Everything Else

The Folly Of Transparecy

By Sam Fels 2486 0

Friend of the program Jay Zawaski had some thoughts on Tuesday. This is a subject we discussed a lot last year, what was the Hawks real intent on the season versus what they told everyone it was and why there was a difference. Jay’s not wrong about anything he says here, and it is a nice thought he wishes for where the Hawks were completely transparent about what their plans are going forward.

But the more I think about it, what do they have to gain?

Quite simply, the Hawks are not going to sell more tickets if they tell everyone that they’re in the process of turning over the team to their younger players. I don’t know that they’d sell less, but their position in the Chicago sports landscape isn’t so secure that they would feel they can risk it. While telling us exactly what “The Plan” is would make us all feel better, our mental state isn’t of real importance to them. The Hawks quite simply can’t take the risk of telling their only casual fans that this season might not matter. And that’s assuming there is “a plan.”

Secondly, the Hawks can’t really send that message to Keith, to Seabrook, to Kane, to Toews, and maybe even especially to Crawford. While the organization might be looking at the days already where they’re no longer the main contributors, considering they’re the guys who pulled this organization out of the seventh level of hell they’re owed a certain amount of promises from the front office. You can’t really tell these guys that they’re going to spend the next season or two or three playing games that aren’t going to matter. Maybe they know it already, maybe they don’t, but you certainly can’t give them that message in public. And considering whatever Crawford is working his way back from (and right now “working” is just a claim), it would be truly unfair to have him bust his ass to come back to backstop a team his bosses just told everyone isn’t really relevant.

These guys are made, and I think the only way the Hawks could even consider it would be to meet with them privately and say this is where we want to go, and you have the option of being a part of it or not. These guys all have full NMCs and I doubt any of them are interested in moving, but they also might not want to have another playoff-less season or two.

At the same time, the Hawks simply can’t move them, because of the aforementioned fragility of their place in the market. Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, and Crawford are still the players most fans can identify only and buy the tickets to see. You and I might go to see Top Cat’s or Schmaltz’s (or hopefully Jokiharju’s) development (because we’re sick and our lives our empty), but the guy or girl you work with doesn’t. Even if we passed through some undiscovered wormhole into a world where the Hawks could and would do a full tear-down, McDonough and Rocky are not going to stomach a season or two of a half-empty building. Not after all the back-slapping they’ve done with each other by taking the Hawks out of that by simply standing there while the roster that was already in place took shape.

However, the Hawks “rebuild” plan is flawed. You “rebuild, ” whether fully or on the fly, if you have players to build the future around. The Hawks don’t. Nick Schmaltz maxes out as a great #2 center. Maybe DeBrincat is a genuine top line scorer, and maybe he’s something of a tweener from a #1 or #2 LW. He could be any iteration of Phil Kessel, really. There’s no top-pairing d-man anywhere near ready. If you’re building a team around #2 centers and maybe 1st-line wingers, congratulations you’re the St. Louis Blues or the Minnesota Wild. And you know where that road goes and it’s nowhere pretty.

Which brings me to Erik Karlsson. If you’re a team that’s called about Justin Faulk, then you’d obviously call about Erik Karlsson because Erik Karlsson is the absolute idealized version of Justin Faulk. Sure, the Hawks would have to clear out Hossa’s contract to fit him in for this season, and then need more salary cap rises to accommodate him for the next contract he’s going to sign. But based on what’s been rumored to be the return from the Stars or Lightning, the Hawks could probably match it.

So if they’re not rebuilding, and they say they aren’t, and they’re after Justin Faulk, why aren’t they calling? Why aren’t they at least saying they’re calling? Karlsson is the quickest route to maximizing whatever you have left in “the core.” If you’re stated aim of competing every season is your actual aim, and we don’t know that it is, you’d be in on this. You would have been in on Tavares too, but the Hawks didn’t even get in the room.

McClure has a theory that the Hawks would never take on any player that would have to be paid more than Toews and Kane (which is funny in itself, because Keith has been the most important player throughout this run but that’s another discussion). Karlsson doesn’t make that yet but obviously will. I wonder if that’s the case and whether that really matters to either if they’re staring at finishing out their careers playing on middling teams.

Given what’s already on the roster, the Hawks simply can’t be bad enough to draft high enough to get a true difference maker without a shit-ton of luck either in the lottery or by getting a player of that quality in the spots they don’t generally come from. So why are those picks so important? And if everyone’s job is on the line like they claim, wouldn’t you be after the one player that basically assures everyone keeps their job? Karlsson takes this dreck and at worst it’s a playoff team with a healthy Crawford (and maybe even not). That would at least see Quenneville finish the season and Stan get to see out whatever his plan is.

But again, there’s no impetus for them to tell us. The sweaty hand-clappers and their ugly fucking kids will still be at the Convention happily sopping up whatever tripe they’re fed. There won’t be much scrutiny from a press corps that has the Cubs and Bears training camp a mere two weeks away. Quite simply, the Hawks won’t tell us what they’re doing because they don’t have to.

