Everything Else

Crossroads, Directions, Urgency, And Other Buzzwords

By Sam Fels 1881 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

Three Is The Magic Number, Except When It’s Two

By Sam Fels 2475 0

The obvious joke, and one I’ve made several times, is that for a second time in recent history the Hawks have landed the third pick in a two-player draft. The thing is, if you go look at history, the 2004 draft where the Hawks were left with the pan-scrapings after Ovechkin and Malkin and chose Cam Barker, there wasn’t much directly after Barker. They ended up with Andrew Ladd anyway, and the only other name in range is Blake Wheeler. And he didn’t even sign in Phoenix.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

The Hawks won the lottery last night, and ended up with the third pick again, as the NHL rigged it to get the New York area to care about hockey again (as they probably should). But whereas the Devils and Rangers are in the midst of total rebuilds, the Hawks are not. What the Hawks do have is a bevy of options, which I find more terrifying than exciting because I’m fairly sure they’ll choose the wrong one.

Let’s rewind a year. For the second straight offseason, the Hawks were promising you urgency and that nothing that went on during the season was acceptable. They told you they wanted a quick return to being relevant, and having a higher pick than they’d had in basically a decade gave them ways to act on that. They proceeded to take the biggest project in the top-10, and Boqvist might be the only pick in the first 10 who won’t appear in the NHL either this past season or next. And no one seems sure if he’ll be the next, pint-sized Erik Karlsson, Jared Spurgeon (which would be more than fine, honestly), or a Gustav Forsling sequel.

So to me, all I ask is that the Hawks don’t do something that’s not going to do anything for this team next year. And that should be everyone’s ask. If they were an organization you could trust had any idea what it’s doing, and not one still attempting to bask in the fading glow of success they were mostly born on third for, you’d have hope they’ll take the chance.

Let’s get this out of the way. As good as Valeri Podkolzin might be one day, he’s not a choice for the Hawks. If there’s any chance he won’t be coming over from SKA for two years, that does the Hawks no good whatsoever. They might not even have two years. That doesn’t move them forward in any way. They need help now. Maybe you regret that in three years, but that’s not where you are now.

That doesn’t mean the Hawks can’t just use the pick. They definitely can. Bowen Byram can probably step into the NHL next season, and then the Hawks could package two or three of the other defensive prospects they’ve been bleating on about all season and yet have no idea if they’ll work for even more immediate help. That’s one option. Alex Turcotte might be a reach, but he’s also probably ready to step in right away. So could Dylan Cozens, and might have a Garbage Tkachuk Son aspect to him, which we know the Hawks brass will get tumescent over. These are the simplest options.

The more complicated one, but the one that probably that could net the biggest reward, is trading it. It’s hard to gauge what the #3 pick’s value is, though. Most every other team knows it gets them no Kaako or Hughes. But to a team that’s probably trying to get as many lottery tickets as it can, and who don’t terribly mind if it takes a year for that player to get to the NHL, it probably still has a lot of value. Or maybe a team that needs to add cheap talent with cap problems that needs to unload something. Or just a dumb team. Hi there, Oilers.

I don’t know what is available and what isn’t, but the Hawks need to listen to all of it. Perhaps packaging the #3 pick and one of Boqvist or Jokiharju lands you some big game from someone. Maybe the pick alone can pry a Chris Kreider or Brady Skjei or both loose from the Rangers, who can dream about kick-starting their rebuild with both the #2 or #3 pick. Maybe our dreams of HAMPUS! HAMPUS! come alive for a team that needs to start over. We could do this all day.

If the Hawks take another project, then you’ll know they’re trying to plan for the post-Daydream Nation era. Which I guess they can do, I just wouldn’t want to bother with the next three years. And I’d also love to be in that meeting when they lay out that plan to Toews and Kane, and Keith as well if he does actually want to stick around.

