Patrick Kane – Page 20 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Game #36 – Hawks vs. Canucks Preview/Car Wash: West Is That Way

By Sam Fels December 28, 2017 2038 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 17-13-5 Canucks 15-17-5

PUCK DROP: 9pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

CANADA’S WARMEST CITY: Nucks Misconduct

It’s not quite the new year yet. It’s not even halfway through the season yet. And yet, it feels like the Hawks have to turn a new leaf right now, that this is a pivot point to their season. They had a four-day break, they went into it with two losses that weren’t good, and now are staring up at a lot more than they’re used to. And it feels like if they don’t pick it up right here on this Western Canada swing, they’re going to be staring at the lights the rest of the season.

Let’s start with the Hawks, because they are not bereft of news. The big one, and the one with the potential to be the iceberg to this liner, is that Corey Crawford is back on IR. The Hawks aren’t saying what it is, they aren’t saying when it happened, and they aren’t saying how long he’ll be out. All of it convinces me it’s the same thing that put him on the shelf the first time and they don’t want to admit it. It felt rushed then, and it feels rushed now. And the Hawks had better hope it’s restricted to just a couple weeks. Any longer, and barring any miracles from Anton Forsberg, and the Hawks could feel some carp swimming around their knees in a hurry.

Remember, the Hawks give up the most attempts per game and are in the bottom-ten in shots against. So even if Forsberg is good, which he’s mostly been this season, the Hawks still might not get the goaltending their hit-and-miss offense. They’ve needed Crow to be THAT good to even get here. So either Forsberg does that, or the Hawks get goals from somewhere else other than Kane’s line, or…. well, I’m out of nautical/sinking references.

The other roster change was the call-up of David Kampf. The Hawks have a need at center, one they won’t address by moving Schmaltz there given what that line has done. Kampf might help, he’s not the end-all, be-all. For right now I’ll just rejoice that it moves either Hartman or Hinostroza back to a wing, and with Top Cat and Kampf that line would at least be really mobile. I don’t know what it does exactly, but whatever it does it’ll do it quickly. But the lineup could honestly look like anything at the start, and even more anything by the 2nd period. These three games will likely see Q throwing just about everything into the pot and hope he gets some flavor out of it. Peanut butter and basil? Why not?!

If the team needs a jump or a confidence-builder, then you can’t ask much more than getting the Canucks right out of the blocks. While they spasmed a hot start, the Canucks have sunk to near the bottom of the Pacific, where they were supposed to be in the first place. Their talent-level is only partially responsible, and their injury list is pretty much responsible for the rest of it. The Sedins are basically just DHs right now, as they never start anywhere but the offensive zone. They make that work, but they are heavily sheltered. The rest is picked up by Brock Boeser, who is the league’s leading rookie scorer and already has one of the best shots/releases in the game. He’s kept scoring even with Bo Horvat out, and now Sven Baertschi has joined him on the trainer’s table, it’ll be a challenge.

But past that this team can’t score, with the lowest total of goals in the conference. And now that Jacob Markstrom has realized who he is, their goaltending has become outhouse-filler. He’s been awful of late, giving up 15 goals in his last five starts and some of them truly terrible. He’s been losing his net and losing the puck, and if the Hawks can’t find a few goals tonight… you can finish this sentence.

The Canucks can’t do much about protecting their goalies either. Chris Tanev is hurt as well, Alex Edler is old and his leaping elbows are even older, and Erik Gudbranson is a cave troll without the weapons or mobility. Oh, and Michael Del Zotto is here to make Gustav Forsling look like Kevin Lowe in his prime in his own end. Thar be gaps here, matey.

The Hawks need this one. The Oilers are at least snapping back into some sort of shape even if it is too late. The Flames can be anything on a given night, but that can also mean completely kicking your ass. And the Hawks very well may need all three of these.

This will be something less than fun. We’ll get through it together.

