Everything Else

Ball Don’t Lie

By Sam Fels 1883 0

There will be lots of post-mortems in just over 10 days time when this season ends now. And that’s when it will end, which we all kind of knew but some of us had deluded ourselves into thinking there was hope it might go on for 10 days more. Which is kind of a silly thing to hope for, because those 10 days in one playoff series really have no more bearing on the future than missing out on them do. But it became official last night.

Even last night’s effort wasn’t a crime against the sport. The Hawks don’t have a trap-buster. They never really have honestly, but they had the forwards and the defensive discipline to grind it out in the past. Gustafsson is too slow, Forsling too dumb and slow, and Keith too manic with the puck. They don’t have forwards to just get it low and get it back other than Saad, especially with Caggiula hurt (and when you’re needing Drake Caggiula, that expresses things I never could through sheer prose). Dominik Kahun can in spurts, but he was on the 4th line for some reason. And they don’t have d-men who can get a shot through traffic. I’m not even convinced Gustafsson is that good at it, as his skill seems to be burying open ones. Seabrook used to, when he could get to any spot to even get a shot off quicker than can be measured with an egg timer.

Still, they didn’t try as much of the dipsy-doodle shit they did against Vancouver against the same tactics. They actively tried to harass the Coyotes d-men early and often to try and create turnovers at the Arizona line or just beyond to avoid that trap, which is what they had to do. Didn’t work, but at least they tried it.

But at the end of the day, the Hawks had seven “big” games that definitely would have had them in the playoff spots or right on them. The spots they’ve told you are the season’s goal. The spots they told you were the minimum for this season.

They took two points out of them.

It’s a second straight year without the playoffs for Team One Goal. Two years after you were told that everyone would be held accountable. So who’s been held accountable?

Brent Seabrook has been healthy scratched twice in two seasons where he’s been AHL-level. Duncan Keith probably can’t be demoted in the lineup, but other than occasionally Murphy and Dahlstrom taking last minute shifts, there’s been no sign of that either. Nick Schmaltz was held accountable, I guess. But that’s easy. Henri Jokiharju was apparently held accountable. That’s even easier.

Joel Quenneville was, though only after his GM was actively spiking his roster. And I don’t know that was the wrong choice. I don’t think it was, and I didn’t then either. But his replacement has done exactly the same (.500, which in the NHL is bad) with an improved roster. Q didn’t have Connor Murphy. Q didn’t have Caggiula. Q didn’t have Sikura. Q didn’t have Strome and Perlini (whatever that counts for). And Q didn’t have a back-to-his-best Crawford, which Colliton has had the past month. Where has that gotten the Hawks? A handful of themselves. Will Colliton be held accountable? When he was hired they told you this was a playoff team. They’ve snuffed it in every game they had that truly mattered. Keep in mind, if they’d just split those seven points from the 14 on offer, not only are they in a wildcard spot, they’re probably comfortably so.

After stealing a win out of Montreal and then struggling against Vancouver’s trap for a period. Coach Cool Youth Pastor switched the lines to whatever this is. Top Cat doesn’t have a point. Kane doesn’t have a goal. Strome doesn’t have a point. Neither does Perlini. Toews has two goals and three points. Brandon Saad has averaged a 65% Corsi over these five games, and the same scoring chance share, and has been on the ice for one goal for because all his work is being done for the benefit of balloon handed clods. Sure, teams go through snakebitten periods as a whole, and maybe this is it. Or is it that a very thin and fragile lineup needs to be perfectly assembled, and Beto O’Colliton did the opposite?

Will Stan Bowman be held accountable? He was the one actively trashing his coach in the offseason with his moves for an excuse to fire him, which he didn’t have the balls to do over the summer. He then installed his guy who is clearly not ready for this after one season coaching in North America. It was a hail mary to save his job. It didn’t work, but he’ll get away with it. While the broadcast spent several minutes discussing the Coyotes overhauling their scouting after having to trade three straight first-round picks, the names of Schmaltz, McNeill, Danault and Hartman certainly ring around the ears of Hawks fans (I’d throw Teuvo on there, but he was a sweetener). Will Stan be held accountable for his pro scouting staff? Because in the past that’s netted him a clinically dead Johnny Oduya, Dale Fucking Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, and an even more clinically dead Andrew Ladd. Sure, he fleeced Edmonton, but that’s filling-your-name-on-the-SAT shit. Strome and Perlini may yet work out, but the record is very spotty. This is the same GM who ruined last year by having no backup plan for Crawford than Anton Forsberg and JF Berube. Has it improved at all?

Will John McDonough be held accountable? It’s his enforced extensions to Bickell, Seabrook, and Anisimov that have hamstrung this team. It’s his message that this is a playoff team is broadcast far and wide, and yet it’s his team that’s not even coming close to that. By what standard is he judged? The building is still full, so I guess that’s what matters.

In a depleted Western Conference that made the hurdle of the playoffs barely knee-height, these Hawks will barely get within hailing distance. Their point-total this year will be the same as it would have been last year if Crawford had remained healthy. Perhaps even worse. They have the same 76 now, and you could easily see them only beating the Kings the rest of the way here (and there’s another thing they barf-belched last time, so who knows?). So how do you make the argument they’re moving forward? And they’re not moving backward, they’re in the same hell they were before. Not near the playoffs and not bad enough to get a true difference maker in the draft. And you have to believe the playoff threshold will return to its 95-point level next year because that’s just how things work. Do you see a 95-point team here without massive additions?

This was a team in need of a lot, and even at the draft they took the biggest project possible. And trading or buying out Keith and Seabrook, respectively, this summer, if that is the plan, is only going to ramp up the pressure even more. Their names still draw a ton more water than Bowman’s or Colliton’s do. Is there any forward in the system anywhere close worth getting excited about? It seems like the Hawks are poised to make the team good again just at the point when Toews and Kane are too old to do that. How many more MVP-worthy seasons do they think Kane has left in his 30s?