The Hawks have spent the last two seasons standing still, and not even in a good area. They have watched the league pass them by and still don’t look like they’ve adjusted. It’s almost as if they don’t know why they suck. They have a chance to propel themselves forward here. If they miss on it, then just maybe, finally, someone or everyone will be held accountable. You’d think if you were trying to save your job, you’d do something pretty big and instant.

Everything Else

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

By Sam Fels 2162 0

As always, I was tempted to go through the quotes from the great locker-clearout yesterday at the United Center. Stan Bowman, Jeremy Colliton, and some players all had things to say, and the usual M.O. is for me to sift through it and find what they actually mean or what they’re bullshtting you about. But quite frankly, I’ve grown weary of trying to decode whatever it is a bunch of people who can’t really talk are trying to say, so let’s try something else.

The overriding emotion from the Hawks was frustration, but hope that “progress” was being made. That the Hawks are at least on the right track, or moving forward.

But really, are they?

The Hawks ended the season with 84 points, which is an improvement on the 76 they grudgingly accepted the year before. But the thing is, if Corey Crawford had been healthy all of last season, they probably get that 84 points last year too. At least close to it, with the difference being accounted for by an overtime result or bounce here or there. Yes, Crow missed a good chunk of this season as well, playing in only nine more games than he did last year. And the Hawks garnered one less point in his 39 games this year than they did in his 28 last year. So they got more points in less games without Crawford, which I mean… I guess? It doesn’t feel like the difference in points is all that significant.

The Hawks can point to a bounce-back year for Toews, and the monster years for Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat. And the former was more than we were expecting, but no one was expecting Toews to be bad. You might not have seen Kane getting to 108 points, but you probably saw 90-95. You knew Top Cat would score. These are measures of degrees in knowns, not new discoveries.

Dylan Strome’s acquisition and then blossoming was fun to watch. Except Strome’s production was exactly the production anticipated from Nick Schmaltz. So while it’s a personal boon for Strome, and the Hawks are better off now with Strome than the injured Schmaltz, the production from that spot in the lineup is no better or worse than what you would have guessed before the season. Again, it’s a known.

The biggest problem area, defense, saw very little progress. Connor Murphy was much better playing under a coach who wasn’t using him as voodoo doll against his GM, but he basically proved to be a second-pairing guy. Erik Gustafsson exploded offensively and caused explosions defensively, leaving you to wonder what exactly it all means. And whatever gains you might have gotten there were almost certainly canceled out by the declines of Keith and Seabrook and the nothing from Gustav Forsling.

Your only promising d-man’s development all came away from the NHL. Basically, Henri Jokiharju has an entire reputation to build in The Show after a handful of games. The minors is where he belonged, and it’s not his fault that his game, as inexperienced and jumpy as it was, looked that much better in comparison to the other muppets the Hawks were tossing out there. The most I ever felt about Jokiharju was that he was fine in games, and you can’t say for sure you know what you have there. The rest of the hope for the blue line isn’t even in the organization yet. You have their names and claims to them, but they aren’t taking the team anywhere yet, might not for a while, and might not at all. You have hope, but no answers there.

With the season over, it still feels like the Hawks are inert. Directionless. They need a big signing or trade or two to kickstart any movement. But they needed that last year and never got it.

You can point to to the greater point production from your stars, but all that really means is that the Hawks were spinning their wheels even harder in the mud.

It doesn’t have to be bleak. Maybe Jokiharju shows another gear from jump-street, to go along with whatever new additions are made back there. Perhaps Strome takes the step forward that Schmaltz never looked like he would early in the season. And Top Cat is a genuine 40-goal scorer. Even with all of that, that makes the Hawks a wildcard team? As bad as the conference was this year, it’s not easy to add 10 points to your total from one season to the next. And the playoff threshold is likely to return to its 95-point area instead of the purple-hair-and-poetry phase it had this year at 90 points. And you’re playing catch-up to the Avs, who will be adding Cale Makar and one of Jack Hughes or Kaako Kappo next season, most likely. Everyone else is probably too far ahead to worry about.

They’re calling it progress. I can’t seem to see the schooner in the picture.