Game #36 Preview

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Grinds My Gears: Christmas Reset

By Sam Fels December 27, 2017 2394 0

Hey all, it’s been a few days. Had a good break, I hope. Spent it with your family either arguing about minuscule stuff or just being drunk… and arguing about minuscule stuff. As Hawks fans, or just Hawks watchers, you even get an extra day before we dive right back into it all. Good thing, too. Anyway, thought it would be time to air all our previous grievances from before the break to see where we are. Post-Festivus, let’s say.

These will probably sound familiar to most of you, but hey, sometimes you can’t get blood from a turnip or stone or rock or whatever the fuck these freaks are trying to get blood from. Which is actually very weird. I don’t want blood. I’m not a fucking vampire. Fifth Feather, he’s the vampire wannabe.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

Basically, everything that follows is my complaints about how this team has been managed. And yes, I think Q has done a borderline shitty job this year after doing yeoman’s work the past two years, I would argue. Whether he has just nothing to work with (and I really don’t believe that), is still in a snit from watching pet projects Hjalmarsson and Panarin dealt, or quite simply just doesn’t quite care as much anymore, I have no idea. But here’s where he’s losing me:

-The distribution of zone starts to his defense. This has been the dead horse we’ve already turned into paste at this point. But to repeat: the two d-men who have taken the biggest percentage of their shifts starting in the defensive zone are Jan Rutta and Gustav Forsling. They also might double as the two worst defensive players on the Hawks blue line, though Seabrook or Franson could poke their head into the room and say, “Is that your final answer?” in some awful, CBS-sitcom fashion that this season has felt at times.

This is just plainly stupid. Despite the broadcast’s/organization’s Pravda-like spreading of the gospel of Forsling, he sucks in his own zone. Like, out loud. And that’s fine for now. That can take some time to learn, and especially when the Hawks have other options. Take Forsling’s use with that of Will Butcher’s on New Jersey. He and Forsling are about the same size, similar skill-set. Butcher almost never starts in his own zone, and has 23 points. Forsling has 12. You can’t tell me that Butcher is that much more talented than Forsling.

Q might sit here and say that Forsling and Rutta aren’t the only ones who need to be kept out of their own zone, that Seabrook and Franson need the help, too. That isn’t necessarily wrong, but A. Franson shouldn’t be playing that much and B. Seabrook’s bigger problems are in transition so maybe just planting him in his own zone where he doesn’t have to worry about streaking forwards or puck retrievals might actually be the safer plan.

Duncan Keith is still good. He can take it on. He can probably save Rutta from himself, which Forsling most certainly can’t. Or if you’re still in love with Connor Murphy on his off-side, you can pair him with Rutta. Because if Murphy can keep Seabrook from choking on a ham-bone, he certainly can do the same with Rutta. Or better yet get Kempny out of the doghouse and just let him play because he’s good and shoots himself in the face with a bazooka less than Forsling does.

-Nick Schmaltz is a center, Ryan Hartman is not. Yes, I know Hartman played some center in junior. Yes, I know that Q loves to come up with solutions out of nowhere to satisfy is giant, throbbing brain. But if the Hawks ever thought Hartman could play center at this level, they should have at least had him do it some of the time in Rockford. So not only are you asking him to play a spot he hasn’t as a pro, you’re also asking him to do it after four seasons of not.

I understand the problems with Schmaltz at center. He can’t win a draw, and he’s slight. And yet there he is on the penalty kill, so Q must think he’s not completely helpless defensively. Yes, I know Arty The One Man Party is kind of useless if he’s not playing with Kane, and that’s another problem. But the world is dying for Top Cat-Nick At Nite-Kane. Let us just see it for a game or two.

This gets into a larger, organizational discussion, because Vinnie Smalls was brought up to play center, except he hasn’t played center at Rockford all season. Does Q know this? Whatever the answer is, I don’t feel good about it. Imagine the Cubs or Sox bringing up an infielder and then sticking him in center without him ever playing there in the AAA. Yes yes, stick your Kyle Schwarber jokes here.

-Saad and Toews need a playmaker. This has been obvious all season. The three seasons we had of Saad-Toews-Hossa scoring simply because they willed it into being are gone. Hossa has leprosy, Toews just isn’t that player anymore. They’ll keep the puck in the right areas, they just need help making that count. We saw Top Cat on the left side for like two games, and then it was abandoned so he could return to playing with corpses. Give it five, give it ten, because if you don’t get Toews and Saad scoring regularly, we can just dock this showboat right now.