Everything Else

The Murky State Of Urgency

By Sam Fels 2843 0

Just like yesterday, one should hesitate in putting too much into anything right now before we see the entire scope of what the Hawks do this summer. So just know I reserve the right to toss this out in a week, a month, whenever. And the problem for the Hawks is what they seem to be attempting is nearly impossible.

While the Hawks make all the noise the past two summers about seismic changes and alarms going off in the front office, which appear to be nothing more than John McDonough bullying his employees, that doesn’t mean you can force things.

Obviously, the model is how the Red Wings were able to pivot from the Yzerman-Fedorov Era of the late 90’s to the Datsyuk-Zetterberg era of the late 2000s. But as we get farther away from it and our lens scopes out, we can see that it probably just was Ken Holland getting extremely lucky with some later round picks. Because how’s the pivot going from the Dats-Z Era to the Dylan Larkin one? It’s been eight years of irrelevance at least and counting. The Penguins haven’t had to deal with this yet, but you can certainly see it on the horizon for them, especially if Matt Murray never matches what his first two years brought. Once you start winning and taking yourself out of position to draft genuine class, it’s nearly impossible to go get. Victory defeats you, eventually.

So while Stan can boast about maintaining the present and the future, the options for the former were limited. There was one player that would have made the difference in free agency (Tavares) and he never considered the Hawks. Maybe in another town the Hawks would face questions about how they couldn’t even get to the table for the most prized free agent to hit the market in years, (and arguably they landed the last one this coveted in Hossa), but not in this one. It’s an anonymity they clearly relish. There were others who might have helped, but again they didn’t seem to be a consideration at all for Stastny or Bozak, which is curious. It’s only taken a season or two for the Hawks to completely fall off the map for free agents.

If you want to argue they could have put together the same package of flotsam that the Blues did for Ryan O’Reilly, I’ll listen. Because that’s really a big bag of nothing the Blues sent to Buffalo. Tage Thompson my ass.

So there wasn’t much Stan could do to demonstrate “urgency” yesterday. The more I think about it the more the Manning signing makes no sense, and we’ve been over and over Cam Ward. Kunitz is fine, it’s not like anyone was in love with what the Hawks could sport on the fourth line anyway.

I suppose Stan envisions a time, very soon, where this team belongs to DeBrincat, Schmaltz, Jokiharju (and boy that’s a leap right now) and maybe even Boqvist in three seasons. I’ll leave Jokijarju and Boqvist out of this, because we simply don’t know anything right now. But if Schmaltz or Sikura were going to be top line players in the NHL, we’d know by now. Yes, we would. You know one when you see one, and they very well may be top sixers (Schmaltz already is), but as my compadre McClure says every spring, it’s top line talent that gets the parade. Right now, the Hawks sport one genuine world class player still playing at that level (Kane). If everything goes right with Top Cat, you could see him being one. But that’s not enough.

Stan seems to be planning and reserving for a future that either isn’t coming or isn’t going to be what he thinks. And maybe he has little choice. There just isn’t a lot out there. But this team isn’t buttressed for when Keith, Toews, and Kane are simply old (the first two might already be there, Seabrook certainly is) and it hasn’t provided them the support to still make a go of it now while they might still be able to do it from memory. If the Hawks were a hitter, you’d say they’re in between–can’t catch up to the fastball but still ahead of the offspeed pitches.

At the end of the day, no one is going to answer for this, really. They’ll point to their three banners and ask you about how much you enjoyed that, even if it appears more and more those three banners landed on them. They’ll bleat on about changes and yes, maybe Q will lose his job this season. And if things don’t turn around quickly after that, Stan could follow him. But both could leave with their heads held high.

I still have to believe the Hawks have a trade in them to try and make something of this season. That waiting list won’t last forever. Those empty seats will only get more numerous. They can’t roll into that convention unveiling Chris Kunitz.

But then again, they might.

Everything Else

Hawks Sign Three Guys…Nope, That’s It

By Sam Fels 3196 0

At the top, it’s important to remember that it makes no sense to judge fully the three signings the Hawks made today until they make their big splash via trade, which appears will be the only way they do so. Or until they don’t make that splash. Needless to say, a team that missed the playoffs by 19 points and currently can’t figure out if they’re starting goalie is just a gaseous form at this point choosing to just tinker would be…abstract.

The good news: The Hawks didn’t tie themselves into anything here. Cam Ward and Chris Kunitz got one-year deals, Kunitz for barely the minimum, and Brandon Manning got two. Essentially, all these roster spots will open up soon for either another promising kid or a bigger addition down the road. The Hawks have kept their salary cap powder dry, as it were. And just because you have cap space doesn’t mean you have to use it just for the sake of using it. So all fair enough.

Now let’s complain.

First off, Ward. We’ve been down this road. He sucks. The idea that he could flourish in a new city and with a new team is simply built on baseless hope. There has been nothing in seven years to suggest he can even be a representative goalie. If he’s just a backup, that still can kill you because you still need points in those 25-30 games unless you really think Crawford is healthy and going to go 55-0-0. Those points matter. And as we’ve already pointed out, the Canes were actually a better defensive team than the Hawks last year, and the Hawks, so far, have done nothing to address that. The fact that Ward signed for the same money as Steve Bernier, a proven NHL goalie still, is a complete farce. Were the Hawks scared off by the three years Bernier got? Why? Do they really think Collin Delia and his superfluous L are going to develop into a capable backup/replacement for Crawford? Okayyyyy…..

