks D-men with at least 500 minutes. If you include Forsling at around 465 minutes and a 37.50%, Seabrook bumps up to second worst. Joy.

Even with less time AND sheltered time, Seabrook was still getting exploited by opponents, so I’m not so sure that the “Seabrook can still be useful with less time and more sheltering” argument is a valid one.

It only gets worse when you look at the season as a whole.

Among 209 D-men who played at least 500 minutes on the year, here’s where Seabrook ranked in the following categories:

  • 170th in CF% [46.77]: Of the players who had worse CF%s, only seven spent more time in the oZ than Seabrook: Ilya Lyubushkin, Dmitry Kulikov, Jack Johnson, Jordan Oesterle, Joe Morrow, Cam Fowler, and Madison Bowey. Fucking woof.
  • 147th in GF% [46.46]
  • 189th in xGF% [44.71]: I’d like to note that this was worse than Brandon Motherfucking Manning, and better than both Gustav Forsling and Carl Dahlstrom. So anyone who says the Hawks can/should prioritize forwards over defensemen this offseason and outscore their problems can suck the shit out of a stray dog’s ass for all I care.
  • 198th in HDCF% [42.11]: Amazingly, three Blackhawks were worse than him: Murphy, Dahlstrom, and Forsling. Murphy and Dahlstrom were victims of zone starts (38% and 39% oZ starts, respectively). Forsling (52.11% oZ start) just fucking sucks.
  • 173rd in HDGF% [41.51]

And that’s just at 5v5! Seabrook also played the second-most minutes on the Hawks’s league-worst penalty killing unit, just behind Duncan Keith. In case you didn’t know, the Hawks’s PK finished with a 72.7 PK% despite being the sixth least-penalized team in the league. (Only the Leafs finished with a PK% lower than 80% among teams with fewer penalty minutes, and they finished at 79.9%. That’s fucking something.)

And the turnovers. Seabrook’s -53 giveaway/takeaway differential was worst on the Hawks and 15th-worst among all D-men. Only Alec Martinez and Scott Mayfield had worse differentials in less TOI.

Did I mention that Seabrook’s CF% Rel of -3.5 was only better than Andreas Martinsen (-6.0), Brandon Motherfucking Manning (-5.7), and Brendan Perlini (-3.8)?

I can’t go on. But the point is, there’s no metric that shows that Seabrook can play even third-pairing minutes anymore. Even if you go back to the bash-your-head-in-with-a-rock plus/minus stat, Seabrook’s -6 was tied for worst in his career. Combine all this with the eye test, and hoo boy.

All of this fucking sucks to look at. Pointing out that Brent Seabrook—who will go down as one of the most recognizable and venerated Blackhawks of both his generation and all time—sucks isn’t fun.

What’s even less fun is pointing out that he got to play minutes over Henri Jokiharju, whose performance was the polar opposite of Seabrook’s. While it’s not his fault that Colliton made that decision, it’s nonetheless frustrating. If the Hawks didn’t have anyone better to throw out there, you’d live with it a little more. But they do have at least one guy who’s better, and he got to finish in the AHL. That’s fucking stupid no matter how you slice it.

Now, let’s get weird.

Within every retrospective of Seabrook I’ve read, there’s always a paragraph or two dedicated to how much Seabrook means to the team off the ice. Everyone says he’s a great leader, the heart of the locker room, and so on. Fuck, one of the NBC talking heads quoted Patrick Kane as saying he thinks Seabrook is underpaid for what he brings in terms of heart.

I don’t think any of that narrative was of Seabrook’s own making, and thus, that narrative isn’t his fault. But a good example that he takes leadership seriously goes back to comforting Toews in the penalty box against the Wings in 2013. It goes back to Seabrook being the spokesman during the Keith–Sharp kerfuffle in 2015. And it runs through recently: When Seabrook was a healthy scratch last year, barrels of ink were spilled, including by me, about what a big deal it was.

Brent Seabrook matters, and he always will in the annals of history. But maybe his slide into badness could come with a bit more dignity if everyone would stop shoveling the LEADERSHIP narrative so hard.

I’m not in the locker room and never will be. I don’t doubt that the players see Seabrook as a strong leader. I don’t doubt that they love the guy for the things he says and does behind the scenes. I don’t doubt that he’s still important to a lot of the players, both young and old, on and off the ice. What chaps my ass is the idea that because he’s likeable and says things that pump his teammates up, he needs to be on the ice at all.

I don’t give a fuck that he’s getting paid close to $7 million a year. I’m anti-“Pay Him, Play Him” when the play isn’t worth the pay. Sunk costs blow, but the best way to handle them is to cut bait as much as possible. With all those fucking degrees from Notre Dame and whichever other institutions are at a perpetual up-their-own-asshole critical mass in the front office, you’d think they’d know how to avoid a sunk cost fallacy. But here we are.

Seabrook obviously carries a big stick, since anyone else who turned in his performance would regularly be scratched or in the AHL (the latter of which isn’t an option for Seabrook, obviously). And while I know that this goes against how hockey players (and athletes in general) only know how to compete and will never ask to be taken out, I wonder whether Seabrook, as a leader, would ever say, “Look, I’m obviously not as good as I used to be, and I’m sometimes hurting the team, but I still want to play. How can we split the difference between me playing every game and not playing at all?”

