Hockey

It’s Time…For Time

By Sam Fels 1501 0

I was reading Ryan Lambert’s article today about how the Oilers pretty much have to run Leon Draisaitl‘s and Connor McDavid‘s ice-time tank to the “E” every night, and began thinking about how the Hawks will manage the same thing this season.

The Hawks aren’t a deep team, though they’re deeper than the Oilers even with Drais-Cube and McJesus. If the Hawks are going to do anything this year that you might remember, they’re going to do it on the backs of Kane, Toews, and DeBrincat doing remarkable things. So how much should Jeremy Colliton toss them over the boards? We know the answer is a lot, but finding the right amount is going to be tricky.

As we know last year, Patrick Kane only trailed Draisaitl and McDavid in time last season. He had a jump of a full two minutes per game from the previous season, breaking over 22:00 per game. That was also the highest of his career, at age 30, and even though his insane workout regimen has been well documented, it seemed less than ideal.

And that was bared out as the season went along. Kane went for 16 points in his last 18 games, which pretty much every other player on the planet save a handful would consider the best streak of their lives. But it doesn’t look as good when you consider that in the previous 38 games Kane went for 65 points (seriously). And sure, there’s some variance in there with power play scoring and shooting-percentage and such. But anyone who watched the Hawks in March and April last year (or would admit to it and then accept the concerned looks from their friends that would follow) knows that Kane looked a half-step slower in the season’s final throes. And why wouldn’t he?

Now maybe after a season of doing it, Kane is more prepared to take on 22 minutes per night, and wouldn’t you know he played 21:30 in the season opener. Still, 22 minutes a night for a winger seems a tad high, though we’re likely to get it again as this Alex Nylander thing blows up in their faces down the road. At least until my guy Philip Kurashev comes to save the day!

Toews also saw a big jump in his minutes last year, and also a career-high, clocking in at a flat 21:00. The Hawks are probably even thinner at center this year than they were last, though perhaps Ryan Carpenter is a push to Artem Anisimov depending on how you look at it. This would be less of a problem if Kirby Dach is kept around, but we’ve had that talk. How much do you want to push Toews at 31? Toews also tailed off a bit last season toward the end, though not as sharply. He had 15 points in the last 18 games where he’d gone 45 in 38 before.

Perhaps it’s DeBrincat who might see the real push in time this year? Top Cat only averaged a shade under 18 minutes a night last year. Now it would be easy to point out he doesn’t kill penalties and needs to be sheltered in shifts, but you could say the same things about Kane. Perhaps Top Cat doesn’t create as much offensively as Kane does, he’s more of a finisher, but he’s also not bereft of inspiration for his teammates either. He’s never been asked to do it much, always installed as the finisher on a line or power play. But it wouldn’t hurt to see if he can do more when shifted occasionally with some plugs, because it’s in his locker.

It might also help if Brandon Saad could author some streaks to warrant pushing 20 minutes a night, but that ship might have sailed. Same goes from Dylan Strome, and that ship is very much still in port.

Needless to say, the Hawks need these guys on the ice as much as possible, without cracking 22 or really even going over 21 minutes a night if they want Daydream Nation to still have anything in the tank come spring. The hope is that Strome and Top Cat make themselves available and necessary for 19-20 minutes per night as well. If that happens, the Hawks might actually do something. If they have to lean on the plus-30 Kane and Toews over 21 minutes a night again, they’re probably in that spot with the upstream and no paddles thing.

Hockey

Game #1 – Hawks 3, Flyers 4: Nothing Rhymes With Orange

By Sam Fels 2468 0

Box Score

Shift Chart

Natural Stat Trick

Ok, so we’re off. Sort of. It’s a little silly to jump to any conclusions off of one game played in a weird place due to odd scheduling. It’s a little difficult to not feel a tad deflated when the Hawks looked exactly like we kind of feared they would. Sloppy, slow, and disjointed, unable to deal with any kind of forecheck or pressure. It’s hard to get too mad when you’ve had to do without your two best defensive d-men (and maybe best overall), as no team really wants to scrape into #8 and #9 on their depth chart. Even if the Hawks are just opting to not use one of their best in Adam Boqvist instead of being forced deeper into the well.

The Hawks will remain in most games simply because their top end talent will scrape out a goal or two because it can. That said, this wasn’t exactly a world-beater on the other side, and the Hawks were second-best all over. The metrics and numbers are bordering on heinous.

But hey, it’s my job to clean it up, so let’s hop to it:

The Two Obs

-So you’ve had three weeks of MAGIC TRAINING CAMP, which is three weeks to see who can play with who and what works best. And two periods into your first game, you’re already rearranging things from the start. That feels…less than ideal.

-Alex Nylander went from the penthouse to the outhouse pretty quickly. There is little doubt that if you can get him in open ice, he can do things. That’s what the first goal was as he was able to corral a loose puck at center and had the freedom of the blue line as the Flyers backed off him. The problem is the Sabres and other scouts didn’t think he had much interest or ability to find openings in tight spaces when everyone is where they should be. Clearly Colliton didn’t think much of those efforts today, as halfway through he was skating with Ryan Carpenter and Zack Smith. Drake Caggiula was called to try and open up some space.

Which, if you’re skating Toews and Kane together, is what they need. Toews isn’t the dual space-opener/finisher he once was. He is probably better as the finisher on a line now, evidenced by the 30+ he put up last season. Which means they need a forechecker, grunt-type, which Caggiula is. Nylander is most certainly not.

