Everything Else

Angry At Numbers: The Mirage Of Artem Anisimov

By Sam Fels 1734 0

We’re still in the “small sample size” portion of the season, so everything that follows comes with whatever sized-asterisk you feel you’re up to today. Anyway, let’s get nerdy:

5, 2

I’m sure these are the numbers that the coaches would point to as a way to illustrate why Artem Anisimov has to play center for Patrick Kane instead of Nick Schmaltz. The first is the number of goals for the Hawks with Kane and Anisimov together. The second is the number with Kane and Schmaltz, and the latter pairing have almost double the time of the former. In most hockey coaches’ worlds, the results are the results and speak for all.

Except this would ignore every other indicator that shows Anisimov is holding Kane back.

What I’m sure the coaches are also paying attention to is that Schmaltz has been a defensive liability at center, and that’s pretty much always been the case, no matter what takeaway stats they make up. And yes, Kane and Anisimov do give up slightly less together than Schmaltz and Kane did. Attempts per 60 against goes from 62.7 to 57.6, and scoring chances go from 37.0 to 27.2. The first one isn’t that significant and is still bad. Obviously the second number is one that you would notice. The high-danger chances drop as well.

Still, the big number in this discussion is that when Schmaltz and Kane have been on the ice together, the team’s shooting-percentage is 4.2%. Whereas with Anisimov it’s 17.8%. And the downtick in chances and attempts against can be partly explained by the fact that Anisimov and Kane take 85% of their draws in the offensive zone, while Schmaltz and Kane were taking a still aggressively high 74%.

It feels like no matter what you’re doing here, you’re asking this line to outscore its problems, which it pretty much always will with Kane on the ice. And he and Schmaltz just create more chances together. I’ll buy that keeping Schmaltz on the third line spreads out some scoring, especially if Saad can continue to look as good as he has lately. Still, Arty is an obelisk and there could be so much more.

11.64

Speaking of Kane, no matter who he has been on the ice with, he is letting fly with the puck far more than he ever has. That’s his shots per 60 minutes at even-strength, which would dwarf his career-high by over two shots per 60 were it to continue. His 16.2% shooting-percentage certainly dovetails nicely with that, though unlikely to continue. Overall, Kane is averaging just at tick below five shots per game, which is basically Ovechkin territory. If Kane were just to hit his career SH% mark with this level of shot-taking, he’d end up with 48 goals, two more than his MVP season.

All of his individual peripherals are way up this year too, such as attempts, scoring chances, and high-danger chances. Not surprisingly, given what we’ve seen, all of the defensive metrics when he’s on the ice are higher as well. Basically, everything is happening when he’s on the ice. Kane has spent a decent portion of time with defensively helpless Schmaltz or Fortin, and they immovable Anisimov. Behind him it’s mostly been Brent Seabrook and Erik Gustafsson, and we know their limitations.

I wouldn’t chalk this up to anything more than the entire team’s nebulous relationship with defense right now, combined with the league’s openness as a whole so far this year, more than Kane giving even less of a shit on one end of the ice than normal. And frankly, I’ll take more high-event hockey with him on the ice, because he’s almost certainly going to outdo whatever the opposition can come up with when it comes to the bottom line, which is goals.

.920, .927

That’s the even-strength save-percentages of Cam Ward and Corey Crawford. Really not all that different, and the Hawks have gotten more out of Ward than we all feared to this point. Interestingly, the difference between their SV% and their expected SV%s, is 0.91 and 0.87, with Ward’s being the higher. So the Hawks are getting plus-goaltending. More encouragingly is neither number is higher than half of what Crawford’s difference was last year, and that was merely to keep the Hawks barely hanging onto a playoff place for half of a season. As you would expect, John Gibson, Pekka Rinne, and Antti Raanta are the leaders in this category, and they’re up over 2% difference. So it’s at least not as bad as last year. Yet.

Everything Else

Game #9 – Ducks 1, Hawks 3: Nobody Told Me You Could Die From Bliss

By Adam Hess 2369 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

There is something so satisfying about this kind of Blackhawks win. Were they perfect? No. But they were the better team on the ice from start to finish. The players you want to see step up and play well did just that. Corey Crawford did his thing. Sure, it was the Ducks. That doens’t make this kind of win any less fun. Let’s get to the bullets:

– The Hawks played well in the first period, but there was enough within the period that made me say “yuck” that I almost choked laughing when Chris Boden and Jamal Mayers posited that it was the best period of the season for the Hawks. The breakouts that were such a major issue for the Hawks against the Lightning on Sunday were an issue yet again, and if the Hawks have any real strategy on getting through the neutral zone it was hardly on display tonight, let alone in the first period. If they can’t have one guy – usually Kane or Toews, it seems – carry the puck all the way through the zone, they’re completely lost, and it seems no one is capable of making a good pass in that zone, including 19 and 88. The Ducks love to sit back and let the other team charge at them, which is incredibly stupid, but tonight it worked, because the Hawks were still having trouble getting into their own zone.