If he were to say something like that (if he hasn’t already), you have to imagine it would resonate. At that point, the entire organization can stop dancing around the fact that Seabrook isn’t good anymore and justifying playing him with this leadership narrative. They can stop filming five-minute videos about how Seabrook is in the best shape of his life in the offseason, only to retreat to his leadership when everyone mistakes him for Obese Homer trying to shoo kids away with a broom handle five games in. And we can all stop bemoaning the very public crumbling of a legitimate Blackhawks legend’s performance.

But at the end of the day, that’s on Colliton, Bowman, and McDonough, who are either too scared to tell him themselves or too arrogant to see that this isn’t the Brent Seabrook that won three Cups. That’s the real problem. Seabrook shouldn’t have to be the guy to take himself out. That’s the whole point of coaches and management. Yet another exhibit in the case that this Brain Trust was born on third and has no clue how to handle adversity.

Can I Go Now?

We have five more years on this contract, and with each year that goes by, it’ll be easier to forget what a horse Seabrook used to be. He’s not gonna be traded, so let’s snuff that out right away.

The guys over at Second City Hockey did a breakdown of what a buyout would look like. It’s not pretty, but it’s an option if his play continues to slide beyond redemption. It’s not Bobby Bonilla bad, but it’s reminiscent.

It’s extremely unlikely that Seabrook will leave close to $35 million on the table to retire and walk away from everything. It would be the easiest out, since there’s no recapture penalty attached, but Seabrook doesn’t owe anyone that.

My crazy idea would be for Seabrook to retire on the condition that the the Hawks immediately transition him into a coaching position of some kind for a salary that’s close to or equal to what he’s making now but doesn’t affect the salary cap. It would be the best of all worlds: Seabrook gets to stay around, get paid, and have an important role on the team, and his play doesn’t cost the Hawks goals or games anymore.

I’m sure what I’m proposing is impossible and stupid, mostly because Seabrook obviously still wants to play. But if the Hawks want to make one last run with this Core, it’s going to be impossible and stupid to take it seriously while this version of Brent Seabrook is still skating real, meaningful minutes. And that’s a shame.

Seabrook had a shitty year, but he will always reside in the tabernacle of our hearts. He’s a fading legend, an exploded supernova. For all the shit we toss his way, we’ll always remember and love all the good stuff he did.

I’d just rather not have to weed through half a decade of trash to remember it.

Stats from NaturalStatTrick.com, hockey-reference.com, and tsn.ca

Everything Else

Crossroads, Directions, Urgency, And Other Buzzwords

By Sam Fels 1848 0

We spend a lot of time here trying to figure out where the Hawks want to go and how quickly they want to get there. After a day of pondering in initial response to the Hawks getting the #3 pick, which I assumed  only upped the urgency and if they can’t take a player who can help next year they have to trade it, now I’m not so sure. That’s certainly A solution, but is it THE solution? We have spent two seasons now trying to figure out what the Hawks want to do, how they want to go about it, while navigating what we perceive are the forces and what actually are the forces influencing their decisions.

Maybe they don’t even know?

We can say there are two, opposing sides pulling at the Hawks. One is their ONE GOAL URGENCY, which means you have to get as good as you can as fast as you can, in service to your Four Horsemen Of The Cup-acalypse and a fanbase that really has only known winning aside from the “hardcore” who aren’t really going anywhere but do include the construction workers yelling at McDonough outside his office window. It’s that feeling that causes them to utter words like, “Unacceptable, urgency, accountability.” It makes them say them, it doesn’t make them necessarily live up to them.

On the other side, you have the pretty rational urge to try and build a team for the next wave. A team that can stand on its own with Toews and Keith only being contributors instead of pillars (it’s hard to see anytime soon where Kane won’t be the latter). That the Hawks have to find a way to give a team to DeBrincat and now Strome and Boqvist and whoever else ends up being here.

We have spent a lot of time saying that there are so few avenues to getting a #1 d-man or center. That whatever “rebuild” or “retool” they want to embark on is pointless until you can find a way to either or both of those. And the main way is having a top three pick. Well, look at that.

So what do the Hawks balance here? Maybe they look at it and think to themselves that Dylan Cozens or Alex Turcotte is the future #1 center that can take the torch from Toews in three years. And while that might not help you next year, it helps you for more years down the road. They may not get another chance to find that player. Certainly not an easier one.

While Boqvist, Mitchell, Jokiharju, and Beaudin all seem to have their problems, promise, ceilings, and floors, it’s pretty much agreed that if things progress as they should, Bowan Byram is a #1 d-man in the future. He has it all. And maybe Stan Bowman sees the most surefire heir to Keith’s reign. We know development curves for d-men are longer, and you have to live with some shit for a while, but again, that sets you up for longer. Again, this might be your best and/or only chance to get that player.

So how do you weigh that?

For the Hawks front office, things have gotten easier. Because Seabrook’s and Keith’s play this year, along with Keith’s attitude on the ice, means they have less influence. Or they should. You don’t have to “sell” to them, because if they throw a bitch about a continued rebuild, Seabrook should be bought out anyway and Keith doesn’t really have to be here.

So essentially, on the players side, you’re only selling this to Toews and Kane. Maybe they have enough pull between the two of them to say, “No, we’re not waiting around for another season, and certainly not another fucking two years.” And maybe that puts the brakes on any plans. Should it? I can’t really answer that. Is working in their interests best for the team in five years? 10?

