San Jose Sharks – Page 4 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks Q&A: A Creature Of The Night

By Sam Fels March 3, 2019 1550 0

You know those people that you only see at punk shows? Like you never run into them at the store or on the street? You don’t know where they come from? That’s @ItWasThreeZero. He’s our Sharks guy.

Did the Sharks err by not getting a goalie at the deadline? Martin Jones‘s playoff record is stout but this regular season has been awfully bad…

There’s no question that goaltending has been the Sharks’ Achilles heel this season. Frankly it defies logic that the Sharks have the fourth-best record in the league while ranking dead last in both overall and 5v5 SV%. In fairness to Martin Jones (and Aaron Dell), the team adopted a high-risk, high-reward style of play this season that would deflate any goalie’s numbers. System changes alone don’t explain or justify both goalies sporting sub-.900 save percentages in March though. I think the hope, both organizationally and among the fanbase, is that Jones’ playoff numbers will more closely resemble his career average of .912. That’s probably why we didn’t see them make a move at the deadline despite rumors of interest in Ryan Miller. It’s easy to envision how this team, with its elite offense, possession numbers and special teams, could make a Cup run if the goaltending can be anything close to average. But it’s hard to have any confidence in Jones pulling that off at this point.

Did you like the pickups of Nyquist?

Despite having the league’s third-best offense, the Sharks don’t have a Nikita Kucherov or Johnny Gaudreau or even a Mark Scheifele or Filip Forsberg-calibre player up front. In order to have a chance at beating the teams that do have elite forward talent they need to continue to score by committee (led, of course, by huge contributions from Burns and Karlsson on the back end). The addition of Nyquist allows the Sharks to roll out a top nine that features six players on pace for 60 or more points this season plus two others scoring at a 50-point pace. Throw in double digit goal scorers Marcus Sorensen and Melker Karlsson on the fourth line and you have arguably the best forward depth in the league that the addition of Nyquist makes even deeper.

Brent Burns is on track to blow past the 76 points that got him a Norris two years ago. Should he be in contention to get another one?

To the extent that the Norris Trophy just goes to whichever defenseman puts up the most points these days, sure. If we’re talking about whether Burns has been the best overall defenseman in the NHL this year, it’s hard to make that argument. He starts over 70% of his 5v5 shifts in the offensive zone, usually against opposing second and third lines. That’s not a knock on Burns at all – the luxury of having both Karlsson and Burns on the same blueline has allowed Peter DeBoer to deploy him in the kind of specialized offensive role he’s always been best suited for and the results speak for themselves. Burns has unquestionably been a huge part of the Sharks’ success this season but he hasn’t quite had the same all-around impact as defensemen like Mark Giordano or Morgan Rielly who aren’t far behind Burns in terms of production either.

It looks like the Sharks path is going to have to go through Vegas and Calgary to even get to Winnipeg or Nashville. Is that just too daunting for a pretty old team?

It’s a brutal road and underscores the importance of winning the Pacific Division to avoid that 2 vs. 3 matchup, a feat that may be out of the Sharks’ grasp at this point depending on the health of Erik Karlsson. This is, at least on paper, the best roster in franchise history though. And while the Sharks’ average age might be a little high, key players like Karlsson, Hertl, Kane, Couture and Meier are at least theoretically still in their respective primes and it’s not like age has slowed Burns or Pavelski down significantly either. They should be good enough to beat Vegas and Calgary if they can get anything resembling average goaltending. If last year’s Capitals can win the Cup after running the gauntlet of Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay there’s no reason this Sharks roster can’t pull off a similar achievement.

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Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks Douchebag Du Jour: Michael Haley, Pete DeBoer, And Putting Truck Nuts On Your Porsche

By Sam Fels March 3, 2019 1972 0

You probably missed it last week. It wasn’t a transaction to move the needle. But for some reason, the Sharks brought back Michael Haley off of waivers from Florida. Getting waved by the Panthers should tell you all you need to know, especially given how Dale Tallon likes himself a muttonhead.

And make no mistake, Haley is drain-clog. He amassed 200 penalty minutes last year in Sunrise, which did so much protecting of their stars they missed the playoffs again. He can’t do anything but spit and yell, and occasionally fight when someone is dumb enough to engage him. He is an old-style goon, and one the Sharks have no need of.