Who will be held accountable? The answer is no one, as the front office hides behind the three banners they were pretty much as along for the ride for as you and I were. And they can do that, because the Hawks have returned to their natural place in the Chicago pecking order. The Bears are Super Bowl contenders. The Cubs are still World Series contenders. The Sox are at least in the news and producing players their fans can get excited about. Even the Bulls stupidity knocked the Hawks back even more off the headlines.

So they can keep the status quo, because really, who’s looking?

Everything Else

Game #76 – With the Apple in My Mouth, the Food That Celebrates Your End – Hawks 0, Coyotes 1

By John Pullega 1758 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Money Puck

That’ll about do it for any playoff hopes the Hawks had. In another BIG GAME, the Hawks let out the biggest and densest of farts, failing to scratch against a team straight ahead of them in the standings and more than happy to play a wet blanket trap. Now too bad for the playoffs and too good for a top draft pick (probably), the Hawks get to end the year against a running buzz saw of teams entrenched in the playoffs and the Kings. What a fucking treat.

– Let’s start positive. Corey Crawford looked outstanding yet again. At the beginning of the broadcast, Foley mentioned that Crow was pitching a .940 SV% through the last nine games. In his last five, including tonight, Crow tossed a .924 SV% and managed to get saddled with a 1–3–1 record. He had another stellar game ruined by a bad penalty and his team’s complete Beavis when it mattered most.

Still, it’s always going to be comforting to watch Crawford dominate like he did tonight, especially when his team is giving up 12 high-danger chances for throughout the game, including seven in the third. Crow looks like the Crow of old, and that’s at least a small respite from this skidmark of a season.

– Another thing Foley and Konroyd spent far too much time doing early in the broadcast was pushing the “Keith has really grown” narrative. Konroyd’s Keith fluffing was especially egregious early in the first, during which he waxed poetic about how Keith had really evolved under Colliton’s man zone system as shown by his +20 plus-minus rating or some such shit. Anyone with standard definition television can see that Keith has gone kicking and screaming like Ned Flanders into this fucking asylum of a system, and no meaningless plus-minus or OT goal in a game they needed in regulation is going to change that. Having Keith take the lazy tripping penalty on Crouse late in the third was just the icing on the cake.

I won’t ever hate Duncan Keith, but some of the pissbaby penalties and plays are starting to wear thin.

– It’s good that the next six games don’t matter, because Patrick Kane is completely out of gas. Tonight saw him displaying flat passing and skating and more stripped turnovers than I can remember in a while. And yet, Colliton kept double shifting him, because that’s apparently his counter-clockwise fucking swirl. Except when Kane can’t keep up with the plays he can normally make, the swirl looks more like a knuckle.

– It’s a bit concerning that in the last five games—five games that in theory mattered—the Hawks managed to score just seven goals, and that was with the “nuclear option” flying out there regularly. That’s something that’s on Colliton. He boxed his team in by tossing out one line with all the scoring threats and no one to retrieve the puck, and then Nathan For You’d the rest of the lineup.

It wasn’t until the third of this game that he tried throwing Sikura up with DeBrincat and Toews, leaving a tired Kane to try to manufacture everything else by himself. It’s frustrating when you’ve got teams directly above you in the standings simply trapping and stuffing the middle because they know the top line won’t be able to retrieve the puck off a perimeter shot. It’s especially frustrating when your third line dominates in the oZ but doesn’t have a true scorer to finish the job. Colliton either couldn’t or wouldn’t make the adjustment. I’m not sure which would be worse.

– David Kampf is a fine player. Maybe even good. But if you needed to be reminded about why he’s not ever going to be a Top 6 guy, tonight was the night. His line was the only forward line underwater in possession, and they were way, way under. He doesn’t complement Perlini or Strome well at all, and that Colliton thought that the way to fix that line was to put a defensive stalwart with very little offensive upside in the middle of it doesn’t inspire confidence.

– Forsling–Seabrook continues to insult. Along with the Kampf line, they were buried in possession (26+ and 30+ CF%, respectively). Seabrook’s desperation tripping penalty led to the Coyotes’s only goal, and Forsling had no fewer than four unforced turnovers, at least three of which came in the defensive zone on long pass attempts. It’s a never-ending nightmare whenever these two are on the ice. Given how bad they are, everyone should be fired if Boqvist and Harju aren’t up and playing with this team next year. There’s simply no way those two can be any worse than Forsling–Seabrook.

– On the Yotes’s goal, Connor Murphy went out too far to cover Keller, who easily slipped a pass by him and to the waiting stick of humongous puddle of wet dogshit Nick Cousins. If Murphy sags a bit, it closes that lane off and makes that pass more difficult at least. It didn’t help that Kruger couldn’t clear the ice immediately prior, but Murphy’s positioning was the main culprit.

– Brendan Perlini’s got a hell of a release. If he can ever get it under control, he could be fun. I do not like how many ifs I have to attach to him at all.

– Alex DeBrincat has had a rough go of it over the past few games. Now that the Hawks are dead, Colliton would be wise to slot him with Perlini and Strome again and try to get that line back on track.

Unless you think the Hawks can beat the Sharks, Kings, Jets, Blues, Stars, and Preds all in a row and in regulation, then tonight’s loss was the final nail in the coffin. The best they can do now is try to get the Perlini–Strome–DeBrincat line back on track, get Sikura his first goal, and maybe give Garbage Dick some time off.

We’re at the funeral, so we’ll sing the requiem.

Booze du Jour: Two Hearted

Line of the Night: “FUCK” –Corey Crawford

Everything Else

Power Outage

By Sam Fels 1837 0

It seems awfully simple to say the Hawks have gone as their power play has gone, but that’s basically the drill. It has dried up when it absolutely couldn’t of late, with a marker against Vancouver and last night’s Anisimov deflection the only things to show for the past 11 games. In those 11 game the Hawks are 6-4-1, which isn’t bad. But obviously a couple more power play goals in this stretch and the Hawks probably claim some points they needed to have and might even be in a playoff spot.

You can divide the power play’s season into three segments: From the opening of the season to December 17th, which covers both Quenneville’s short term and Colliton’s start. Then from December 18th to March 1st, when it was absolutely nuclear. And then the last 11 games which go from March 2nd until now, when it’s been cold, cold, cold.