Is there a push from outside the organization? Again, it’s hard to say that. The building is still full, even if they’re eating through their beloved waitlist. It’s hard to know how much longer that will last, and while there were some scatterings of open seats earlier in the year, there wasn’t anything resembling a mass exodus.

There isn’t a press baying for heads and blood. There aren’t column inches being devoted to changes the Hawks must make, riling up an already twitchy fanbase and poisoning the atmosphere in the arena. None of the columnists care. Do columnists even exist anymore? And the fanbase isn’t twitchy.

I’ve been of the opinion that the Hawks were either lying or incompetent. That their proclamations of being a playoff team were either being undercut by a front office actually trying to rebuild the roster on the fly using that as cover, or they really thought this was a playoff team and they have no idea how to build one. Maybe the answer is both? Or none? Maybe they’re trying to thread that needle of doing both? Maybe they don’t have any idea which they’re doing? Maybe they keep making half-measures toward one side or the other, which only leaves them stuck in the middle, moving toward neither?

Which makes this third pick fascinating. Because it’s something definitive either way. It also could be their chance to actually thread this needle and do both. For example: they could take Byram or Turcotte or Cozens, and then none of them would be here next year. A week after that, they could splash some cash for a free agent or two, package a couple of prospects for another, and improve the team for the now while really building it for the later. And this is what feels like is the most likely route.

There are a lot of ways that can go wrong, of course. You could spend on the wrong free agent or two. Make a bad trade, and leave your future depth in rubble. The kid you take at #3 just never makes the leap, or makes it at all and you look at them like the Coyotes looked at Strome, except deservedly.

What’s been so frustrating for some Hawks fans, clearly not all, is that there just didn’t seem to be any direction for the team. They said one thing, did another, and then said something else. But I haven’t Occam Razor’d this until yesterday. The most likely explanation is that they just don’t know.

Well now they have a key. They can do one, they can do the other, or they can attempt both. At least maybe they’ll pick one now. Maybe.

 

Everything Else

The Natives Are Getting Restless

By Sam Fels 1992 0

We’ve spent a lot of time reading tea leaves with the Hawks and what they say in the press. You don’t have to decode much to get to the heart of what Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were getting at yesterday:

Kane: “Yeah it’s tough. It’s just crazy that our season’s gonna be over in five days and that’s it for another year. Pretty frustrating, especially when I think a lot of us feel like we’re in our prime and be able to contribute, and had good seasons. But that’s the way it is.

— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019

More Toews: “And the guys that have been here for a while learning that no one really cares what you did years ago. We’ve gotta keep pushing ourselves to get better and better. The league’s getting better, our division’s getting better, so it’s tough. It’s a tough league.”

— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019

Clearly, the two main vets are not exactly thrilled with the front office or some other veterans in the room. Let’s try to unpack it all.

-You can understand why the players might be upset at no reinforcements at the deadline, because they did scrap and claw their way back into contention. You can also understand why any competent front office is not going to give up any prospect or draft pick for a player to maybe help them get labeled by the Flames in the first round. That’s not how you build a team. Players’ emotions often don’t align with the cold calculation of a front office. And that’s fine.

Still, it’s got to go deeper than this. We know Kane is maniacal in the offseason about working on his game, and it’s clear Toews is transforming the player he is from last year as well. He’s even said it’s a multi-year process. They saw what happened in the summer, and you can be sure that when those signings were made both Toews and Kane were like, “But those guys suck.” Players know, no matter what they say for public consumption.

It’s also clear that both Kane and Toews know the clock is ticking. Kane’s two best seasons individually have resulted in no playoff series wins. Toews heard he was finished, remade his game and body, had a career year, and did it for a pretty puke-tastic team. Where you could apportion some blame for last year to Toews, you can’t this year. They know they don’t have that many times at-bat being able to catch up to a good fastball. It stands to reason they’re not very interested in wasting another one on the likes of Brandon Manning.

-And it wouldn’t be a huge leap to suggest that Toews’s quote there, about no one caring what you did a few years ago, was meant to land right at the feet of the alternate captains. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook can run to friendly, Canadian writers all they want to proclaim how much they want to stay, but their play has clearly been making another statement. Last night was another excellent display of Keith drained of fucks to give, which Hess summed up pretty well last night. As I tweeted, his indifference is bordering on open rebellion.

What’s clear, and Bowman has said as much, is that he and McD will go to THE FOUR and lay out what the plan is to not have them go through a season like this again. But that meeting is going to be a lot more contentious than the Hawks were anticipating. Toews and Kane clearly have expectations, and the cards to act on them. Keith is either going to need a serious come-to-Jesus talk from all parties, or he’s going to have to be launched. If Keith is going to continue to clearly demonstrate he thinks his coach is an idiot, that can fester and grow in a dressing room and become a real problem. You know what that looks like? The pre-Berube Blues.

If the Hawks are married to Jeremy Colliton, and I’m not here to tell you they should be but they are, then you can’t have your most decorated player undermining him at every turn. Hess said as much.

This about as pointed as Toews and Kane have ever gotten in the press, so relatively this is basically them shouting. This is what happens when you biff a second straight season. This is what happens when you make a bunch of noise about how this is a playoff team and then don’t do anything to back that up. This is what happens when your players think you’re either lying or incompetent.