And yet claim him they did, because Pete DeBoer–who aside from Martin Jones might be the biggest impediment to the Sharks winning a Cup–thinks he needs this. Who on this roster is he protecting? Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski aren’t shrinking violets. Timo Meier is a pest himself and was doing just fine. Erik Karlsson is hurt anyway, and you never bring in a bouncer for a d-man anyway.

Haley and his dumb haircut and even dumber attitude will be relegated to the pressbox when the real games start, but it’s a mystery why the Sharks though they needed this in games that are supposedly important if they were going to catch the Flames. Haley’s presence hasn’t stopped the Sharks from getting thwacked in three of the four games he’s dressed for, so that’s going well.

Maybe it’s not the goalies the Sharks need to change before the playoffs…

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Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks: I Make A Lot Of Graphs

By Sam Fels March 3, 2019 1099 0

Still working on it. Data here:

Team	GF_60	GA_60	GF%	xGF_60	xGA_60	xGF%	SF_60	SA_60	SF%	CF_60	CA_60	CF%
CHI	2.74	3.12	46.76%	2.28	2.91	43.93%	31.04	34.79	47.15%	55.37	59.87	48.05%
S.J	2.97	2.78	51.65%	2.79	2.34	54.39%	32.93	26.88	55.06%	63.57	50.87	55.55%

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Game #66 – Hawks vs. Sharks: Lineups & How Teams Were Built

By Sam Fels March 3, 2019 1317 0

Notes: Please, for the love of God, shoot Gustav Forsling into the sun….Ward will get the start. Last time he saw the Sharks it did not go so well…If the Hawks aren’t going to get goals from their loaded top line, they’re going to lose…Perlini can’t do anything but be fast and shoot, but that should be enough, right?…Colliton was shuffling all over the place yesterday, had great effect as you could tell…

Notes: Couple injuries to note. Karlsson definitely won’t play and very well might be put in cotton wool until the playoffs. Evander Kane missed the last game and is questionable, but they don’t need him for this, do they?…Vlasic’s metrics are ugly but he’s doing all of the dirty work to keep Burns in the offensive end and against bums…Pavelski has 11 points in his last eight games…Hertil has only scored one in his last eight…

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Your Delayed Trade Deadline Review

By Sam Fels February 28, 2019 1734 0

Due to the Hawks’ schedule and personal, I haven’t gotten around to summing up what went on during the trade deadline. So we’ll get to it now. The trade deadline is always a weird portion of the schedule, especially when your team (rightly) sits it out altogether. There are only a few teams that should participate, but yet too many can’t help themselves. So we’ll just go through this team-by-team of those who are trying to make noise in the spring. As for the sellers, we honestly won’t know how they did until the picks are made and the prospects come up.

East

Boston – Boston’s problem is obvious to everyone. It’s that they suck when Patrice Bergeron is not on the ice. They haven’t had anyone top play with David Krejci in like three years. And yet, Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson aren’t it. These are third-line players, not second-line ones. Charlie Coyle spent what seemed like a decade tantalizing Wild fans with what he could be, but he remained a player where the idea of him is far greater than the reality. The only thing I remember him doing there is getting his face in the way of Duncan Keith‘s stick. Maybe he’s a winger, maybe he’s a center, but no one seems to know, including Coyle. Johansson is a great checking line player, which is probably a good thing to have when the first thing you’re going to see in the playoffs is the arsenal in blue, but you’ll also need to score a bit. And here’s a secret no one wants to mention…the Bruins’ blue line isn’t any good. Charlie McAvoy is always pointed the wrong way and Torrey Krug has always been a glorified Erik Gustafsson. Sure, it’s maybe enough to get past the Leafs again simply of the voodoo sign they hold over them. But it’s not enough to not get flattened by Tampa. So really, what was the point of all this?

Toronto – They made their move early, which was Jake Muzzin. And he’s fine. He’s mostly a product of playing with Drew Doughty, but he’s better than what they had. The Leafs will go as far as they score…until Freddy Andersen turns into cold urine again when it counts. Their ceiling is also being turned into goo by Tampa.

Pittsburgh – How do you top signing Jack Johnson to an actual free agent contract? You trade for Erik Gudbranson, who is Canadian Jack Johnson. They’re gonna miss the playoffs on the back of these two, and the comparisons to the Hawks will only get stronger.