Everything Else

Game #82 – Red Eyes on Orange Horizons, If Columbus Was Wrong I’d Drive Straight Off the Edge. I’m Seeing Red – Hawks 2, Preds 5.

By John Pullega 1860 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Money Puck

The 2019 campaign is over. It will likely go down as one of the most disappointing performances that the Hawks have had since the core congealed back in 2007. Two 40+ goal scorers. A 35-goal scorer. Eight 30+-point seasons. A defenseman with 60 fucking points. And no playoffs.

It’s a massive disappointment. Yet somehow, it exceeded expectations? Given how bad the Western Conference was this year, the Hawks were in shouting distance of the playoffs as recently as two weeks ago. I certainly didn’t expect that, especially with Crawford missing as many games as he did. While none of us really expected the playoffs to be a reality, that they were even in the running was at least surprising. What’s scary is that it came on the backs of career years from Kane, Toews, DeBrincat, and Gustafsson. Is it safe to rely on that?

Fuck, we’ve got a long, long time to crack this brewski open. I’ll try not too be too retrospective tonight. Let’s kick it.

– First, thank you for reading and sharing this year. Sincerely, it’s a pleasure to write for all of you.

– Cam Ward was outstanding tonight. Four goals on 50 shots is entirely acceptable behind this sock-as-as-condom defense. He certainly deserved a win for the effort tonight. We gave him a ton of shit this year, but tonight is a good memory to keep of him. Even though the Hawks had nothing to play for, Ward gave it a good effort. It’s a nice send off.

– Alex DeBrincat had a hot and cold game. Early on, he was everywhere, creating offense on Perlini’s goal especially. After playing staunch defense in his own zone, he skated to the neutral zone and executed a dump and chase on his own. All Perlini had to do was be there for Top Cat’s pass. As the game wore on, DeBrincat got a little looser. It was especially obvious on Fibbro’s goal. After turning the puck over on the near boards, he stood complaining about something, forcing Gus to cover his man high in the zone. Fabbro took advantage, dropping into the space left wide open by Gus covering his man. Had DeBrincat not complained, maybe he’s in that spot.

After the year he had though, you don’t hold something like that against him. Not tonight at least.

– Brendan Perlini ended a nine-game pointless streak tonight, but his airheadedness also allowed Wayne “They Don’t Call Me ‘Plate Tectonics’ for Nothing” Simmonds to crash the slot for a prime chance in the first. We’ve seen this before from Perlini, where he will take time off on a play that gives an opponent a good chance. Something to watch going forward, especially in terms of how Colliton deals with it. He’s scratched him before for boneheadedness.

– Drake Caggiula can stay. That it took Stan Bowman signing Brandon Manning as a “fuck you” to Quenneville to get him isn’t his fault. He’s looked in place with Toews and Kane, mostly because he will go get the puck, taking that pressure off Toews. I’m still not sure that a Stanley Cup contender should have Drake Caggiula on the first line, but it hasn’t looked particularly wrong. I liked him tonight, and I liked him all year as a Hawk.

– Patrick Kane is a piece of shit as a person, but he’s a goddamn artist with the puck. His patience on the goal line before his pass to Caggiula was astounding.

– I’ll go on record as saying I really like Pat Foley. Generally, he’s good at what he does and is entertaining. But listening to him call Austin Watson “physically proficient” in the same breath as talking about his far-too-short 18-game suspension for domestic violence was a bit much. He probably didn’t relate the two, but as a broadcaster, that’s kind of his entire job: to say things thoughtfully and clearly. He probably didn’t conflate the two consciously, but that he didn’t think how that phrasing might play was jarring to me.

– The sooner we all come to terms with the fact that Erik Gustafsson will never be anything more than a below-average defender with the ability to score 60 points, the better. He’s going to be the most interesting player the Hawks have next year because of his offensive proficiency, his defensive offensiveness, and his sweetheart contract.

– Listening to Nashville fans mock Ward after an empty netter reminds me of Clint Eastwood talking to that empty chair that one time. Looking forward to their piss-sweater-wearing team getting bounced before they win a Cup again.