-I’m still getting used to the xG markers for individual games in both hockey and soccer, but when you’re basically getting doubled up in that at both evens and overall, you’re not creating much, you’re giving up too much, and you’re basically getting domed.

-The Hawks experts on TV and some in the media will try and chalk this up to just one-off sloppiness or looseness. But that’s what this team will look like a lot of nights. They can’t gain the opposing line with control and speed because their defense is so slow that when they do corral a puck in their own zone all they can do is just gasp for air, i.e. fire it out to the neutral zone or in the vague direction of a teammate at their own line, praying to Yahweh that they can somehow corral that pass. They still try and make too many passes to get out, and they don’t have time for it most of the time anyway. Yes, teams mostly now just want to lay pucks out into the neutral zone for forwards to skate onto. Or just make one pass and go. But that is done with a modicum of control or plan. The Hawks are just thrashing about, trying to find the sides of the pool to keep from going under.

-It might look a little better if Duncan Keith can locate a fuck to give between now and whenever. My guess is he isn’t looking all that hard. His gap on Konecny’s second was simply woeful. And I counted two or three times when he half-heartedly tried to make a play at his line, his former calling-card, missed and fell on his face.

-Which means you’re restricted to individual brilliance, which Kane provided for goals two and three today. Doesn’t hurt that #2 went to one of the best finishers on the planet.

-Colliton was double-shifting Kane in the second period. Does he know another song to sing?

-Your best possession line was the second one, and I would hope we see more of that and due to the improved skating of Strome’s which is clear.

-Saad-Kampf-Kubalik was given the dungeon shifts and came out basically even, which is nice. One wonders just how this line would be deployed when Dach is the center, which the Hawks are going to at least try. Of course, the one thing you might want to try is slotting Toews between these two wingers, putting Dach with Kane and Caggiula or Shaw or someone and keeping them exclusively in the offensive zone. Think we’ll see that? No, me either.

-One problem for Boqvist is that the Hawks already don’t use Gustafsson on the kill. So if 27 were in the lineup as well, that means the Hawks would be trying to kill penalties with just four d-men. This could be solved by dressing seven d-men, but the amount of piss that gets spilled onto the floor every time the Hawks try this probably keeps that from happening.

-Some debate on Twitter about Shaw’s penalty that eventually resulted in a four-on-four goal against. Yes, no one wants DeBrincat getting crosschecked gleefully and freely while he’s prone on the ice. But if Shaw just goes and grabs and hugs Sanheim, it’s almost never a penalty. When you wind up trying to do a Bo Jackson across the other guy’s chest, you’re inviting the ref to make a call, no matter how weak. Just grab him and do your yappy thing. It’s what you do best.

Let’s see how it looks with Murphy and de Haan back. Until then…

Onwards…

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Brandon Saad

By John Pullega 1526 0

Few people hold Brandon Saad’s jock like I do. Today, I’m going to try something different. Rather than going all in on how THIS WILL BE THE YEAR THE REAL BRANDON SAAD APPEARS, I’m going to try to figure out where the latent angst about Saad exists, despite all the good he does on paper.

2018–19 Stats

80 GP – 23 G, 24 A, 47 P

52.69 CF% (5.1 CF% Rel), 49.9 oZS%

47.06 GF% (-2.97 Rel GF%), 47.27 xGF% (2.61 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 17:41

Last Year’s Saad Review

A Brief History: Let’s start with the easy shit. Saad’s 23 goals and 47 points are right about in line with what he’s shown he can do in his career. His 24 assists were down a hair relative to his career numbers. His shooting percentage jumped back toward his norm (11.8% last year; 11.1% career). Those are excellent numbers for a third liner, which is how Colliton used Saad primarily last year. But when you trade a guy like Artemi Panarin, you expect more than a third liner in return.

The topline numbers place Saad in second-liner territory. It’s those pesky underlying numbers that make Saad a flashpoint of frustration. Of Blackhawks who played at least 41 games, Saad had the best CF% (52.69) and CF% Rel (5.1). (If you include Sikura [33 games] and Jokiharju [38 games], he’s third overall in both.)

Here’s how he affects the Hawks in terms of the shots the Hawks take when he is and isn’t on the ice.

All Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

The heat map looks even better in when you put Saad in isolation.

Simply, the Blackhawks are a much bigger offensive threat with Saad on the ice.

On the defensive side, the numbers aren’t quite as friendly, but the Hawks are still a better defensive team with Saad on the ice than without.

Saad does a good job of keeping shot rates on his side (LW) lower than average when he’s on the ice. When he’s off, that left side opens up, as do the shot rates within higher-danger areas. While Saad clearly couldn’t fix the woeful defense by himself, in isolation, he looks really, really good.

Having Saad on the ice was preferable to not having him on the ice—both on offense and defense—in terms of shot rates at 5v5 last year.

Saad also made almost all of his teammates better when he’s out there at 5v5.

The only players who were marginally worse with Saad than without were Toews and maybe Kampf, and even that’s a stretch. Without Saad, Toews ended up with slightly more shots for than against, but it’s a really thin margin. Without Saad, Kampf saw more shots for, but also more shots against. Everyone else was noticeably better (i.e., took more shots than they faced) with him out there.

Saad’s positive contributions were evident on the penalty kill last year, too. Yes, the Hawks were a potted plant watered with piss on the PK last year, but not because of anything Saad did wrong.

On the PK, the overall threat percentage is better (lower is better on defense) and the area that Saad plays in produces fewer unblocked shots when Saad is on the ice.