I wanted to check on it metrically, as is my way. So I’m going to take you along with me:

1st Phase: CF/60 – 86.5  SF/60 – 47.5   SCF/60 – 43.1   HDCF/60 – 18.8   SH% – 8.5

2nd Phase (Nuclear): CF/60 – 104.2   SF/60 – 58.0   SCF/60 – 52.5  HDCF/60 – 16.4  SH% – 23.1

3rd Phase (I’m turning into Lovie Smith now): CF/60 – 99.9   SF/60 – 50.6   SCF/60 – 45.5  HDCF/60 – 13.9  SH% – 5.0

So a couple things to glean here. One is that a huge part of the power play’s success was luck. While there was a surge in attempts, shots, and chances in the middle phase where the Hawks couldn’t stop scoring, they also shot nearly three times as well as they did to start the season and almost five times as well as they are now. For a frame of reference, the median SH% on the power play this year is 13.5%, and the Lightning lead the league at 22% for the season. The Hawks were better than that for six weeks, which gives you some idea of the unsustainable nature of it.

Another funny quirk of this is that the Hawks were actually averaging less high-danger chances when they power play went supernova than they did in the first part of the season. What changed is that they doubled their shooting-percentage on just scoring-chances, to almost 30%. Now, when you have Patrick Kane at full bore and Top Cat on the other side, you should be shooting a higher percentage than most. And the Hawks did, just not at a rate anyone was going to keep up.

Still, in the last 11 games, the Hawks have seen a drop in attempts, shots, and chances. And that can’t be totally explained metrically.

One thing we’ve seen of late is that teams are completely aware of the Hawks drop-pass entry, and the Hawks haven’t shown a willingness to try anything else. Opponents are leaving one forward behind the initial puck-carrier, cutting off that drop pass. Because one major change the Hawks made that sparked the power play was actually having two players trailing the initial puck-carrier, when that’s cut off the Hawks are looking at a 3-on-3 at the opposing blue line. And they don’t seem willing to take that on, even though there should be plenty of room. It doesn’t help that the two forwards ahead of the play are just standing and waiting as they’re expecting that drop pass.

So what you’re getting is the initial puck-carrier, sometimes Gustafsson and sometimes Toews for the most part, pulling up somewhere between the red line and blue line, and literally stopping or curling toward the boards or both and waiting for that penalty killer behind them to “clear.” Now everyone’s stopped, and they’re still trying that pass except Kane or DeBrincat has four across the line to stare at with no one on his team moving forward. So entries have become a problem again.

In the zone, the movement has stopped. Some of that might be due to Kane’s overall fatigue, but that doesn’t explain it all. When the power play was humming, Kane was getting the puck while already moving and committing people. He’s standing still and Carmello’ing/Harden’ing (phrasing?) at the circle. Top Cat is waiting on the other side for passes that have become the first priority to be cut off by penalty kills. Toews isn’t bouncing between the goal line and the high slot as much, and when Kane’s doing his isolation offense on the right circle it doesn’t really matter if Toews is in the high slot because he’s basically facing the wrong way. His only option from there is basically to bump it back to Kane, unless he has time to turn to face the center of the ice. Which he rarely does.

It wouldn’t hurt to try and run things occasionally through DeBrincat on the other side, which makes Toews a threat for a one-timer from the high slot and Gustafsson from the blue line and a cross-seam pass to Kane as well. Kane’s not really the best at one-timing shots, but he can make a fist of it enough to have teams account for it. If it moves guys, then the Hawks can get their movement and creativity back.

Everything Else

Game #75 – That’s Why We Get High, ‘Cause You Never Know When You’re Gonna Go – Avs 1, Hawks 1 (Hawks Win a Stay of Execution)

By John Pullega 1786 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Money Puck

For a must-win game with the season on the line, the Hawks managed an “Is it in yet?” effort. Despite dominating possession (62%+) and the shot share (42 vs. 20), they only managed six high-danger chances for against the Avs’s five. With another empty-calorie win, they’ll keep the embers of this “playoff run” just hot enough to justify watching on Tuesday, but if you were looking for a definitive reason to believe that this team can squeak into the playoffs, tonight wasn’t it.  Let’s rake this muck.

– Colliton’s BIG IDEA over the past two games has been to test his nuclear option of Cat–Cap’n–Kane. It’s done everything it was supposed to do except score goals. They were ruthless in possession, pushing the pace at a 65% pace throughout the entire game. Granted, it was against a team that was happy to collapse on the only line that has even a whiff of a real scoring threat, knowing that if they could shut down that line, they’d probably get the one point they needed to manufacture a more comfortable lead over the last wild card spot.

While this idea isn’t bad on its own, it’s obviously not worked over the past three or four games. When you’re loading up the top line with your only real shot creators, all your opponents have to do is shut that one line down. And it’s a lot easier to shut that line down when there’s no real puck retriever on the line. That’s what made Caggiula look as good as he did with Kane and Toews: He was willing and able to retrieve shots and rebounds that DeBrincat can’t and Kane won’t. Toews just isn’t that guy anymore, especially not this year, a year in which we’ve watched him rightfully shirk some of his defensive responsibilities to try to outscore the Hawks’s overall defensive woes.

It’s a tough spot that Colliton finds himself in, trying to turn canned clams into caviar. But it’s obvious that you can’t expect Toews to be the guy who goes and gets the puck on that line. Make it Saad, make it Kahun, or fuck, make it Kampf. The 12–19–88 line makes sense in theory, but it’s probably a bit too light in the ass to make a difference against teams willing to pack it in, like the Avs did tonight.

– Corey Crawford continues to impress. And for once, he wasn’t having his innards pulled out of his ass with a pair of hot pincers doing it, facing a mere 20 shots on the game and tossing a 15-15 at even strength. At 34, he still looks like he’s got a few more years in him as long as he can stay out of the dark room.

– Fitting that Duncan Keith would score the game winner in overtime in a game the Hawks absolutely needed in regulation, given how often he’s let us down in bigger spots this year. There’s a nostalgia in watching Keith go coast to coast and flex a shot through the five hole, but it’s tapered by the fact that the extra point will likely be meaningless and that he did it in the farcical urinal race that is 3-on-3 OT.