The Hawks’ brass already had a serious selling job to do this summer. Turns out the biggest of it might be to their own players.

Everything Else

Ball Don’t Lie

By Sam Fels 1864 0

There will be lots of post-mortems in just over 10 days time when this season ends now. And that’s when it will end, which we all kind of knew but some of us had deluded ourselves into thinking there was hope it might go on for 10 days more. Which is kind of a silly thing to hope for, because those 10 days in one playoff series really have no more bearing on the future than missing out on them do. But it became official last night.

Even last night’s effort wasn’t a crime against the sport. The Hawks don’t have a trap-buster. They never really have honestly, but they had the forwards and the defensive discipline to grind it out in the past. Gustafsson is too slow, Forsling too dumb and slow, and Keith too manic with the puck. They don’t have forwards to just get it low and get it back other than Saad, especially with Caggiula hurt (and when you’re needing Drake Caggiula, that expresses things I never could through sheer prose). Dominik Kahun can in spurts, but he was on the 4th line for some reason. And they don’t have d-men who can get a shot through traffic. I’m not even convinced Gustafsson is that good at it, as his skill seems to be burying open ones. Seabrook used to, when he could get to any spot to even get a shot off quicker than can be measured with an egg timer.

Still, they didn’t try as much of the dipsy-doodle shit they did against Vancouver against the same tactics. They actively tried to harass the Coyotes d-men early and often to try and create turnovers at the Arizona line or just beyond to avoid that trap, which is what they had to do. Didn’t work, but at least they tried it.

But at the end of the day, the Hawks had seven “big” games that definitely would have had them in the playoff spots or right on them. The spots they’ve told you are the season’s goal. The spots they told you were the minimum for this season.

They took two points out of them.

It’s a second straight year without the playoffs for Team One Goal. Two years after you were told that everyone would be held accountable. So who’s been held accountable?

Brent Seabrook has been healthy scratched twice in two seasons where he’s been AHL-level. Duncan Keith probably can’t be demoted in the lineup, but other than occasionally Murphy and Dahlstrom taking last minute shifts, there’s been no sign of that either. Nick Schmaltz was held accountable, I guess. But that’s easy. Henri Jokiharju was apparently held accountable. That’s even easier.

Joel Quenneville was, though only after his GM was actively spiking his roster. And I don’t know that was the wrong choice. I don’t think it was, and I didn’t then either. But his replacement has done exactly the same (.500, which in the NHL is bad) with an improved roster. Q didn’t have Connor Murphy. Q didn’t have Caggiula. Q didn’t have Sikura. Q didn’t have Strome and Perlini (whatever that counts for). And Q didn’t have a back-to-his-best Crawford, which Colliton has had the past month. Where has that gotten the Hawks? A handful of themselves. Will Colliton be held accountable? When he was hired they told you this was a playoff team. They’ve snuffed it in every game they had that truly mattered. Keep in mind, if they’d just split those seven points from the 14 on offer, not only are they in a wildcard spot, they’re probably comfortably so.

After stealing a win out of Montreal and then struggling against Vancouver’s trap for a period. Coach Cool Youth Pastor switched the lines to whatever this is. Top Cat doesn’t have a point. Kane doesn’t have a goal. Strome doesn’t have a point. Neither does Perlini. Toews has two goals and three points. Brandon Saad has averaged a 65% Corsi over these five games, and the same scoring chance share, and has been on the ice for one goal for because all his work is being done for the benefit of balloon handed clods. Sure, teams go through snakebitten periods as a whole, and maybe this is it. Or is it that a very thin and fragile lineup needs to be perfectly assembled, and Beto O’Colliton did the opposite?

Will Stan Bowman be held accountable? He was the one actively trashing his coach in the offseason with his moves for an excuse to fire him, which he didn’t have the balls to do over the summer. He then installed his guy who is clearly not ready for this after one season coaching in North America. It was a hail mary to save his job. It didn’t work, but he’ll get away with it. While the broadcast spent several minutes discussing the Coyotes overhauling their scouting after having to trade three straight first-round picks, the names of Schmaltz, McNeill, Danault and Hartman certainly ring around the ears of Hawks fans (I’d throw Teuvo on there, but he was a sweetener). Will Stan be held accountable for his pro scouting staff? Because in the past that’s netted him a clinically dead Johnny Oduya, Dale Fucking Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, and an even more clinically dead Andrew Ladd. Sure, he fleeced Edmonton, but that’s filling-your-name-on-the-SAT shit. Strome and Perlini may yet work out, but the record is very spotty. This is the same GM who ruined last year by having no backup plan for Crawford than Anton Forsberg and JF Berube. Has it improved at all?

Will John McDonough be held accountable? It’s his enforced extensions to Bickell, Seabrook, and Anisimov that have hamstrung this team. It’s his message that this is a playoff team is broadcast far and wide, and yet it’s his team that’s not even coming close to that. By what standard is he judged? The building is still full, so I guess that’s what matters.