-Did they rush Crawford from injury? The easy way out of this is to say that decision is the Hawks medical staff’s and Crawford’s. And yet this would hardly be the first time we’ve seen this under Q. Well, now Crow is out again. I guess it was necessary for those games against Buffalo, Arizona, and Florida with how they went, but it shouldn’t have been.

Look, I get it. Q’s cards aren’t great. He has no third line because Patrick Sharp died and Richard Panik had the temerity to turn back into Richard Panik (by the way Josh Jooris is kicking ass for the Canes, and is younger, faster, and cheaper than Patrick Sharp. I’m just gonna sit here and cry). That’s forced the fourth line into harder assignments than you’d like. The defense is a bit mismatched, but Q’s making that worse.

The Hawks only sit one point out of a playoff spot and have games in hand on everyone. It’s hardly disaster, it’s just not where we’re used to being. But it it’s going to get better, removing head from anus is always a good start, as my father used to tell me regularly.

Everything Else

Game #35 – Devils 4 – Hawks 1: This Is Why The Devils Can Get Their Arms Around Me

By Sam Fels December 23, 2017 2415 0

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

Corsica

Not exactly how you begin a road trip. While I didn’t think the Hawks were particularly bad on Thursday, certainly not to the point with which they were unlucky, they needed a response tonight before a break and the rest of this trip. And they got one… it just came 20 minutes too late. And when you cough up a division game before this, you kind of lose your right to mail in one right before the Christmas break. The Hawks seemed to realize that in the 2nd, but that’s not good enough. You’re not going to claw three back against Cory Schneider the way he’s playing. And you’re especially not going to do it when Sharp and Sbarro can combine to do perhaps the worst Stadler And Waldorf On Ice in the history of time (a competition I would like to judge one day).

Let’s run through it:

The Two Obs

-Especially in a sport as closed off as hockey, it’s probably impossible to get to the middle of how a team that kind of needed this one tonight can come out so rotten as the Hawks did in the first. There must’ve been eight to ten turnovers in the first five minutes in their own zone. “highlighted” by Gustav Forsling with a beautiful centering pass to his own crease and then Panik with a layoff to Brian Boyle.

The easy way to go here is to lay it at the feet of Joel Quenneville, because obviously it’s the coaches job to get a team ready to play. If it is with him, it certainly not all with him. It’s a whole leadership thing. And this is where you’re free to wonder with the three lettered players–Toews, Keith, Seabrook–basically producing dick (except for Keith, really)–how much influence they might have right now. They have veteran cache, sure. But someone’s gotta take the blame for how often, on the road usually, this team just isn’t at the races. But we’ll circle back to this in a moment.

-What I can hang Q out to dry for, and frequently have and will continue to do so, is these bewildering lineup and deployment choices. How does Patrick Sharp go from a deserved healthy scratch to the second line with Toews with no in-between? Players notice that, and I’m sure a couple are wondering what they have to do to get such treatment.

Let’s go to the Devils 4th goal, and what was a back-breaker. The Hawks have some juice from the second, a two-goal deficit is at least doable, and then you get this from Sharp and Seabrook. While watching this, make note of where Murphy is and where Seabrook ends up:

How does Jordan Oesterle go from playing four games in two months to the power play? And if you think he’s good enough to be on the power play, why wasn’t he there before? That also gives you two, left-handed, mobile d-men, so do we really need Keith on it anymore? He’s not that good at it, never has been, and would be an excellent way to cut down his minutes. Then again, with more short-circuits like what led to the penalty shot, maybe we should keep Oesterle as far from it as we can.

Murphy is up on the play, as he should be as the Hawks push for another goal. And you want your defense to be active, but you don’t want them to be aggressively stupid, or suicidal. Seabrook is all the way up with two Devils behind him. Murphy is the one who’s pushing here and Seabrook has to play the free safety.

