Everything Else

Potential For Aggressive Expansion

By 1544

The day finally arrived yesterday, and it feels like almost as many people were waiting for the announcement of protected lists for the expansion draft than they were any playoff game. I suppose only a few fanbases get to be involved in the playoffs while everyone is in on this, but still. We’re talking about a team that’s going to suck for a bit, no matter how much the NHL tries to pad it. And if George McPhee believes he can really go for it off the bat, just like he did Lorne Molleken’s face, then they could suck for quite some time.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

There weren’t too many surprised from the Hawks, at least given what the buzz has been for a while. We know Marcus Kruger is pretty much a goner, which allowed the Hawks to protect Tomas Jurco. That’s interesting in itself, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Everything Else

Bringing It All Back Home

By 1749

We’ve had some fun here the past couple months, leaving the Hawks in the background for the most part while they study and fidget about what to do to reclaim what they once felt was theirs. Obviously there’s not much you can do once your punted from the playoffs except have a press conference where you express just how angry you are and promise changes. Then you go back into the offices and realize you’re pretty much boned but thank your lucky stars you didn’t say that in public.

So we don’t have much to work with yet, and the answers probably don’t start really arriving until next week when the expansion draft, which for some inane reason is woven into the NHL Awards, takes place. But that won’t stop us from guessing!

Everything Else

Diamonds… And Dust

By 1799

Well, the Hawks news creature briefly woke up from its springtime slumber to give us this little nugget today. Apparently the Hawks are trying to goad/threaten/beg, I’m really not sure which, the Vegas Golden Gods (I never said I was a golden god) into taking Trevor van Riemdsdyk off their hands. And they’ll do it by getting them to take Marcus Kruger along with him. Somehow, if the Knights don’t promise to take Kruger in a trade, the Hawks will then trade TVR to someone else who will… protect him? The nuts and bolts of this are a little fuzzy.

This is the NHL, and you can always find a dumbass GM who thinks your player is a hell of a lot better than he actually is, especially when you’re not that far removed from championship glow as the Hawks still just barely are. But this one is hard to figure.

Everything Else

Dent Vents, Gets Sent (Away)

By Jon Fromi 2110

Just last night, I was firing off tweets as to the future of Ted Dent, who just finished off his sixth season as the head coach of the Rockford IceHogs. With Mike Kitchen being given his walking papers Monday, I figured Dent, who spent eleven years in the organization, could conceivably be in line to move into a spot on the Blackhawks bench.

Based on the events of today, I would figure that to not be the case. Turns out that Dent’s sixth season as head coach of the Hogs was his last season as head coach of the Hogs.

Hawks GM Stan Bowman gave Dent his walking papers this morning in the latest move of what looks to be a thorough housecleaning. The move surprised me more than it did others; I stated just yesterday that I thought Dent had the players playing hard as the season wound down. I am sticking to that statement based on what I saw down the stretch.

That said, it looks like the writing was on the wall for a move to be made.

I hadn’t heard the tales of troubles in the locker room, though I have no reason to doubt the words of those in the know. Chris Hine of the Tribune cited some venting Dent did via social media and a text to his players that basically cried out “Don’t blame me, I just work here.”

Most of that frustration was from Bowman moving Rockford’s top three scorers at the trade deadline. This came at a time when the Hogs were starting to show some signs of improvement in what long before had become a lost season.

It’s hardly inside knowledge that Chicago management has called the shots in terms of the IceHogs. Rockford employs the same systems as the parent club, which makes sense. Dent has apparently bristled on occasion at the tinkering from above with his lineup card over the years. It seems as if things boiled over and now Dent is looking for another job.

Now, it’s completely understandable that Bowman fire a longtime coach (especially if he wasn’t fan of the rants that coach sent out on twitter) to try and flush out the staleness of an extended tenure. If locker room chemistry is an issue, maybe a change does everyone good.

If you’d like to get some new blood in the mix, now’s the time. With a plethora of new faces ready to begin their pro careers in Rockford, it might be a time for a cool change.

Dent did a more than capable job moving prospects through the system. He had a bit of a reputation around the AHL as a guy who sent players into a game for some extra orneriness, especially when his teams were down. Perhaps his most famous of these moves was sending Kyle Beach to take a center-ice faceoff with the Hogs down 6-3 to Grand Rapids, starting the Pink In The Rink Donnybrook back in 2013.

I always chuckled to myself when fans in my section would complain about Dent’s moves. The gripes should have been aimed up in the press box, at least on the night’s Bowman was in attendance.

As I said just yesterday, I can’t blame Bowman for doing his job and running the organization. One thing about his comments to the Tribune did make me raise an eyebrow:

“I think it’s true that’s a good training ground,” Bowman said. “The American League is also for players to get opportunities to succeed and fail that they might not get at this level. We want to be better there as well. There’s no doubt we’re not happy with the fact our team didn’t make the playoffs. We have to find ways up and down our organization to be better.”

If Bowman’s reasons for letting Dent go lay in not working and playing well with others, I find it hard to register a beef. However, to suggest that Dent’s hitting the bricks because he couldn’t win with the lack of speed and skill at forward that Bowman assembled for him…I respectfully disagree.

This past crop of Hogs was not a playoff team. I suspected this before opening night and it became painfully evident within a few games (yes, even when Rockford was 4-2 the first two weeks). If Bowman wants a playoff contender, fortify those prospects with some proven AHL lamp-lighters this fall.