In a depleted Western Conference that made the hurdle of the playoffs barely knee-height, these Hawks will barely get within hailing distance. Their point-total this year will be the same as it would have been last year if Crawford had remained healthy. Perhaps even worse. They have the same 76 now, and you could easily see them only beating the Kings the rest of the way here (and there’s another thing they barf-belched last time, so who knows?). So how do you make the argument they’re moving forward? And they’re not moving backward, they’re in the same hell they were before. Not near the playoffs and not bad enough to get a true difference maker in the draft. And you have to believe the playoff threshold will return to its 95-point level next year because that’s just how things work. Do you see a 95-point team here without massive additions?

This was a team in need of a lot, and even at the draft they took the biggest project possible. And trading or buying out Keith and Seabrook, respectively, this summer, if that is the plan, is only going to ramp up the pressure even more. Their names still draw a ton more water than Bowman’s or Colliton’s do. Is there any forward in the system anywhere close worth getting excited about? It seems like the Hawks are poised to make the team good again just at the point when Toews and Kane are too old to do that. How many more MVP-worthy seasons do they think Kane has left in his 30s?

Who will be held accountable? The answer is no one, as the front office hides behind the three banners they were pretty much as along for the ride for as you and I were. And they can do that, because the Hawks have returned to their natural place in the Chicago pecking order. The Bears are Super Bowl contenders. The Cubs are still World Series contenders. The Sox are at least in the news and producing players their fans can get excited about. Even the Bulls stupidity knocked the Hawks back even more off the headlines.

So they can keep the status quo, because really, who’s looking?

Everything Else

Look Who’s Talking

By Sam Fels 2166 0

I’m sure you’re surprised that in the middle of the team’s first winning streak in a season and a quarter (they last won five in a row or more in December of 2017), John McDonough pops up for an in-depth interview with The Athletic. That’s a little harsh on McD, who doesn’t hide totally when things are going poorly. But it also does seem a tad convenient.

The other caveat is that I’ve always thought it was folly to read too much into what McDonough has to say about on-ice issues. He has been, or may still be, involved in some decisions. And he is the boss. Whatever “plan” the Hawks have (and we’ll get to that), basically starts with him at least giving it the ok. That said, I doubt he could tell you what the difference is in defensive systems from Q to Jeremy Colliton is, or why this winning-streak is empty when you look at process. Still, his voice matters.

And there’s some real gobbledygook in here. Let’s go through it:

Well, you’ve got to feel better about where things stand now than you did four or five weeks ago, right?

Yeah, I feel better about it. We got off to a rough start. I recognize that this is a roller-coaster, that we’re going to have those ups and downs. But being tested like you were for seven or eight games where you’re down two or three goals, I learned a lot about our team. I learned a lot about our coaching staff. I learned a lot about our management. There was no finger-pointing. There were no alarmists. We rode it out. There was a sense that this could get worse before it gets better, and it did. But I don’t think we’re in a much different place. I’m really pleased with the five-game winning streak, that’s good to see. But this going forward, I think, is going to be all about the process as opposed to the plan. People want to know, what is the plan going forward, like there’s some master plan. I think it’s a really healthy process. I’m very proud of Jeremy (Colliton). He was put in a very tough situation, replacing a legend, an icon, an institution, a Hall of Famer, a classy guy that was a primary reason that we won three Stanley Cups. I’m very proud of the job he’s done and I’m excited about our future. Very optimistic about our future with Jeremy behind the bench.

Um, ok, but did you miss all that finger-pointing your GM did at your former coach? Does that count? Because he was pretty clear on it. It’s rare that finger-pointing comes in the signings and then discarding of actual players, but hey, the Hawks are cutting edge, remember?

Hey, it’s great your coach, who has been coaching on this continent for barely 14 months when you hired him, didn’t hang his players out to dry. Because that’s something he totally could have done without losing them forever. And you got lucky that your players didn’t do that to him, which they easily could have. Then again, let’s watch Duncan Keith’s play from that time and decide what that was about.

I have no idea what the “process as opposed to the plan” line is all about. The Hawks have never outlined any kind of plan. They can’t even decide what word they want to use to describe where a plan would go. Can you have a process without a plan? Isn’t a “process” executing a set “plan?” Then McDonough basically says that there isn’t a master plan–which, great–but that it’s a really healthy process. What in the ever-living fuck could that possibly mean? This is right up there with Stan Bowman’s assertion years ago about Marian Hossa returning from injury, “There’s no timetable, but he’s on schedule.”

I believed that this was a playoff team. I believed in our roster. But we’ve had circumstances to deal with. Corey’s been in net for, I think, a third of our games in the last year. There’s been a lot of roster turnover. 

Ok, but if you thought this was a playoff team, and you fired Quenneville because you didn’t think he was going to lead them there, why was there so much roster turnover? Did you think the old roster was playoff-worthy? Or this one? And you’re wrong on both counts anyway. But hey, sellout-streak!

No, because we weren’t there then. We weren’t there then. I was disappointed in last year, but I didn’t think and Stan didn’t think that, in fairness to Joel, that was necessarily the right time, either. And we get back to what we talked about before — what is the right time? Is it based on a losing streak? I think it’s more based on feel. There was a sameness that had crept in. So we made the change and I think we’re going in a good direction right now. But we don’t get caught up in the bounce that we have right now with the winning streak, and we ride out the tough times and we try to improve the team every day.