– Strome and Perlini look lost without DeBrincat. Dominik Kahun is a nice complementary player, but Perlini isn’t consistent enough a scorer to put Kahun there as the puck retriever. Looks like Colliton realized that too, as Kahun found himself stapled to the bench late. There’s still a lot to hope for from Perlini’s game, but he just doesn’t have the finish or vision to carry a line on his own, at least not yet. If Colliton isn’t going to bump Saad up to the first line, he can probably get away with putting Kahun with Daydream Nation and slotting DeBrincat down to the second line again.

– The ASS line of Saad–Anisimov–Sikura was outstanding in possession, and they did so playing mostly against the MacKinnon line. This could be a good shutdown line in theory, but it’s hard to buy into Anisimov as a shutdown guy. There’s a lot to like with Saad and Sikura, and you can almost see Sikura playing the role of Saad Lite as he gets more comfortable in the NHL. I’m not sure what this line is supposed to do, but they possessed the puck a lot, so that’s cool.

– Jonathan Toews probably could have had a hat trick tonight had Philipp Grubauer not turned into Dominik fucking Hasek. So it goes.

– While Gustav Forsling continues to shit his diaper upward with unforced turnovers and a complete lack of vision, our own Henri “Frank Grimes” Jokiharju has to be looking for the nearest stack of live wires to hug. In a year in which Brandon Fucking Manning played actual minutes for the Blackhawks, Forsling might still come out as the worst D-man the Hawks have dressed. He’s a cold sore on top of a split lip, and his only talent is a booming shot that requires a windup that makes Pedro Baez impatient.

Tonight is a short stay of execution, nothing more. The Hawks must win out in regulation going forward, because every game is a BIG GAME now. Given that they have not won a single BIG GAME in regulation this year, it’s hard to like the odds.

That’s why we get high.

Booze du Jour: High Life and Coricidin

Line of the Night: You better believe this was a Mute Lounge game.

Everything Else

Game #74 – Hawks 2, Avs 4 – Tellin’ Myself it’s not as Hard, Hard, Hard as it Seems

By Rose Rankin 1747 0

It’s over, isn’t it? I know it’s not technically over, i.e., not mathematically over, but it feels like it might as well be, right? This was yet another framed portrait in the gallery of shame that is the Hawks’ “must-win” moments this season. So tomorrow’s re-match is probably the real, final must-win (I dunno, math is hard guys) but it almost feels like it’s too late already. Let’s get to the bullets:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– As cheesy as it sounds, this did end up being a game of inches. Dylan Strome shooting just wide on their first power play, Dominik Kahun also in the first missing an open net as puck took a funny bounce over his stick, Alex DeBrincat‘s one-timer in the second going just wide…had any of those chance (or Kane’s breakaway in the first or Saad and Kahun’s 2-on-1 in the third) gone other than how they did, this would have been a different game. Neither team had a huge number of chances and the Avs just took better advantage of theirs than the Hawks did. Sven Andrighetto‘s goal maybe-maybe-wasn’t a high stick (I don’t think it was) and maybe-maybe-wasn’t goalie interference (a little more likely), but neither potential offense was so egregious as to nullify the goal. And that was the right call. It was just the wrong team was the beneficiary of that luck.

– To add to that point, the Hawks only gave up 25 shots, which is, well, a normal number of shots for a team to give up, as opposed to the 752 they usually surrender. So at the time they needed to hold it together, they managed to not give up an insane amount but they did give up more high-danger chances, and you saw what Colorado did with them. And that’s with the Hawks even getting a bit of good luck with the Avs hitting the post a couple times, so it could have been worse.

– That doesn’t mean the defense was necessarily great today. Erik Gustafsson took a stupid-ass holding penalty in the second period that started the PK that ended up being a 2-man advantage. I realize that Kampf’s high-sticking penalty is what directly led to the 5-on-3, but that was at least in the heat of the play, as opposed to Gus who lost his stick and just decided to bear hug a guy like no one was going to notice. It was just silly. And that sequence led to the go-ahead goal. Forsling and Seabrook also had their moments, including Foreskin getting burned by Andrighetto for the third goal. It wasn’t a total defensive dumpster fire today (everyone was above 50% in possession at evens, so there’s that) but in total it wasn’t enough. If this were a different time of the season I may say it’s a good sign or at least an improvement that Crawford didn’t have to be absolutely otherworldly to even keep it close. But it really doesn’t matter now, does it?

– Also sort of fitting is how it was Patrick Kane making a lazy play that put the nail in the coffin. This guy’s been CCYP’s workhorse, and as Sam noted recently, he’s been slowing down and likely tiring out, and whether it was that his give-a-shit meter was too low or the mileage just piled up too quickly today, when he had to maintain possession as Crawford went to the bench, Kane’s half-ass passing attempt was picked off and led to the empty-netter. Yes, the Hawks would probably have lost anyway but that was quite the punctuation mark.

– Brandon Saad had a really interesting game—I don’t know what else to call it. Sometimes he was fucking up left and right, such as bookending the first period with tripping penalties that luckily Colorado didn’t convert on but that were damn nerve-wracking. He maybe-probably should have shot on the 2-on-1 with Kahun in the third period but at full speed with the laid-out defenseman coming towards him it’s hard to pass that judgement. And then other times he was fantastic, getting an assist on Gustafsson’s goal, out-muscling Nathan MacKinnon for a takeaway in the second, and doing the little things right. No one can accuse him of not trying, and he was all over the ice and finished with a 63 CF%. The sad thing is, like everything else today, it just wasn’t enough.

– In addition to not giving up a million shots, the Hawks led in possession the whole game (64, 62, 56 CF% at evens, respectively). And they seemed to genuinely have their hearts in it (Kane’s lazy pass notwithstanding). It was downright frenetic for most of the game, and even when they fell behind they didn’t pack it in. It was the damn 5-on-3 and a collection of their own missed opportunities that screwed them over.

– Here lies Dylan Sikura. He never scored.