This is all the good Saad does. Now, I will gently place Saad’s jock to the side and talk about two things that caught my eye about him in a bad way last year.

First, his performance on the PP, in light of the fact that Colliton’s PP2 does not include Brandon Saad as of now (Keith–Seabrook–Kubalik–Nylander–Shaw).

The Hawks were indeed much, much worse on the PP when Saad was out there. This matches the eye test. Saad is generally a straight-line skater who doesn’t normally go to the front of the net. (He’ll occasionally trapeze along the goal line and put his shoulder down, but it’s relatively rare.) He doesn’t have a booming shot, and he’s not usually one to set up for a one timer. All of these things combined, these heat maps make sense. Saad isn’t much of a threat on the PP. That’s frustrating for sure.

Second, and more interesting to me, are his GF% (47.06) and xGF% (47.27). Saad is on the ice for almost exactly the share of goals expected of him. By themselves, those numbers don’t look good. But in terms of xGF%, only three Blackhawks had a positive share on the year: Dennis Gilbert (1 game played), Slater Koekkoek (22 games played), and Dylan Sikura (33 games played). So, Saad’s expected goals-for share isn’t as bad as it seems, relative to the rest of the team. (For comparison, Kane’s xGF% was 44.93. DeBrincat’s was 46.47.) Still, it’s not something to hang your hat on.

It’s the GF% that’s bothersome. Compare the xGF% and GF% among some of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards.

Player xGF% (5v5) GF% (5v5)
Kane 44.93 55.63
Toews 47.05 51.67
DeBrincat 46.47 53.66
Strome 43.08 52.43
Saad 47.27 47.06

Of the Hawks’s top-scoring forwards, only Saad’s GF% is lower than his xGF%. When compared to the other top-scoring forwards on the Hawks, Saad’s rates look downright miserable. Every other forward overperformed their expectations last year, whereas Saad did just about what was expected of him by the numbers. And when the expectation isn’t good to start with, meeting that expectation isn’t really great, either.

Even worse, of the 13 non-goalie teammates that Saad played with for more than 100 minutes last year, only three of them (Keith, Seabrook, Jokiharju) had a higher GF% with Saad than without.

I think this is the heart of the angst. Saad never really outperforms what he’s supposed to do in terms of goals. When given the chance to play with guys who do outperform, the stats show that the outperformers do worse with Saad. Though this is only one aspect of his game, it’s a really fucking important one, and comparatively, Saad is lacking.

Saad did many things right last year, but when it comes to the goals-for share, it’s not up to the snuff of other offensive threats. I think that these stats are what manifest the madness about Saad most. What I don’t know is why that is. Is it play style? Motivation? Attitude? It’s hard for me to chalk up his relatively lacking GF% to motivation or attitude, given all the other things he does well. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

It Was the Best of Times: Saad finds a spot on the first line and makes it work with Toews and Kubalik offensively. Saad’s responsible defensive and possession abilities take pressure off Toews, who serves as more of a playmaker for Kubalik’s booming shot. The threat of Toews to Kubalik opens up more ice for Saad (especially if Gustafsson skates with them primarily), and he pots 25 goals and 60 points.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Saad withers away offensively on the third line because David Kampf has never been anything close to a playmaker. The third line gets stuck babysitting Maatta and Seabrook, and because Seabrook, Maatta, and Kampf can do no wrong in Colliton’s eyes, Saad gets crucified for not being everything on both offense and defense. He takes several healthy scratches in favor of Alex Nylander, requests a trade to the Blues, and proceeds to dome the Blackhawks ad infinitum.

Prediction: Saad is going to get crucified by Jeremy Colliton, Pat Foley and Eddie O, and the Brain Trust for being everything but an overperforming goal scorer. We’ll all keep listening to the notes he’s not playing and wishing that possession and shot shares, rather than goals, were what wins games.

Stats from HockeyViz.com, hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Slater Koekkoek

Olli Maatta

Connor Murphy

Drake Caggiula

Ryan Carpenter

Alex DeBrincat

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Alex Nylander

Brendan Perlini

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Alex Nylander

By John Pullega 1934 0

Stan Bowman certainly has a type. He likes ‘em fast. He likes ‘em to have big shots. He likes ‘em to have potential that’s eminently tappable. And StanBo gets what he wants, even if it takes trading a statistically solid 20-year-old defenseman from a team that is seriously going to ice Olli Maatta and Brent Seabrook as its second pairing, anno domini 2019. That’s how we end up with Michael Nylander’s son, aka William Nylander’s brother, staring down a spot on the first line.

Career Stats

19 GP – 3 G, 3 A, 6 P

53.96 CF% (3.5 CF% Rel), 66.9 oZS%

33.33 GF% (1.96 Rel GF%), 43.24 xGF% (-3.79 Rel xGF%)

Avg. TOI 12:20

A Brief History: In the process of prominently displaying my ass over the Alexander Nylander acquisition—or being one of the young go-hards spit roasting Stan Bowman as McClure so eloquently essentialized it—I accidentally did a primer on Nylander. Here’s where we landed on him back in July.

  • He’s not a Top 4 D-man.
  • His AHL stats aren’t great. He had 86 points (30 goals) in 165 games, good for .52 points a game. That’s pretty pedestrian for a supposed offensive dynamo.
  • He’s not particularly good on the defensive side of the puck.
  • He has alleged motivation issues.

We worried about where a guy like Nylander would fit, acerbically wondering whether Mayor Jeremy would try to shove him into a spot on the top line to prove what a monumental genious Stan Bowman was for getting him. And lo, dear reader, that’s precisely what they’re doing.