I just can’t buy this. The Hawks wanted to fire Q in the summer, and you know that because 15 games is never enough of a sample to decide it’s not working. You’re looking for an excuse to get where you wanted to anyway, but it allows you to do that after single-game tickets have gone on sale.

Also, and I don’t expect this to come from McD but I can only hope and pray that Bowman and Colliton know better, is that the “good direction” the Hawks are on now is really nothing more than a few good bounces. The process on the ice still sucks, and giving up over 90 shots tot the Canucks and Red Wings, whose players have to wear helmets off the ice too, is proof of that (which to be fair, came after this was published, but the trends were still there).

We want to be a playoff team and then once you get in, anything can happen. 

This is a garbage sentiment and a team that’s been plastering “One Goal” on our psyches for a decade should know better. The two 8-seeds in recent memory to make big runs were the Predators in ’17 and the Kings in ’12, and both were preseason favorites that underperformed for most of the regular season. They became what they should have in the spring. They didn’t “come from nowhere.” The idea that anyone can just get in and run the table is an old myth. Generally, you’ve got to be amongst the big boys consistently, even if that means finishing second or third in a division. Because that usually comes down to OT bounces anyway.

This is an organization that prided itself, and couldn’t wait to tell everyone, about the consistent greatness they were striving for. Not “We’re gonna roll the dice because hey, maybe it’s our day?” Think harder, Homer.

I think he’s smart enough to get the opinions of his group, and then he ultimately makes the final decision. And then we kind of talk about it and we go with his feel and his recommendations. 

So Stan is the final decision maker…until he runs it by you? That’s…not encouraging.

On Seabrook and Keith: I think both of them are very valuable members of the organization. I’m thrilled that they’re part of this. They’re decorated, potentially future Hall of Famers. They’ve been through a lot. And I’d like to see them be a part of the group that helps us surge again…(Seabrook) has had a brilliant career and he’s great in the locker room. He’s a terrific human being. I think he’s the ultimate leader. So yeah, it does bother me, because he really, really cares. But I am confident he’s going to be a part of this going forward.

Then why did reports of the team asking him to waive his NMC get out? That doesn’t happen on accident, especially with the Hawks. Obviously, McD isn’t going to come out and say, “Despite his accomplishments we have to get this bloated nacho graveyard off the roster immediately!” But look at this with any sort of critical eye and you see right through it.

On Quenneville: These are very tough decisions that are professional decisions, they’re not personal decisions. He and I spent a lot of time together. A lot of time. Didn’t agree on everything.”

I am dying to know what it was McDonough and Quenneville didn’t agree on. Please tell me the hockey arguments that went on here. I need this.

And how he handled it, how graceful he was in how he handled winning — he never pointed fingers or felt that the roster was inferior when we went through tough times.

Ask Connor Murphy about this one.

It’s McD’s job to try and say things without really saying anything. And there’s not much to be gained from the president decreeing much from the mountain top, because we can only hope he’s not that involved with what we really care about, the on-ice product. So much hinges on the summer. But this was some Grade-A funny shit at times.

Everything Else

Ocean Of Confusion

By Sam Fels 2186 0

Note: Yes, I realize I’m mixing my Screaming Trees references but just go with me on this, friend. 

Babies, I like to pretend I know everything. Or at least enough where I can convince you I know what’s up with the Hawks. But I have to say the last few days have left me as bewildered as when they started. My thoughts, and others, were summed up in the podcast (which hey, you can get right here!), but I want to expound on them a touch more.

As I said on that ‘cast (I can abbreviate it cuz I’m cool, yo), I like the trade even though I either don’t approve of the process that got them there, and that’s if I can even discern what that process was. So, much like Patron Saint Inigo Montoya, let’s go back to the beginning.

Let’s start with Stan Bowman’s quote to The Athletic’s Scott Powers during an interview in Florida from last week about the signings of Brandon Manning and Chris Kunitz:

“Part of your job as a manager is to try to work with your coach to try to give them players that can implement the way they want to play,” Bowman said. “So I think we did a good job of that over the years with Joel. When it was obvious players didn’t fit the way even though they were quote-unquote good players, if they weren’t going to work for us, we didn’t just sit on them. We would move them and try to find somebody.

“It’s sort of the same thing. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but they were players that had attributes that Joel thought was important for our team and was lacking. So we have a new coach now, trying to fit in their strengths, but also changing to play in a little bit different way. So it’s hard to make a full assessment on that. I’ll have to see how it all plays out in the next several months. Hopefully they can find a way to contribute with Jeremy as well.”

Let’s start before this. Now, this has only been a working theory of ours for a couple seasons now, but I feel it’s a strong one. And one we can probably back up if we need to, and we went over on the ‘cast (so cool). After the sweep by the Predators in ’17, it was pretty clear that Stan Bowman went to his superiors and told them if they wanted to extend the window of this team, or at least keep it relevant, he needed to have complete control of personnel decisions. It had to be his show. It wasn’t totally his before, and the push-and-pull between him and Q and Q’s soldiers in the front office is well documented.

We know, or have a strong suspicion at least, that Bowman got all of the reins because he booted two of Q’s favorites immediately in Niklas Hjalmarsson and Artemi Panarin. Make no mistake, it was Q’s not-total belief in Bradon Saad, and his allies in the front office, that got Saad traded the first time. The fact that Stan didn’t tell Q about these trades beforehand, and Q made a show of telling the media that, gives you some idea of what the new dynamic was. You could argue it was at this point that Q just checked out of the job mentally, which is definitely the story some of the Hawks players were pushing after the firing.

