Game #71 Preview Suite
Notes: Crawford seems to have gotten over the shits, so he’s back in tonight…It was a rough one for the fourth line when the Leafs got going, as they were charged with trying to keep Auston Matthews on a leash. You know how it went…Could see Hayden back in, but as this is probably Kunitz’s last visit to Montreal and that probably means something, don’t count on it…Toews against Kotkaniemi ought to be an interesting watch, which should also free up Strome…
Notes: The bottom-six is kind of a guess, and Julien tends to mix and match them as we go along…Since Price gave up eight to the Ducks he’s only surrendered three on 59 shots in two games, though that was New Jersey and Detroit…Drouin hasn’t scored since February 7th…Petry and Kulak are where most of the offense comes from…Whatever Kotkaniemi doesn’t take Danault will, and Strome can probably expect him up his ass all night…
Game #71 Preview Suite
vs. 
RECORDS: Canadiens 14-10-5 Hawks 9-16-5
PUCK DROP: 5pm
TV: NBCSN for the locals, NHL Network for those who aren’t
CATCHING TORCHES FOR SOME REASON: Habs Eyes On The Prize
Yadda yadda yadda Original Six matchup blah blah blah. We’re contractually obligated to mention that every time the Quebecois wash up on Madison St. Whatever allure that sort of thing has, and it still has something if only a little, is probably mostly washed away by the utter incompetence of the Hawks these days. And it might sting a little more with the Canadiens, who used to be as hapless and directionless, might have turned things around a bit.
We’ll start with the main headline for the Hawks, which is the return of Connor Murphy from his back-iotomy, which is what doc said he needed. You know things are pretty dire when you greatly anticipate the return of Murphy, who simply be maintaining the form of “fine” last year was pretty much the best Hawks defenseman. He’s better than pretty much everyone aside from Jokiharju and maybe Duncan Keith though, and his return will be welcomed.
He does seem to smooth out some things. He gives Gustafsson a partner who can cover for his constant meanderings and delusions, and they dovetailed nicely at the end of last year. It keeps Keith with Jokiharju, which I’m not a huge fan of but don’t really see a way around. Maybe at some point Murphy pairs with The Har Ju, but that leaves Keith with only problematic partnerships. For now, let’s just enjoy the two second-pairings the Hawks might actually have tonight.
Also it keeps Manning and Seabrook on strict third-pairing duty, where they can still do some damage (evidenced clearly by Thursday night in Sin City), but this is what they’re barely cut out for these days. I don’t like it any more than you.
Though what Murphy is now being 6-5 and having back surgery in a job that requires a fair amount of bending over is a thought not for the weak of heart or stomach. Let’s run that kitten over when we get to it.
For the rest of the lineup, it appears Head Coach Arthur Fortune is going with the “pairs” system, where Toews and Saad, Anisimov and Kane, and Strome and Top Cat will be continually lashed together an they’ll make up the other wing as they go along. I guess this is what happens when you’re short on wingers.
Pivoting to Les Habitants. Montreal started the year on fire, with Max Domi, Jonathan Drouin, Tomas Tatar, Paul Byron, and some others shooting the lights out at a pace that was never going to be sustainable. That’s started to cool, and the Habs with it, however the underlying structure beneath that looks solid.
While Marc Bergevin may be unable to tie his shoes or spell “cat,” he has constructed a forward unit that is basically four lines of nimble, skilled forwards. They have rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi and fellow Finn Arturi Lehkonen on the third line, which is pretty neat. Drouin and Domi anchor the top unit (even if Drouin is never going to be a center), and Brendan Gallagher, Tatar, and Phillip Danault make for quite the second unit.
Even old horse Claude Julien has changed his…well, horses don’t have stripes but just go with me here, as the Habs are playing faster and freer than previous iterations. They have a bunch of gnats up top, so why not let them roam wild? Also, the defense is still spotty, so asking them to do less is the way to go. Jeff Petry has thrived under this system, and the returning Shea Weber will benefit from being asked merely to get the puck up quickly instead of picking out precise passes or moving all that much.
However, the foundation is creaky, because Carey Price has been REEL BAD. November was a real disaster for him, with a .888 SV% over the month. He’s only rebounded a touch in December, with four starts amassing a .912. The Habs have some of the strongest metrics as a team in the league, thanks to their speed and Julien’s tweaks, but if Price can’t get even to league average than there’s only so far you can go. The Habs currently have a two-point gap for the last playoff spot, and three on any team that’s going to matter. They’ll need Price to come in from the woods to hold onto it.