– Stupid Alexander Kerfoot was all over the place and managed two assists. Philipp Grubauer was predictably good today, as was Nathan MacKinnon who had five shots. I was genuinely surprised he didn’t score.

Well, we’re at the absolute last of the last chances now. The Hawks did a lot of things right and conceivably could have won this game, so maybe that means tomorrow they’ll get the bounces and breaks that they didn’t today. It’s possible? But would it matter? Onward I suppose…

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune

Everything Else

Game #74 and #75 – Hawks vs. Avalanche Preview/Ship Christening: A Final Lunge

By Sam Fels 1510 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 32-31-10   Avalanche 33-29-12

PUCK DROP(S): 2pm Saturday, 7pm Sunday

TV: NBCSN Chicago Saturday, NBCSN Sunday

BUCKWHEATS, ALL OF ‘EM: Mile High Hockey

“It’s come to this,” is a cliche, but that’s where the Hawks are. They have three games over four days to rescue whatever barely flickering light might be there for their playoff chase. Or any meaning for their season. Quite simply, the Hawks have to take all three of these–two against Colorado, one against Arizona–and they have to do it in regulation. The part that gives you pause, of course, is that every game the Hawks have had where they had a chance to really turn the season into something, they’ve stepped on a rake. At home to these Avalanche, at home to the Stars, at home to the Canucks, and last out against the Flyers. And maybe they got goalie’d in one or two, but they’ve lost the right to get goalie’d with all the points they’ve pissed away in truly bewildering and comedic fashion earlier in the season.

Good thing they’ll be seeing a goalie who’s carrying a .967 SV% in March, then.

The Avs sit four points ahead of the Hawks, and were in the last wildcard spot until Minnesota won last night, having played a game more. They’ve won three in a row, including two wins over fellow wildcard chasers Dallas and Minnesota. They had lost five of seven before that, which is why they’re in this mess. A few more wins and they may get themselves out of it. And if Phillip Grubauer keeps this up, they’ll get them.

The last time the Hawks saw the Avs at the end of February, Grubauer has watched a chance to grab the starter’s role pass over his shoulder and into the Avs’ net. It was Varlamov who stoned the Hawks that night, and it looked like the Avs plan to pass the crease from Varly to Grubauer and letting the former walk off in the summer had fallen to pieces (somebody put me together). It looked as if the Avs were at a crossroads in net, which is the last place you want one.

Grubauer got another chance a few days after, and so far he’s taken it and run with it. In his seven starts since that time, he’s given up six goals. They’ve needed it, because their forwards are starting to drop like flies. Mikko Rantanen is questionable for the weekend. Gabriel Landeskog is out until the Avs make the playoffs and maybe not even then. Matt Nieto, a reliable foot soldier, might be done for the year as well. Vladislav Kemenev has been a long-term casualty.

Which means the Avs offense is basically what Nathan MacKinnon can come up with. He’s doing just about what he can, with 10 points in his last 10 and 20 in his last 24. Carl Soderberg chips in where he can, with 22 goals. But other than that, the Avs are still a group of a lot of guys who have a little. They have a bunch of 10-goal scorers when they need 15- or 20-goal ones. Maybe Tyson Jost or J.T. Compher become that one day, but they’re not there yet.

So it’s Grubauer, it’s MacKinnon, and it’s ride or die for the Avs. Which makes the task simple in statement for the Hawks, if not action. Keep MacKinnon from going off for three or four points, and you have a real good chance. Coach Cool Youth Pastor might have to get cute and switch out lines on the fly, whether he wants Toews or Kampf dealing with MacKinnon. Or if he wants Murphy and Dahlstrom out on the back end. He might have to work to get those matchups, if that’s something he wants, on the road. It should be easier at home, but MacKinnon did whatever he wanted his last visit here.

The Hawks have won both games in Denver this year, one in overtime. Both were Collin Delia magic tricks, so the Hawks might need that from Corey Crawford. Beto O’Colliton has hinted that Crawford might take both starts, which seems a risk but these are desperate times. Whatever plays are left in the playbook have to be pulled out now.

It would be encouraging to see the Hawks actually step forth in a game with something at stake. Just to know their coach is up for it, and that players who are doing it for the first time have it in them. None of that has been shown yet. And the Hawks are going to have to get it from a new source for these three games, or likely will, because Patrick Kane appears to be getting awfully tired. He can’t keep pulling out a rabbit. Insert your “white rabbit” jokes here.

Come Tuesday night, it could all be officially done. Or maybe this empty calorie fun continues a little longer. Strap on in.

 

 

Game #74 and #75 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Gustafsson, Kane, Weirdness, and Fatigue

By Sam Fels 1463 0

When I attend games with Fifth Feather, as I did last night, our minds and conversation tend to wander to all sort of subjects, at least until he get back to bitching about the White Sox. But many topics are usually covered, and one that keeps coming up is the extreme weirdness of Erik Gustafsson. Remember, a year ago Gustafsson really had only been with the team a month or six weeks after a year and a half exile to Rockford. All for one turnover in a playoff series. And yet here he is, with an outside chance at a 60-point season from the blue line. Certainly 55+ is on the cards.

And yet, for listeners to the podcast or regular readers, you know that we remain unconvinced of Gustafsson’s value. We’ve used the term “third-pairing bum-slayer” quite regularly. And that remains the feeling. But what Feather and I asked ourselves last night was, “Has a true bum ever put up 55+ points?” There are thresholds in a most sports where if a player crosses them, he has to be good, right? Like, if you can put up 55 points even once, then you have to have some use. Which caused me to go to the archives.

In the past 10 seasons, there have been 57 instances of a d-man scoring 55 points or more. And on that list, you’d be hard-pressed to find a player who was a total bum-ass bum. Sure, some of them eventually turned into that when they got older, but not when and around when they were putting up that many points. You remember Mark Streit being terrible, but around 2009 and 2010 when he was putting up that total he certainly wasn’t. Kevin Shattenkirk would be a stretch, as though he’s hardly top-paring material he’s gone down with the ship on Broadway and has always been a solid second- or third-pairing puck-mover. Torey Krug is on the list, and seems a pretty solid comp, as he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing on his half of the ice but racks up points and chances on the other. He has his use. Lubomir Visnovsky is a name that pops out, and remember that one because we’re coming back to it, who somehow collected 68 points in ’10-’11 for the Ducks in the one season apparently he gave a shit the whole time. He was 34 then and right afterwards turned into sawdust and vomit.