So let’s add to that it was pretty clear that Stan wanted to fire Q before this season even started. And that Jeremy Colliton was his guy. I think we know this because if you’re pulling that trigger after 15 games, and I’ve said this before, all you’re allowing the incumbent is the chance for EVERYTHING to go perfectly. It didn’t.

So let’s circle back to this quote. And it’s essentially, maybe only partially, Stan throwing the coach he didn’t want to work with anymore under whatever bus was closest. “Well, I signed these guys because they were the types I hated but Joel liked and look what that got us! See why I had to do what I did!”

But if you believe all this, and maybe you don’t, what essentially happened is Stan took some cap space to assuage a coach he didn’t want with players who didn’t really have any hope, but now the coach he did want is stuck with them. And the coach he did want doesn’t have the time to really implement the changes both of them would like to make, nor with a roster either is suited for.

And if you carry this out farther, rightly or wrongly, you get to some uncomfortable questions about Schmatlz’s untouchable status over the summer. Because Elliotte Friedman reported the Canes asked about him in talks over Justin Faulk. Did Stan say no because he really thought Schmaltz was a cornerstone? An opinion he lost just 25 games in? Or did he not make a move for Faulk unless it was complete theft because he thought, gasp, a player like that might improve the Hawks just enough that he couldn’t fire Quenneville? There’s no way to make that connection firmly, but can you totally dismiss it?

Looking forward, I don’t know what Jeremy Colliton is or will be. I will say I like the outside-the-box hire, because a major problem in hockey is the constant retreading at both coach and GM positions everywhere. Everything you hear from people in the know say that Colliton has a chance to be a really good coach.

But he doesn’t have much to work with, certainly on the blue line. He has entrenched veterans who can’t, or won’t, change their game to adjust for what they are. Or he has overmatched players. And one promising rookie who has to cover for above.

We know Colliton is Stan’s guy, because he got a multi-year deal. And I’m at least curious to see what Colliton could do with a real roster. Just curious. And maybe Stan thinks he’s going to be around for all of it.

But here’s the thing. Rocky and McD can bluster all they want about “remodels” and “believing in our guys” all they want. But let’s say December goes completely balls-up, and it so easily could. And the Hawks are done by The Winter Classic, 5-7 games under .500 and on a national stage where all their faults will be laid out for everyone to see.

And then in the spring, those season ticket renewals start not showing up. Or being declined, I guess. And they have to dig in deeper and deeper to that waiting list they used to love to tell you about. And more and more on that waiting list say either, “No thanks,” or “Who are you again?”

There isn’t anything else that would get Rocky and McD’s attention. They would notice that in a heartbeat. And that’s when trigger fingers get itchy (when McD is done bullying his lower level employees of course, because GENIUS). And then the Hawks bring in some crusty hockey man because it’s a name some fans might recognize and that’s the length of the research the Twin Towers Of Born On Third Organizational Method do. And he wants another crusty hockey man behind the bench.

And then it’s totally fucked, and Collition never gets a chance with the blue line that’s kind of been hand-picked for what we think his style will be.

I know I’ve mapped this out like the detective in V For Vendetta, so let’s eschew everything in the future for now.

What I can’t get past is a GM seemingly sandbagging his coach with players who suck to illustrate what the problems with that coach were. And another thing I can’t get past is that if Stan can’t help talking up Adam Boqvist, Ian Mitchell, and Nicolas Beaudin, then maybe it would have helped everyone to say what this year was instead of blathering about winning and playoffs. Because it’s more and more obvious next year is what they were targeting anyway (and quick, show me the last playoff team with at least two rookie d-men logging heavy minutes).

Would the fanbase have been more accepting of being honestly told what was going on? Maybe or maybe not. But it would be better than this.

Everything Else

History Is Told By The Winners

By Sam Fels 2243 0

It’s not that it matters much, because it’s so far in the past. Doing revisionist stuff isn’t really healthy or prudent, but sometimes I can’t help it. And however it went down, the Blackhawks hiring of Joel Quenneville will go down as a seminal moment in Hawks history. It clearly could not have worked out better, no matter what our complaints and grievances have been along the way.

But I gotta tell ya, this “Oral History Of Quenneville’s Hiring” by Scott Powers is hilarious in parts. And that’s no fault of Scott’s, who is a friend and supporter of ours. He’s just recording what people said. What those people said though is just…oh my god, I can’t even.

Let’s go through some of it, shall we?

John McDonough, Blackhawks president: I can’t recall exactly, but I didn’t think we had a great camp. I don’t think I was alone in that thinking.

Right here, second quote of the article. I nearly fell off the couch reading this. Remember that when John McDonough was hired, which was less than a year before Savard’s firing and Q’s hiring, he made it clear he was not part of hockey operations. That wasn’t his duty or bag. He wanted you to know that. He would leave that to the hockey people.

So now all of the sudden he thinks the Hawks are having a bad camp? I mean, yeah, sure, he’s in the building and he’s watching practice and games I guess but…HOW THE FUCK WOULD HE KNOW?! What’s he comparing it to? He’d been in the job less than a year! What, did he do what he did for the Hawks game presentation and go around to every other team’s training camp and rip off what they were doing?

