Everything Else

Andrew Shaw, You Can Play, And The NHL In This Terrible World

By 2148

Yesterday, the NHL and You Can Play announced ambassadors for YCP for each team in the NHL. Reading the press release, it isn’t really clear what these ambassadors are supposed to do and whether it’s simply ceremonial or not. I’m guessing they just stand there during a press conference whenever a team is having a You Can Play night, and god help us if they have to talk. As far as I can tell the Hawks don’t have a YCP night, but maybe that will change. Trevor van Riemsdyk was named the Hawks ambassador. I don’t know whether he volunteered for it, or was chosen simply because no one else wanted it. I hope it’s the former. It would be really great if someone with real clout on the team was named, who wouldn’t be afraid of being out front on the issue either. But I guess they’re too busy telling me which type of kale I should grow? Is he going to be at Pride in June? The Hawks have had a delegation there recently but the only active player to ever appear was Brent Sopel, and “active” is being kind at that point. There’s certainly more to be done.

Anyway, there was some consternation that Andrew Shaw was chosen as the Montreal Canadiens’ ambassador for YCP. The reasons everyone would take notice of that are obvious, given that Shaw was suspended for calling a referee a “faggot” during Game 4 of last year’s first round and was suspended a game.

I’m not so sure Andrew Shaw isn’t exactly the type who should be chosen, or close to it.

Everything Else

The World Is Flat

By 1747

We’ve moved beyond the quarter-mark of the season, almost at a third of it. In the first month of the season, we all sort of marveled at how sloppy the hockey was. We blamed it on the World Cup, with most teams not getting to have a training camp with their full rosters for more than a few days. While play has tightened up a little bit, as the season enters its third month we’re still left with a product that quite simply, isn’t very good.

What’s become clear is that the salary cap has flattened the entire league so that there’s little difference between the best team and the worst team. If you toss out overtime losses, which are essentially ties settled by glorified skills competitions, no one in the Eastern conference is below .500. Only 12 points separate the conference leading Habs from the bottom-dwelling Islanders. While that’s not a gap that’s going to be made up (likely), it’s not all that large for an entire conference.

Thinks are a little more split in the West, where the conference-leading Hawks have a 17 point gap over the wooden spooners, the Avs. But we’ve all seen what a conference-leading Hawks team in the past looks like, and it’s pretty obvious this isn’t the same vintage. Adding to the Hawks somewhat shaky hold on the West is that they lead the league in wins in overtime, which isn’t really a true test of what kind of team you are. They’re 13th in regulation wins.

Essentially, we have a mishmash of a lot of the same things.

Everything Else

One Month In And Nobody Knows Nothin’

By 1571

This week will see the NHL season move into its second month. While the Hawks are one of the hotter teams in the league, that doesn’t mean we truly know what they are. Yes, they sit atop the West, but you don’t need to look any farther than who they are tied atop the conference with to know how weird the season has been. That would be the Edmonton Oilers. And no one thinks they’re really that good. So what the hell is going on here?

For matters close to town, what’s funny is that the Oilers probably deserve their spot atop the West more than the Hawks do. Edmonton is plus in Corsi and Fenwick, though just barely, where the Hawks are not. The Oilers have a plus shot-share per 60 at evens, and the Hawks are dead-ass last in that category. That isn’t good. If you go by xGF%, and whether you do or not I won’t complain, the Oilers are only slightly outplaying their even-strength performance where the Hawks are massively doing so. What a strange world indeed.

Quite simply, pretty much everything about the Hawks is something of a mirage right now. They have the league’s highest PDO by three full points over Minnesota. Their even-strength save-percentage is a full two points ahead of Montreal’s. We know this. In fact, they could be something like last year’s Canadiens, except they have way more top end talent than the Habs did last year.

And yet I can’t sit here and say it’s totally false.

Everything Else

Predators Spotlight: The One And Only

By 1321

This blog has never hidden its affection for Pernell Karl Subban. It’s just a shame that the rest of the hockey world, specifically the one that considers itself so polite and understanding (and cold), wouldn’t follow suit. That’s ok though. PK Subban can probably make a bigger impact on the sport on this side of the 49th, and we certainly won’t ever make him apologize for who he is.

We’ll get to the off the ice stuff that the Predators have gotten in what is going to be an absolute steal of a trade, no matter how much the crusty hockey media is going full force today to show how well Shea Weber fits in with the Canadiens after one fucking game (though you won’t see anyone writing “because he’s white” which is really what they’re saying). First it’s important how much of an improvement the Preds are getting on the ice.