Let’s move to Kunitz. I really wouldn’t have anything to say about it if I were confident he would live in the bottom six all season and be a side contributor. He potted 13 goals last year basically playing on Tampa’s 4th line with Pacquette and Callahan, and if that’s all he was asked to do here with some combination of Hinostroza/Kampf/Sikura/Ejdsell/Some Bozo, fine. But this is Joel Quenneville we’re talking about, and you know that Opening Night in Ottawa Kunitz will be up there with Kane and Schmaltz, or worse yet Kane and Anisimov, due to “veteran presence.” It’ll be nearly impossible to crowbar him out of the top six unless DeBrincat scores 27 goals in preseason. Oh wait, he did that basically last year and still ended up on the third line on the right side.

Brandon Manning is slightly intriguing. He has positive metrics for a stay-at-home guy, and that’s truly surprising because he spent the past two years playing with mutant weasel Radko Gudas. What’s strange is that Manning is a left-sided, stay-at-home guy, and the Hawks don’t have any right-sided get-it-the-fuck-up-there guys. As of right now, all the puck-movers are on the left in Keith, Gustafsson, Jokiharju, Forsling. The Hawks still haven’t addressed who is playing with Keith or who is on the second pairing. Are they going to sign Manning and make him play the right side when he’s never done it? And if Jordan Oesterle is still somehow included in this equation, don’t worry about your playoff invoices. It seems an odd fit, though not necessarily a bad one.

If the Hawks can move Hossa’s contract, they’ll still have $8-$9 million to play with. Remember as we go forward here to take them at their word of the past two seasons. This was unacceptable. Changes are coming. We expect better. None of these signings do that. It’s tinkering on the edges, which is fine if you get the middle right.

We’re still waiting on the middle.

 

Everything Else

It Ain’t Easy To Get To Heaven When You’re Going Down

By Sam Fels 2097 0

Perhaps it’s a good thing, at least for him, that Stan Bowman has become a master in saying nothing. Because if he were honest or forthcoming about the position he finds himself in, we all might understand just what a difficult spot he’s in at the moment.

Obviously, everything hinges on Corey Crawford, and there isn’t much Stan can do about that. But if he were to come out and say publicly they don’t have any idea when and if Crawford is going to play again, then whatever calls he’s making for even a backup goalie suddenly get a lot tougher. Whether that’s Darling, or maybe a call on Grubauer, or whatever other idea he might have, everyone is going to know that he’s looking for someone who can step in as a starter if need be, not just a backup.

But it runs deeper than that. A theme of Stan’s press conference yesterday was that he wasn’t going all-in on this season, wanting to build for as much down the road as this season. That hasn’t stopped us from pointing out that if the Hawks don’t massively rebound this year, the long-term isn’t going to matter for him because Stan’s not going to have a job, at least not here.

But there’s a two-pronged problem with that. One, even if Stan went all-in on this season, where does that leave him? What’s a successful season for the Hawks next year? Second round of the playoffs? When you’ve won three playoff games in three years that’s a pretty big step, but is it enough for McD and Rocky? A valiant defeat to Nashville or Winnipeg there? Because it’s unlikely there’s any amount of moves the Hawks can make this summer where you’d go into next season saying they’d be favored over either of those teams. The Hawks can overhaul Minnesota, St. Louis, Colorado and Dallas, but those two remain ahead of the rest of the pack.

So say you do all that, but in the process you lose…oh I don’t know, Jokiharju and/or Sikura and maybe one or two others in pursuit of the defenseman and forward you need and more, without giving up anything major on the NHL roster. Where are you for ’19-’20? Is it likely with “THE CORE” another year older that you can improve without a pipeline of kids aiding them? Would you have to keep being active in free agency after you’ve used all the powder in your system? Would you have just put off your firing one season? Any free agent you sign is likely to skew older as well. Justin Faulk is a good age, but he’s not turning it around on his own.

Secondly, Stan might be gun-shy on any “win now” moves, considering how his coach has handled them in the recent past. Go back all the way to the Vermette trade. It took until Game 4 of the conference final before Q bought into Vermette, who cost a pretty penny. The following season, Stan brought in Ladd, Weise, and Fleischmann. The latter two were discarded essentially by the time the playoffs rolled around, and Ladd didn’t have much to offer. Those trades cost picks and Phillip Danault, and man would Danault look nice about now.

Connor Murphy was a move for now and later, and spent most of the season having his coach shit on him like he was Roman Reigns (WRESTLING REFERENCE). Alex DeBrincat, certainly one for the future but definitely a help now, spent way too much of the season on a third line and on the right side.

So if you’re Stan, are you truly confident any big move you make is going to be deployed properly? Because if they aren’t, then you have to fire the coach in the middle of the season. Does Stan draw enough water to do that? Who’s more important to the higher-ups, Stan or Q? Does he already know he doesn’t? Do we know? Does Stan have a Plan B in case he does get to make that move? Would Jeremy Colliton be ready? And as a GM if you pull the trigger on a coaching change, your neck is now exposed. If it doesn’t turn things around, you and the coach you hired are out on your ass come the summer.

