Everything Else

Bringing It All Back Home

By 1696

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 1750

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

Award Tour

By 1784

Been doing this every so often throughout the season, as we try and get a handle on who really should be taking home the baubles come June. Of course, almost none of these awards will actually go this way, because as expert as hockey people like to think they are most of them don’t look beyond “points” in any of these categories. The only caveat being when it comes to the Selke award, where they’ll also look at faceoff percentage and then points. But we can do better, and one day dorks like me will have their “King Felix Winning The Cy Young With 13 Wins” day. Until then, we’ll remain in the shadows, plotting our revenge (our next trip to Five Guys, really).

So, without further ado…whatever the hell ado is…

Everything Else

Stop That, It’s Too Silly: Hawks 4 – Lightning 4 (Lightning win ping pong tournament)

By 1306

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

I suppose if the Hawks wanted to throw a scare into their fans, giving up 17 real goals (not ones in OT) over the past four games would be a good way to do it. I still have a hard time believing this is anything other than boredom. The Hawks have the division salted away, thanks the Sharks completely going backwards they have the Conference sewn up, and though I suppose they have an outside shot at the Presidents’ Trophy I don’t think that’s something that concerns them. When you take any stakes out of these games, any urgency, you’re going to get a few efforts that look pretty lifeless.

If you want to get into structural things… well, Johnny Oduya’s 32% Corsi might be a place to start.

Everything Else

Cleaning Up The House

By 1395

Not much going on today. Crawford isn’t as sick but won’t play tomorrow against the Penguins. Niklas Hjalmarsson won’t play the rest of the week, and that’s worth keeping an eye on, or at least his return is. A non-healthy Hammer when things start to matter would be worrisome indeed.

Other than that, the Hawks extended Jordin Tootoo and Michal Rozsival for a year, and some of this is for expansion draft purposes. In fact, it’s all about expansion draft purposes. The Hawks didn’t have what was required to expose in the draft in June, or at least not in a way that could prevent them from having to expose both Ryan Hartman and Marcus Kruger.

Everything Else

Do You Still Hate Me? – Hawks at Sharks Preview, Mini Van Taxi Reservation

By 1480

 at 

Game Time: 9:30PM CST
TV/Radio: CSN, WGN-AM 720
The Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeon: Fear The Fin

Now that the All Star wank-fest weekend has concluded in L.A., the NHL resumes what can be construed as the beginning of the end of the 82 game road to nowhere- the month between the the break and the trade deadline. And the Hawks will begin this stretch in San Jose at the start of a six game road trip while looking to correct some mistakes made to some of the also-rans of the league last week.

Everything Else

Mission Report

By 1433

Much like baseball, the NHL has installed its All-Star break after the middle of the season. You get why, as you wouldn’t schedule the All-Star game on Super Bowl weekend or during the NFL playoffs (though the NHL All-Star game probably makes for a better pregame show to The Big Tilt than the actual pregame show. I guess the Canadiens wouldn’t want to give up that slot thought). Much like baseball doesn’t want to put it’s All-Star game anywhere near the 4th of July. So whatever. It’s a nice marker either way.

So where are the Hawks? Well, in some ways this is the earliest the Hawks have been entrenched in their spot, aside from when they didn’t lose for half a season in 2013. The Hawks only sit four points behind the Wild, but have played three games more, and if the Wild win even one of those they’re going to be awfully hard to catch with how things work. Even if they fell off a bit, Dubnyk is going to get them into overtime just enough to prevent complete collapse. On the other side, the Predators are nine points behind, and even with their two games in hand that’s a massive gap. They’re not getting caught.

You know what’s weird? In the Q era, the Hawks have only finished second in the division once. And that was Q’s first year, when it was a conference system and that really meant being fourth in the conference. Since then it’s been 1st, 3rd, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, and 3rd last year. Just a note for all of you there.

Everything Else

Everybody’s Working For The Weekend: Jets at Hawks Preview/We’re Not The Bulls Celebration

By 1537

 vs. 

RECORDS: Jets  22-25-4   Hawks 30-15-5

PUCK DROP: 7:30pm Central

TV: CSN

FOR WE’VE GOT NOWHERE TO BE: Arctic Ice Hockey

PROJECTED LINEUPS

ADJUSTED TEAM CORSI %: Jets – 49.2 (20th)  Hawks – 50.0 (16th)

ADJUSTED TEAM xGF%: Jets – 50.6 (14th)  Hawks – 47.5 (25th)

POWER PLAY %: Jets – 17.7 (17th)  Hawks – 17.6 (18th)

PENALTY KILL %: Jets – 76.8 (27th)  Hawks – 75.8 (28th)

Interesting position the Hawks find themselves in here. Having won three of four, and with the break right on the heels of this one tonight, you wouldn’t be surprised if they played this one with sunglasses on and Bermuda shorts underneath their pants (I assume this is how Panarin has been playing the last month). On the other, the Hawks are coming off a bad loss on Tuesday, losing in regulation when leading after 40 for the first time since Daley was in charge or some shit (no, not Trevor, moron). Backing that up with an in-division loss would certainly put a small pall (see what I did there?) over the vacation time. But then again, this is still a game in January. So you tell us.

Everything Else

If Some NHL Awards Made Sense

By 1334

I’ve been meaning to do this for a bit, and now that we’re over a third of the way through the season I guess this is as good of a time as any. Whereas in baseball we’ve seen some of the postseason awards take on a more analytic angle (though Porcello winning over Kluber shows we still have some way to go, but hey, Felix won a Cy with 13 wins), the ones in hockey still haven’t quite reached anything like that level.

The Hart and the Vezina are pretty easy. Hand it to Crosby and Price and move on. It’s the Selke and Norris that always generate the most debate.