We’ll have playoff coverage and baseball shit for you in the off-season. We’ll give you the postmortem in a week or two. And as always, we’ll give you the skinny on the draft and free agency. But for now, and for the second straight year, we’ll sign off on games that matter.

Thanks again for reading. As a great man once said:

Onwards . . .

Booze du Jour: Victory’s Sour Monkey and accoutrements.

Line of the Night: “They really have no business being in this game with the opportunities they’ve given up.” Pat Foley on the Hawks, getting it 100% correct

Everything Else

Game #81 – Stars 1, Hawks 6 – But When We Get to the End, Well He Wants to Start All Over Again

By Rose Rankin 1651 0

Don’t get me wrong, it’s more fun to watch the Hawks win than to watch them lose, but while these last two games may be some point of pride for the players, it’s in a way even more frustrating to see them beat better teams when it no longer matters. If they just got their ass kicked we could shrug and say yeah, this is where we’re at. Maybe it would help their draft position in some small way. But when they manage to do something like score five on a really hot goalie while only giving up one, it rubs salt in the wound remembering how they couldn’t do this in the key moments when it mattered. Fuck it all, let’s do the bullets:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– Tonight was really a showcase in not-giving-a-shit, in many different ways. But how could that be, you wonder? The Hawks scored five goals…how could they not give a shit? Well, when the first period ended neither team had shots in double-digits. Both teams were playing, shall we say, leisurely, and even the refs didn’t give a shit enough to call a penalty shot on a clear take-down of Gustafsson on a break-away. You would think the Stars would have wanted to make at least a half-assed effort, but with a couple notable exceptions like John Klingberg robbing Alex DeBrincat (legally) on yet another breakaway, they really couldn’t be bothered.

– But yes, the Hawks did score five goals, so there’s a feather in our cap. Kane has a career-high in points and now 44 goals, Kahun scored off a great play by Brandon Saad in the second when Saad made a great move at the blue line and drove to the net where Kahun picked up the rebound, hell even Slater Koekkoek got his very first goal. Dylan Sikura must be pissed. Chris Kunitz also scored in what is most likely his last game as an NHL player, or if not his absolute last, the last one in a home rink. I’ve been bored and mildly annoyed with the fuss they’ve made for him even though yes, I get it, it’s the right thing to do. But I will say it was rather touching how genuinely excited his teammates were when his weird, fluky bounce was deemed to have just barely crossed the goal line. So good for him, now Chris Kunitz please go away.

– Can we all just take a moment to reflect on the scoring capability that’s on this team and yet the fact that they’re missing the playoffs again? I know we’ve all beaten this dead horse—I know you’ve thought about it and we’ve all marveled at how shitty a defense can be, how inexplicable some personnel decisions have been…all of it. But god damn it, games like this throw into harsh relief the absurdity of such talent and career years by Kane and Toews being wasted.

– And just to make things worse, Corey Crawford sustained a groin injury and left the game in the second period. Yeah, he’s got plenty of time to recover and a muscular injury is definitely less worrisome than another head injury. But this guy doesn’t need any more shit breaking or going awry, even if he’s got six months to heal. He most likely pulled it when moving left to right on a brilliant save in the first, but you could tell he was struggling when he got back up. So that’s just one more kick in the collective ass for this season and one more roadblock for someone who doesn’t deserve the hand he’s been dealt with this team lately.

– Speaking of goalie problems, Anton Khudobin came into this game with a .926 SV% and somehow managed to barf up an .813. Part of this was undoubtedly his defense not giving a rat’s ass—case in point, the first goal when Dowling kinda sorta attempted to block a shot and the rest of the Stars literally skated the opposite way of Kane and the puck, making it easier than it already is for him. Also, there was some bad luck for the Stars like when the puck deflected off Reverend Lovejoy’s skate and right onto Dylan Strome‘s stick, who happened to be all alone in front of the crease and just held onto it long enough to get Khudobin moving the wrong way. So it wasn’t that Khudobin just fucked up royally, but he still should have had at least a couple of these.