It seems Stan knows that whatever moves he makes specifically for next season, he can’t completely lose what’s after that, even if he’s not around for it. Because this roster is going to need to be augmented, fed, freshened by kids through the system each of the next two, three, four years to maintain and eventually replace THE CORE.

With Tavares looking likely to stay put, the one-and-done answer in free agency isn’t there. Anything else is subject to usage, which hasn’t always gone Stan’s way. We’ve said it wouldn’t make sense to fire a GM and not a coach midseason, because an interim GM can’t change much midseason. But not everything with the Hawks management has made sense, despite what their success says. They apparently gave the reins fully to Stan last summer, and then they missed the playoffs. Is he still as trusted? Or are Q and his allies getting their influence back?

We’ll know soon enough.

Everything Else

Stan Bowman Meets The Media, Staring Contest Ensues

By Sam Fels 2127 0

Though I’m not sure you can have a staring contest via conference call, if anyone could it would be Stan Bowman.

We know that Bowman hates talking to the media, and even if he did it the only thing he’s good at is saying nothing. His update on a Marian Hossa injury years ago of, “Well he’s on schedule, but there’s no timetable,” being pretty much the perfect example of what we get when Bowman gets a microphone in his face. At best, he’s a master at saying exactly nothing. It was more of it today.

So we’ll get to the top of it, which is that the situation on Corey Crawford is exactly the same. Or more to the point, ain’t nobody sayin’ shit. There’s no update, and if there’s a key quote it’s, “We have no reason to believe that Corey won’t be ready for training camp.”

It’s interesting wording there, because there’s also no reason to believe he will be either. He hasn’t been on the ice, no one’s talked to him, and the Hawks can’t tell us where he is. At least not until the convention they can’t. And at this point it sounds like they’re going to dump this on Crow himself, which is how that phrase plays out.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Hawks have made a face at someone recovering from a head injury, if indeed that is what’s going on here. Jeremy Morin’s career stalled out here partly because the Hawks thought he took too long to come back from a head injury, and thus he wanted to fight everyone when he came back. They started whispering that Dave Bolland was taking too long to come back from a concussion as well, though we all later found out Bolland didn’t have a brain to bruise.

But of course, it might not be just a head injury, as those are the whispers that keep popping up more and more with all this idleness. Which, and we’re just speculating because it’s all we can do, if it is the recovery is entirely up to Crawford. You can’t put a timeframe on something that isn’t a physical injury, one would think, if that’s what we’re dealing with. And again, the “we have no reason to believe” kind of absolves the Hawks of doing anything, not that anyone thinks they’ve done anything wrong here.

It could not be a murkier situation, and maybe the Hawks are counting on everyone counting on it being cleared up at the Convention where Crawford is slated to appear. Except he could come out for his ovation at the opening ceremonies, and then basically not speak to the media from there on out and that would be very Hawks.

At this point, I’m not going to believe that Crawford is going to be at training camp on time, or even the regular season, until there’s reason to. If he were working out, you’d think they’d tell us. If he’s skated, you’d think they’d tell us. Or he has and had to stop. Really any conclusion you draw is not a good one, and we may find out more if the Hawks go out and get not just a credible backup but someone who might be a 1B.

-Other than that, Bowman’s call was a masterclass of being a mushmouth. They may move up in the draft, they may not. They like a lot of guys at #8. They’re trying to improve short-term and long-term. They may trade, they may not. They may sign guys, they may not. If I didn’t know any better I’d swear he was a GM.

With the rumblings of John Tavares staying put the odds of the Hawks making a huge splash went down, because there’s really only one or two other things to make a big splash with. John Carlson really doesn’t make that much sense for how expensive he’s going to be, and James van Riemsdyk probably does. Past that I can’t help you.

Sadly, Stan didn’t take the opportunity to completely rule out signing Slava Voynov, because if you’re an organization that has greatly welcomed and put up a statue of pieces of shit in your past, really why would you? He gave it the boilerplate “we can’t talk about anyone right now” instead of, “God no, I don’t want that fucking scumbag anywhere near the scumbag I already have” but then again no NHL GM has.

#EndHockey

Everything Else

Rocky Hints At The Obvious

By Sam Fels 3454 0

So is this reverse Groundhog’s Day, when Rocky Wirtz comes out of his office to say something publicly? And are there construction workers outside his office yelling at him about Andrew Shaw? Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyway, if you didn’t see it, Rocky had an interview in Crain’s today. And really, the only newsworthy bit about it is that Rocky spoke publicly at all, which he’s not really prone to do. But what people will focus on is that Rocky hints that there will be changes, where exactly he doesn’t say, if the Hawks don’t come strong out of the gates next season.

And really, this isn’t a surprise. The Hawks haven’t been a factor in the playoffs in three seasons, which puts them basically on par with a lot of shitty teams. Here are a list of teams that haven’t even spasmed a playoff series win in the past three seasons: Florida, Carolina, Flyers, New Jersey, Columbus, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Detroit, Minnesota, Arizona, Vancouver, LA. This is definitely not a group you want to be among. And on this list, you could easily say that Philly, New Jersey, and Toronto have much brighter futures than the Hawks do at the moment.