The calls for Nylander to play with Kane and Toews began almost immediately, based primarily on a first-round pedigree, Nylander’s genetic stock, and the consistent beat writer drumbeat that this year won’t be so bad and that Nylander may have just needed a change of scenery. I’m here to shit in your milkshake. It’s what you come here for.

Nylander has played 19 games in the NHL. Twelve of them came last year, where he saw most of his time with Conor Sheary and Evan Rodrigues, who were, I guess, the second or third line. There weren’t many patterns in his stats there, other than he and his mates were consistently and deeply underwater in both GF% and xGF%.

Now, Buffalo’s offense as a whole did suck, so it’s possible that coming over to the Hawks—who, despite eating glass on defense, are still a strong offensive threat—might goose those numbers. But watching him in the pre-season, where he’s slotted to the left of Toews and Kane, hasn’t really fleshed that out.

Nylander hasn’t looked bad by any stretch. He obviously has decent vision, good speed, and a good shot. But his play away from the puck has tracked fairly in line with what both scouts and Sabres fans (pardon my redundancy) hated most about Nylander. In short, he tends to loaf when he doesn’t have the puck. When he’s not loafing, he’s floating on the perimeter, hanging around the fringes (you’d think that would tug at our heartstrings, but alas).

This isn’t to say that pre-season hockey is representative of, well, anything. But for a former first rounder with a supposed ton of offensive potential who had trouble cracking the Sabres’s roster over the past three years, it’s sort of all we have. It’s not great, it’s not awful. It’s just there. And against what’s primarily been AHL rosters, you’ll pardon us for occupying a David Byrne headspace about that.

It Was the Best of Times: Nylander rewards the organ-I-zation’s belief in the Strome Effect and unearths the offensive monster inside of him. He fills out the Top 6 next to Toews and Kane, scoring 30 goals and potting 80 points. He becomes more engaged away from the puck (e.g., finding seams in the slot, continuing to develop his ability to set picks for Kane), forcing opponents to focus their best defenders on this line and opening up the ice for the DeBrincat–Strome–(heavy sigh) Shaw line. He’s the missing piece of the Hawks’s all-offense, all-the-time strategy.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Nylander does what he’s always done: flatters to deceive. He’s caught scratching his ass when the puck isn’t on his stick, which forces Toews to revert to the defensive side of his skillset, essentially neutering Kane’s playmaking. But the Hawks keep him in the Top 6 for half the year, because Stan Bowman is a trade genious who was in the GM chair for three Stanley Cups, which is definitely not something a cold glass of orange juice could have done with the rosters Uncle Dale served him on a platter.

As the Hawks sink farther into the abyss as the year slogs on, Nylander ends up in the AHL in favor of, like, John Quenneville.

Prediction: Nylander will get every chance to stick on the top line because DAT DYLAN STROME WUZ BAD BEFORE DEY TRADED FERIM MY FRENT. But he’ll end up on the third line with Saad and—fuck I guess Kampf?—because Kubalik is the actual guy who belongs in the Top 6. He’ll be Brendan Perlini II: showing flashes of the potential everyone keeps saying he has that are overwhelmed by lackadaisical off-the-puck and defensive play.

We want him to succeed. We want it to be a just-needed-a-change-of-scenery situation. But Alex Nylander’s career thus far has been a lot of peeing on the seat. It’ll be a Grimey ride.

Stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Slater Koekkoek

Olli Maatta

Connor Murphy

Drake Caggiula

Ryan Carpenter

Alex DeBrincat

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19-’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Patrick Kane

By Adam Hess 1722 0

Patrick Kane is good at hockey. I am not really sure what more we should say about this guy. He’s been the best forward on this team for more than a decade and the best player for a few years, since Duncan Keith‘s mileage caught up to him. But you know all this. I’m not gonna say much in here that will surprise you. Let’s just do it.

2018-19 Stats

81 GP – 44 G – 66 A – 110 P

48.86 CF% (-0.72 CF% Rel) – 64.01 oZS%

44.94 xGF% (-1.32 xGF% Rel)

Avg. TOI: 22:28

A Brief History: In some ways it just about flew under the radar, largely because the Blackhawks had a terrible blue line and a CPR dummy in the crease when Crawford was hurt, but Patrick Kane had the best season of his career in 2018-19. His 110 points were four more than his previous high of 106 in his Hart winning 2015-16 season. Four points doesn’t feel like a lot, but the difference between 106 and 110 is probably a bit more significant than, say, 40 and 44. There is a level of dominance that Kane attained last year that we had previously seen, but it had been three years and we weren’t sure we’d see it again. Then he did it again, in his age-30 season. The guy might be a huge piece of shit, but he’s pretty much undoubtedly the best hockey player you or I will ever see suit up for this team in our lifetimes.

It Was the Best of Times: Realistically, it’s hard to expect Kane to be better than he was last year. Give that he turns 31 this November, I’d say the best case scenario for Kane and the Hawks is that he just plays at that same level again. This team has addressed the blue line (at least on paper) and the crease issues that resulted in his historic 2018-19 being wasted, and it’s reasonable to expect that players like Top Cat and Strome will improve this year and as such take some pressure off Kane. He can give the Hawks 100-ish points, give or take a few, that’s the ideal outcome here.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Being 31 catches up to Kane doesn’t  quickly, and his hands and feet are not even close to as quick as they once were. The vision and feel for the game are still there, because those things will never just go away, but Kane’s body just doesn’t cooperate at the level he’d like and as such the production falls off a bit. This all sounds dramatic, but I don’t think it would happen to the tune of him suddenly becoming a *bad* player, but just that he would be more in the 60-70 point range at season’s end. He did have just 76 points in 82 games in ’17-18, so it’s not like this would be appear as much of a fall-off overall, but that was his second lowest shooting percentage of his career, and the Hawks didn’t have much forward group to help in then. They do now. Anything less than 75 points from Kane this year would be a bad outcome.