So that’s the end of things on Madison St. this season. They didn’t go down like bitches in front of the fans for the last time, which I suppose is a nice gesture. But it grinds my gears one more time that only when there’s no pressure could they rise to the occasion and play a well-rounded game. Pullega will be here tomorrow night to bring it all home for you. Onward and upward indeed.

Photo credit: NHL.com

Everything Else

Game #81 – Stars vs. Hawks Preview/Mani Pedi: Gone Til October

By Sam Fels 1553 0

vs.

RECORDS: Stars 42-31-7   Hawks 35-33-12

PUCK DROP: 7:30pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

MOVING ON: Defending Big D

And now the wake. Or shiva. Or whatever other ceremony where the drinking after the service takes place (some would call it life). The Hawks will close out the home schedule tonight, and despite what they told you before and during the season, for the second straight year it won’t be a launch point to something bigger and more exciting. This will be it. They get the 41 here and no more. There will be plenty of time for commiseration, but for now maybe it’s better to enjoy Alex DeBrincat, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane one more time on the ice.

Because if you think about it, there are some pretty heavy questions hanging over this one. A lot of players will be dressing in red for the last time. Could one or two of them be Brent Seabrook and/or Duncan Keith? There is a case to move each of them on. The one for Seabrook is much easier to make but much harder to execute. Keith still has a role to play here if he both accepts what he is now and more importantly accepts who’s in charge. He doesn’t seem inclined to do either. The argument about both can wait. If this is to be the last time they’re seen together here, it will be sad. One or both will take a significant chunk of Blackhawks history with them when and if they go.

Others are more sured of the exit. Chris Kunitz is headed for retirement. So might be Cam Ward. Marcus Kruger will be elsewhere, as his larger-than-you-think contributions to two Cups are yellowing and green with mold as time goes on. We can only hope Slater Koekkoek and Gustav Forsling are never seen here again. John Hayden has a great career in Germany awaiting him. Has Brendan Perlini earned another contract? Will Brandon Saad be trade bait again? Will Artem Anisimov? More than a few, to be sure.

The other sting about tonight is the Hawks only need to look at the other bench to see what could have been. Could the Hawks be where the Stars are? Maybe not that high, but they could be much closer if they’d done a couple things like Dallas did. What if the Hawks had hired their new voice to replace a legend in the summer and given him a fresh start instead of tossing him in midstream in the busiest portion of the schedule? What if they’d opted for Anton Khudobin instead of Ward? The Hawks’ higher end has been better than the Stars, and by some margin. The middle and bottom has not. Instead you got Brandon Manning and Stan Bowman lurking behind the curtain like Claudius, except this time he didn’t let Hamlet get the drop on him.

The Stars did these things, and the Stars won the games they had to, which the Hawks did not. Because of that, they get to use tonight as a rest-up. Jamie “I Don’t Know Which Way Is South” Benn, Mats Zuccarello, and Roman Polak didn’t even make the trip. Ben Bishop is continuing to rest whatever fell off of him this time and is geared to be ready for the playoffs. Which could come against any of the top three in the Central, though all the Preds have to do is beat the Hawks tomorrow night to clinch. That said, given they only have one line and the Stars defensive ways and Bishop’s form when healthy, that could get sticky for everyone’s darling in yellow in a hurry. But that’s a matter for next week, and not a matter for the Hawks at all.

They’ll wrap it up tonight. They told you they wouldn’t be. The real drama comes next, just not the type they promised.