So clearly, the Hawks need to change their fortunes, and I don’t think it’s suggesting much to say that Q might want to get his troops roaring out of the gates or he might want to get a resume ready. Sure, maybe you could axe Stan instead or at the same time, but firing a GM in the middle of a season hardly makes any sense because there’s not much a GM can do if he takes the job in November unless you’re looking to really wheel and deal at the deadline. And almost always that’s a tear-down, and this Hawks team can’t be torn down even if that’s something they would ever consider (and it isn’t). The Hawks’ wheeling and dealing will come this summer, or it had better, and Stan will deserve one season to see how that turns out. A new coach can at least take the same toys and deploy them differently–so maybe this time next year Hawks fans aren’t watching a d-man who their coach only paid attention to long enough to urinate on star on the top four of the team leading 2-1 in the Final, for example.

This is the NHL. You don’t get four seasons of not mattering unless you’re the Sabres or in some forgotten outpost like Sunrise or Glendale. Especially when you’re doling out some of the contracts the Hawks are at the moment.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Rocky interview–especially in Crain’s–if he didn’t get to cry poor a bit and lo and behold, there’s the “only 85%” renewal factoid. Of course, that 15% (something about that number in this town. IT’S A FUCKIN’ PLAYGROUND!) was immediately gobbled up by the waiting list but at least Rocky noticed. It was somewhat shocking that Rocky didn’t go back to the “we still lose money” shelter he’s been using since he took over, even with ticket prices tripling or more in the 11 years he’s had the team.

What’s clear, and I’ll give Rocky this, is that the Hawks sure can use playoff revenue. Whether I think they’re actually in the red or not (I don’t), I wouldn’t presume to think they’re so much in the black that five or six home dates in the playoffs don’t make a difference. Seeing as how the Hawks have had five playoff home dates in three seasons, you can bet it’s made a difference on the big black ledger. Yes, I’m absolutely sure the Hawks still do their numbers by hand because why not?

So it’s only natural for the owner, the one signing the checks after all, is going to balk at losing out on that. We know that McDonough has made basically everyone’s life hell over there this season with the Hawks’ failings, so everyone is on high-alert.

I’m sure I could read into it more about Rocky’s comments on the contracts the Hawks have handed out, but there’s no point. Rocky isn’t going to sell Bowman or McDonough out like that by saying, “Well Seabrook’s contract is a goddamn iceberg and he’s not even that mobile so fuck!”

And in general, though not always, Rocky has been pretty hands-off and certainly hasn’t attacked the spotlight like other owners would or could have with the success he’s had. Sure, he stepped in it a bit with his comments about Patrick Kane, but he’s hardly alone and I honestly don’t know what else he would have done. Other than that and his occasional poor-crying, Rocky has been happy staying in the background and I’d rather have that than a hockey Mark Cuban, or wannabe G.I. Joe in Florida, or whatever this new nutjob in Carolina is going to do.

Unlike his president, Rocky is certainly smart enough to tell you what he doesn’t know. I guess we should worry about who will be making the decisions should massive changes come, whenever that day is. But then Rocky is the guy who knows that he needs to find the guys who know to make those. He’s not his father, after all.

Everything Else

Bury My Heart At Michal Kempny

By Sam Fels 2635 0

It’s something of a spring tradition, at least it is when your team doesn’t go anywhere or misses the dance altogether. There’s always a player or two or six who make it to the Final and some of those even win it (funny how that works). And you sit there and curse the brainpower of your local/favorite organization, and are convinced if only they saw the world they way you saw it, there’d be a never-ending parade. Often, this involves a player you didn’t even like when they sported the colors you prefer, and what you often do is lament that your coaching staff doesn’t know how to get the best or even good out of said player.

The case of Michal Kempny is a little more tasty than that.

Most players don’t get a 180 from one Edward Olczyk. And yet that’s what we had last night, as Eddie lauded Kempny’s performance in Game 7 and throughout the playoffs, and remarked he was more comfortable in Washington because he knew “one mistake wouldn’t mean getting benched.” That certainly wasn’t the theme in the booth when Kempny was here, and Eddie wasn’t alone as pretty much everyone covering the Hawks leapt to point out his foibles when the coach was basically throwing him under the bus. And the mistakes weren’t always there.

There is more to unpack here than the untrained eye might guess. And we’ll get to all of it. But let’s not bury the lede.

Michal Kempny’s resurgence, or I guess simply “surgence,” with the Capitals would raise the curtain or lid on what was and might still be a dysfunctional system between the Hawks front office and behind their bench. While we try and guess or claim we know what goes on, it’s probably safe to conclude the Hawks always try and reach a consensus. They have many voices in there, Bowman and Quenneville are the two biggest, but MacIassac and Maciver get heard as well (Irish much?), as well as Kelley, the elder Bowman (even if he’s what they’re moving Sue over at the Field to display), Stewart, Hallin, et al.