Carolina – Again, they moved early, which was to get Nino Neiderreiter, who has only been a perfect Hurricane his entire career. Underrated, fast, skilled forward who is just short of top-line material. The league office should have engineered his move there like years ago just to have everything in its right place. His 15 points in 17 games prove this. I don’t know how much longer they’ll get goaltending from Curtis McElhinney, but this team can absolutely come out of the division if their metrics carry over and the goalie doesn’t keel over. In some ways the worst team they could play in the first round is the Islanders, who shrink everything down to a bounce or two. They’re going to take Columbus’s run that they so desperately need.

Columbus – The one worth talking about. I don’t really know what the Jackets’ place in Columbus is really like. They’ve never been whispered to be in trouble, they seem to sell enough tickets, and they’re the only professional game in town. So when they say they need to have a run for the fanbase, I wonder. Then again, they’ve never had one, so at some point you have to before you become the Cubs without any of the story or ballpark. And yet I kind of can’t wait for it to blow up.

Panarin and Bobrovsky have already checked out, though the former at least seems interested enough to keep his dollars up from the Panthers. Bob has been a shithead all season, and he just got lit up by the Penguins in a game the Jackets really needed. Doesn’t exactly bode well for the spring. Matt Duchene has benefitted his entire career from being on teams where someone has to do the scoring. You can have him. Ryan Dzingel is Ryan Hartman 2.0. They’re fine if you’re counting on them for depth, and if Panarin, Atkinson, Dubois, Anderson do most of the lifting, that’s what they’ll be. But does it matter if your goalie put up an .896 in the first round?

West

Nashville – I hate the Mikael Granlund move, because it’s a good one and I have a strong distaste for the Preds. Granlund wasn’t quite up to being the guy in St. Paul, especially when Koivu and Parise started putting tennis balls on the bottom of their skates. He doesn’t really have to be in Nashville where Filip Forsberg lives, though someone is going to have to pick up the ball when Ryan Johansen is stuck at the pregame spread during Game 5. Wayne Simmonds remains one of the dumber players in the league and now he’s slow and old, and he’ll take a wonderfully selfish penalty against the Jets at some point that will cost them a game. It doesn’t fix what their problems are enough.

Winnipeg – Something is in the water (or ice) in Manitoba, where the Jets can’t get right. It’s nothing that Connor Hellebuyck returning to form won’t fix, but without a fully functional Dustin Byfuglien they do lack a puck-mover (and even he’s iffy). It’s not Trouba’s or Morrissey’s game, and Tyler Myers is only one in his own head. This was something of their problem against Vegas last year, they couldn’t escape that forecheck at times. That still seems to be a problem, but it probably won’t keep them from winning the division and I don’t see either Nashville or St. Louis going in there and winning twice to move on.

Vegas – You’re going to pay Mark Stone $9.5M, huh? Mark Stone, who is about to cross 30 goals for the first time in his career when everyone is doing so? It’s amazing that George McPhee only needed two years to chew up a completely blank salary cap structure, but here we are. The Knights are still fast and annoying, but it matters less when MAF isn’t putting up a .930 to cover for a defense that just isn’t that good. Even with their goalie problems, the Sharks are putting this down in no more than six games and next year the Knights are going to start to slink to the land of wind and ghosts.

San Jose – Gustav Nyquist doesn’t play goalie. So that’s weird. Maybe Doug Wilson was worried about poisoning Martin Jones‘s stay beyond this year if he were to demote him by trading for a goalie. But the Sharks are all in on this year and this year only. Joe Thornton is going to retire. We don’t know if Erik Karlsson is staying, and he if he goes they’re just a fine team instead of a really good one. All this team needs is someone who doesn’t light his face on fire in net and they would basically waylay everyone in the West. And I’m on record as saying Jones comes alive in the playoffs, but I have nothing to lose if he doesn’t. The Sharks have everything to lose. And if the Sharks pull this off, we’ll get a flood of idiots saying you don’t need a goalie to win the Cup, a myth which the 2010 Hawks drilled into everyone’s head for far too many years (even when they won two more on the back of Crawford).

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Because Something Is Happening Here But You Don’t Know What It Is, Do You, Mr. Jones?