Prediction: Kane continues his dominance, and with Cat and Strome taking the step forward that we wanted from Mitchell Trubisky but aren’t getting (I am sensitive about it, okay), his level of production does not fall off very much and finishes the year with 45 goals and 108 points. The Hawks make the playoffs and Kane finishes second in scoring, behind only Connor McDavid of the Oilers who miss the playoffs obviously, so Kane wins another Hart. He wills the Hawks to the playoffs, where they get railroaded in the first round.

Stats from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Erik Gustafsson

Duncan Keith

Slater Koekkoek

Olli Maatta

Connor Murphy

Drake Caggiula

Ryan Carpenter

Alex DeBrincat

David Kampf

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Erik Gustafsson

By John Pullega 1889 0

Sixty points. First-pairing minutes. A league-leading power play from middle December onward. A $1.2 million cap hit. These are some of the statistics that surround Erik Gustafsson. He’s the center of gravity that draws analytics nerds, construction-working meatballs, GMs, coaches, and agents alike to ask, “Just what the fuck are we looking at here?” Is Gus the future bedrock on the backend or is he a bum in a talented man’s clothes?

2018–19 Stats

79 GP – 17 G, 43 A, 60 P

50.24 CF% (2.1 CF% Rel), 60.8 oZS%

53.24 GF% (5.37 Rel GF%), 45.5 xGF% (0.64 Rel xGF% )

Avg. TOI 22:35

FFUD Review of 2018–19 Erik Gustafsson

A Brief History: Erik Gustafsson led all Blackhawks D-men in goals, assists, and points, both at even strength and on the PP. Of Hawks D-men who played at least 41 games (so, minus Jokiharju and Koekkoek), he led in CF% and CF% Rel. Only five D-men in the NHL scored more points than Gustafsson last year. And of course, upon his insertion as the #1 PP unit’s quarterback on December 18, 2018, no team had a higher PP% than the Blackhawks.

No matter how you slice it, Erik Gustafsson was an offensive force last year. You don’t need a map to find that.

But his offensiveness extended to his defense—you know, the very title of his position—because he was a botched graveside burial in his own zone. This is where we need a couple maps to understand just how fucking awful Gus was on the defensive side of the puck.

A3Z tool from Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) and CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

This tool is fairly forgiving to Gus. The offense and own-zone exit ability are on full display. Now, look at the ENTRY DEFENSE section.

The only thing objectively bad about it is his breakups per 60 minutes. What this means is that when opposing skaters go directly at Gus with the puck, more likely than not, he won’t break the entry up. On the plus side, Gus doesn’t allow too many opposing skaters to skate into the zone with possession (i.e., not dumping it in), in terms of both raw possession entries (PossEntriesAllowed60) and the percentage of entries with possession allowed (PossEntry% Allowed).

We can’t say the same about his partner, Duncan Keith. Last year, teams tended to attack Keith on the entry with better success. This means that generally, opponents got into the zone with possession on Keith’s side rather than Gus’s.

Why talk about Keith though? Does that mean that Gus is better on defense than we give him credit for? Are we deflecting by using Keith as a comp? Do you think I’d be doing all this if that were the case, dear reader?

Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

So, we’ve established that Keith is more of a hole in terms of possession entries than Gus. It’s what happens after Gus gets stuck in his own zone that’s the menace.

These two heatmaps compare opponent shot rates with Gus on the ice (left) vs. without Gus on the ice (right). More red means more opponent shots in that area.

Both are really red, because the Blackhawks defense—and I cannot and will not ever stress this enough—is more embarrassing than having your first period in white pants. But it somehow got worse with Gus on the ice.

With Gus on defense, you’re looking at a higher concentration of high-danger shots AND more shots from the top of the circle on the side Gus plays on. Recall too that the only D-man on the ice for more high-danger goals than Gus last year was his partner, Duncan Keith. And though Keith’s heatmaps were bad, they weren’t this bad. (You can guess whose were worst on the team overall.)

In short, last year saw opponents enter the zone on Keith’s side and do a ton of damage on Gus’s side. This is their top pairing. Very good, very conducive to winning.

This is what we’ve been saying about Gus for a while. The offense and creativity are all there, but he’s stagnant ditch water in his own zone. The question is, which side of the coin has more weight?

It Was the Best of Times: Gustafsson pairs with Connor Murphy and continues his incredible offensive output. He vastly outpaces his xGF% just like last year, and the PP ranks in the top five based on Gustafsson’s vision and creativity at the point—both of which are direct results of playing with Patrick Kane more than everyone, just like last year. Murphy cancels out Gustafsson’s complete lack of ability in his own zone, and Gus’s offense far outweighs his poor defense. He scores 55 points. Essentially, the Hawks get Brent Burns lite.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Gus doesn’t spend most of his time with Patrick Kane, and he regresses to the mean. Opponents wait just a second longer to catch Gus on some of his ill-advised own-zone dangles and exploit his John Wayne tendencies. He and Keith continue to get buried in their own zone. The power play flattens out, but this time, it isn’t a result of Patrick Kane running on fumes.

