Hockey

Sucker Train Blues – Calgary, St. Louis, San Jose Previews

By Andy Jonathan 366

With the last stop of the mini circus tour tonight ending in Calgary, the absolute worst the Hawks can go is .500 on the trip which all things considered is pretty respectable. Which is not to say that the actual PLAY of the team has been up to snuff on the defensive end, because it has most definitely not been the case. Were it not for the herculean efforts of one Marc-Andre Fleury the Hawks would most likely have banked zero points on this swing as opposed to the 4 they currently own.

Looking at the metrics themselves, they bear this out as the Hawks have only managed a 45% share of CORSI in the last 3 games, which I’m being told is not great. A lot of this stems from the fact that Coach King’s new system of “just play some hockey” results in the forwards (especially the top line of Kane/Cat/Dach) flying the defensive zone Paul Kariya-style looking for an odd man rush. While this has definitely helped the Hawks on the scoresheet (all 3 goals against The Krak were on the rush), a fair amount of the time it results in the D getting pinned in their own end.

This is still in the honeymoon phase for Coach K, and to be fair it’s worked out pretty well so far with the Hawks winning all but one game under him. What we saw in Edmonton, however, is what you get when it doesn’t work.

 

11/23 At Calgary

Game Time – 8:00 PM Central

TV / Radio – NBCSN, WGN-AM 720

Read The ScorchStack – ScorchStack

 

Nothing like ending your road trip with the best team in the Western Conference. The Flames are (pardon the pun) scorchingly hot as of late. They have the best goal differential in the entire league at +27, and are 5th best in CORSI for. The Flames are tough to get around on the back end, with a very solid defensive corps headlined by Rasmus Andersson who has come into his own this season.

Offensively is where the Flames shine, with Andrew Mangiapane tied for 2nd in the league with 15 goals. They also still have Johnny Gaudreau and Elias Lindholm racking up the points, along with Keith Tkachuk’s garbage child stirring the shit with 17 points of his own. Speaking of shitbags, Milan Lucic is here along with monolith Nikita Zadorov, so DeBrincat and Kane need to have their heads up in this one.

Between the pipes, Vancouver cast off Jacob Markstrom should draw the start against the Hawks as backup Dan Valdar shut out the Bruins on Sunday night. Markstrom has been outstanding so far, with a 1.71 GAA and .942 save% so far. He’s only given up 24 goals in 14 games, so the Hawks forwards are going to have to make every shot count.

 

11/26 vs St. Louis

Game Time – 2:30 PM Central

TV / Radio – ESPN, WGN-AM 720

Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy – STL Gametime

 

Ugh, these assholes again.

The first game back in the UC and the Blues come oozing into town, 2nd overall in the division but squarely in the middle of the pack statistically everywhere else. Their +12 goal differential is tied with Colorado in the division, but is less than half of what the Flames boast. That’s more a statement on the quality of the Central Division than it is an indictment of how good the Blues are.

Jordan Kyrou leads the team with 18 points, and seems to have taken the leap from “2nd round pick with potential” to “possibly a thing.” While his 17% shooting percentage doesn’t seem sustainable, the fact that 1/3rd of his points have come on the powerplay leads one to think that his value won’t dip too much when that comes back down to earth. David Perron is also here, and he still sucks.

Jordan Binnington and his 2.8 GAA average will most likely man the crease come Black Friday, and if the Hawks can get him moving side to side there will be gaps for them to shoot at. The Blues don’t give up a lot of space for offensive forwards, so the Hawks will most likely have to do their damage in transition (which is currently their MO).

 

11/28 vs San Jose

Game Time – 6:00 Central Time

TV/Radio – NBCSN, WGN-AM 720

Pied Piper – Fear The Fin

 

Last and least of the 3 teams here is the San Jose Sharks. Currently caught in the limbo of cap hell, the Sharks are a mix of overpriced vets (Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Marc-Edouard Vlasic), expiring cap-friendly contracts (Tomas Hertl, Timo Meier), and rookies making a splash (Jonathan Dahlen, Alexander Barbanov). They also have Evander Kane here, at least until the casinos break his legs and leave him for dead in the desert outside of Vegas.