By Sam Fels February 19, 2019 1873 0

You miss most of their games because they’re on late. You might have seen on Twitter this morning that we got awfully close to a Joe Thornton cock-trick last night. He had a hat trick and there was an overtime to add to it, and hockey twitter waited with anticipation you could cut and serve as a side dish.

You’ll also notice they lost in overtime on a night they gave up just 20 shots. And this is the problem for the San Jose Sharks.

The Sharks are the best team in the Western Conference. By any measure, it’s not even all that close. Whatever metric you want, the Sharks are top-five in and most likely top-three. They limit attempts, shots, and chances while creating a fuckload of their own. They roll teams most mights. The Sharks recently had a stretch of six games where they were below water in possession. Shockingly, Erik Karlsson missed all of those games. They also won all of them.

But the one thing the Sharks can’t get is a save. They’re last in the league in even-strength save-percentage, and the only team below .900 in the category. Overall in every situation, they’re second-worst behind only Florida. Even just league-median goaltending of .902 overall would have seen the Sharks give up 20 less goals. That’s about six points in the standings or so, which would have them well clear of the Flames in the Pacific (though still 10 points behind the Lightning, who aren’t even playing the same sport right now).

And the Sharks have six days to decide what they’re going to do about it.

There are some parallels to last year’s champs. Martin Jones’s collapse, much like Braden Holtby’s last year during the regular season, came out of nowhere. Jones has been as solid as you could ask in San Jose, with a .915 over three seasons. At 29, he certainly wasn’t poised for a dive over the cliff due to age. And it’s not workload either, as Jones is seeing less shots per game this season than he was last year (28.3 vs. 27.8). And the types of chances Jones is seeing are just about the same, as the differences in scoring-chances per hour and high-danger ones that the Sharks are surrendering are negligible.

Now, I’ve already been on record that Jones will pull a Holtby, and follow up a subpar regular season with a playoff rescue act and everyone will quickly forget that he was so bad during the 82. Jones has been more than reliable in the playoffs with the Sharks, sporting a .926 across three forays, including a .923 during their run to the Final in 2016. If the Sharks want to count on that, there’s evidence. And the Sharks, given what they’ve been doing, really only need average goaltending to beat most anyone. Their first round is likely to see them beat up on any of the remedial class in the West (assuming they can beat the Flames out for the division). Even finishing second will see them find Vegas who have been woeful of late and Marc-Andre Fleury is doing the humpty-hump in net.

A second round dance with the Flames is unlikely to see the Sharks get goalie’d either, as Mike Smith will be Neymar’ing everywhere or David Rittich will be seeing all of this for the first time. Stranger things have happened of course, but you wouldn’t bet on it.

It’s beyond that where the problems lie. Connor Hellebuyck or Pekka Rinne are both capable of going Iron Curtain for a series, and in the Final you’re most likely trying to keep the Lightning’s Punisher collection of weapons at bay. Can’t do that with even average goaltending, you wouldn’t think.

But if you’re the Sharks, everything is on this year. Conference final isn’t good enough. Neither is just a Final appearance. You’re here to do the damn thing. This is Joe Thornton’s last year, most likely. Erik Karlsson doesn’t seem guaranteed beyond this spring. Everyone else who matters is over 30. This is the one. So what do you do, hotshot?

The answers on at the deadline aren’t plentiful. Jimmy Howard out of Detroit can be serviceable, and behind a much worse team. But his last attempt at the playoffs was three years ago and it saw him get clocked so heavily he was pulled as starter. He hasn’t had a decent playoff run since 2013 when he nearly helped pull the wool over the Hawks’ eyes, and only a Seabrook speculative off of Kronwall’s stick kept him from doing so. He’s far from guaranteed.

Maybe you see if Luongo has one more run left in him before he hits the beach for good? But he’s been ouchy and bad all season, and if one of those goes TWANG! again you’d be back to Jones anyway. Jonathan Quick is signed for a million more years. Craig Anderson is also old. There isn’t much else to find.

But that’s ok, the Sharks’ entire legacy is only riding on this…

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Game #35 – Sharks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Big E

By Sam Fels December 16, 2018 1434 0

There are very few players whose switching of conferences can change the entire outlook of one. So when one of those actually does switch conferences, and he doesn’t light up the world and then tear a hole in it that he fills with peanut butter cups, most are inclined to tell you he’s a disappointment. Erik Karlsson is one of those players of the three or four there are. And most think he’s having a down season. In some ways, he’s actually having his best.