Prediction: Gustafsson is an offensive powerhouse. He continues to outperform his xGF% and doesn’t see an offensive regression. The same power play unit that came to life after Gus became THE GUY continues to run roughshod, finishing in the top 10 on the year. (There’s a concern that it won’t produce, based on how the PP finished last year. I think that’s a valid concern, but I also think that it was more a result of Kane running on fumes than anything.)

There’s one huge caveat to this: Patrick Kane must stay healthy. Kane has the same sort of gap between GF% and xGF% throughout his career that we saw from Gus last year. And Gus’s performance correlates with whether he’s playing with Kane.

  • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his GF% is 57.69. Without Kane, it’s 46.09.
  • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his SCGF% is 56.34. Without, it’s 47.17.
  • Of Gus’s 60 points last year, his breakdown was:
    • 60 total points. 42 of them (70%) came playing with Kane
    • 42 even-strength points. 25 of them (59.5%) came playing with Kane
    • 18 PP points. 17 of them (94%) came playing with Kane

You can see similar performance tracks when Gus plays with Toews, DeBrincat, and Strome in similar situations, but they aren’t quite as extreme. All this is to say that Gus doesn’t carry it by himself. When he plays with top-tier talent, he looks like a top-tier player. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. What’s that worth to you?

So, what the fuck are we looking at with Gus? An outstanding complementary player. A good, creative play maker. Good enough to score 60 points with the right teammates, but not good enough to create by himself. Reliant on a generational talent. A farce in his own zone. Probably most valuable as a trade piece.

In other words, we’re looking at the Blackhawks’s next 6 x $6 million man.

Stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, Corsica.hockey, NHL.com, HockeyViz.com, and the Sznajder–Turtoro A3Z Player Comp Tool

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The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD ’18–19 Player Reviews – Drake Caggiula

By John Pullega 1670 0

Drake Caggiula is a nice player to have in general. He’s a good combination of decent skill, board-crashing puck retrieval, and missing teeth that each and every rockhead broadcaster pollutes his britches over year in and year out. What makes Caggiula even better is that StanBo got him for Brandon Motherfucking Manning. Sane people may argue that the Strome trade was tops on the year, but we all know that this was truly the feather in StanBo’s stupid fucking cap.

Hawks Stats

26 GP, 5 G, 7 A, 12 P

49.71 CF%, 45.48 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

This one’s easy. Drake Caggiula isn’t Brandon Manning. In case you’ve forgotten, Brandon Manning managed to get sent down to the AHL while playing defense on the Edmonton Oilers. There is no better metaphor that can accurately capture how fucking bad he is at his chosen profession. What an asshole.

On top of not being Brandon Manning—the PETA of hockey players—Caggiula looked serviceable if not good in his 26 games here. He spent most of his time on the first line with Daydream Nation and wasn’t a total clusterfuck up there. Granted, if your first line consists of Drake Caggiula, either your coach is an idiot or you suck, but since we know that the latter is certain and the former is a distinct possibility, you live with it. On the first line, he came close to scratching even in possession, and was above board in the relative Corsi share (+1.8). He was the guy doing what everyone wishes John Hayden would do, which is retrieve pucks and set up his more skilled linemates.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

Caggiula is a bonafide bonehead. Two games after spending a month in the dark room with a concussion, ya boy went out and got his skull caved in by Dustin Byfuglien, a man with hardly enough motivation to elbow his way to the front of the buffet anymore. It’s hard to have a consistently positive impact for your hockey team if you’re too concussed to play.

By virtue of being on the first line, Caggiula had plush starts, starting nearly 60% of his time in the offensive zone. This makes those possession and expected goals percentages look pretty shitty. But that’s also a function of playing with Garbage Dick, who tends to make a lot out of very little.

Can I Go Now?

Caggiula is still pretty young (24) and is on a decently cheap contract for next year ($1.5 million cap hit). Having him available to play top line minutes is a plus, but it shouldn’t be what we expect from him going forward. He looks like a much better fit as a puck retriever in the bottom six, but I’m not sure I’d trust him with the kind of defensive responsibilities you’d give to the Kampf line.

If the Hawks are going to stick with Saad on the third line, that could be a safe spot for Caggiula, especially if we’re looking at Caggiula as a center, which seems to be where StanBo and Beto O’Colliton want to slot him. Something like Saad–Caggiula–Sikura/Kahun could make for some decent depth scoring and responsible possession. With no history of defensive responsibility, you’re sort of forced to put him in a role where he can take advantage of softer zone starts. But he’s shown he can handle that in a small sample size last year.

Overall, Caggiula is a fine if not good puck retriever with OK speed and a bit more touch than the average grinder. Certainly better to have that than whatever it was the Brain Trust thought they were getting with Manning.

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Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

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Dominik Kahun

John Hayden

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The Doll’s Trying To Kill Me And The Toaster’s Been Laughing At Me – FFUD’s ’18-’19 Player Reviews: Patrick Kane

By Sam Fels 1719 0

Well this one’s easy. It’s rare that a player gets any sort of Hart Trophy buzz for a team that doesn’t even get all that close to a playoff spot. This year two of them did, and that’s Connor McDavid and Patrick Kane. Which tells you the strata Kane inhabits, and he’s doing it at over 30. 30 isn’t the cut off it used to be, of course, especially not for the truly elite in the league. Crosby, Bergeron, Marchand are all over 30 with Kane, Stamkos is 29 and you wouldn’t expect much of a drop-off there. Still, it’s clear all of them have more help than Kane did. Let’s go through it, though you pretty much know it all by now.