– This was another strong game for Saad, who finally cut off the snake’s head and got himself on the scoresheet with his first goal this season. He was dominant throughout the night as well, skating with a fire under his ass and playing  a piss and vinegar kinda game. He was all over the ice in the final minutes as well, as the Hawks attempted to close it out. He consistently got pressure on puck carriers and was able to get the empty netter for goal number two of the night and season. The optimism around Saad remains high nearly across the board for the FFUD crew, so I don’t think anyone was near the panic button on him at all, but him finally scoring feels like a bit of a weight off (more for him than us, I’m sure) and hopefully he continues to play this way. If he does, the production is going to come to him.

– Another point on Saad – can people please stop bringing up the fuckin’ Panarin trade every time he does something good. You don’t have to validate the trade, and bringing it up only lends credence to the idea that it was a bad trade, which it wasn’t. You don’t have to convince people Saad is good – he is. Is he the offensive dynamo that Panarin is? No. But Panarin was a toy – he’s the kind of player that is a scoring luxury for a good team. He would probably be a detriment to this current edition of the Blackhawks. And Brandon Saad fucks. Thanks.

– Jokiharju is pretty much the real deal. For him to be doing what he is doing at the NHL level right now, at 19 years old, is almost unheard of from defensemen that aren’t heralded as generational talents prior to being drafted. Now, that doesn’t mean Joker is a generational talent, because he isn’t. But being strong on both ends of the ice, closing gaps and sealing opponents off from the puck, and being able to make plays with the puck on his stick like he can, all at 19 years old against grown ass men who are stronger and more experienced than you are all things that bode well for his NHL present and future. He might end up proving to be better than we all expected.

– I am admittedly not the best at noticing player trends thoughout a game if they’re subtle, so maybe I am wrong here, but I thought Erik Gustafsson had a pretty good game tonight. He definitely made a hell of play on the GWG, with a great shot fake that left John Gibson’s jockstrop in the crease before he fed Kane for an easy one-timer. He didn’t have a particularly outstanding game, but he was solid and didn’t do anything that was overtly bad. That probably counts as good for him.

– Thank God for Corey Crawford, and his brain that is (hopefully) not a blended mess, after all. He is still the same old top-five NHL goalie he was before he got hurt last year. That is good and I am happy.

– It’s just not the same to watch a Ducks game and not see the mutated pile of infant diapers that is Corey Perry on the ice. However, I enjoyed it greatly. May it continue forever.

Everything Else

Let’s Just Go Straight To The Load Jokes

By Sam Fels 2015 0

It’s just easier that way.

It would be silly to draw any massive conclusions from just three games. Even 10 wouldn’t be nearly enough. We don’t know anything about the Hawks yet, except that they’ve been entertaining as hell, and Brandon Manning and Cam Ward are terrible. The first is something of a surprise. The latter two are depressingly not.

But one thought I’ve had over these three games, pretty much thanks to the bonkers trio of efforts that Jonathan Toews has been able to put together, is that when the Hawks’ top six is out there, or the top-pairing (usually at the same time), the Hawks aren’t a bad team. Their underlying numbers are simply surreal, they’re scoring almost all of the goals, and they’ve been fun to watch.

What’s clear is that so far, Joel Quenneville knows this as well. Which is why he’s basically only used his fourth-line when he absolutely has to, and even then we can be pretty sure his ass is puckered up tight. I can’t say I know that, because quite frankly I don’t want to be considered an expert on the state of Joel Quenneville’s ass-elasticity.

It’s a sound strategy, because the fourth line has been getting their dicks knocked in the dirt on the reg. While every other forward on the roster has gotten at least 35 minutes of ice-time in the three games, none of the players who are on the fourth have gotten even 25.

This has always been a debate in hockey lately. With TV timeouts as they are and the shape players are in, can you ride your better players more and leave the fourth-line to be something you only close your eyes, point at to go out there, and tell your assistants to tell you when it’s over? Sure, it’s a real advantage when you can use your fourth-line for real purposes, and a staple of past Hawks’ champions was that their fourth-line was actually taking checking line duties thanks to the unicorn nature of Marcus Kruger. Well, he’s on a wing now staring at SuckBag Johnson quizzically, so that’s not an option at the moment.

The defense has been more spread out. In terms of percentage, only Seabrook and Manning are getting less than 30%, with Keith and Jokiharju gobbling up the extra at 37% and 35%k respectively. This is mostly due to Seabrook and Manning getting the dungeon shifts, as they’ve only started a third of their shifts in the offensive zone and mostly have been restricted to their own. And while it might not seem like it, the Hawks have been starting most shifts in the other end. No, I don’t get it either.

The forwards are a little more skewed in percentages, as you might guess. As a frame of reference, obviously your pivot points is 25%, if you were to divide all even-strength time into quarters, one for each line. Well, Kane and Schmaltz are at 34% and 31%, with Saad at 29%. Toews and DeBrincat are at 28% or thereabouts, as Dominik Kahun has gotten some shifts off here and there. The third-line is right at the 25% mark, or just a tick below, and the fourth-line is all below 20% of the time at even-strength possible.

The Hawks are top-heavy. We know this. What I was curious about is how teams that have just accented to their top six as much and how they’ve done while doing so.