 

Game #81 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

The Natives Are Getting Restless

By Sam Fels 2026 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

Game #80 – Blues 3, Hawks 3 (Hawks Win Hackey-Sack) – It’s Still Real To Me, Dammit

By Adam Hess 1908 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Now that the Hawks games mean nothing, it’s hard to imagine getting worked up about these games in any way, and yet seeing them play their asses off and outplaying the Blues, I found myself sitting on my couch feeling like this guy. As a wrestling fan myself, I can empathize with feeling emotionally invested in something you know isn’t what it’s presented as, and tonight that was me, constantly battling this desire for the Hawks to not drop themselves farther down the draft lottery (which, they can’t climb much higher anyway, so that’s dumb too) and rooting like hell for them to beat the Blues. Some things are bigger than logic. Fuck you St. Louis. Let’s do this:

– Just about everyone at this here site was unavailable to some extent tonight, so I took up the sword but still missed the first period. When I got the game on with about 17 left in the second, I was pretty surprised by how competitive and hard the Hawks were playing in this game despite the games now being meaningless as I said before. It was clear from the quotes from Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane today that these guys are pissed off about missing the playoffs again, and they definitely channeled that into a desire to fuck over the Blues and their playoff seeding hopes. There were still plenty of gaffes in here on the Hawks end, and we will talk about a few of them, but seeing them respond was at least notable, I think. If only they had cared about this season a few months ago. Maybe they can actually carry this piss and vinegar into next year.

– It’s still hilarious to me that the Hawks got Dylan Strome for Nick Schmaltz. Not that Schmaltz wasn’t and isn’t a fine player (though now one that is WAY overpaid), but we definitely knew what he was by the time the Hawks sent him to the desert for Strome, who had barely gotten enough of a sniff of the NHL to have any conclusion that he couldn’t hit the ceiling that was once considered very high. And yeah, his shortcomings are there, and have been all year. But dammit if he doesn’t make up for it enough with the vision and hands, and the pass he made to Kane tonight on the third Hawks goal was just another example of that. The Hawks are definitely coming out on top of this one.

– Let’s talk about some gaffes. Firstly, Seabrook and Forsling were out there together again tonight. Not for long, but any shifts of those two together is too many. That’s the whole gaffe. Please stop that. EDIT– Forsling didn’t play tonight, I just stink at paying attention to who’s out there. I guess I’ve just been traumatized by 7-42 so often that I just expect it even when it isn’t happening.

– Now the elephant in the room, which at this point has now sat on and destroyed your couch, coffee table, recliner, and television: Duncan Keith could not give less of a fuck about playing hockey for Jeremy Colliton. Truthfully, I wish I could show the level of contempt and disinterest in my job that this guy does and still have the level of job security he does. We know the give a shit meter was already on zero, but he just about sent it negative tonight, particularly on the Blues third goal. To have little interest in playing well at this point can be understood, given that the Hawks are fucked, but to just have no intent to even feign effort at this point is almost impressive.

– And that brings us to an important thought – the Hawks might have to pick between the wife and the dog this summer. It’s clear that the wife (Keith, because he’s made our lives better for years and we never appreciate him enough) does not want the dog (Colliton, because he’s smelly and keeps shitting himself everywhere) around any longer. But as can happen, we may see this summer that the Hawks have overcommitted themselves to the dog. Perhaps these two will come to an agreement over the summer. Maybe an addition of a real defenseman that can partner with him will turn Keith’s give-a-shit meter back up. Maybe Colliton really will get motherfucked into becoming a good coach by this blog. Maybe neither happen and we’re stuck in a bad marriage with a stupid dog (I don’t hate dogs, I love them, but this one is stupid) and we will be miserable again for another year. Who knows! Eat at Arby’s.

– We almost made it, folks. Two more.

Everything Else

Game #78 – Hawks 2, Kings 2 – Kings Win ’80s Night Breakdancing Contest

By Rose Rankin 1805 0

This was a poorly played game for the most part, which I guess comes as no surprise given who the teams involved were. And yet, the contrast between the dull first period when both teams ended up with a handful of themselves and the excitement of basically every other televised sporting event in the nation tonight was striking. What was worse, however, was the ending, where the Hawks took one meager point and lost in OT on a power play thanks to a terribly poetic penalty by Jonathan Toews. We knew the season was over but this is a harsh exclamation point on it. Let’s get to the bullets:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– As mentioned, the first period was mostly a back-and-forth affair between mediocre opponents, and although the Hawks ended up on the wrong side of the ledger in terms of both shots and possession (9-14 and 48 CF%, respectively), it wasn’t a painfully noticeable difference in play quality. The only part that was certifiably painful was Keith shattering his stick on a shot near the end of a late-period power play. Not only was that the personification of a sad trombone sound, but Kyle Clifford jumped out of the box just as it happened and the Kings had numbers going the other way. But fear not—Seabrook took a dumb penalty and the Kings were too useless to score on it…that time.

