Everything Else

Exit Interviews: Nick Leddy and Johnny Oduya

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Let’s go for a twofer today, and ramp up the importance. It’s one thing to go through your bottom pairing platoon, who in the end you’d rather just not notice. But these guys matter, and may matter in other ways this offseason. So let’s do it.

Nick Leddy

Regular Season: 82 games, 7 goals, 24 assists, 31 points, +10, -0.02 Behind The Net, 14.86 Corsi/60 (+3.4 Corsi Relative/60)

Playoffs: 18 games, 1 goal, 4 assists, 5 points, -3, -1.66 Behind The Net, 3.39 Corsi/60 (+8.3 Corsi Relative/60)

What We Liked: It’s a well known fact at this point that me and Jen LC have a huge Leddy crush. Those numbers in the regular season came with three rotating partners (rotating pies!) all season. Though they also came with pretty heavily tilted zone starts, as Leds started 63% of his shifts in the offensive zone. But for most of the year, Leddy was a possession driver, a one-man trap-buster who really started to feel his oats in the middle of the year by pushing with his wheels up the ice. Outside of Kane doing Kane things, there are few more exciting moments watching the Hawks than when Leddy kicks it into gear through the zone. His four power play goals were more than Keith’s, even though Leddy ran the second unit and got less time despite being the superior PP QB. Oh, and that goal in Game 2 against LA… it portends to so much.

Everything Else

Exit Interviews: Michal Rozsival

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Rolling right along into the bottom pairing. Oh, I’ve ignored David Rundblad because he played like three games so who knows? And Michael Kostka isn’t here anymore.

Regular Season: 42 games, 1 goal, 7 assists, 8 points, +7, -0.53 Behind The Net, 17.83 Corsi/60 (+3.4 Corsi Relative)

Playoffs: 17 games, 1 goal, 5 assists, 6 points, -2, -0.32 Behind The Net, 5.62 Corsi/60 (+11.9 Corsi Relative)

What We Liked: You know what’s funny? Before we get too deep into the players, it’s odd what a small Corsi number in the playoffs ends up being a plus number in the relative category. It shows you just how much the Hawks struggled in the playoffs and maybe were a bit fortunate to get where they were. Anywho…

Everything Else

Exit Interviews: Sheldon Brookbank

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Regular Season: 48 games, 2 goals, 5 assists, 7 points, +2, -0.16 Behind The Net, 3.28 Corsi/60 (-10.1 Corsi Relative). 

Quick note for those somewhat new here. Behind The Net Rating is the difference in the team’s goals-for and goals-against for every 60 minutes the player in on the ice versus every 60 he’s off.  Corsi Relative is the player’s Corsi number relative to the team’s overall rate. 

Playoffs: 7 games, 2 assists, 2 points, +3, o.21 Behind The Net Rating, -4.98 Corsi (-7.5 Corsi Relative)

What We Liked: When talking about your 6-7 d-man, it’s not so much what you liked as what you didn’t hate.  And for the most part, Brookbank didn’t provide much to hate. In a lot of ways and for a lot of the season he was more effective than Rozsvial, though he didn’t play as regularly and was perhaps as screwed as anyone by the insistence on eight defensemen for reasons we’ve yet to hear. Brookbank was solid enough. He wasn’t fast but didn’t get chased down as much as he did the year before. His work with the puck, especially in the playoffs, was far more assured. His play during Seabrook’s suspension in the first round was a real surprise when we were hiding behind the couch. Didn’t do anything spectacular or even great, but considering what he is I didn’t think there was anything that bad.

Everything Else

Exit Interviews: The Goalies

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It’s time for a season review, and as we have a lot of time to kill between now and the draft, we might as well comb the whole roster. Normally, we would do this one player at a time and we will, but it’s easier to knock out the goalies together. So let’s get to it, shall we?

Corey Crawford 

Regular Season Stats – 32-16-10, 2.26 GAA, .917 SV%

Playoffs – 11-8, 2.53 GAA, .912 SV%

What We Liked: Basically, everything that happened in 2014. Once Crow came back from his groin injury on January 2nd, he was exemplary. From that date until the end of the regular season, Crow’s numbers were a 2.06 GAA and a .920 SV% in 32 games. And while Toews and Kane got more of the spotlight for OT or game-winning goals, the Hawks do not get out of either the first or second round without Crow. His performances in wins in Games 3, 5, and 6 against St. Louis and Games 5 and 6 against Minnesota were just about as good as anything he put up in 2013 if not better. And at least there wasn’t as much talk about his fucking glove-hand this time around. Anyone who truly complains about Crawford has basically marked themselves out as a moron.