Last season, in terms of time-on-ice-percentage (again, the portion of even-strength time available given to a certain player), Connor McDavid was the leader at 33%. This isn’t a huge surprise, given that he’s the league’s best player and all. The problems there is that the Oilers sucked. After him it was Henrik Zetterberg. And yep, the Wings sure did suck as well. Up next was Alex Radulov. And the Stars might not have sucked, but they probably had the “S,” “U,” and most of the “C” in “suck” lined up. Anze Kopitar was next on the list, and though the Kings did actually make the playoffs for four minutes, they weren’t any good either. Patrick Kane is after that, and well, we don’t need to finish this thought.

Rounding out the top-10 last year in TOI% are Artemi Panarin, Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, Rickard Rakell, and Sasha Barkov. All of those players are on good teams! All of the top-10 clicked in at 31% or more.

Going back two seasons ago, Patrick Kane led the league in TOI% at 33.8%. McDavid was next, followed by Mark Scheifele, Ryan Getzlaf, Zetterberg, Jack Eichel, Taylor Hall, Vincent Trochek, John Tavares, and Nikita Kucherov. Some duds in there, but mostly playoff teams.

Of course, this really only tells us what happens when a team leans on one or two players a ton and not a top six. But clearly these players are bringing top six lines along with them for their extra shifts.

A quirk of this category is that in the past five years, Patrick Kane owns the three of the five largest percentages. The fourth-largest share of shifts was given to Jonathan Marchessault last year, which made sense because all that line did was score.

We’ll have to dive deeper into this as the season goes on and Joel Quenneville’s strategy becomes clearer. What’s obvious is that having to basically get your top six out there as much as possible isn’t ideal, but you can be a playoff team with it. What you probably can’t be is a Cup team, but no one’s expecting that around here.

St. Louis City Hall
Everything Else

Game #2 – Hawks at Blues Preview: The ‘This Year’s Different’ Cup

By John Pullega 1873 0

at St. Louis City Hall

RECORDS: Blues 0-1-0   Hawks 1-0-0

PUCK DROP: 7:00 p.m. Central

TV: NBCSCH

IT’S NOT HIS FAULT HE CAN’T READ: St. Louis Game Time

The NHL decided to kick off a weekend of inferiority complexes early, as the Hawks took I-55 south to practice in an abandoned fucking mall because St. Louis is less a city than it is a cluster of trash piled together by no fewer than five rat kings. If there’s one good reason to watch, it’s that the Blues managed to do one thing right for the first time in team history for tonight’s game, choosing to don the powder blue uniforms that might deceive the undiscerning eye into thinking this is a team that chooses not to employ players who drink rainwater from the rafters for sustenance. And yet . . .

The first game of the “This Year’s Different” Cup couldn’t come quickly enough for the Blues, who had a mudhole stomped in their asses by Winnipeg in the season opener. Trash City hung with the Jets for an entire two periods, presumptively because no one in St. Louis can count higher than two, before giving up three goals in just under two minutes in the third. It’s once again the Blues’s woeful defense and goaltending that will keep it from ever doing anything worthwhile.

Year in and year out, the Blues try to convince everyone that Alex Orange Jello and Jabe O’Meester are not only not dead but also top-pairing guys. And they’ll do it again tonight, mostly because there’s nowhere else to go for them on the blue line. Vinny Dunn and his gabagool-stained sweater will likely pair with Colton Parayko, and these two can move the puck if nothing else. And let us assure you, they can’t really do anything else. In the season opener, Dunn–Parayko had CF%s under 25%, despite the Blues having a 54+ CF% on the game and despite those two starting in the offensive zone more than 70% of the time. You have to try to be that bad. Behind them is the Cronenberg pairing of Chris Butler and Jordan “The Lesser” Schmaltz, which might be worse than anything the Hawks throw up on the ice today. That’s a real commitment to sucking.

All of this makes you wonder just how long Jay Gallon can go before having a complete mental breakdown. As the perennial presenter of the “This Year’s Different” Cup, Jake Allen has seen this movie play out, and it never ends well. And lo, Thursday saw him toss a .800 SV% up, including a short-handed goal, despite his strong first 40 minutes. At some point the Blues will have to admit that Gallon probably isn’t the guy to get them to the WCF, let alone past it, but that day is not today. He’s likely to get the start, but if humanoid marital aid Mike Yeo gets itchy, it’s possible to see Chad Johnson take his first start for the Blues. Johnson is about as much of “a guy” as you can find, right down to his frathouse-appropriate name.

Even with all the dreck on the back-end, the Blues do have dangerous weapons up front. Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko have all the skill to be a holy terror, provided the aptly named Patrick Maroon doesn’t trip over his own dick too often and kneecap them. You can count on him getting into at least one fight tonight for HOCKEY REASONS, and god willing it’ll be with Brandon Manning and result in match penalties for both.

Behind them is the quick and crafty line of Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn, and Jordan Kyrou. Kyrou is just 20 years old and stands as a beacon for St. Louis’s future offense, as he’s fast and has outstanding hands and vision. With most teams looking to blanket the O’Reilly–Tarasenko line, this is where you figure the Blues can do the most damage. Bozak is on the third line where he belongs, but slotting him in with Steen and alleged-living-person David Perron as the Blues’s version of a dungeon line is going to have him wondering what the fuck he was thinking signing in STL. The Ivan Barbashev–Rob Thomas–Sammy Blais line rounds it out. Thomas (20th overall in 2017) and Blais are both supposed to be a thing for the Blues.