Everything Else

Wheel It Out Here, Carnac: C.I.’s Season Predictions

By 1498

Usually I do this myself, but this year the whole crew is chiming in so you can hang us all out to dry in April. Let’s kick this pig…

Hawks Point Total and finish in the division 

Cieslak – 104 points, 2nd

McClure – 102 points, 2nd (lose on ROW)

Feather – 110 points, 1st

Fearless Leader – 108 points, 1st

Leading Scorer 

Cieslak – Kane, 91pts

McClure – Garbage Dick, 90 points

Feather – Kane, EIGHTY-THREE

Fearless Leader – Kane, 89 pts

Everything Else

I’m From Canada And They Think I’m Slow, Eh?

By 1734

I guess now we know who Gordie’s parents were, huh?

I don’t have the adjectives or the prose ability to be able to accurately describe what has transpired in the NHL this afternoon. But I’ll take a shot and when it’s over, to quote perhaps my favorite movie villain of all time, “Don’t think that I didn’t try.” But I think today’s trades are a perfect example of just how back’ards most of the league operates and what still matters to far too many teams (wrongly). Again, try and keep in mind that the last two Cups have been won by teams loaded with skill and speed, who beat teams built similarly. And the team that won the Cups when the ones that were loaded with skill and speed still had the puck all the time. This is important.

Ok, so let’s start with Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson. By the way, having simply written that four points fell off my IQ.

Everything Else

They Want Me To Buy A Rehab But I Say No, No, No

By 2052

I promised long ago, back in the days of summer, that I wouldn’t write things out of a blind rage anymore. It wasn’t productive. So I waited a day to address everything that went on with Sports Illustrated and the NHL itself until today. But it can’t go without comment. Because most of it is nothing short of disgusting.

I was going to give the S.I. “article” by S.L. Price the full Fire Joe Morgan treatment, but it’s far too long for that. But there are some sections that need tearing apart. Probably too many to get to. But let me try anyway.

Everything Else

Egads! Ads!

By 1833 0

The discussion today on Twitter, according to my very intensive research of looking once, looks like it springs from Adidas’s acquisition of the jersey-making rights for the NHL in a couple years (though they own Reebok so have kind of already been doing this). This has led to speculation, if not outright acceptance, that ads on jerseys are coming and we’re all just going to have to get used to it.

This feels like a subject that I should get a little angry about. And I kind of want to. But I don’t. Maybe it’s just straight up defeat, as we all know what’s coming so why waste emotion about it. Or maybe it just isn’t that big of a deal? Honestly, I’m not sure which or what combination of both it is. We also seem to go through this every couple of years with every new deal or some owner or commish bringing up the idea, and then it never quite happens. But we know the vending machine is really rocking back and forth on it now.

Everything Else

Friday Foofaraw: Scattershot

By 1546 0

For those of you that joined the blog recently, during the summer on Friday’s is when I tend to just write about whatever I want, as do the others on the blog. Feather even went through a streak of reviewing video games and The Walking Dead. So prepare yourself, as I’ve got all sorts of things rattling around this bald dome of mine.

-As the Hawks sit between several rocks and a very hard place with the cap constraints, the past couple days I can’t help but cast my mind back just short of three years ago. That would be Bettman Lockout III. Or maybe even Bettman Lockout II, which got us this current system. During that lockout, most owners were under a gag order. We never got what Rocky was really thinking during all of it, and whenever he did talk he was on the party line, out of fear of massive fines from The Commish.

And owners do that during labor disputes, but those labor disputes, at least these days, aren’t really about owners vs. players. They’re owners vs. owners, and the owners take it out on the players to protect themselves from each other and themselves. They know that when back to normal business, they’re going to do everything they can to put a winning team out there and all those loopholes get closed in the next CBA.

Everything Else

You Asked For Miracles, Theo, I Give You The NHL

By 1382 0

Taking a small break from the impending doom of the Hawks Cap-acolypse or whatever we’re calling it these days to stare in shock and horror at some of the decisions that are coming from the NHL this week. And it’s not just from the BOG (a more perfect acronym it could not be), but even the players themselves.

First up, the NHLPA’s decision to push for total 3-on-3 OT instead of the scaled model the AHL used last year which was split between 4-on-4 and 3-on-3. 3-on-3 OT is only slightly less of a gimmick than the shootout. And the difference wouldn’t be enough to get a couple sheets of paper through. Sure, there’s actual passing and maybe defending (though how much?) which I guess makes it better than the shootout. But that’s not hockey. It’s artificial excitement. At least 4-on-4 happens in the context of a game rather often, so it’s not foreign. When do you ever see 3-on-3? And again, they will be deciding playoff spots on this dumbassery.