Stats

81 GP – 44 G – 66 A – 110P

48.6 CF% (-0.91 Rel) 43.6 xGF% (-2.18 Rel)

It Comes With A Free Frogurt!

All of it? Kane’s 66 assists, 110 points, 35 even-strength goals, 45 even-strength assists, and 80 even-strength points were all career-highs. His 341 shots were a career-high by a mile, and is probably the biggest transformation in his game. Because his 12.9 shooting-percentage is really only about career-average for him, and not the spiked 16% he put up in the year he did win the Hart. So yeah, stats-wise it was ridiculous. And if you watched this team every or most games, you know there was a period there where Kane was the only reason they were scraping to even just overtime a lot of nights, or getting the full two. And he did it with a variety of linemates, not just permanently out there with a running buddy like Panarin in 2015-2016. Six different forwards racked up at least 200 minutes with Kane at even-strength. That’s two lines’ worth getting between 15-20 games or so with Kane. And while their metrics were all over the board with and without Kane, only DeBrincat saw his goals-for percentage rise be better without Kane than with him (giving you some idea the special player Top Cat is). It was simply the most dominant season Kane has put together, and it came past when most players are supposed to have peaked. Yes, it was an offensive league this year and a lot of players saw a spike, but not like this.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

You really have to stretch to find things for Kane’s season. Kane has never been an exceptional possession player, but he’s never had to be. He’ll always out-shoot what his expected goals are because he’s that talented a scorer and playmaker and basically you have to be a true buffoon to screw up the chances he’s going to provide for you. Still, Kane’s metrics were the worst of his career, and if that trend were to continue and he were to have some kind of cold streak it would get kind of ugly in a hurry. Some of that can be attributed to playing with defensively inept players like Strome or DeBrincat to an extent, or to Toews not really being the two-way dynamo he once was, but Kane’s usage is probably going to have to get more and more sheltered as he gets older. There were some nights where you could tell he clearly couldn’t be bothered in his own end, or all over the ice at some points. But given the mess this team was it was hard to blame him all the time. And he would still put up two or three points.

Kane flagged a bit as the year went on, mostly due to the insane workload he was being asked. Kane averaged more than two minutes per game more this year than last, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. He would get double-shifted on nights when the Hawks were trailing, which was most nights, so not only was he playing more but he was playing more while chasing the game against bunkered in defenses specifically set out to stop him. It was only natural he wouldn’t keep up the pace, and there are a lot of players who would love to close a season with 16 points in 18 games. It just wasn’t the standard he’d set.

I guess the one question to ask is that the two best individual seasons Kane has had, the Hawks haven’t really done shit. When he won the Hart, they were bounced in the first round. He was arguably better this year, and they only waved at a playoff spot as it drove by. That’s not really on him, and speaks more to the limited influence a winger can have. We can point to Ovechkin, but he can only do so much and if Backstrom and Kuznetsov aren’t there, the Caps probably aren’t a playoff team either. Again, this is more on what’s around Kane than him.

Can I Go Now?

No matter how you slice it up, Kane was on the ice for 84 even-strength goals and 67 against, which is 55%. That latter number doesn’t rank all that highly, but that goals-for is best in the league. And there were only four ES goals he was on the ice for that he didn’t either score or assist, which is…well, insane. You feel like Kane could do that offensively again, and if there was an actual defense behind him it could bring the goals-against down and then you’d see some real shit.

You get the feeling that Kane would prefer to just have set linemates for most of the year, but I don’t know if that’s possible. The Hawks need to add a top-six forward, but it’s hard to see who they could add to set everything in stone. They’ve always been hesitant to pair up Daydream Nation for anything longer than a spurt. Kane and Strome together gets far too domed defensively. Toews isn’t the force he was at that end, so putting them together doesn’t solve everything. They would still need a two-way left-winger. Which you would think could be Saad… but there are “issues” there, let’s say. And that would leave what for Top Cat and Strome? Again, none of this is Kane’s fault.

It is unlikely that Kane will put up 110 points again. But it wasn’t likely he’d do it in the first place. If the Hawks get that top-six winger, and improve the defense so that they actually have the puck more often, and with Kane’s now heavy-shooting ways, 100 points is hardly a big ask.

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The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and The Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD’s ’18-19 Player Reviews – Dylan Strome

By Adam Hess 1735 0

As a pretty damn good fantasy sports player (mostly self-proclaime, admittedly) I love a good “Buy Low, Sell High” move. If you’re a beliver in regression, and you should be, nothing can make you look quite as smart as offloading a player who is performing above what you expected and cashing in, especially if you can take advantage of someone looking to offload a player that is underwhelming compare to expectations. It appears Stan Bowman thinks the same way, because there is no better example of a successful Buy Low trade that ended up being a major home run than when Stan acquired Dylan Strome as the headliner return for Nick Schmaltz. Let’s get right to it:

Stats with Hawks

58 GP – 17 G – 34 A

46.18 CF% – 29.2 xGF % [5v5]

It Comes With A Free Frogurt

Despite being hailed as some kind of analytics hero, John Chayka gave up on Strome after a relatively small sample size of NHL experience. A huge part of it may have been that the Coyotes had lofty expectations for Strome after taking him third overall in the same draft as Connor McDavid, but Strome had appeared in just 48 NHL games over portions of three seasons (including this one) in the desert. The production was limited, but it’s not like he was playing with much impressive talent out there either. The Hawks ultimately decided that Schmaltz’ contract demands were just too damn high and that his ceiling of being a 2C might not even be long term, so they gambled on Strome and what is hopefully still a 1C ceiling, though an increasingly unlikely one he will hit.