As for the Hawks, the song remains mostly the same. Cam Ward will try to build off a decent performance against the Senators, assuming the Hawks don’t fart and belch their way through their own zone like they did on Thursday. The Hawks had a hard time fending off pressure from Ottawa’s crashing defensemen on Thursday, which simply doesn’t bode well against a team with better weapons like the Blues do.

There are no changes for the Hawks defensively. Duncan Keith and Henri Jokiharju will have their work cut out for them against either the O’Reilly or Schenn line, and this will be HJ’s first real test of his defensive awareness and abilities. Erik Gustafsson and Jan Rutta will keep doing whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and this game is set up to allow Cowboy Gus to be an aggressive bum slayer. The shutdown pairing is Manning–Seabrook, which is fucking hilarious because the only thing Manning has ever shut down is any hope that the Hawks’s pro scouting department has any idea what a hockey player is, let alone what a passable hockey player looks like. Brent Seabrook did look better than expected on Thursday, but whether that’s per se or resultant of playing next to Manning remains to be seen. If God were merciful, you’d have Davidson rotate in for Manning, but alas.

Before I digress into another fit about Manning, let’s get to the forwards. The only change that might be made is subbing in John Hayden for Andreas Martinsen on the fourth line. We still aren’t sure why Moonface Luke is playing center over Kruger. The Toews line figures to carry most of the momentum in this game, and if the Hawks can get more than just 10 minutes of giving a fuck out of the Kane line, there are plenty of advantages to take against the Imo’s Pizza that is the Blues back-end. We’ll likely see Kunitz–Anisimov–Kampf out for far too long against Tarasenko, because it’s completely fucking normal for a team with playoff aspirations to have line like that as their third. Truth be told, that line was the most dominant in possession on Thursday, but the Blues are much, much better than the Senators you assume, so there might be a violent regression here.

The more they say things will be different, the more they stay the same.

Let’s go Hawks.

Game #2 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups And How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #1 – You Know I’m Still Here, the Faithful One – Hawks 3, Senators 3 (Hawks Win Sap Boil)

By John Pullega 2684 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey’s back. And to quote our Fearless Leader, whether it was fun or just fun-bad, it was, without a doubt, a fun game. Let’s do it.

– Everyone ought to be relieved by how good Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat looked tonight. Throughout most game, the only time anything happened for the Hawks was when those two were on the ice. Each scored goals by themselves (Future Norris Winner Erik Gustafsson got an assist on Toews’s, but it was a Toews effort from start to finish), and while those probably aren’t goals anyone scores against a team that isn’t the personification of a bad mushroom trip, they were still impressive. DeBrincat’s had a flash of “Fuck you, I got this” that spawned memories of the dearly departed Marian Hossa. He made Thomas Chabot look like a horse’s ass, using him as a screen to pot his shot over DA LOCAL GUY’s glove.

Toews’s goal was the result of Mark Borowiecki deciding that the best way to defend a 2-on-1 is to drag your ass on the ice like a dog with worms. You could hear Toews thinking “Is this fucking guy serious?” the entire time he drove through the circle. But you take what they give you, and Toews did that. He looked like vintage Toews, complementing power and speed with excellent vision all night. He and DeBrincat were dominant in possession as well, each posting 55%+ on the night.

– For all the nervousness we had (and still have) about Cam Ward, he looked pretty good tonight. The only goal you can really put on him is the PK goal, which Colin White stuffed right through his legs. But he buckled down and made a couple of surprising saves in the third, keeping the Hawks in it in time for Patrick Kane to start giving a shit. The first came off a redirect, and the second was the result of all five of the Hawks’s skaters either falling asleep or doing something monumentally stupid. And that one all started with Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning.

– Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, I adopted a cat. She was a good cat, but she had a heart defect. I tried giving her medicine to make her better, but the day came when I had to put her down. She was just 4 years old. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, and I still think about it all the time.

I would rather put that cat down every day for the rest of the fucking year than watch Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning play another minute in a Hawks sweater.

There aren’t enough adequate superlatives to describe what an unmitigated disaster Brandon Manning was tonight. He’s the Bret Hart of being a complete fucking ass wart: The worst there is, the worst there was, and the worst there ever will be.

Let’s start with the second goal the Hawks gave up, which occurred with Saad–Schmaltz–Kane and Manning–Seabrook. LOCAL GUY Ryan Dzingel had the puck on the near boards, and Manning went out to cover him. He gave him a body check, which, fine, whatever. But long after Dzingel had passed the puck to Matt Duchene behind the net, Manning continued to ride him into the boards for no other reason than Brandon Manning is a shit-sipping mongoloid who would drop his dick in a urinal if it weren’t attached to his dumb fucking body. Because he decided that dry-humping Dzingel into the boards was the best play to possibly make, it left a huge hole in front of the net. Seabrook tried to cover as best he could, but where the fuck do you think Maxime LaJoie was when he potted that goal? If you said, “Where Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning should have been,” you win the prize of not being Brandon Manning.