So then the question last night became how many d-men had their first 55+ point season at 27, which Gustafsson is. And the answer is a little more than you might first guess (technically this is Gustaffson’s age-26 season, but he did just turn 27 a week ago).

The first name is Brent Burns, whose first 55+ points season came at 29. Burns has been consistently in the league since the age of 20, and as you know spent considerable time at forward in both Minnesota and San Jose. Mark Giordano’s first 55+ point season came at 32. Injury problems prevented it from happening at 30 or 31, and Gio had been a Norris-caliber performer before that, but he didn’t crack the code until much later than even Gustafsson has.  Visnovsky was 29, and again seems almost the perfect comp. He’d only been in the league a couple years before that, was woeful and helpless defensively, but could definitely make it happen at the other end when he wanted to.

There are more: Andrei Markov was 29. Brian Rafalski was 27 when he cracked 50 for the first time, and only in his second year in the league. Dan Boyle was 26 when he got to 53 for the first time in Tampa. Mark Streit was 31.

The difference, at least for most of these names, is that they were in the league for years before cracking this ceiling we’ve made up. There are a couple exceptions, obviously, but rare is the player who does this after only being in the league a year and a half, or at least not playing in Europe first. They’re there, though.

Look, I would love to tell you that Gustafsson is going to become Brian Rafalski, and if the Hawks could find another Nicklas Lidstrom to pair him with, well everything would be fucking golden, wouldn’t it? And there are considerations/caveats to consider. Just this season is a higher-scoring environment than even two or three years ago, for one. None of these players are going to have any influence on what Gustafsson goes on to do.

But still, if you an put up this kid of total, basically it’s kind of who you are? That’s what it looks like at least. Gustafsson may be a dragon with diarrhea (explosive at both ends), but if you’re going off what came before this kind of production might be the norm for the next few years instead of just a goofed spike in percentages.

Well, that 11% shooting-percentage will probably come down, but you get it.

-Normally, when Patrick Kane isn’t having an influence on game, the easy joke/observation (and one he’s more than earned) is that the give-o-shit meter is on empty and/or he’s hungover. But when it’s gone on for a few games like it has now, it has to be something more.

Not that seven points in nine March games is bad, or even close. But it’s only one goal in nine games, and watching him last night his game just didn’t have the pop that it’s had. And I think it might be obvious, but again, back to the archives.

At the top, Kane is averaging two more minutes per game this year than last. It might not seem like much, but that’s a 10% increase and over 70 games were talking almost three full games worth of time. Fatigue has to be a factor, right?

Let’s stat it out. On the year, Kane is averaging 4.5 attempts himself per game at evens. In six of the last seven games, he’s failed to reach that mark including a skunk against the Sabres. Kane has averaged 2.6 shots at evens per game on the season. In five of the last seven games, he’s failed to reach that mark. He’s averaged on the season 2.4 scoring chances per game at evens. He’s failed to reach that in six of the last seven. So just personally, Kane is averaging less attempts, shots, and not getting the same looks in the month of March.

But as we know, Kane’s a creator first and finisher second, even if he’s got 40 goals. So is he creating the same amount? We can only judge what is happening when he’s on the ice instead of what he himself is creating, but generally when he’s on the ice everything’s going through him anyway.

When Kane has been on the ice this season, the Hawks have created about 16 attempts per game at evens. He’s crossed that threshold of late just as much as he hasn’t. Kane on the ice has meant almost exactly nine shots per game from the Hawks. Again, he’s reached that four times out of the last eight games. Again, the same story with scoring chances, as the Hawks have hopped over and back the line of 7.9 per game that he’s been averaging on the season.

Given Kane’s vision, he could stand still most nights and probably get his teammates attempts and chances. But he doesn’t seem to have that extra oomph to get himself into the prime scoring areas or finish off plays. And who could blame him? Not only has he averaged two more minutes per game this season, but his heavy-load games have almost always been scrambling the Hawks back into a game late, which is even more frenzied work. It’s the type of extra ice-time that’s almost certainly been even more draining.

Everything Else

Game #73 – Flyers vs. Hawks Preview/Schmoz: They Blew Up The Chicken Man In Philly Last Night

By Sam Fels 1837 0

vs.

RECORDS: Flyers 35-30-8   Hawks 32-30-10

PUCK DROP: 7:30pm

TV: WGN

THEY BLEW UP HIS HOUSE TOO: Broad Street Hockey

Whatever this late-season charge is, and wherever it’s going, continues on Madison St. tonight as the Hawks host the Flyers. They have a chance to put a bad result behind them, and set themselves up once again for what would be a big weekend set against the Avalanche in an old school home-and-home. Essentially, after these three games (certainly four with the Coyotes after that), we’ll be as close to official word as we’ve had on what the last two weeks will be.

There was a moment there when the Flyers were also threatening to crash the playoff party in the East. They won 12 of 14 from January into February, but have been trading wins and losses since and have watched the Penguins, Canes, and Canadiens basically get away from them. They’re six points behind the Jackets with only nine to go, so that’s not happening. And really, this Flyers team doesn’t deserve a playoff spot. And neither do the Hawks, really. It’s one very much still in a rebuild/rebrand/transition/whatever term we use now.

The Flyers have suffered from the up-and-down nature of such a young roster. Not everyone takes a step forward at the same time, and Claude Giroux isn’t crashing in shots at to the tune of 18% anymore to even it out. 10 of the 19 skaters and goalie on display tonight are 25 or under, so the thought is the future is quite bright. And it may be, though it’s hard to see which of the neophyte set is going to be a true star. Nolan Patrick looks functional, but hasn’t yet popped or flashed that he’ll be inspirational soon. Then again he’s 20. Ivan Provorov has struggled under the weight of top-pairing assignments. Shayne Gostisbehere has looked like more than just a power play weapon, but also hasn’t really shown to be more than a second-pairing d-man. Maybe Travis Sanheim?