Strome stepped into a much better situation in Chicago, being able to to slot with Alex DeBrincat, his longtime linemate from their time at OHL Erie, and Patrick Kane. And when the pressure was off his shoulders, Strome thrived. As you can see above, he had 51 points in 58 games, which is damn close to a point per game pace and projects out to a 72 point season if he played all 82. He also contributed well on the PP, with 3 goals and 9 assists coming on the extra man unit. I don’t think anyone ever doubted the vision and skill of Strome, and it’s not like it would be exactly a shock if he busted big time when you look at what his brother did, but the technical ability he had really came to the forefront when he arrived here.

The Frogurt is Also Cursed

That all being said, there are still a few things to be a little concerned about with Strome that could lead to a potential production. falloff. Let’s start with those boldened CF% and xGF% numbers above, which are certainly somewhat alarming. The Hawks weren’t a great team in either category, but Strome still had a -3.2 CF%Rel and and a -3.26 xGF%Rel. I am sure that a huge part of that could be attributed to the defense, because we know the blue line was awful, but the center still bears some responsibility for that. To be that far below team rate is troubling.

I think something that could be playing a big role in that is the well documented skating issues that have followed him (and his entire family, really) throughout much of his career. He’s strong in his lower half, and had good enough size to stand his ground, but he isn’t fast by any stretch of the imagination, and that certainly plays against him in today’s NHL. It also makes him something of a misfit in Coach Cool Youth Pastor’s speed-obsessed man-t0-man system. I tend to believe that his skill will play way above this concern, but if there is one thing that is likely to drag him down and keep him from reaching his potential, it’s that.

Moving forward, Strome gives the Hawks a good amount of comfort in terms of the center depth. Even if he falls off slightly next year, he still could be a 60 point guy, which is perfect for a 2C, and if he steps up the production you could be seeing a full point per game pace and some 1C numbers. Either way, it looks like the Hawks won big with Strome.

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The Doll’s Trying to Kill Me and the Toaster’s Been Laughing at Me – FFUD’s ’18-19 Player Reviews – Alex DeBrincat

By Adam Hess 2094 0

There isn’t much left to say about Alex DeBrincat that we haven’t already said a few hundred times in this space or the podcast. If you’ve missed it, I will catch you up – he’s really damn good. I never ever ever want to forget that the Blackhawks got him with the pick that they acquired from Montreal in exchange for Andrew Shaw, which is the most Montreal shit of all time. After a good rookie season in 2017-18, he followed it up with an elite 2018-19. Let’s dig in:

82 GP – 41 G – 35 A – 76 P

49.68 CF% – 46.47 xGF% (5v5)

It Comes With A Free Frogurt!

DeBrincat quickly cemented himself as the third best forward on the team this season, proving that he doesn’t need to be just Patrick Kane‘s running mate to produce. That’s not to say that he didn’t spend a good amount of time with Kane or didn’t play well when with Kane, but he also spent enough time playing at a high level away from ol’ Garbage Dick to prove that he’s capable of essentially carrying a line’s offense on his own. It certainly helped that he got paired up his OHL running mate back in Dylan Strome not long into the season, but I would argue that Top Cat did more to elevate Strome’s game than the other way around.

One of the most important non-linemate developments for Top Cat this season was his development as a power play assassin. Obviously the improved power play was a huge credit to Jeremy Colliton, and there are very few players who both helped cause that PP boom and benefited from it as Top Cat. He scored 13 of his goals on the PP, and added 11 assists on that unit as well. That equates to nearly one third of his goals, assists, and points coming when on the ice with the extra man, which will certainly help inflate the numbers, but is also just what offensive dynamos like DeBrincat are supposed to do on the powerplay. For context, Nikita Kucherov had 15 of his 41 goals, 33 of his 87 assists, and 48 of his 128 points on the PP, and all of those numbers are more than a third of the total production. So not that anyone was really doing so, but don’t let the heavy amount of PP production make you think his production numbers are any less impressive.

Top Cat is proving to be far and away Stan Bowman’s best draft pick and may even be a large reason that Stan still has a job. Despite being picked 39th overall in the the 2016 draft, Top Cat has the fourth most total points of any player picked in that draft, and has a better PPG at 0.78 than two of the players above him in Patrik Laine and Matthew Tkachuk, who both sit at 0.76. Granted, that’s pretty minimal difference, but it’s still better and I am a homer so we’re counting it as a win. Thanks.

The Frogurt is Also Cursed

Yet again I find myself in a position where trying to find anything negative to say about Top Cat is a bit of a stretch. However, as I thought more about it I realized that there was one thing that kinda bothered me as I thought more about it, though I usually think of it as entertaining and fun. And that is his desire to throw his body around a bit and play a bit of a tough guy when the opportunity is presented.

It’s not that he is a stupid player when it happens – he only took 15 total PIM this year, which is more than fine. But he sometimes works his way into scrums and did get involved in one fight this year, which is one more than I want to see him have. I know hockey has “The Code” and everybody us out there wanting to stick up for their team, but Top Cat should leave that to his less technically gifted and more ham-brained teammates. It’s not a major issue, and usually in the moment I find it cool, but I quickly switch to dread over the thought of him getting some bullshit injury from off a cheapshot from some dipshit in a scrum. Let’s just avoid the possibility all together, okay?

Anyway, Top Cat is great and I love him. Pay the man.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

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Henri Jokiharju

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Carl Dahlstrom

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