The Sharks are actually playing better than what everyone expected at this point in the season, dropping Carolina on their collective heads 2-1 last night at home. Karlsson and Burns are both playing well (though not $20 mildo per year good), with Karlsson in particular looking a little more like himself when paired with youngster Jacob Middleton who allows Karlsson to leap into the play as he is wont to do. The Sharks back end is a pretty good mix of old and young, with Karlsson, Burns and Vlasic pairing with the younger crew of Middleton and Mario Ferraro (who has steadily improved his play the last two years).

With James Reimer doing the thing he does in the first half of every season (1.87 GAA and .940%), there’s enough talent there to keep up with most teams and allow the younger players to make mistakes without every one of them ending up in the back of the net.

The Sharks are basically a better coached Blackhawks team, and I’m curious how this game in particular is going to go. Both teams are right on the periphery of the playoff race, but stuck with a couple of contracts that prevent them from going whole-hog on a rebuild. It’s games like these that can turn into the fun kind of track meet that makes for entertaining viewing. Or it could be a horrible slog. Either way, we’ll be watching.

Hockey

Where Are You? – Game 39 – Predators 3, Hawks 0

By Matt McClure 622

Box Score
Event Summary
Natural Stat Trick

At a certain point it becomes impressive, just a marvel of consistency that the Hawks under Coach Cool Youth Pastor manage to seem to always find ways to lose games against divisional opponents at crucial times during the season. Our former proprietor and fearless leader did some homework for this past week’s podcast, and now including the three most recent games to the Predators, the Hawks are an astounding 1-11-3 in “four point games” – games against teams they’re either directly above or below in the divisional standings late in the season. And this time, after getting absolutely pasted in possession by the Panthers, they somehow managed to put up 41 shots in Nashville against a relatively solid territorial team in the Preds, and managed to get shut out by Juuse Saros. It goes back to the familiar refrain heard here months ago when the masses thought this team was building/growing something beating absolutely putrid teams in overtime and staying in the hunt, that this team only has one way to beat you – and that’s have either goalie stand on his head and get power play production from one of the two-ish forwards that can score. When that doesn’t happen, it looks like it’s looked recently.

Observations

  • Leading to the first goal, the penalty that Zadorov took was simply inexcusable. He’s not exactly incon-fucking-spicuous out there, and leading with a flying elbow against the glass certainly doesn’t draw any less attention to himself. Even if he accomplished absolutely everything he intended to in a best case scenario there, that’s still an extremely high risk play at the Preds blue line, where they had puck support exiting, and he would have once again taken himself out of the play to make a hit, but possibly sprung an odd man break going the other way. That the Preds promptly scored on the ensuing power play, and given the fact that they have just sat on leads against the Hawks for the previous four games they’ve played this year and Zadorov did not miss a shift is bordering on criminal negligence from Jeremy Trestman. Zadorov will keep doing this shit because there is no consequence other than being on a dog ass defense, and save for last year in Colorado, thoughout his career he has seemed pretty content to just do what he does and look like a big fucking asshole in the process.
  • Even though the Hawks didn’t dent the twine at all today, this is probably the most active that Dylan Strome has looked since maybe the first week of the season. Maybe the looming reality of being a dad weighed on him and certainly the concussion protocol didn’t help, but he is certainly more noticeable in the past three games, particularly at even strength where he had been an utter ghost for weeks on end previously.
  • Kevin Lankinen’s rebound control continues to be an issue. While none were converted, there were plenty of pucks kicked directly right into harm’s way, and given what this defense is capable of (see above), and it’s lack of fixed positioning, those are eventually going to be cashed in on and it won’t be pretty.
  • Not much more to say about this one, the Hawks get Dallas back at home next in another case of facing a direct competitor for a playoff spot, as the Hawks and Stars are tied in points percentage but the Stars are still playing catchup and are about 4 or 5 games behind everyone else still. But hey, Vinnie Hinostroza may be out of quarantine in time for his triumphant return!