So here’s the thing. Vegas is filled with quick forwards who play fast. The Hawks usually get their lunch handed to them by that outfit. So do they by other teams who boast that. They looked better on Thursday but were undone by Seabrook and Crawford letting them down, simply. They’ll need another effort on that level to break their duck against a Habs team still feeling itself a bit. Don’t hold your breath.
Game #31 Preview Suite
We’ll be honest, and some of you already know. The one prospect that the Hawks gave away that we thought they’d regret the most was Stephen Johns. The need on the blue line is rather obvious now, and it was obvious before Niklas Hjalmarsson and Duncan Keith starting slowing down. It felt like Johns was brought along just slowly enough to dive in with both feet when he did make it to Chicago.
Of course, he never made it to Chicago. He as a make-weight to get rid of Patrick Sharp’s bloated contract, and all the Hawks had to show for their patience, development, and extra cash they threw at Johns was a couple months of a truly bewildered Trevor Daley. That’s pretty bad. But then again, Johns has battled injury and three different coaches in Dallas, without ever really grabbing hold of a top-four spot on their defense.
Which means it’s not as bad as Phillip Danault.
Danault did make it to Chicago. More impressively, he gained Joel Quenneville’s trust. But not quite enough to be considered untouchable when it came to time to load up on veterans for 2016’s ill-fated playoff run. Danault netted just about the same nothing that Johns did, as Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann did just this side of jackshit when they were here. Weise couldn’t even gain the trust from Quenneville that Danault did.
What patience might have gotten the Hawks.
This will hurt to read. Danault currently has the eighth-best Corsi-percentage of any forward in the league. He has the 10th-best relative-CF%. He has the eighth-best xGF%, and the 15th-best relative-xGF%. Danault simply has been one of the best two-way forwards in the game. He won’t ever produce that much offensively, but he keeps the puck in the right end of the ice just about as much as anyone in the game right now.
Oh, and he does all that while getting the least amount of offensive zone starts on the Canadiens and facing the toughest competition.
Danault flashed this while on the Hawks, being dogged on the puck and responsible in his own zone. He was perfectly poised to take over from Marcus Kruger, which is exactly what the Hawks told him he would be doing when he arrived in the organization. And yet he was gone before Kruger was.
You can’t help but wonder what the Hawks might have done they had just forced Danault into the playoffs and have Q use him. Would they have felt the need in 2017 to panic and trade for Artem Anisimov if they already had another center behind Toews? Could they have moved Saad along for defensive help they so clearly needed? Perhaps a different winger?
What would it look like now? Could they have gotten Schmatlz even easier assignments with Toews and Danault around to take the harder ones? Could they do that now with Strome? You wonder
Danault isn’t breaking the bank at $3.0M for the next two years. The Hawks probably could have found a way to keep him around, especially if they weren’t tossing more at Anisimov? Where could that savings have gone?
You could go down this road with Teuvo Teravainen as well, maybe Schmaltz one day. Maybe even Ryan Hartman, though that seems a stretch. At least Hartman netted something in return. When deciding to go all-in for a Cup you better know you have a serious chance. That ’16 Hawks team was seriously flawed–it was one line and a struggling defense behind Keith and Hammer. Was it worth losing Danault’s future over?
Hindsight is 20-20, but that’s how you get in messes like this.
Game #31 Preview Suite
You can catch him a lot of places, so we recommend you just follow Andrew Berkshire @AndrewBerkshire and at his tumblr andrewberkshire.tumblr.com.
The Canadiens started out hot, but have cooled off of late. What fueled the former and what’s the cause of the latter?
Hot starts from everyone new really helped the Habs this year. Tomas Tatar has been amazing through two months of the season, and so has Max Domi to an even greater degree, at least offensively. Couple that with Jeff Petry and Brendan Gallagher starting off the season the same way they played last year and it’s a good recipe for success. Claude Julien was able to run four scoring lines of various quality early in the year before injuries began to hit, and the Canadiens have started to come back down to earth where their true talent level is of late.
Max Domi has 30 points in 28 games. Is it more than just the 19% shooting-percentage for the little turd?
The high shooting percentage is absolutely a huge part of it, but it seems like the Canadiens’ system is tailor made to make Domi look good this year. When the Canadiens play with speed and attack the offensive zone with control, Domi looks like an elite player, but when the Canadiens have trouble attacking off the rush, he’s much more neutralized.
Is this finally the Jonathan Drouin “awakening?”