Yes, there are only two goals. Yes, none of them are at even-strength. His points-per-game are his lowest in about seven years. We get all that. And yet on the most talented team he’s ever played on (it’s not even close), Karlsson has the best relative stats of his career.

Karlsson’ +7.07% Corsi-relative is the second highest mark of his career, only bested by his ’15-’16 when he should have been racking up a third Norris instead of having Kings fans wet their bed so much they nearly solved the California drought problem to get Drew Doughty his. His relative-xGF% of +8.91 blows anything else he’s done in his career out of the water. When Karlsson is on the ice, the Sharks are getting far more good scoring chances than the other team, they just haven’t buried as many of them.

There are caveats. Because the Sharks, unlike the Senators at any time, have other good d-men (including a Team Canada worthy ones in Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Brent Burns), Karlsson doesn’t have to do everything for them. So he’s starting nearly 60% of his shifts in the offensive zone, also a career-high. And his quality of competition has dipped a little, as the really hard stuff is left for Vlasic and Justin Braun. They always did the mine-sweeping for Burns, and now they’re doing it for Karlsson as well. That said, you can’t ask more of Karlsson than to simply turn the opponent into a pot pie with that, and Karlsson is doing so.

Karlsson’s lack of goals is curious, as this is the second straight season his shooting-percentage has dipped. He shot 4.6% last year and this year it’s 1.9%. That seems ridiculously low. Even stranger is that Karlsson is getting more shots than he has in four seasons, over three per game. You can expect a binge somewhere around here that will make his points-total look a little more like we’re accustomed to seeing.

Which leads directly to questions about Karlsson’s future. It could already be sorted, of course, as the Sharks aren’t allowed to sign Karlsson to an extension until the new year. Perhaps they have a handshake agreement already. If they don’t, it gets a little tricky. The Sharks have something around $28M in space for next year, which seems enough. But Joe Pavelski is a free agent. So is Joe Thornton. Joonas Donskoi will also be a UFA, and Timo Meier–fresh off what looks to be a career season–is going to be RFA.

The Sharks may be secretly hoping Thornton retires, and maybe a Cup win assures that. Without him, it could still be a trick, as even at Pavelski’s age he’s due a raise from $6M a year. Meier’s raise will be huge. Donskoi’s slightly less. And then you figure Karlsson is looking at Doughty money of $11M or $12M a year. It can be done, but it’s going to be a squeeze.

If there’s a bidding war for EK, it’s hard to figure what kind of years will be acceptable. He will be 29 when he hits the market. His skating doesn’t figure to deteriorate at a rate that will make him a problem for a while, because it’s so far above the mean. But how much can he lose before he can’t dominate? Another team can’t ask him to do everything, but not every team comes with a Vlasic to keep him shielded either. He’s going to want the boat of seven years, but like anything else the last three years of such a deal would be ugly.

Then again, no one else does what he can do.

Could the Hawks swing it? Maybe, though convincing him to come to a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in two seasons will take quite the presentation. They could ask Keith and Murphy to simply be the human shield, but neither has proven at this point in time they can handle that level of competition. Could Jokiharju and Murphy do it? The Hawks will have what they hope is Baby Karlsson in Adam Boqvist, so who better to show him the way?

If the Hawks are looking for a quick turnaround though, he makes that far more possible than Artemi Panarin. Maybe you just do it and figure out the rest later.

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Game #35 – Sharks vs. Hawks Q&A: Bus Station Resident

By Sam Fels December 16, 2018 1434 0

@ItWasThreeZero followed us home one day. We fed him at the back door of the building. He won’t leave us alone. We figure we can at least use him to get Sharks info.

Three points behind the Flames isn’t where the Sharks were supposed to be. Everything metrically looks great, so is their lack of taking off simply down to Martin Jones?