Then, on the penalty kill goal, while Cam Ward shares some of the blame, the only reason Colin White had all the space in the world to stuff a between-the-legs shot was because Brandon Manning stood slackjawed at the top of the paint. At no point did he even feign an effort to break up anything Colin White was trying to do. He stood there like a 3-year-old who just realized he can’t hold his shit in anymore and mother is going to be so mad that she has to handwash the corduroys again.

Holy fuck this guy sucks. If the Hawks hadn’t won this game, I probably would have quit my job, moved back to Chicago, taken whatever construction job was happening outside the UC, and rubbed my red Italian ass on StanBo’s clean windows until he relented and cut Manning from the roster. He brings nothing to the table except an opportunity for us to completely lose our asses, which you can bank on happening every time Brandon Goddamn Motherfucking Manning laces up his rock-lined skates. Fuck this guy to the end of the Earth and back.

– Getting back to things that don’t cause a complete aneurysm, it was nice of Patrick Kane to show up 50 minutes into the game. For most of the outing, he was in mid-February “can’t buy me a fuck” mode, with a ton of lazy passing and stick handling. But when Patrick Kane decides to turn it on, there are few better. His seeing-eye pass from behind the net on Brent Seabrook’s goal was art, and the top-shelf backhander to end it is the reason most of us tune in at all. While 60 minutes of that effort would be nice, you’ll take what you get.

– I liked how Seabrook looked overall. That might just be because he was paired with Ass Wart all night, but there was a bit of pep in his skating. And he channeled early-dynasty Seabrook on his one-timer in the slot. He looks a bit thinner and quicker, so maybe all that “he’s working out” talk in the offseason was more than just another marketing ploy.

– We’re going to say this a lot, but Henri Jokiharju had a hot and cold night. He was overpowered in the first period, which led directly to Ottawa’s first goal, and he needed Cam Ward to bail him out after Dzingel broke away from him off an outlet pass in the third. But those two boners aside, HJ had himself a decent game. He finished at almost 60% on the Corsi share, took three shots on goal, and drew a tripping penalty in his own zone. You’ll take that just fine for an NHL debut.

– Brandon Saad had a ho-hum game. He was putrid early, but picked it up a bit as the game went on. He probably should have been more aware on LaJoie’s goal, and didn’t really bust his ass much to fill the spot Ass Wart left open. He had one of the lower possession shares among Hawks forwards (51%+) and deferred on a couple of prime chances. This is going to be something to keep an eye on, since there are rumors that he only plays up to the level of the guys he plays with, and Patrick Kane couldn’t be bothered for most of the game.

A win’s a win, but this shit isn’t going to fly against the Blues and the Leafs this weekend. Still, if the Hawks can at least be chaotic fun, I think we’ll all have something to occupy us until the Bears roll into the playoffs.

Beer du Jour: Miller High Life/Eagle Rare

Line of the Night: “As good as it gets.” – Pat Foley describing Dollar Bill Wirtz’s death and Rocky’s subsequent takeover as Hawks chairman on Rocky’s birthday.

Everything Else

Strange Thoughts On This Nervous, Pre-Curtain Raiser Night

By Sam Fels 2039 0

This is our last night before the great circus begins. And maybe we can only hope for it be as entertaining as a circus. More likely, it’ll be just like when you realize how unhappy all the animals are in a circus and you kind of wish they’d go away forever or all just be like, Cirque de Soleil. A few thoughts before we dive headfirst into our normal coverage of the Hawks and the NHL tomorrow.

-I’ve been meaning to get this for a while now. If you haven’t seen Scott Powers’s “scouts breakdown” of every player on the Hawks, I encourage you to do so.

I think you’ll find the Brandon Saad section awfully interesting reading.

I’m not going to attempt to defend Brandon Saad. We’ve looked at the numbers, and made our peace. And yet the more I think about his last season, and reading these comments…boy, you can see it, can’t you? The trade looks awful now of course, but when it was made I don’t think many of us thought it would. When we last saw Artemi Panarin around here, he was floating around, waiting for Patrick Kane to hit his tape from the other wing. It was very Patrick Sharp. And you can still rack up a ton of points that way if you’re skilled, as Panarin is and Sharp was. And Kane will always find your tape. No one anticipated Panarin scoring 80+ points without Kane after that. Whoops.

But this has always been the knock on Saad. It’s nothing physical. If you were to design what a power left wing would look like, it would probably look like Saad. Unbelievably strong, quick on his skates, with plus offensive-skill and defensive awareness. The tools are there.

And yet…you can’t close your eyes and see him dominating that many shifts, like the way Marian Hossa did. You know what that looked like. You can still see it now in your mind (hopefully without the tears, but that’s hard to do). Can you see it with Saad? Or do you see a guy just being equal on his shifts, who gets his points really though natural gifts?

The part about playing with lesser players got me, too. Because my initial reaction was, “Well of course he’s going to fucking balk when stuck with SuckBag Johnson and David Kampf.” But that’s not what a player does, is it? This is where I want to say his first three years were spent playing with prime Toews and Hossa, and of course that’ll skew how you see linemates and teammates, It can’t really get better than that.

But that’s horseshit, isn’t it? You play with who’s out there. Not that I’m a fan of when this happens, but when Kane downed tools at times last year because he was playing on a dogshit team and at times with balloon-handed teammates, you could see where it was coming from. That didn’t make it right or excusable, but explainable? Yeah, just a touch.