For the first month of the season, Drouin was riding Domi’s coattails quite a lot, I thought he looked pretty lost and was constantly making junior hockey moves and getting caught. The last month he’s been playing what Pierre LeBrun would call ‘Big Boy hockey.” Whether it’s a permanent awakening for him is up for debate, but the effort level is there.
How do the Habs plan to turn over what is still a pretty hilarious blue line? Kids we should know about?
On the right side the blue line isn’t too bad, with Shea Weber and Jeff Petry leading the way and Noah Juulsen being the young kid that’s not known enough around the league for how good he is. The left side is an absolute mess, even more so now with Victor Mete losing the coach’s confidence and being sent to the AHL. Eventually Mete will establish himself as the team’s top left handed defenseman. Until then, there’s no one in the organization that’s immediately available to solve this.
How long did it take before you could spell “Kotkaniemi” without looking?
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that long. Niemi helped with the latter half, and then it was just Kotka, which is pretty simple to remember. It’s nowhere near as tough as Vasilevskiy, for example.
Game #31 Preview Suite
Hey, even Bill Belichick has a shit coaching tree. So maybe it’s just a thing that happens.
While the Hawks spiral more and more toward the seventh level of hell, the idea that Joel Quenneville is a hockey genius continues to grow. And maybe he is, though he wasn’t getting much more out of this team than Jeremy Colliton is. But an argument against that is that seemingly anyone who has worked for or with him, by his choice, ends up being an idiot.
Mike Kitchen hasn’t even been whispered for a head coaching job, even though he was Q’s right hand guy for years, because his tenure in St. Louis went so badly and pretty much everyone knows he’s a moron. Jamie Kompon got a coaching job in the WHL, fucked that up hard, and now is nowhere. We’ll see where Kevin Dineen and Ulf Samuelsson end up. Wouldn’t hold out much hope. Even Mike Haviland, who wasn’t Q’s guy but worked under him for the first Cup win, only managed a college head coaching job.
Marc Bergevin was actually with the Hawks before Q was, but had a major hand in bringing him to Chicago and might have been part of the plan all along. He has worked with him in the past. Bergevin was hired as an assistant for Denis Savard, who was fired mere weeks later. Hmmm…
And he’s been accidentally face-fucking the Canadiens as GM for years now.
We don’t have to go much deeper than Shea Weber for PK Subban. Trading Pacioretty for peanuts might get there as well. The Karl Alzner signing. Sergachev-for-Drouin. Two draft picks for Andrew Shaw, one of which just happened to be Alex Debrincat. There’s more, but we don’t want to be rude because French-Canadians are so considerate.
Bergevin might be saving himself by turning over the team to a bunch of fast, young forwards, but the blue line is still a mess (recurring theme, it seems). And he was the first Q guy to get his own job from the Hawks. But in six season at the helm in La Belle Province, he’s seen the Habs win all of three playoff series. They have won the division three times, though one of those was with essentially someone else’s roster.
Maybe that makes Q a genius, in a strange way, because he’s had to overcome the idiocy that he surrounds himself with. Not one of Belichick’s assistants has ever risen above the level of “chucklehead” when given their own head coaching job. Or maybe Bergevin is more off the Stan Bowman tree, as he served as assistant GM longer than he did as assistant coach. Either way, it’s been great television.
Game #31 Preview Suite
Notes: Julien has been able to change his ways and this team plays much faster than past iterations. The top-nine here is very quick, which should go well for the Hawks…Weber just returned from injury…if you think Manning is bad, at least the Hawks didn’t sign Karl Alzner…Price has been bad for two straight seasons, which is a worry at $10 million per year…Petry is having something of a renaissance…Domi has three goals in his last 11 and two of those came in the same game…
Notes: The headline is that Connor Murphy returns tonight, for now at the expense of Gustav Forsling, who was informed that he was hurt. The Hawks have been shopping Rutta and Manning to everyone to try and clear up the logjam, and those phone conversations must be comedy of the highest order…Crow was a little better against Vegas, but he gave up at least two goals he can’t and his rebound-control still remains iffy…Collition apparently is going with the “pairs” system in his lines, in that Saad-Toews, Kane-Anisimov, and Top Cat-Strome will always be together and they’ll make up the rest.
