Everything Else

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

By John Pullega 2080 0

Under normal circumstances, having a 19-year-old defenseman break camp, lead the D-men in possession, and contribute 12 assists (7 primary) would be considered a coup for an organization that hasn’t brought a quality D-man up through its system since Niklas Hjalmarsson (skypoint Cam Barker). Likewise, having a 19-year-old D-man posting 17 points in 30 games in the AHL would be cause for cautious optimism.

Henri Jokiharju managed to do both, and thanks to his bosses, he managed to do it in the most back assward way possible. And here we stand in puzzlement, wondering whether Harju will be anything more than a trade piece when it’s all said and done, despite all the good he did.

Stats

38 GP, 0 G, 12 A, 12 P

54.1 CF%, 47.97 xGF% [5v5]

It Comes With a Free Frogurt!

There was a ton to like about Harju this year.

The most obvious was his sparkling 54.1 CF%, which led all Hawks D-men by some distance and set Harju as one of exactly three Hawks D-men not named Dennis Gilbert to eclipse 50 on the year. (Slater Koekkoek was second with a 52+ and everyone’s favorite Erik Gustafsson third with a 50+.) His CF Rel% was also second on the Hawks at 5.4, just ahead of Brandon Saad and behind Dylan Sikura. For a team with such rampantly dogshit defense and poor goaltending while Harju was up, those possession numbers come with even more weight.

He also had 12 points over 38 games, outpacing guys like Gustav Forsling, Slater Koekkoek, Carl Dahlstrom, and Brandon Motherfucking Manning. These were all guys who were the equivalent of wiping your ass with a vinyl shower curtain by just about every metric and eye test, and who nonetheless got minutes over Harju at times.

And he did all of this paired with a couldn’t-be-bothered Duncan Keith, who, when he wasn’t pouting and pissing over whatever it is that chaps his already dangerously red ass, simply refused to fall into the free safety role he’s going to have to learn to live with if he wants to be effective.

Certainly by stats and mostly by sight, Harju was a Top 3 D-man on a historically bad blue line. That’s not a bad rookie year for a 19-year-old.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

Let’s get the stuff that was somewhat under Harju’s control out of the way first. Remember those 12 points he had? Five of them came within the first three games the Hawks played. He had games where he was overpowered on the boards, which you should expect from a 19-year-old D-man making his first run at it. If you want to argue he should have scored at least ONE GOAL (TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE), I’ll hang up and listen to that too.

But it’s the stuff that was out of his control that made his season one of the most frustrating since Our Special Boy was getting beaten with a bag of sweet Valencia oranges (they won’t leave a bruise!) by future cigarette boat enthusiast and Florida Man Joel Quenneville (who, ironically, thrust Harju into a top-pairing role from the get go).

His PDO, which is a rough measure of luck (below 1.000 is bad luck, above is good), was a comical .963. Mark Lazerus noted that the Hawks’s team save percentage was an abysmal .896 with Jokiharju on the ice, whereas no other regular Hawks D-man experienced anything lower than a .921. And once Colliton took over, his TOI dropped precipitously, despite the fact that he was one of the best—if not THE best—D-men the Hawks had.

And then there was the jerking him around. You might recall that the Hawks sent Jokiharju over to Finland for World Juniors, and he wasn’t particularly happy about it. Stan Bowman’s throbbing galaxy brain called it a “confidence booster,” which, as you know by now, is code for “None of us had the stones to scratch Seabrook.” But the thing about confidence boosters is that you have to ride them, not shove the players with the “confidence boost” down the depth chart and max out at a 16:45 TOI upon returning, which is exactly what THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR did.

It took all of six games before they demoted Harju after returning from getting his confidence boost. This was after playing him on his off side with Seabrook, and then subsequently scratching him in the next game because he, get this, had a hard time playing with the worst D-man the Hawks have. Once again, Harju wasn’t happy about the demotion, and it’s hard to blame him.

But you know what? It might not have been the worst thing in the world for him to play some time in the AHL, get his sea legs, and come up as a legit candidate to play on the top pairing at the beginning of the year. There were times he looked overmatched and confused. But why in the middle of the year, after Harju had shown he could run in the NHL and in the midst of a “playoff run”? What other team sends one of its best players away, twice, at the very moment they’re saying they’re trying to make the playoffs? The way the organ-I-zation handled Harju, from beginning to end, should be cause for concern.

They jilted him twice in one year against his will and stats. When they weren’t sending him off to beat up on children at Worlds or avoid the beer-league rats toiling in the AHL, they were sticking him on his off side with the so-bad-it’s-not-funny-anymore Brent Seabrook and neutering his playing time. All of this while still pushing the “this is a playoff team” narrative right up until their formal elimination. You can’t blame Harju for any of that, but you have to wonder how it’s gonna affect his development and desire to play for this team long term. Real good spot to be in after dressing such a historically bad blue line.

If you ever needed more proof that the Brain Trust was born on third, look no further than inciteful decisions like these.

Can I Go Now?

As it stands, Harju should be a top-pairing guy next year. The question will be, “Is that enough?” A 20-year-old with good possession numbers in a small sample is nice. Coupled with the offensive potential he’s shown in the A and WHL, he starts to look really nice. But if the goal is to make one more run at a Cup with the Core still here, Harju has to develop into that #1 guy, and quickly. Jerking him around all year doesn’t seem like the best way to foster that development.