Of course, maybe this doesn’t matter if Patrick Sharp doesn’t execute the Ozzy Osbourne “Drop Pass To Nowhere” (leads to me). Good thing he was on the second line tonight.

-How does Jordan Oesterle go from four games in two months to the power play? Given what led to the penalty shot, this seems an even more valid question.

-Let’s keep going. Gustav Forsling sucks in his own end. I can’t put it lightly anymore. I’m not sure Jan Rutta is any better. So why are they starting a penalty kill you kind of have to have when you’re already down one? The one thing a kill can’t have is passes that go through the box. So of course it took Forsling all of six seconds to completely lose Palmieri behind him, and then be completely pointed the wrong way to turn into a goal-scoring bumper for the Devils.

-Right, so let’s circle back to the leadership thing again. Obviously, this blog and this writer has a complicated relationship with Patrick Kane. So the following is strictly on-ice. But if you had told me say even three years ago that when the Hawks are struggling and need a boost, it would be Kane who consistently provides it and Toews would just sort of have a vacant look on his face most of the night, I would have called you a filthy liar and then asked the bartend to cut you off if not outright remove you from the premises.

But that’s been the story. On a night where he could have easily chucked it, Kane spent the second period trying drag his team back into it. And this is hardly the first game, either this year, or last year, or the one before that, where he’s done it. Sure, there’s the whole difference of center-vs-wing, and the competition each play, and where they start. But this team needed a jolt and for someone to say “fuck this” and to try and come up with inspiration. Only one half of Daydream Nation did it.

-Remember when Brandon Saad was noticeable? Good times, those. Many laughs were had. A libation shared. I’m sad these are things we just reminisce about right now.

-Ok, that’s enough heading into the holiday. From all of us here, have a wonderful Christmas. And we’ll pick it back up when the Hawks land on the West Coast.

Everything Else

Game #33 – I’ll beat your ass if I beat your ass twice and you still here – Blackhawks 4, Wild 1

By Adam Hess December 17, 2017 3209 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

The Blackhawks absolutely embarrassed the Minnesota Wild tonight, which is actually harder than you think because the Wild do a pretty good job of embarrassing themselves, usually. To the Bullets-

– The second line was extremely good tonight, dominating the Wild just about every time they were on the ice. They were a threat to score each time they had the puck in the offensive zone, and even Anisimov showed some flashes of fleet-footedness tonight, which was weird but cool. The Hawks first goal was the result of Nick Schmaltz putting yet another pass perfectly in the wheelhouse of Patrick Kane. I will never get used to how nice it feels to see those two go to work together.

– Just to elaborate on the end of that last bullet, I am fully convinced that Schamltz is a better running mate for Kane than Artemi Panarin ever was. Panarin had the speed to keep up with Kane and the shot to put away his good passes, but he isn’t nearly as creative with the puck as Schamltz is. Kane and Yeast Mode did have a great chemistry, but it looks like he has similar chemistry with Schmaltz already. The only change that needs to happen is getting Schmaltz moved to the pivot on that line, but with how well it’s working right now, I’m hesitant to call for too much tinkering.

– Jordan Oesterle has been a pleasant surprise lately. He’s looked good the past few games, and had another good game tonight, including a dime of a pass to spring Kane for the Hawks second goal. He was rewarded with 19 minutes of ice time, third among the Hawks defensive corps. He’s signed through next year at just $650k, so this might be a nice little signing by StanBo. Thanks, Edmonton.

– I know you don’t need me to tell you, but Crawford had another great game tonight. He nearly screwed up in the first period, but recovered well, and then was just his normal solid self the rest of the game. He did have a sweet save on Joel Eriksson Ek in the third period, absolutely robbing him with a stabbing glove save.

– Ryan Hartman showed some more skill tonight with a great, tight quarters goal in the third. He made a nice steal on the boards, and then just went hard to the net before getting creative and scoring from about 5 feet in front of Alex Stalock with a nifty quick shot that was just about impossible to stop. It was the kind of play the Hawks need from him more often – just going to the net and making things happen. He is everything Andrew Shaw was, but with more actual hockey skill, so if he can just embrace a bit more a Shaw-esque mentality (outside of being a shitheel individual) it will result in good things for him and the Hawks.