But Saad doesn’t have that pedigree. Saad has proven to be an above-average NHLer, but nothing more. He flashes being a star at times, but they’re only flashes. He’ll look good with good players, but did he ever really stand above them for more than a handful of games here and there? He’ll play to the level of those around, it seems like.

And the thing is, the Hawks knew this about him. That’s why, though they may have been reluctant, they were willing to trade him when his contract demands got above what they deemed economical. Throughout his first three years here, there were whispers that some in the front office just didn’t think he had “it.” “It” being the determination to fight through defenders every shift and every night to become, essentially, Max Pacioretty. And physically, Saad could be near Patches or Blake Wheeler. If he wanted. But some in the Hawks organization doubted he wanted.

So I’m not sure what changed in the two years before they brought him back. Did their scouts see something in Ohio? If they did, the Jackets’ sure didn’t. And this could lead into another discussion about the Hawks borderline-woeful pro scouting.

This is a huge year for Saad, whatever the Hawks do as a whole. Not in terms of his future, because he’s cashing $6 million for the next three years regardless. But is he going to finally stand up and take games by the collar? Because he can, and I don’t think anyone doubts that. The Hawks certainly need it. Or is he content with that check and his 55 points? Does he care what people think about the latter? Do his teammates think that? This will be worth watching all season.

-With the pieces about to move, my biggest fear about the Hawks is that even after being skated out of the building a lot of nights last year, they’re still slow. That’s how it looked in the preseason, though some of that could be the veterans simply not caring. But then again, the veterans are the ones who are slow.

My fear is that the front office and their scouts haven’t redefined what fast is to them. The Hawks used to be one of the fastest team in the league. But thanks to their success, that threshold changed. Teams got as fast and then faster than what the Hawks were to beat them. I wonder if the Hawks aren’t still working at the same standard.

Because they told us Dylan Sikura’s size wasn’t a problem because of his quickness. But he doesn’t look all that quick in this league. They told us that Victor Ejdsell’s skating would be just enough to find space in this league. They’re both in Rockford, and that could change but you wonder. When he was healthy, did Gustav Forsling really look like he had game-breaking speed to you? Or did he look like he would be fast on a 2012 team?

I think this is changing, because Boqvist and Beaudin and Jokiharju do skate at 2018 levels of speed. But that won’t help much now. The jury is very much out on Dominik Kahun and Luke Johnson (“SuckBag” to his friends), who are here because of the Hawks claims about their speed.

Anyway, whatever it’s going to be, let’s kick this pig.

 

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18-’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Patrick Kane

By Adam Hess 2789 0

We arrive at the final few days before the start of the season, with the preseason over and the regular season set to start on Wednesday for the NHL and Thursday for the Hawks. As we get here, we prepare to finalize our preview series of the team today and tomorrow. We start today with the most important skater on the team, Patrick Kane

2017-18 Stats

82 GP – 27 G – 49 A

51.59 CF% – 63.52 oSZ%

20:11 Avg TOI

A Look Back: Kane didn’t have quite the level of success in 2017-18 that he saw in 15-16 and 16-17, and that is likely in no small part because he lost running mate Artemi Panarin. You’ll still be hard pressed to find someone at this site that thought or thinks that Saad for Panarin swap was bad for the Hawks, but it was apparent that Kane missed Panarin a bit, even with spending a decent chunk of time with Nick Schmaltz who is a better play maker than Panarin, though not quite the shooter. The real pitfall was that Quenneville seemingly refused to put Top Cat on that line despite the fact that he’s probably the most natural shooter on the team, and therefore the obvious replacement to the skillset you lost in Panarin. There were times where Top Cat got with 8 and 88, but it wasn’t enough, and I think it cost both all three players a good bit of production. If those three get together more often and get you even 10 more goals total, last season might look a bit different. But that’s in the past. Kane was still one of the league’s better players, and he will be again because he is one of the top-1o talents in the league, and that’s not really up for debate.

It Was the Best of Times: Kane is likely to start the year with Schmaltz as his pivot again, and it’s looking like Brandon Saad will man the other side of the ice, at least early on. That is definitely a good fit because Saad is one of the best players the Hawks have when it comes to being extremely skilled and also doing the “dirty work” extremely well. Saad is strong in front of the net, so if Kane and Schamltz work their playmaking magic together, there should be some easy clean up duty for him. That probably won’t last too long, knowing who the coach is, so I’d like to see Top Cat get some work on Kane’s opposite flank as well, especially with Schmaltz as the center. If Kane is able to spend most of the year with Schmaltz in his middle and Saad or Top Cat opposite him and is able to reach his ceiling again he can climb into the scoring title race and flirt with 100+ points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Kane is easily the Hawks most important skater now, a mantle he takes over from Duncan Keith as the latter has started down the declining path that comes with age and a fuck-ton of minutes played. Any worst case scenario for Kane is pretty much worst-case scenario for the Hawks as well. If Kane gets hurt and misses significant time, even if Crawford is readily available, I’m just not sure the Hawks have the scoring punch to win games without him. If he gets a Toews and Sadd-like streak of bad shooting luck this year, it could be disastrous as well. As much as Toews and Saad are due for corrections on shooting percentage, and Top Cat can bring you good goal scoring as well, Kane is really gonna be the straw that stirs the offensive drink, and if he’s out or struggling, it’s gonna be hard to watch.