Again, this worked out incredibly well. But either McDonough is again trying to throw himself all over the credit for this hire, and/or he’s lying to you now or he was lying to you then. Or both! I just couldn’t let this one go.

Whenever something has gone right on the ice, McDonough does a reasonable impression of Usain Bolt to get in the way of any praise. This reminds me of the video of their second Cup win, when everyone is being interviewed about the 17 seconds. And McD is there to tell you the Bruins should have taken a timeout after Bickell’s goal. Oh, you think so, Toe McDonough? Your advanced hockey mind told you that?

Dale Tallon, Blackhawks general manager: It was kind of the end of the year and moving into the summer and into training camp, you hear things, and you develop and gather information and you go from there. It’s a day-to-day situation in our business. You’re only as good as your last game it seems.

You can see where Tallon knew he was fucked. Read between the lines here and what he’s saying is that McDonough and Rocky Wirtz hired Scotty Bowman as a consultant, because neither of them knew hockey from their ass, and essentially what Bowman told them was I can’t tell you what you’ve got on your roster until you’ve got a real coach running a real system, something Savard wasn’t and wasn’t doing. Oh and my son happens to be in the front office…

Remember that Tallon was also kind of forced to have Savard replace Trent Yawney. Savard was foisted upon SEVEN DIFFERENT COACHES as an assistant by Bill Wirtz. He was the pet project. When Tallon wanted to fire Yawney, Wirtz wasn’t about to pay two separate head coaches, so it was finally time to anoint Savvy. I’m not sure it was Tallon’s first choice, but it was his only choice. But it was yet another thing they could cuff to him when it came time to torpedo him a year later.

Brent Seabrook, Blackhawks defenseman: I remember playing like, I think Dunc (Duncan Keith), Soupy (Brian Campbell) and myself we all played 30 minutes a night the first three games and one of those was back to back. I remember being exhausted. So I don’t know if that was anything or what it was. It was probably nothing, probably just trying to win games.

You can see the problem. Also, under Savvy a lot of other teams thought the Hawks were horribly conditioned. You might recall a lot of blown leads the season before.

Stan Bowman, Blackhawks assistant general manager: The vibe that I remember was this didn’t have a feel like it was going to work in terms of Savy’s strengths as a coach, and I had known him for a long time because he had been with us for a while as an assistant coach. I just think sometimes your strength as an assistant doesn’t always translate over into being a strength of a head coach.

“I thought he was an idiot, so did everyone else, and I certainly wasn’t going to work with him when they gave me this job, which was going to be pretty soon.”

Bergevin: I said to him in the meantime, I said, “Joel, would you like to do some scouting?” He said, “I don’t want to travel, but I could watch games.” He loves hockey obviously, he loves watching games. I said, “That’s perfect. We have a kid in college, playing for CC (Colorado College), I believe, fast guy, I can’t remember his name, winger, left winger (Billy Sweatt).” He said, “I’ll watch some games in Colorado. If Dale wants that, I’ll just be like a part-time scout.”

I love this. They hired Joel Quenneville. To scout Bill Sweatt. Bill Sweatt. This is the story they’re giving you. They want you to believe this. Sidenote: Bill Sweatt just replaced the oil on your car.

Hmmm… I wonder what else might have happened in the fall of 2008 to keep the Hawks from making this move before the season started? What could it be? Just can’t put my finger on it…

To be fair, this arrest was already after camp had begun for the Hawks. So maybe this was the plan all along. But…come on. Look, the Hawks had a buzz, even after missing the playoffs the year before., Everyone around town knew big things were happening. And they were terrified of any bad buzz encroaching upon it. So maybe firing your coach who was the team’s most popular player for a decade and a half wasn’t something they had the total stomach for. Replacing him with someone who just had a DUI would have made it worse. They didn’t want anything to ruin the momentum.

But I’ll let you decide what you believe more.

Brent Sopel, Blackhawks defenseman: Having Joel on the staff, you knew something was going to happen at some point and time. You don’t bring Joel Quenneville, a guy who had been around the league and was known for what he had done all those years, you don’t put him on a staff. I felt at some point and time he was going to be the coach. When that was? Was that going to be in two weeks, two months, two years? But that was the feeling that I got.

Torchetti: I think we kind of got our ears up. I think everybody knew that.

Now here are two people giving you the straight dope.

McDonough: I think it was a combination of both. I think the decision that we were going to do this, this was imminent, but it helped that we felt we had somebody that would be a good fit. We did not plan on going the interim route, bringing somebody in as a temporary. We thought we had the right guy. I think history now says we do have the right guy and it’s worked out.

Don’t pull a muscle patting yourself on the back there, McD.

I mean, this tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it? We’re not going the interim route? You wouldn’t hire a guy you’re going to keep around for years on the fly. You would have done your research. This was the plan.

Rick Dudley: There’s a couple things I believe. I believed we all believed Savy could be successful in the National Hockey League. I believe Dale did. I believe all of us believed that.

How’s that working out?

None of this really matters. It worked out. It was the right move. And maybe one day, 10 years from now, we’ll get the real story and a bunch of other real stories about what really went down with this team. It’s just kind of amazing they’re still pushing the super polished version of events.

But hey, when you do what they’ve done, you get tell your story how you want it.