– Five wins in a row, and two straight over division opponents, is a nice way to head into the upcoming six-game road trip. Here’s hoping they keep the momentum going into that trip.

Everything Else

If You’re On The Way To The Grave You Don’t Blame The Hearse

By Sam Fels December 7, 2017 2352 0

It’s not often we’ve sat here with the Hawks having a losing streak this long (although, full disclosure, I think a losing streak that includes two losses in the gimmicks that come after 60 minutes shouldn’t really count, but here we are. A different breeze and the Hawks merely would have lost three of five). When dealing with something unfamiliar there’s a tendency to overreact, if not outright panic. The Hawks do face some issues, so let’s get to them.

-The power play. Whatever problems the Hawks have, and really any team, you can paper over them if you’re cashing in on the power play. Especially as the Hawks generate the most opportunities in the league, which kind of lets you know they aren’t that bad at even-strength. In fact, they’re good. Your top three teams in the league on the power play are Tampa, Nashville, and Winnipeg, who just happen to be three of the top teams in the league right now. They’re solid outfits without the added bonus, but Pittsburgh, the Islanders, and the Leafs have been able to buttress their holes by scoring a bunch on the power play as well.

While Joel Quenneville doesn’t want to admit it, the biggest problem on the power play is that the Hawks can’t get into the zone consistently and with control. The Hawks, at least at the moment, aren’t a great forechecking team. If they were to dump the puck in, who do you trust to go get it back? Saad? Toews? Anisimov can’t get there in time. Panik maybe? Again, you can’t really say for sure with any of them.

So the Hawks want to carry it in all the time, but other teams know this. They’re standing up at their line, and also dragging one behind to counter this dumbass, drop-pass to Kane to let him do it all himself. That doesn’t work unless you’ve somehow backed at least a couple penalty killers off the line.

But like everything else on this team, it’s hard to know how to line that up. Do you put Toews and Saad on one unit? Let’s run with that. Have them with Schmaltz. Run it through Schmaltz on the left half-boards, mirroring what you’d do on the other unit with Kane. Have Forsling on the point and Anisimov playing, “Annette Frontpresence.” This gives Schmaltz three passing options from there–the point, cross-ice, and high slot–all of which can one-time a pass. If teams start to cheat there and smother, Forsling and Saad/Toews can exploit that space on the other side.

You’re other unit can have Kane running things as usual, with Seabrook, and Top Cat the threats at the point and cross-ice. This is what ADB does and really hasn’t been allowed to. He’s also nifty enough to run things himself if Kane is being smothered. It lacks a right-handed shot to occupy the high-slot, but Keith has played the rover before. It’s not ideal, but you can live with it.

Does that solve your entry problem? Not entirely. The “Kane Unit” doesn’t really have a QB, and I’m not yet convinced that Forsling is one yet on the other. But given how teams are just standing at their line, soft chips into the corner should be recoverable. And you only have to do it for a while before teams at least have to account for it.

And the Hawks just have to pick something and stick with it. This is what we do and we’re going to do it better than you can defend it. Changing your plan every single power play lets both your team and the other one you have no confidence and you have no answers.

The other option is to just team up Kane, Schmaltz, and Top Cat and let them do what they did in the preseason on the power play. Never stop moving, create angles where no one saw them, and just let Anisimov stand there with that dumb look on his face and bank it off him. I know sending three guys out there and saying, “Try shit,” isn’t a great tactical plan, but it probably works better than this.

-The waiving of Tanner Kero today probably signals that Vinnie Smalls is on his way up. He’s not going to solve everything. He’s probably not going to solve much at all. He makes the forwards faster, but speed isn’t the problem at forward. It’s a problem in defense. We’ll save the #FreeKempny discussion for another time.

However, Q’s slotting of Toews down the lineup seems to be something of an admission that he’s a different player than he was. I’ve been calling on the podcast to slot Schmaltz between Saad and Panik, Top Cat with Kane and Anisimov, and Toews between Hartman and whatever other goof you want. Make the other coach pick whether or not Toews gets to see third lines–which I’m fairly sure he will murder–or if they’re going to still treat him like ’13 Toews, freeing up your top two lines. I think he’s slowly getting to this.