A lot of it is. It’s hard to win games when your starting goalie is throwing up a sub-.900 SV% for the majority of the season. That said the Sharks are also top third in the league at yielding high-danger scoring chances so they haven’t been doing Jones or Aaron Dell many favors. The team adopted a higher-risk, higher-reward style of play in the middle of last season in response to Vegas’ success and while it’s made them infinitely more bearable to watch than the previous iteration of Peter DeBoer hockey, it’s also resulted in giving up quite a few more five-alarm chances. Still, it’s not unreasonable to expect Jones to at least be within striking distance of league average and once he starts trending in that direction the Sharks theoretically have the offense, possession numbers and penalty killing to run away with the division.

Is it really worth complaining about Erik Karlsson, as some have done, when he’s got 21 points and appears to be driving the play as he always has?

Nah. Karlsson has clearly been the team’s best overall player to anyone watching the games and controls the pace of play every time he’s on the ice. What is concerning is that, over a third of the way through the season, the coaching staff still hasn’t quite figured out how to use him. They’ve paired Karlsson with Brenden Dillon at even strength despite how dominant the pairing of Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic was to start the season. They haven’t figured out how to best combine Karlsson and Brent Burns’ talents on a single power play unit, often having Kevin Labanc quarterback the struggling man advantage instead. Then they turn around and throw arguably the two most offensively dynamic defensemen in the league out there together in bizarre situations, like on the penalty kill or a defensive zone faceoff. I don’t think the Sharks are a serious Cup contender until the coaches can figure out how to get the most out of Karlsson.

Meanwhile, Joe Thornton is average a near career-low in points per game. Just getting that old? Reason to worry?

2018-19 is in all likelihood the Joe Thornton Farewell Tour so by those standards he’s been surprisingly effective. It helps that the Sharks haven’t really needed him to be more than a third-line center and occasional contributor on the power play and he’s played both of those roles admirably. Really the only goal with him is ensuring he’s healthy for the playoffs after missing the majority of the last two postseasons due to knee injuries.

What’s up with Timo Meier‘s breakout?

Meier has always put up an insane shot rate going back to junior hockey and has taken that strategy to a new level this season. He’s currently third in the league in unblocked shots per minute at even strength, and with those shots going in at nearly twice the rate that they did last season it’s not surprising that he’s on pace for 50 goals. I don’t expect him to maintain that shooting percentage but based on the shot rate alone, and more importantly the types of chances he’s getting, Meier is going to blow away his previous career high of 21 goals and should easily clear the 35-goal mark as well. The biggest key is probably that his line with Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl has the size and cycling ability to get Meier those chances in front of the net that are his bread and butter but they also have the speed and passing to create chances off the rush that Meier really didn’t generate much of last season.

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Game #35 – Sharks vs. Hawks Douchebag Du Jour: Evander Kane, Please Report To The Nearest Dumpster To Be Deposited In

By Sam Fels December 16, 2018 1713 0

It’s bad enough that we all know that Evander Kane is a piece of shit. He’s been sued/investigated/charged for all sorts of actions against women, whether it’s assault or being grabby or suits over supposed agreements to pay for abortions that he didn’t fulfill. There are enough of them around, however they’ve ended up, to make it pretty clear that he’s someone we could all do without.

But there are enough of them around in the league, and there hasn’t been anything yet that would be grounds to throw him out of hockey, no matter how good it might feel. What there also isn’t are grounds to actively use him to do NHL promotion.

Kane appears in an ad for NHL Network, though you’ll only find it on the NHL Center Ice package when they don’t show local ads. Still, the NHL has no business being anywhere near Kane, and yet they can’t help themselves. This seems to be a hockey thing, where not only does the NHL duck and hide when it comes to dealing with these sort of issues, but they’re in a huge rush to try and rehabilitate any player’s image if they’re in any way a star. Whether Kane is would be debatable, but we know they did this with the other Kane as well. They’re more concerned with either ignoring these things totally or jump-starting a rehabilitation of one’s image. But never of their personality.

It’s not asking much of a league that when a player has a cloud as big and stormy over him for years, that Evander Kane does, he’s merely an employee and not a poster boy. That would seem to be the bare minimum any fan who cares about this stuff would ask of the NHL. It sends a horrific message to a huge portion of hockey fandom. And yet the NHL constant fails this easy, step-over-able hurdle every goddamn time.

Maybe Kane’s next crime/indiscretion/mistake will get the NHL to finally do something about it. But they’ll have a hand in why he hasn’t learned anything from all the previous ones, whatever they may be.

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