Regardless of the justification, Dent’s exit raises endless possibilities, both on the Rockford staff as well as which players return for another go at the BMO. There were a lot of question marks after the massive egg the Hogs laid this past season. Today’s move gives the snow globe that is Rockford’s roster another couple of shakes…fer sure.

Does Bowman have Dent’s successor in his back pocket? Are other heads going to be carried out on pikes? Guess we’ll see in the coming weeks. I’ll post next week to mull the future of this year’s roster.

 

 

Everything Else

Something Something About Taking The Heat Something Something About Firing Kitchen

By 1298

We have our first shot fired in what will apparently be Hawks-acalypse ’17. Today Mike Kitchen was fired as assistant coach, and it’s kind of amazing he was still around to be fired. But we’ll get to that. There are a lot of angles that would be a ton of fun to speculate on from this and could turn out to be utter horseshit. But we’re going to do it anyway because…FUN!

First off, I’m dying to know whose decision this actually was. There’s almost no way it was Quenneville’s, because Kitchen has been an extension of Q his entire career. It’s hard to believe that Kitchen could have been doing anything that drastically different this year than he ever has, and even Q would have to recognize the historic and epic failure of the penalty kill in the season’s first month was A. a perfect storm of events and B. really had no bearing on their playoff ouster.

So did Stan Bowman fire Kitchen himself? Or did he make Q do it? How much of a fight did that cause? Oh god just hook it to my veins!

Everything Else

Endless Summer

By 1889

It will be the longest summer for the Hawks since 2008. Even when they bit it in the first round in ’11, ’12, and last year, they at least made it to the last week of April. They barely cleared Tax Day this time.

So there’s going to be plenty of time for the Hawks to diagnose their issues and then prescribe what they want to do about it. Fifth Feather was correct last night, in that you can’t make rash decisions on a small set of games. Let’s go back to 2012. You actually forget how good that team was in the regular season, the second half without Toews. They finished with 101 points, and after that nine-game losing streak that nearly killed us all, they actually went 16-5-4 with Patrick Kane as the #1 center.

But they got goalie’d by Mike Smith, Toews wasn’t in any condition to be playing, and Crawford threw up all over himself. You’ll recall after that series there were plenty of calls for heads to roll, trade Kane for Ryan Miller, and how the 2010 Cup was a total fluke. You’ll also recall that this is when the rumors of Q and Stan Bowman not working well together and Q batting his eyes to Marc Bergevin in Montreal started to swirl. This supposedly caused McDonough to sort it all out, which led to Mike Haviland being turfed as an assistant and the hiring of Jamie Kompon, whatever that did for you.

Everything Else

Stars Spotlight: Do We Miss Stephen Johns?

By 1351

No, you don’t. You haven’t thought about him at all this year, other than to laugh at the Stars’ blue line and goaltending. With the Hawks surging to the top of the league, you haven’t thought about the holes on the blue line because they haven’t quite mattered as much as they did last year. And while he can’t seem to convince his coaches yet, Michal Kempny has at least shown a flash here or there of maybe, possibly filling whatever spot Johns might have. But that might not be the whole picture.

Everything Else

Johnny Kick A Hole In The Sky

By 2404

Yes, that is a Chili Peppers reference and yes, there was a time when the Chili Peppers were good. It’s far off in the distance now, most of you were probably not born or forgot there was a time when you were young. I know I have. But I swear to you, there was a time. And it was more than the time Anthony Kiedis shot himself in the foot in Point Break, which is assuredly the first joke McClure will make and I’m going to beat him to the punch.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

The Hawks did address defensive depth tonight, something that had been rumored they were thinking about which confused us all, just a bit. They acquired Johnny Oduya from the Dallas Stars for the gimp they’ve been keeping in the cellar known as Mark McNeill, a 4th round pick that can become a 3rd depending on how the spring goes for the Hawks, and the Stars will retain 50% of O.D’s salary. Make your joke about Jim Nill’s water retention here…

Everything Else

Cleaning Up The House

By 1438

Not much going on today. Crawford isn’t as sick but won’t play tomorrow against the Penguins. Niklas Hjalmarsson won’t play the rest of the week, and that’s worth keeping an eye on, or at least his return is. A non-healthy Hammer when things start to matter would be worrisome indeed.

Other than that, the Hawks extended Jordin Tootoo and Michal Rozsival for a year, and some of this is for expansion draft purposes. In fact, it’s all about expansion draft purposes. The Hawks didn’t have what was required to expose in the draft in June, or at least not in a way that could prevent them from having to expose both Ryan Hartman and Marcus Kruger.

Everything Else

The Great Russian Trendkill Sticks Around

By 1573

You have to say the Hawks are learning.

Over the years, we’ve lamented the Hawks fear of A) playing hardball with any of their players who are reaching restricted free agency (or even unrestricted) and B) their irrational fear of an offer sheet. While no two free agent situations are alike, it would appear the Hawks have learned some lessons in losing Brandon Saad or feeling they had to trade others like Our Special Boy (TM).

Tonight, the Hawks have inked Artemi Panarin to a two-year bridge deal, with $6 million a year. It’s about as good as either side could do, if you think about it, given what the constraints were.