Prediction: Kane is another player where at this point we know what he is, so it’s easy for me to predict he’ll have 70-80 points and just cash in my prediction for clout on Twitter later. But I don’t wanna be boring. While I think this Hawks team is going to be bad, and maybe pitifully so, I think Kane is due for a strong season among it all. Again, he’s gonna need to account for a good chunk of the offense, and if he’s given good linemates as weapons to unlock that scoring ability, he is gonna have a good year. I think he will flirt with 90 points again this year, and yet it still won’t matter. He will look really good playing with Jack Hughes in 2019-20 though.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Victor Ejdsell

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

John Hayden

David Kampf

Everything Else

Preseason Game #6 – We’ve Been Blind to This Before – Hawks 4, Blue Jackets 1

By Rose Rankin 1964 0

OK, this was the Blue Jackets’ B-team so temper your excitement when you see that score. That being said, the Hawks were not terrible tonight, and at times they were downright watchable. Again, I think we need to consider the competition but the Hawks did get shelled by the Ottawa fucking Senators not long ago, so if beating the scrubs of one of the scrubbiest teams is where we have to start, so be it. To the bullets:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

– Cam Ward was not awful. He finished the night with a .938 SV%, but I hesitate to say he looked good, that number notwithstanding. The Jackets only managed 17 shots, and the one he let in was on a penalty kill that shouldn’t have ever happened (more on that later). So he did the job, yes, but he didn’t look especially confident or solid in net. Regardless, it was a much better showing than his last game. If this is the best level of competition he can handle, we’re truly fucked. But he was better.

– In the first, both Brent Seabrook and Artem Anisimov scored, and although I haven’t insulted or criticized them enough for that to count as an actual Fels Motherfuck, it was damn close. Obviously I’m glad to see them contribute, but I was a little concerned about how this will convince Q of his own genius in the ANNETTE FRONTPRESENCE department. David Kampf screened Korpisalo on the first goal by Seabrook, and after basically calling him wadded beef yesterday, that also is close to Motherfuck status.

– I think everyone was relieved to see Brandon Saad back on the second line. And that line was great—they finished with a 50 CF% but that dropped precipitously in the third when I think they stopped caring/trying. Through the second it was over 62%. Their passing and puck movement right around the top of the crease was textbook, and Saad’s goal in the second was a taste of what will hopefully come to pass this year for the three of them. Kane’s goal (also in the second) came at the end of a power play and wasn’t with Saad and Schmaltz but it looked absolutely effortless. So at least there’s that.

– The defense was also not awful. Well, Seabrook did trip over his own feet and fall down in the corner in the third, but in other breaking news, water is wet. HJ (remember, this is Jokiharju’s official nickname) had an 81 CF% with Duncan Keith tonight, and while it was clear that Keith had to clean up a few messes for his young counterpart, I was delighted to see HJ stay on the top pairing and get time and space to figure shit out. Even Seabrook and Brandon Manning had a 69 CF% (NICE). Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it was against shit competition. But the defense only gave up those aforementioned 17 shots, so it definitely could have been worse.

– There was still plenty of stupid out there tonight. Andreas Martinsen took an idiotic and dangerous boarding penalty on Dan Desalvo, which led to the power play on which the Jackets ended Cam Ward’s illustrious shutout. It was just oafish and unnecessary, and while the Martinsen-Kruger-Hayden line was mostly serviceable, the penalty leading directly to a goal will hopefully get this moron demoted and one of the other bubble guys can slum it on the fourth line. Is Dylan Sikura really that much worse? Seems doubtful.

So they ended the preseason on a high note, and now can exact revenge against Ottawa on Thursday (haha yeah right). Can they beat AHL-caliber guys whose head coach didn’t even show up for the game? Yes. Can they beat an actual NHL team? We’ll find out. As Foley and Eddie did not fail to remind us, tickets are still available, folks.

Photo credit: USA Today via Second City Hockey

Everything Else

Their Emblems Built of Garbage – ’18–’19 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega 1999 0

No one, and I mean no one, was happier to hear about the Brandon Saad for Artemi Panarin trade last year than me. In fact, I distinctly remember writing something to the effect of “Is there really anyone out there who would rather watch Panarin than Saad on the ice?” in the early stages of the season. Call it a proto-Fels Motherfuck, because the answer to that question was a resounding “Yes, we all would.” And yet, this is the hill I will die a bloody death on, because Brandon Saad, regardless of performance last year, fucks. And this year, he will fuck again.

2017–18 Stats

82 GP – 18 G, 17 A

56.7 CF%, 60.2 oZS%

Avg. TOI 17:30

A Brief History: By pretty much all measures, the Panarin–Tyler Motte (lol) for Saad–Anton Forsberg trade was a loss for the Hawks in 2017–18. Whereas Saad went on to post his lowest point total since his rookie year during the season-in-a-can, Pantera built off his first two outstanding seasons, with 82 points (27 goals) last year away from Patrick Kane.