Everything Else

It Ain’t Broke, So Don’t Go Fixin’ It

By Adam Hess December 1, 2017 1780 0

The worst kept secret in hockey right now is that Alex DeBrincat is tearing up the NHL. After getting off to bit of a slow start, with just four points in his first 11 games, he went on a tear in November, with 15 points in his 14 games (including October 28). In that time, he’s had two point streaks of three games and one of four, and notched four points in the Hawks’ Monday-Tuesday back-to-back against Anaheim and Nashville this week, including his first career hat-trick against the Ducks, before scoring another goal Thursday night against the Stars.

When we did the player previews back in September, I wrote in pretty good detail about how much scoring potential Top Cat had. He tore up the OHL year after year, and basically only fell as far as he did in the 2016 draft because hockey can’t get over it’s fascination with size and girth. Despite all of our nerves that the Blackhawks would ignore his strong pre-season and make him start the season in the A, he forced the issue and was able to make the team out of camp. And he hasn’t disappointed at all.

Among the Blackhawks, Whiskers is second on the team in both goals and points, with 10 and 18, respectively. In the league, he’s tied for 36th in goals and tied for 70th in points, which is pretty damn good for a 19-year-old with 24 games under his belt. He has as many or more goals than the likes of Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Brandon Saad, and several other stars. Again, that’s good.

What’s really good is the fact that he’s done all this despite the fact that he’s spent most of the year condemned out of the top six by his mustachioed coach for a reason that has yet to been made public. And though I’m not here to re-hash arguments made on here already, as Sam detailed the other day, Q hasn’t explained himself in any way to lend justification to ADB’s tethering to Patrick Sharp’s opposite wing, or Nick Schmaltz playing wing instead of center, which is pretty much definitely keeping ADB on that third line. Lucky for Q, I am here to do it for him.

We don’t really need an explanation from Q, anyhow, because we all know that any explanation we might get would be completely unsatisfactory and/or filled with some random bullshit. We’d probably hear some reference to the idea of him being on the third line if it’s meant to avoid tougher competition, but at this point Top Cat has proven that he’s worthy of, at the very least, an opportunity to face that competition with higher quality teammates, so that argument would fall flat with most Hawks fans. Even with that, though, I still wonder if any sort of lineup promotion is really best for DeBrincat right now.

We’ve been stressing our desire for DeBrincat to play on a wing with Schmaltz and Kane for so long that there’s hardly any of the dead horse left to beat, but his hat trick on Monday gave us an even better look at the fit those three could have. Twice during line changes, he added goals that were assisted by – guess who – Schmaltz or Kane. The three of them have such similar skill sets and playing styles that the fit seems obvious, but with the recent success of the Schmaltz-Anisimov-Kane second line, it’s hard to imagine Q making too many changes to the lineup right now. Schamltz is still probably better off playing the pivot than the wing, but that’s a conversation for another time. The point is, all three of the guys on that second line have been playing well this year, especially in the most recent stretch of games, so you could question if breaking up that line even makes any sense at all right now.

DeBrincat, though, has also shown that he’s good enough to elevate whoever he ends up on a line with at any given time. Look no further than the Hawks’ first goal against Nashville on Tuesday, when he won a puck battle deep in the offensive zone, on a rush, during a line change, and then threaded a pass through all five Predators that was so perfect even Tommy Wingels couldn’t fuck up the tap in. If the Hawks want to roll out three scoring lines – which we know they do – there really isn’t a better fit to be the main threat on that third line right now than Top Cat. Do you trust Richard Panik to produce meaningfully away from Toews and Saad? What about Anisimov without Kane? Do you really want Patrick Sharp to be the focal point of a scoring line at this point? Me either.

So while Top Cat is most definitely not a third line winger by any stretch of the imagination, and having him on another line might provide a better fit for his style, he might actually be best off left alone for now.

Everything Else

It ain’t broke, so don’t go fixin’ it

By Adam Hess November 29, 2017 1609 0