Still, Kempny was a player that Bowman clearly wanted, given that he signed him twice, and their European scouting recommended. As as we’ve said in previous posts, the Hawks’ European scouting is probably the strongest of the three areas (pro and amateur the others). They had clear plans for Kempny.

And yet he could never win any affection, or barely attention, from Quenneville. We rarely saw him in anything more than a third-pairing role, even though this was a blue line that’s been screaming for mobility for two seasons. He even played with a snarl in his own end that Q supposedly loves. Kempny only played more than 18 minutes with the Hawks five times this season, and he exceeded that six times with the Caps in just a quarter of the season, basically. In these playoffs he’s exceeded 20 minutes five times, with only one of those being an overtime game. It is clear that Barry Trotz is not a moron, so what does he see that Q couldn’t.. or more to the point, wouldn’t?

We had written at many points last year how Kempny’s pairing with Seabrook, despite all logic, actually worked. The dude carried a 58% share with Michal Rozsvial for fuck’s sake! He clearly had use.

And yet he was another player that the front office, whoever were his fans and whoever weren’t, had to toss overboard because they knew simply the coach would never give him a chance. And because of that, they had to know he wouldn’t re-sign here and had to cash in whatever they could. Most players the Hawks have lost over the years were due to cap considerations, but their coach’s use and view of them always played a part. And for the most part, the Hawks have gotten it right. Kempny now, Teuvo this season are generally the exception of who’s gone on to be successful. And we’ve written this article before.

It’s the sideswipe from Olczyk that makes this more interesting, however. It’s not something we’ve ever heard, and there’s been no bigger water-carrier for the organization and how it sees its players than those in the booth. From protecting Marcus Kruger in his rookie year to the over-the-top criticisms of Teuvo to the shielding of Seabrook this year, to his one-man band that basically handed Duncan Keith his second Norris with the Leddy-bashing thrown in, this list could go on. Where Eddie was getting his info is up for endless debate, but clearly this one didn’t come from the coach. Does Eddie perceive a less secure Q, one that he doesn’t have to cozy up to quite as much now? Does he just disagree with his methods more than he did?

If I can put my tin foil hat on–the sun is out after all–I’m curious what Eddie is getting at. Sometimes I wonder if Eddie hasn’t looked at Q’s job with envy, and wouldn’t mind positioning himself in line should it finally become open. But that seems far-fetched, though he’s stated his desire to try coaching again. Perhaps he just became frustrated, like a lot of us, at the handling of the lineup on a nightly basis and couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe he’s just like a lot of fans who want to criticize after a season gone wrong, even if it involves players he himself criticized when they were hear and now the winds have shifted. I don’t really know.

What we can do is be wary of how things are going to go from here. Because the Hawks aren’t going to get older, and they’ve said as much, as far as how they want to develop the team under the aging core. Sure, they may make a splash or two in free agency this summer, but the fortunes of this team are still greatly dependent on Schmaltz, Top Cat, Sikura, Ejdsell, Duclair, Hinostroza, Saad, Murphy, or at least whoever among them sticks, to go along with other kids through the system and signed out of Europe (Ian Mitchell and Jokiharju would be the two names at the top of that list). And at the very least, Eddie is pointing at a disconnect in how the front office and scouting wants players developed, and how they’re actually getting used and developed.

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Not Until You Eat The Peanuts Outta My…-FFUD’s Player Reviews: Patrick Sharp or You Can’t Go Home Again

By Sam Fels 2060 0

There’s little point in rehashing the details of Patrick Sharp’s farewell tour here. You know how it went, I know how it went, he knows how it went. And really, for the $1 million he was paid and the 4th line role he basically played, it wasn’t a disaster. Maybe his mentoring of Alex DeBrincat will become more important than we can realize here on the outside. Who knows? Sharp came back, it kind of just happened, we all shared our memories of him again (and there are so many), and we’ll all move on.

Still, Sharp’s acquisition raises some discussion about just what the Hawks do in the front office. Because no matter what your conclusion is, none of it makes you feel good about the inner workings of how the Hawks put together a team. So there are three ways this could have happened, right?

One, Stan Bowman saw Sharp decompose in Dallas, along with the hip surgery, and thought he could genuinely help this team. Maybe he figured it was only a million bucks, it was a signing his coach would actually give every chance to which most certainly has not been the case with a lot of signings, and took the plunge. Either way, there were many other fourth liners for even cheaper, and third liners, that the Hawks could have gone out and got and probably would have contributed more. Sharp hardly torpedoed the Hawks season, nor would someone else in that slot have saved it, it’s just somewhere you could have done better.

Two, John McDonough came down and told them they needed to sell more of the new jerseys with the reverse-preacher collar and bringing back ol’ #10 would help them do that. It would continue a pattern for the Hawks of getting the band back together, which has simply never worked in the past. The only “Old Boy” to come back and make any contribution that mattered that I can remember is one Kris Versteeg rush in Game 5 against Tampa that Antoine Vermette scored the winner off of. But McD has got to sell his shirts, he’s got to get his headlines, and he’s got to get pats on the back from the construction workers who yell at him outside his office window (even though that building is done now I assume McD keeps those workers there so he can have a barometer of how he’s doing).