We went over Saad’s struggles multiple times last year. I wrote a fucking doctoral thesis on how last year was one of Saad’s best years of his career by all metrics other than points. His even-strength CF% and CF% Rel were both second highest of his career. Only Jonathan Toews had a better CF%, and no one had a better CF% Rel than Saad. Other than Tommy Wingels, no Blackhawk had a larger discrepancy between xGF% (51.62) and GF% (45.1) than Saad. Saad also logged his lowest PDO of his career BY FAR, with a withering 97.5 versus a career average of 100.4. Combined with his far-below-average shooting percentage (7.6% vs. a career 11.8% prior to last year) and the fact that no one he played with regularly scored, there were plenty of people ready to declare Brandon Saad dead.

Fuck that.

Brandon Saad isn’t far from being the Hossa Lite we all expect and need him to be. It really is as simple as him having a bit more luck on his shooting. It never looked like Saad had lost a step or was dogging it out there. Outside of maybe lowered confidence from shooting a full 4% lower than his career average, Saad looked just as good as he always did, and all the numbers—besides points—show that. If Saad had shot at just his career average, he’d have had 28 goals on the season, which would have been second most of his career.

But no one wants to listen to the notes he’s not playing. Fortunately, we won’t have to this year.

It Was the Best of Times: This is easy. Saad is going to be just 26 this year, and I don’t think we’ve even seen his final form yet. Playing on a line with Schmaltz and Kane, Saad takes every “trade Saad” proclamation ever uttered personally and tosses a 15% shooting percentage on 240 shots, good for 36 goals. He also contributes 55 assists, turning himself into the 90-point monster some people thought he might have been last year. He continues to be a possession behemoth, which makes Schmaltz and Kane even more dangerous than they were last year. He single-handedly keeps that line well above water on the possession ledger and even contributes on the second PP unit.

It Was the BLURST of Times: The worst thing that can happen to Saad is an extended injury, something that keeps him out for weeks like our woebegone Irish Son Connor Murphy. Unless he’s hurt, last year is probably as bad as it gets for Saad. It’s still possible, yet highly unlikely, that he’s now an 8% shooter, but there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that last year’s piss fest was anything other than an outlier. It’s also unlikely that he’ll be traded—which was one of our fears this summer—and after StanBo told Tom “Team Grit” Dundon that a Faulk-for-Saad trade was a non-starter, I don’t think there’ll be much worry about losing our Syrian Savior to trade anytime soon.

Prediction: I’m going all in on Saad this year. 30 goals, 40 assists, leads the team in CF% Rel. Helps Kane get to 95 points, helps Schmaltz break 50 for the first time. Is a complete nightmare for opponents on the PK. Chips in a few goals in the second PP unit (which, if you’re scoring at home, will be comprised of Gustafsson, Ejdsell, and Saad by my count. Throw in Schmaltz and Wide Dick, and there’s what I think the second-unit PP should be).

Everything else might go wrong for the Hawks this year. But Brandon Saad will not be one of them. Like a phoenix rising from Arizona, Brandon Saad will show us all why trading Panarin for him wasn’t for naught.

Previous Player Previews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Brent Seabrook

Brandon Manning

Jan Rutta

Erik Gustafsson

Henri Jokiharju

Nick Schmaltz

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Victor Ejdsell

Jonathan Toews

Everything Else

Preseason #2 Nothing to See Here — Hawks 2, Red Wings 4

By Rose Rankin 1657 0

There really wasn’t much of note but we should get used to that, right? Tonight’s cast was two lines and a bunch of no-names (or laughable names, in some cases). Let’s do this:

Box Score

–The second line of Saad-Schmaltz-Kane looked pretty dreamy. They scored the first goal but prior to that had decent chances and passing to spare. I’ve already made it clear I want Saad back on the top line, but if the production and chemistry works out, there’s not much I can say. We’ll see if Quenneville keeps them together…because the top line could still use Brandon Saad.

–On that note, there was some shitty passing and general disjointedness from the top line of Kunitz-Toews-Top Cat, which should surprise no one. Chris Kunitz did nothing to demonstrate that he belongs on the top line, which also should be the most obvious statement possible.

–Adam Boqvist had some nice moves, particularly in the first period when broke up a solid scoring chance, and managed to jump up in the play and have a scoring chance himself. He’s still just a kid and will likely be sent off to the juniors netherworld, but there maybe is some hope for a distant future of decent defensemen?

–Not Brandon Manning though. Tuulola and Carlsson (no, not the right Karlsson, it was a burr under my saddle all night) didn’t look great either, but ah who gives a shit. Foley had a lot of fun singing “Lo-lo-lo-lo-LOLA” though.

–We’re going to miss Corey Crawford this season. Now I know I said that Kunitz being subpar on the first line was the most obvious statement possible, but I was wrong. This one is the most obvious statement possible. Forsberg got hung out to dry a bit by inexperienced defensemen, but he and Lankinen would make the initial save, give up a rebound and blow it. It’s going to be a long one, folks.

–Character-from-an-Emily-Bronte-novel Mackenzie Entwistle scored in the second period, which is just fun to have a reason to say that guy’s name. It will quite possibly be the last time we do.

It’s only game two of the preseason, none of this REALLY makes a difference, and we know that the coaches are evaluating which of the young’ins will earn some of the last roster spots. But while there were some flashes of decency (hello, second line), there’s still a long way to go.