Game #31 Preview Suite
I wonder if it bothers the NHL that there’s a very good chance that four of the ORIGINAL SIX HARF HARF might seriously be regurgitated foodstuffs this season. The Bruins and Leafs will be good, and then probably play in the first round. If I squint really hard to the point that I prolapse my own asshole (leading to the question, “How would you prolapse someone else’s asshole, dear Samuel?” And I don’t want that answer), maybe the Hawks could find a playoff spot that someone else tossed onto the sidewalk in a fit of pique and shortsightedness. But after going through the Wings on Thursday, I can assure you that the Montreal Canadiens will blow chunks. Their organization and press will still bleat on about how they’re the gold standard, they’ll interview some barely coherent Francophone who was on the third line in 1974 or something, and in French he’ll say the problem is that Max Pacioretty isn’t tough enough. Because the great Habs teams were certainly built on bludgeoning people or something. Why didn’t you let them leave again, Canada? Oh right, access to the smoked meat and strippers. Fair play. Whatever the question is about the Canadiens, the answer up there always seems to be, “Kirk Muller.”
Goalies: Drinky McGoo, otherwise known as Carey Price after he got boring, is once again your starter. Except now he’s ouchy and bad. At least he could be. Price hasn’t managed a full season in three, and last year in 49 games he was objectively awful. Now that could be an aberration, as he just turned 31 and that’s not the time when goalies are supposed to go skunky. Yet considering the workload he’s been carrying since he was 21, as well as carrying the daily mood of an entire province that time, maybe his time has come. We know when he’s on he’s the best in the world. And the Habs need the best in the world if they have any hope of playing a game that means anything past the turn of the year.
If he’s not, the insurance plan is Antti Niemi. Which is basically like having whatever animal in The Flinstones was used to patch things up instead of car insurance. Niemi was good in 17 starts for the Habs last year, with a .929 SV%, in what had to be either the lord’s or the devil’s practical joke on Canadiens fans for their own entertainment. I hope it’s the devil’s, because every fan up there deserves to hear various callers begging for Niemi in November only to see him literally chuck the puck into his own net while falling down like some Cluseau-esque waiter. This is going to happen.
Defense: You know it’s bad when an injury to the already old and fading Shea Weber absolutely cripples your blue line. Welcome to the Habs’ world. They’re going to rock Karl Alzner and Jeff Petry on the top pairing until January. It might not matter how good Price is, because with this blue line he’s going to take off his mask, fold up his jersey, undo his pads, lay them gently down in the crease like The Undertaker and skate off to never come back to hockey again. Victor Mete once had promise, and then Claude Julien beat any sense of self-worth out of him and now he thinks he’s a marmot. How does Jordie Benn still have a job? All he can do is scowl while looking at the forward’s ass no less than four feet in front of him. They better hope Noah Juulsen is the second coming of Larry Robinson… so they can then trade him for whatever other French-Canadian forward who’s good for 38 points they can find in three years. Hey did you know they had Sergachev?
Forwards: It’s basically Max Pacioretty checking his watch every five minutes running out the clock and then a bunch of riff raff. They punted the abused Alex Galchenyuk, the American with the Russian name who was a Canadien, and his fancy collection of mirrors and $1 bills to Arizona for MAGA pudwhack Max Domi and the points he’ll never score. Jonathan Drouin is the top line center simply because you don’t pronounce the last letter of his last name, even though last year pretty much showed he can’t play center. But hey, you can’t have two overhyped left wings, and that’s Domi’s job now! Philip Danault gets to do all of Domi’s skating, though now that he’s actually getting paid it’ll be a couple hours before all the fans hate him even though you don’t have to pronounce the last letter of his last name either. Tomas Plekanec ended up back here because of course he did. The Quebecois will do anything for a turtleneck. Except shower. There is one genuine top-line player on this team and they’re going to trade him at the deadline to the Bruins for whatever Don Sweeney digs out of his ear. Or the Penguins where he’ll score 38 goals in 15 games. Oh sure, there’s Brendan Gallagher‘s Marchand-Lite act, if that does anything for you. It doesn’t, I’ll answer for you.
Outlook: Here’s another team that needs a total overhaul everywhere. The GM was proven a withering dolt at least three years ago, and at this point Claude Julien is outdated. They don’t have a d-man you’d want anything to do with outside of quarantine other than maybe Juulsen and who even knows with him? They even have Xavier Ouellet along for the ride. Remember when he was going to save the Wings? This team probably isn’t as bad as Detroit or Ottawa, as a healthy and focused Price keeps them from that alone. But they’re nowhere near the other four teams in this division, which means they’re exactly where you don’t want to be, hockey purgatory. Maybe they think the league will rig it again so they can have whatever player they want from the QMJHL again, because what you need to succeed in the NHL these days is a kid or two who have played nothing but 8-6 games for three seasons while Pierre McGuire licks the glass behind you.