Three, Joel Quenneville is still fuming from the trade of Niklas Hjalmarsson (and he would piss all over all season to the detriment of the team) so Stan and/or McD decide to throw him a bone by bringing back yet another player he once loved. And this has been the thinking in bringing back Versteeg, Ladd, Oduya, and whatever other stiff I can’t remember right now that basically gurgled in place once they returned. Stan recognizes a problem or deficiency on the roster, knows how other acquisitions have gone over with his coach, and resigns himself to bringing back a player at least he knows Q will play. Q’s circle of trust takes eons and miracles to expand, so Stan is restricted to getting players who were already in it and are past it or hoping and praying that a new player can enter within. It only took Connor Murphy 60 games, and he was the Hawks best d-man the whole fucking season.

So either the Hawks’ pro scouting sucks to high heaven (it just might!), the president who doesn’t know shit on shit about hockey is getting to make some calls that don’t have shit on shit to do with hockey, or the coach is still getting to make the call on some toys which quite simply has rarely worked out. Hmm, wanna know how you win three playoff games over three years?

None of this has much to do with Sharp, of course. He was what he was, and it’s not like he didn’t try or didn’t do what he could. And I don’t need to pile on. McClure has written a better eulogy than I could for his Hawks career when he was traded. Hess did it again in our final spotlight for the final game of the season. We had a podcast section about it.

So I’d love to wax poetic about the shorthanded goal in Game 2 against Vancouver in ’10, where he basically just decided he was scoring, but we’ve been there. What I will say is that watching Patrick Sharp’s first few games in red in the first season out of the lockout, it was really the first sign that Tallon and the Hawks got it and were working on something. It was immediately clear Tallon had gotten it wrong out of that lockout, and to him as well. There was no way to see what Sharp would go on to accomplish (unless you were McClure), but you could tell he was intelligent, fast, and there was more skill there than was billed on arrival. And you thought to yourself, “If Tallon can get a few more players like this, nail a couple picks, and have a couple kids develop out of nowhere…” It was a long road to envision, but Sharp helped you finally see it.

Anyway, good luck to Sharp-shooter in whatever’s next. He won’t be a Hall of Famer or anything, but he’ll go down as something of a cult Hawks hero. And that’s more than ok.

Everything Else

Well Pilgrim, Only After You Eat The Peanuts Outta My… – FFUD’s ’17-’18 Player Reviews: Corey Crawford or Come Back, Shane!

By Sam Fels 1926 0

It’s that time. We gave you a week break. But now we must all pick through what was before we can figure out what should and shouldn’t be. It’s time for our world famous player reviews. And let’s start with the key log to everything, the player this season and the next few will hinge on, Corey Crawford.

Corey Crawford

27 starts, .929 SV%, 2.27 GAA, .935 SV% at evens, .902 SV% on the kill

God, don’t your eyes just bleed looking at those numbers? Doesn’t it make you wonder what might have been? You forgot about them, didn’t you? Because we spent so long looking at Forsberg’s or Glass’s or Berube’s .888s or whatever they were, it’s hard to understand was a .929 even means. Are those real numbers? Can you do that?

It’s important to remember how good Crow was. Crow’s SV% at 5-on-5 was fourth-best among all starters when he got hurt. His .859 high-danger save-percentage was the best in the league. His dSV%–basically the difference between what his expected save-percentage is based on the chances his team gives up and his actual save-percentage–was second-best behind Sergei Bobrovsky. His PK SV% was sixth-best. Crow is among the elite, and this debate is over on just how good he is. You’ll recall the Hawks’ PK was actually in the top five when Crow was around. It finished in the bottom half. He makes that much of a difference.

There’s no point in going any deeper on Crow, because everyone now knows the season collapsed without him. He’s far and away the most important Hawk, and probably the best. On the ice, there’s no question.

The problem is off the ice. Crow got dinged in Dallas right before Christmas, was awful in the last game before the Christmas break, and then simply became one with the ether from there on out. No one’s seen him, barely anyone has talked to him, and the Hawks’ shroud of secrecy isn’t helping matters. So that kind of affects…

Where We Go From Here: It’s impossible to say. In a vacuum, it’s real simple. Crow is back in the crease in September, he keeps the Hawks from being bad and any other move from there pushes them toward “good.” Crow by himself provides a high floor for the whole team.

But we can’t say that. While the Hawks and their media didn’t make anything of it, Crow apparently did get back on the ice somewhere around late winter and then wasn’t there anymore. In any other language, that’s a setback. And he hasn’t been on the ice since. The Hawks never used the words, “shut down,” which means Crow simply couldn’t get back on the ice with whatever it is he’s dealing with. He wasn’t kept off it. He just wasn’t out there.

So the Hawks can say everything will be fine and he’s on course to be ready for training camp, but there’s simply no evidence of that anywhere. When does he have to be back on the ice? July? August? What if he’s not? Is that part of the plan? If things were fine, I have to believe he’d be in contention to play for Canada at the World Championships if he so desired. It would at least give him game time. Knock off some rust. But that hasn’t been mentioned at all.

Thankfully for the Hawks, no one gives a shit around here about them in the summer. So Crow can not be on the ice all summer and they can say everything is fine and no one’s really going to look any deeper.