– Not useless was Alex DeBrincat, who scored a relatively soft goal by curling it just underneath Campbell early in the second. Top Cat is now tied with Patrick Kane as the team’s leading goal scorer, with 41, and his career total is…wait for it…69 (NICE). And yes, you’d make that joke too so shut up. Having DeBrincat and Garbage Dick on the third line is still some galaxy brain bullshit as far as I’m concerned, but I’d rather see Top Cat produce anywhere and any way that he can, rather than flail in the stupidity of bad coaching decisions. Remember, a 25-goal scorer tops, this guy.

– Erik Gustafsson‘s magic carpet ride continued with another goal, his 17th. Campbell likely was screened because he didn’t seem to see the shot coming from three miles away. However, Gus giveth and he taketh away, as his habit of doing confused pirouettes away from forwards left Michael Amadio alone in the slot to tie the game in the third. If you can’t stop a fourth-fucking-liner on one of the league’s worst teams you seriously need to re-evaluate what you’re doing and how you understand your job description.

– But wait! Before we pile on the crappy defenseman, at least he scored. Kane and Toews both point-blank fucked up multiple times in overtime. The fact this game went to OT is stupid on its own, but they had nearly a third of the 3-on-3 with control of the puck and couldn’t finish any of their shots. Toews followed that up with a penalty on Anze Kopitar, which is frustrating for its timing since that led to the winning goal by LA, and sad in its relevance for an aging, slowing legend trying to slow down nearly his mirror image. And it backfired in a pretty dramatic way, really putting the final nail in the coffin where the Hawks playoff hopes now lay. But had either he or Kane converted on any of their opportunities earlier, that penalty wouldn’t have happened. Maybe they’re tired after the amount of ice time (would be fair enough at the end of the season although tonight’s wasn’t too egregious), maybe they just don’t have it or don’t give a shit, but it did not inspire hope for the future.

– David Kampf broke some part of his face (or severely messed it up), and not that it matters now but still, not the way to end the season.

– I can’t say that Austin Wagner is any good, but I can say that he is fast. He absolutely scorched Carl Dahlstrom in the second for the tying goal (the first time), and he did it to Connor Murphy in the third but our Large Irish Son was bailed out by a Crawford poke check.

– Drake Caggiula seemed awfully excited to be back in the lineup, and yet I can’t help but wonder if he should try to avoid getting into fights rather than seeking them out, seeing as he just missed a month with a head injury. I dunno, just doesn’t seem like the best strategy. He had four shots, so that’s something, and he didn’t get into a full-on fisticuffs, but boy was he trying to.

I know I sound like a broken record but this has to be the end of the playoff delusion, even if the math doesn’t say it’s for certain yet. We all know it is, and really, if you can’t beat this lowly-ass Kings team any of the times you play them, do you really even deserve to be in the playoffs? The answer is no. Onward and upward?

Beer de jour: Sun Catcher by Revolution Brewing

Line of the Night: “Halfway through an almost scintillating first period.” —Foley, sarcastically saying what we were thinking.

Photo credit: NHL.com

Everything Else

A Line Case Study

By Sam Fels 1665 0

John mentioned it in his recap last night, and if you listened to the podcast we did a fairly long segment on how we thought Jeremy Colliton fucked up the lines over the stretch of doom that erased the Hawks playoff hopes. It’s always a little silly to just look at a segment of games, because anything can happen for a week or two. And different opponents provide different challenges. In this stretch, for instance, the Coyotes and Canucks trapped the Hawks hard, so it would be difficult for anyone to produce a large amount of shots and chances against that. Contrast that with the high-flying Sharks and the utterly confused Martin Jones, and you have a very different game. Still, in this section of the schedule the Hawks have played the Avs and Flyers as well, who are at best middling defensive teams.