One who definitely has flashed being something that Philly fans will toast their lagers to before chucking the full glasses/cans at each other (it’s a sign of love there) is goalie Carter Hart. He’s also 20, but is carrying a top-10 SV% in the league and one of the better marks for a rookie in recent history. Flyers fans have been waiting for Hart ever since he started holding the entire WHL by the forehead and letting them uselessly swing their arms. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but thanks to injuries and incompetence from others he is and now he’s going to stay. If you’re any kind of hockey fan you know that the Flyers crease has been a succubus to anyone stepping into it decked in orange since Ron Hextall. Hart just might be the one to break the curse, but as it always is with the Flyers, one has to wait and see before fully committing. Odd things happen to men in masks there.

As for the Hawks, they seem intent on carrying on with this odd and frankly wrong set of forward lines, with Daydream Nation reunited and Dylan Sikura along for the ride. It’s too top heavy for no reason, as Sikura doesn’t really compliment these two in the way they need to maximize. They need a puck-winner like Saad or Caggiula. And that third line doesn’t really do anything. It’s not a checking line because Anisimov is too slow and too soft. It has no creator to score. Hopefully Beto O’Colliton realizes the error of his ways and goes back to what we had after no more than a period. Corey Crawford is your starter.

This one should be much more open than Monday’s what-have-ya. The Flyers don’t have the defense to trap, and it’s not what their young forwards want to do anyway. That should benefit the Hawks, but there’s some sneaky firepower down the lineup for Agents Orange, which means trouble for the trash on the third pairing for the Hawks. And Hart is capable of stealing a game here and there. So the Hawks can’t half-ass this. They can’t half-ass anything. They lost that right long ago.

If the Hawks are serious about this whole playoff push thing, and I’m not convinced they are, they basically have to take the next three, and probably in regulation when it comes to the weekend. Do that and they’ll be ahead of the Avs and at worst sitting on the shoulders of Minnesota and Arizona with the latter on the schedule the very next night. The Hawks have basically fallen in their own vomit every time they had a chance to turn their season serious, and this is probably the last one. Let’s see what they’ve got.

 

Game #73 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Beto O’Colliton’s Rough Night

By Sam Fels 1883 0

There’s no other grade Jeremy Colliton will get for this season other than “incomplete.” We won’t have any idea if he truly knows what he’s doing until he has an actual NHL blue line to work with, and perhaps an improvement in forwards (though the forward group now is probably better than some teams that are in playoff positions). The excuses are running a little thinner as the season goes on, but he’ll basically have until next Christmas before we can fairly usher in a verdict.

However, last night is not going to encourage anyone. Or it shouldn’t.

Off the top, the Hawks have played themselves into three situations this year where you would say it was a “big game.” They’ve lost them all. The first was Colorado, which, fair enough, came down to a couple individual mistakes that a team this mediocre is just not going to be able to avoid all the time. The second was the following game against the Stars where they came out flat, fought back against a team that had played the day before, and then took a too-man-men penalty to cost themselves the game. The third was last night, very loosely, in which the Hawks lost to a team again playing for the second straight day (also flying in from Dallas) and for the most part looked like they couldn’t be all that bothered. It’s not a great look.

In the game last night, there were some very curious decisions. One was to swap Patrick Kane and Brandon Saad on the first and third lines for the last 40 minutes. The only button Colliton knows or can seem to find is “Play Kane Until He Pukes.” As I said on Twitter last night, pushing Kane’s ice time has become what Robitussin was to Chris Rock’s father (pour some water in the bottle…MORE KANE). It’s his catch-all. He played 24 minutes last night, the 19th time this year he’s played 24 minutes or more.

But to have him bank that much time with Sikura and Toews didn’t make a lot of sense, especially against a team that was employing the tactics that Vancouver was. They were clamped down, trapping, and that required puck-winners. Which in that formation, forces Toews to be and it’s really not the thing he does anymore. Certainly not as well as he did (more on this in a minute). Saad was the only one who figured out last night that the only way through the Canucks was to get the puck behind them and just go get it. He’s also the only one who can. Which means how Coach Cool Youth Pastor had it, Kane would be setting up Sikura, he of the no goals this season. That’s when they could get the puck loose, which wasn’t all that often. Meanwhile Saad was working his ass off to gain possession and create space for…Artem Anisimov and Dominik Kahun. Who both stared blankly at it.

There’s a time and place to get Dylan Sikura a goal, and he deserves that. But it’s not down to a trapping team in a game you kind of have to have two points.

Going further, the Hawks never adjusted to what the Canucks were doing. To be fair to Coach Cool Substitute Teacher, without a blue line, it’s a little hard to do. The Hawks don’t have a trap-buster. Gustafsson and Forsling are too slow and too dumb. Keith doesn’t have the handles anymore. But once again, an opposing team simply sent one forechecker deep, kept the other two wingers along the boards high, and then jammed up whenever the Hawks tried to exit around the wall, which was every goddamn time. If the Hawks found any space those two forwards simply sank into the neutral zone, which the Hawks still tried to Barcelona/tiki-taka their way through. Really a brilliant plan for a team lacking passing talent and skill and speed against a team specifically set out to jam up the works between the lines.

No, the Hawks aren’t a dump and chase team and they’ll struggle against any team forcing them to do that. But at some points, you just have to roll up the sleeves and try. If nothing else, it keeps the Canucks having to go 200-feet, which they’re not all that skilled at doing anyway. Funny how the Canucks second goal came off a lazy and silly turnover from Kunitz trying to pass through that neutral zone trap, and then not covering in his own zone.

Compounding his line-makeup mistakes, Colliton seemed hellbent on sending Toews out against Bo Horvat and the Canucks’ one pairing of NHL players, Edler and Biega. The other pairings contained rookies or Luke Schenn. You’d think you’d want to try to get at them. And you don’t need Jonathan Toews to deal with Horvat, especially when Toews isn’t really all that interested in defense this season. That’s what David Kampf is for, right? Does it pretty well, actually? Maybe try it for a shit or two? Could it have gone worse?