Fuck this team and organization. Their legacy is utter bullshit. It’s far too wonderful of a place to have a plague like this as its only professional team. Move the Rays there tout suite.
Previous Team Previews
There’s little point in talking about anyone else on the Islanders right now than John Tavares and whether he will stay on Long Island (whenever the Isles actually get there) or flea to much, much greener pastures this summer. In his hands he’ll hold the futures and presents of two franchises, with the power to change the dynamic of a division or conference as well.
Money isn’t going to be an issue. The Islanders certainly have to be prepared to throw $12 million or more a year at Tavares, whatever the limit is when the new cap is set. If the cap does reach $82 million as has been suggested you could even chuck somewhere around $16 million per year at Tavares if you were so inclined. That might be a bit much, but Connor McDavid’s $12.5 million hit is probably the target, if not starting point. And just about everyone will offer that who’s going to chase Tavares. And it could be a crowded field.
So we’ll start with the case for Tavares to stay. And you can throw that loyalty crap out the window. Players want to cash in and they want to win, and while Tavares may like his teammates and grown attached to whichever community the Isles are playing in this week, it’s just not going to be that big of a factor.
So what is? Well, the Islanders do have a new home locked up, at Belmont Park. This should be better received by their fans on the Island, as it’s still accessible by the same train that goes to Brooklyn but is still on the Island, which appears to be a big deal for them. The problem is it’s three seasons away, and in the meantime the Islanders appear poised to split their home games between Barclays Center and a refurbished, if not tiny, Nassau Coliseum (where they come to see ’em). This not ideal, but it might not be the headache you imagine. The Islanders’ practice facility is still in Nassau Co., and hence the players had to make the same trip in for games that their fans found to be such a headache. Cutting out half of those trips is probably something that the players will like. Still, it’s something of a vagabond team for three seasons, and that might not appeal at all.
As for the team, there’s hope. With a rise in the cap and a clearing out of some deadweight like Nikolai Kulemin, Calvin de Haan and his missing capital letter, Jaro Halak, maybe Thomas Hickey and maybe a trade of a veteran or two like Clusterfuck or Casey Cizikas, the Isles should have the room to sign Tavares and keep their young-ish core of him, Barzal, Bailey, Lee, Nelson, Beauvillier around.
Couple problems there None of them are defensemen and none of them are goalies. With the Islanders having a historically (and hilariously) bad defense this year, that’s an issue. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of help on the way either, as Josh Ho-Sang and Kiefer Bellows are also forwards. The Isles are going to have to solve this from the outside, and as we’ve discussed for the Hawks, the options are not very appetizing in the least.
So who will the Islanders compete against to be the apple of JT’s eyes? About half the league at least, you’d expect. The Canadiens desperately need a #1 center and a turnaround. But they’re getting old in a hurry, and Tavares might not want to put up with all the bullshit of playing in Montreal. Really, who does? While every Leafs fan is under the impression that every Ontario born NHL-er secretly wants to come home and play for the Leafs and have Steve Simmons insult their entire family, the Leafs won’t have the space and have their own players to re-sign. Tampa has been mentioned as Tavares is close with Steven Stamkos, and if they could find a way to make it work next season they have a ton of money coming off the books in the summer of 2019. Which is nice, because they’re going to have to give Kucherov $10 million or more then. They could have even more if they moved Tyler Johnson along, and he would be a touch superfluous with the arrival of Tavares. And clearly, that team would be a favorite for a while. We’ve talked about the Hawks, who should seriously think about it. Another team that should think about it is San Jose, in that they’re going to have to move on from Thornton at some point and Couture and Pavelski are up after next season. Fuck, the Avs need another center and have all the cap space in the world. The Panthers are making noise now and if they could slot Barkov in as a #2? The Hurricanes probably don’t have the budget but are screaming out for this. The Blues seem to be clearing the decks for something. This list could go on forever.
It’s an awful lot of competition for New York, a team that can’t promise everything. The future is uncertain for them, and they’ll be bouncing between two arenas. Seems less and less likely the more you think about it, doesn’t it? If Tavares were to bolt, they have Barzal ready to step in as a #1 center and those forwards already mentioned. Still no defense or goalie but all the money earmarked for Tavares would be free. They might suck to high heaven next year when there’s no reasonable targets to spend it on, but hey look at the summer of 2019 and you have Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, Sergei Bobrovsky all possibly on the market. It rarely works out like that but you never know.
It might not be death for the Isles, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant recovery either.
Game #76 Preview