So what I wanted to do was illustrate the changes in lines over the end of the last winning streak, the slog of dumbassery that was the Hawks after that, and then last night in San Jose and the effects. I have to apologize at the top, as I haven’t been able to find a way to paste the data right in here without it looking like garbage or spilling over the entire page. so it’s going to have to be a link. If anyone has a suggestion on how to better do this, feel free to email me or hit me up on Twitter and I’ll come and make the changes. One last caveat, this also includes the win in Montreal where the Hawks got the win but we’re pretty much pummeled. So this goes from Toronto to last night in San Jose:

Games Lines Study

So you’ll notice that first game in Toronto, the Hawks had two lines that produced 10 shots on goal or more at evens, one line that got over 10 scoring chances and a further two that got over six. Again, it’s the Leafs who play very fast and open and though they eventually brought the world down around the Hawks’ ears, they will give you chances. The next game in Montreal the Hawks only had one line get anywhere close, which was the top of Sikura-Toews-Saad. But still, it had over 10 scoring chances which is something of a benchmark as you’ll see.

The next game is where Beto O’Colliton got cute, and you’ll see that no line produced even five scoring chances. Again, the Canucks set out to do this and keep things tight, but to have everyone’s production cut in half from the previous is a little jarring. And that trend continues…

Against the Flyers, no line cracked 10 scoring chances or shots or anywhere close. Same story in Denver, and the Avs are not setting out to make the game this way. Only in the return at the United Center did the top line of Top Cat-Toews-Kane crack those numbers, and after that there was no line to even create three scoring chances. We have a return to the flaccid against Arizona, where the Hawks essentially did nothing. To repeat, this was Arizona’s plan and the Hawks don’t have the talent to break through, but you can see the discrepancy.

To last night, the Hawks had a return of one line managing more than 10 scoring chances, another one with almost five, and neither of them had Patrick Kane on them. Things got a little goofy with Perlini’s benching, so it might have worked out differently.

Still, I’m all for the Hawks getting 15+ chances from two lines that don’t have Kane on them, because he’s going to find a way to produce even with limited chances and energy levels.

We’ll see how the Hawks finish the season, with what lines and with what interest level from their opponents. Let’s circle back at the end. This isn’t definitive, but you can see some trend lines.

-There was another tidbit on The Athletic today by Craig Custance about the introduction of player tracking. He had a quote from Stan Bowman, which pretty much sums up the Hawks right now:

“I want to see what it is first,” said Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman. “I’m not anticipating hiring a bunch of people. I think you’ve got to figure it out. It’ll be a process of learning – ‘How is this going to help us? What am I going to do with it?’ Until it comes out, I think for me, it’s premature to be jumping in.”

Now, earlier in the piece Custance mentions that the Leafs, Rangers. Lightning, Hurricanes, and Devils have already or are in the process of hiring new staff just to deal with this. They won’t be alone.

Quite simply, if you’re taking a “wait-and-see” approach, you’re already behind. Secondly, what would be the harm, other than a few yearly salaries that probably pale in comparison to the cost of the shiny new scoreboard the Hawks are so eager to boast about, of hiring people now to be ready for this? Essentially, on one day you’ll get Bowman and the Hawks paying lip-service to them using metrics and new analytics, and then you get shit like this where they’re pretty much admitting they don’t care and never will.

Especially as this kind of thing is going to take years to amass enough data to figure out what to do with it. If you sit out a year or two, that’s probably more years you’re behind. Why wouldn’t you get started? Player tracking is already making serious inroads in the NBA and European soccer, as the article notes. It’s coming to the NHL, so why would you be so dismissive?

Don’t worry, in three years or so when this is an accepted method, Stan Bowman (who will still be in the job) will come out and say the Hawks have their own system and are on the forefront of it. It’s their way.