In a game the Hawks at least claimed they had to have, their coach got pantsed by Travis Green, who I’m sure spills something on himself once a day. Their veterans didn’t look all that interested. And they gave up yet another power play goal. At what point am I supposed to be encouraged?

-Taking your chances in overtime is always a 50-50 proposition, so there’s little point in getting too worked up about anything that happens in the gimmick. Still, this needs to be talked about:

Yeah, Gustaffson’s gap and stick-work aren’t great here, but I don’t expect any better from him. When this play is at the blue line, Toews has Horvat in his sights. He’s clearly aware of the danger. And in past years, he’d get shoulder to shoulder with him and probably muscle his ass off the puck while barely exhaling.

This time, he just stops. He lets Horvat get ahead of him, takes a half-assed swipe at him and then just basically gives up. He can’t possibly have expected Gustafsson to deal with it, because he’s been watching Gustafsson all year like we have. He catches Kane unaware because Kane is probably expecting him to do what Toews normally does, though obviously Kane could have done better here too.

The discussion lately around the lab here is whether Toews has forgone some of his defensive duties because he knows this team is so bad defensively it won’t matter anyway, or he’s just that hellbent on focusing on his offense. It’s probably true he can’t do both anymore, and that’s fine I suppose. Being over 30 probably means that. But again, this was a game that the Hawks had to have, and this is the effort in overtime you’re getting from your two veteran forwards.

Then again, both might have been completely exhausted given their usage. Could also be a reason Kane’s production has dropped from “galactic” to merely “very good” in March. Again, this isn’t the best look.

Everything Else

The Awkwardness Of Duncan Keith

By Sam Fels 2410 0

I suppose this is just going to be a normal thing, especially when the Hawks infiltrate Canada and Toronto specifically. But it was Duncan Keith’s turn to get the puff piece treatment, this time from Pierre LeBrun.

It would be extremely hard to believe, and to convince me, that this was Keith’s idea. Keith hates, hates, hates talking to the media, and pretty much hates everything that goes along with playing hockey except for the playing hockey part. It was LeBrun who first reported that the Hawks would go to Keith around the deadline to gauge whether he wanted to stay or go. So it makes sense the LeBrun would write the follow-up, which appears to be the opposite. Still, it’s hard to square some of what’s in here to what we saw last night, over the past few weeks, and over the whole season.

And some of this is weird:

“Last year it was a little bit hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Keith said Wednesday after the morning skate. “This year there’s been a lot more positives. We’re in a playoff race right now. That’s exciting hockey for us right now. There’s been young guys that have taken steps this year and that’s a good thing. We need that around here.”

I mean, ok, but this is Keith who’s saying this. The same Keith who hasn’t hesitated to point out to the local media just how shit he thinks his team has been at points. That includes last week when he directly countered his coach to oppose the view that the Hawks had played well against Colorado and Dallas, two games they lost that pretty much ended their playoff hopes. So it’s hard to align, and it almost sounds like Keith playing the hits a bit to try ingratiate himself back with the front office. I don’t know that’s what it is, that’s just the feeling I get.

What I did nod my head in agreement with was Stan Bowman’s assertion that they would go to the four-five core players of yore and lay out their plan. I agree with this, and most do. They’ve earned the right, and they’ve all earned the right to opt-in or out. I feel like the conversation will sound different to Brent Seabrook than it will to Patrick Kane, but let’s run that kitten over when we get to it.

Of course, I also snicker when Bowman says, “They have a plan different from other organizations,” because A. his boss just said there’s no plan, but a process, and B. trying to make yourself sound smarter than other teams when you’re still out of the playoffs sounds like you’ve been huffing your own ass for too long. Which is a problem this organization has had for a while now.

“I feel we’ve made some good strides this year,” said Keith. “I still feel like there’s a lot of good things going on in Chicago. At the end of the day, there’s not a lot of teams that you really look at and think, ‘OK, they’re that much better than this team.’ So, I like it in Chicago, I like the group, I know we have to be better, but I’d like to be part of that.”

Again, this is contrary to the things Keith has let slip after games, which he’s either trying to walk back through a national guy or have it both ways. I’m not sure. But at the end of the day, here’s what I can’t get past:

 

That turnover. Yes, it’s incredibly stupid and petty to get worked up about one turnover in a season of 82 games. It’s probably even sillier to attach deeper meaning to it, and yet I can’t help it.

He was under no pressure. He knows better, and it’s not the kind of mistake that Keith has made most of the year. This one reeks of carelessness. This just reeks of someone who couldn’t be bothered. Maybe it was frustration that the Hawks had already given up three of a five-goal lead, and were under the kosh. Maybe he was frustrated it got to this point at all, and just let it out. And even if we grant him that, that’s the kind of thing Duncan Keith isn’t supposed to fall in for. He’s supposed to be above that and show his younger and less heralded teammates the better way.

This isn’t a player who had no choice, like Seabrook’s turnover mere seconds later. He’s slow and simply can’t get away from forecheckers or open up time for himself to make a pass. Keith can, and has, and should have. He just didn’t.

But like a lot of times this year, it just looks like Keith wasn’t as engaged. This is lazy, along with stupid. At best it’s totally flustered, which is exactly what Keith isn’t supposed to be. It’s basically what he’s never been until this season, or last season at worst.

So Keith’s claims that he likes what is going on here and wants to be a part of it is belied but what we see on the ice. It’s more than this one turnover. That one turnover just encapsulates everything we’ve seen this year. The two messages don’t square up. More often than not Keith has played like someone who doesn’t believe in what’s going on here, that maybe has thought about his future elsewhere, that either believes the changes made were mistakes, more changes need to be made, or both.

If Keith genuinely does want to be here, he’ll have to do a couple things. He’ll have to accept a new role, which he at least seems open to. He’ll have to accept what he can and can’t do anymore, which he’s been more reluctant to do. And he’ll also have to be focused and engaged for all 82, which he clearly has not been at all times this season.

The words are nice. They just don’t line up with what we see on the ice, which is the more important part.