But until you actually see #50 out there, you’re never going to know. And the Hawks are going to have to find a way to shield themselves from this disaster again in case Crow isn’t going to be there. Which might not be possible, because there are only four or five guys who can do what Crow does. Do you make a play for a Bernier, or Lehtonen (barf), or Khudobin to get you out of a few weeks? Or one of Grubauer or Holtby if the Caps make a choice? Is that even possible? Bring Carter Hutton back? He wants to start full-time. How does that affect the cap room you have now?

The questions on this go deeper than the Hawks really want to admit.

Everything Else

Why’d They Hang Them So High? Perhaps In The Hopes It Would Make Them More Dead

By Sam Fels 2306 0

As Hess put it, our nightmare is over. The Hawks season has come to an end, and now they get the maximum amount of time to pick up the pieces, dust for prints, perform the tests, and try and diagnose and then prescribe. They certainly can’t complain the schedule will be too crunched to figure out what “The Plan” (it keeps coming up again) is going to be.

What will they find?

-As everyone has said though are hesitant to pin everything on, Corey Crawford going out was reasons 1-6 that this team did a face plant in front of everyone at the party including the girl they liked (this is no way ever happened to me in high school I assure you. Nope. Never).

We’ve said it a few times and it’s worth repeating. Since Crow went down the Hawks have the third-worst even-strength save-percentage, at .910. Crow’s was .935 before he got hurt, Last year it was .930, and he’s averaged .932 at evens the past four seasons. The Hawks gave up 112 goals in that time, and with Crow’s SV% that number would have been 81. Now, clearly it doesn’t work like that because Crow wouldn’t have started every game, but you see the problem.  Let’s throw in the penalty kill problems, where the Hawks had a .857 SV% after Crow got hurt, and when he did he was stopping shots at a .902 rate. Now, that number is astronomically higher than his career mark of .868, but again, it’s clear. Crow was worth anywhere from 10-15 goals, probably more. Or 8-10 points, maybe more.

Now you might say that’s still not enough to get the Hawks near the playoffs, but what we can’t calculate is how many goals for, and games overall, Crow might have changed. Goals change games. If Crow wasn’t letting in the terrible goals that the cavalcade of nincompoops and halfwits the Hawks rolled out there did, opponents couldn’t sit back as often and early as they did this season. Things may have been more open. The Hawks wouldn’t have looked so beaten, so early, so many times with Crow behind them, giving them the confidence he could hold the other team still at least. He gives them a platform to get ahead in games more often, and the assuredness they could stay there. One-goal deficits instead of two. Those things make huge differences in an NHL where basically every team is the same save a few degrees. I think that’s good for a few more points.

While the Hawks and/or their press say there’s no reason to think that Crawford won’t be ready in September, quite frankly I need a reason to think that he will. He’s still been nowhere near the ice lately, and the Hawks never used the words, “shut down.” He just didn’t make the bell. Maybe you’ll get pics of summer workouts. Then again, maybe you won’t. Then what? Me, I’d let him try and give the World Championships a whirl if he’s able and willing, just so he and the team can find out if he can play a stretch of games at all without being sidelined by a passing breeze or aggressive fart.

-But that’s not all. Joining the Hawks in the bottom-10 of SV% at even since Crow went to the land of wind and ghosts are San Jose, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Philly, all playoff teams. Only the Devils matched that with a bottom-10 shooting percentage as well (so what the hell are the Devils doing in the playoffs anyway?) So clearly, the Hawks didn’t score enough.

And their chance-creation wasn’t terrible. They were second in attempts per game, first in scoring chances. But middle of the pack in high-danger changes for per game. Some, and I’m terrified this will the front office who do, will conclude the Hawks didn’t create enough high-danger chances because they lack some drooling monolith in front. I remain unconvinced of that. The culprit to me is that the forwards had to do all the creating and converting, because this team got nothing from its defense.

33 goals, 115 points from the Hawks d-men. And that’s all 11 that played. Compare that to the 56 goals and 197 points the Predators got from their eight d-men who played significant time. In practice, the Hawks forwards had to get the puck from their zone to the attacking one, recover it, create all the chances while getting to the net, and finish them. Clearly it proved too much of a task.

This is the biggest thing the Hawks have to solve. They need to find at least one puck-mover, and they probably have to stop considering Duncan Keith one. Gustafsson has done enough to earn another look next year as a bottom-four puck-mover. But they need one more, and I don’t know where that one is. Jokiharju is going to need seasoning. Forsling will have to make quite the leap. They’re ain’t shit on shit in the free agent market. They’ll have to get creative here.

-Because with a mobile and at least threatening blue line, this forward corps has a lot of hope. If Dylan Sikura is all they think he is and Vinnie Hinostroza is what the numbers say he is and EggShell can actually play, there’s a top nine here a lot of teams would envy. Yeah I know. “THEY’RE TOO SMALL AND DEY DON’T HIT AND DEYRE NOT CHICAGO TOUGH.” Bite me. Give me all the speed and skill you can shove into a needle and inject. Play faster. Blitz teams like the Hawks were at times.

A lot of work to be done, but not as much as some might think.