The other bugaboo now is that you have Ian Mitchell returning to Denver, Adam Boqvist reportedly nowhere near ready for the NHL, and Nicolas Beaudin likely in the same boat as Boqvist right now. If the Hawks want to make a play at a proven #1 D-man—and if you haven’t been following, the Hawks absolutely need one, and they’ll likely need to trade for it—Jokiharju is probably one of the best pieces they have to work with. As Sam said, you can’t fit all four of them on the same blue line AND expect THE CORE to still be here. But we can do that thought experiment later.

Overall, Harju had an excellent introductory season and got punished for it, because there’s no fucking plan, just a process.

They never said it was a good process.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Everything Else

Ian Mitchell Ain’t Comin’

By Sam Fels 2040 0

Well, this offseason is off to a great start.

For the link-shy, what that says there is Ian Mitchell is returning to Denver University for his junior season. That has been speculated on these pages and elsewhere, but now it’s official.

Which puts the Hawks in something of a bind. Of their magic quartet of defensive prospects, Mitchell is the closest to ready and probably could have cracked the Hawks lineup and skipped the AHL next year if he so chose. Certainly in the current configuration, and depending on how (or if) the Hawks make any changes there this summer. Adam Boqvist may have the highest upside, but Mitchell is probably the surest thing. Highest floor, let’s say.

It could be as simple as Mitchell telling the Hawks he wants to play just one more year, making up for Denver’s national semifinal loss last week, and then come over and almost assuredly walk onto the NHL roster. Except the Hawks wanted him in the system after last season, certainly after this one, so it doesn’t appear Mitchell is inclined to be all that interested in the Hawks’ interests. Which is his right, and mostly what you hear is that he wants the education, which one day will make him one of about five NHLers who can read and write above a 7th grade level. Fair enough, his life.

It does put the Hawks in something of a quandary. As we’ve said over and over, they’ll never fit all of Mitchell, Boqvist, Henri Jokiharju, and Nicholas Beaudin on the roster together, not while they still have a chance of being relevant at least. Five years from now doesn’t matter.

But Mitchell staying in college drops his trade value through the floor. After his junior season he’ll only be another year removed from being able to sign anywhere he chooses, and if he truly does like being at college and getting a degree and he’s already defied the Hawks wishes twice, there’s little reason to believe he’s not going to see it out. No one’s trading for a player they can’t sign eventually.

So he’s not helping next year, he’s 50-50 to help the year after that, and he’s not going to help via trade. That doesn’t make him a useless chip, but the only hope the Hawks have is that he still comes after three or four years in college and plays for them. That’s about it.

Which punts Boqvist and/or Jokiharju more into the trade window, if indeed the Hawks are serious about getting good next season. They’ll have the most value, they’ll have really any value (it’s just a hunch that Beaudin’s is lower). And they may be expendable depending on what the Hawks do with the third pick. Say, if they decide they’re taking the surest thing of all in Bowen Byram, as in he’d vault right to the top of their defensive prospect tree.

It also might push the Hawks even more to Byram, as he does seem a surer bet than either The HarJu or Boqvist and now Mitchell’s future is murky. Again, a lot of this depends on what the Hawks really want to do and not just what they tell you they want to do. If they’re looking at a serious turnaround next season, then one or both of the two above have to go. Or the third pick has to. If the Hawks are still embarking on a multi-year rebuild, then they don’t really have to do anything and we don’t have to pretend that next season is worth anyone’s time.

Who’s excited?

 

Everything Else

Crossroads, Directions, Urgency, And Other Buzzwords

By Sam Fels 1816 0

We spend a lot of time here trying to figure out where the Hawks want to go and how quickly they want to get there. After a day of pondering in initial response to the Hawks getting the #3 pick, which I assumed  only upped the urgency and if they can’t take a player who can help next year they have to trade it, now I’m not so sure. That’s certainly A solution, but is it THE solution? We have spent two seasons now trying to figure out what the Hawks want to do, how they want to go about it, while navigating what we perceive are the forces and what actually are the forces influencing their decisions.

Maybe they don’t even know?

We can say there are two, opposing sides pulling at the Hawks. One is their ONE GOAL URGENCY, which means you have to get as good as you can as fast as you can, in service to your Four Horsemen Of The Cup-acalypse and a fanbase that really has only known winning aside from the “hardcore” who aren’t really going anywhere but do include the construction workers yelling at McDonough outside his office window. It’s that feeling that causes them to utter words like, “Unacceptable, urgency, accountability.” It makes them say them, it doesn’t make them necessarily live up to them.

On the other side, you have the pretty rational urge to try and build a team for the next wave. A team that can stand on its own with Toews and Keith only being contributors instead of pillars (it’s hard to see anytime soon where Kane won’t be the latter). That the Hawks have to find a way to give a team to DeBrincat and now Strome and Boqvist and whoever else ends up being here.

We have spent a lot of time saying that there are so few avenues to getting a #1 d-man or center. That whatever “rebuild” or “retool” they want to embark on is pointless until you can find a way to either or both of those. And the main way is having a top three pick. Well, look at that.

So what do the Hawks balance here? Maybe they look at it and think to themselves that Dylan Cozens or Alex Turcotte is the future #1 center that can take the torch from Toews in three years. And while that might not help you next year, it helps you for more years down the road. They may not get another chance to find that player. Certainly not an easier one.

While Boqvist, Mitchell, Jokiharju, and Beaudin all seem to have their problems, promise, ceilings, and floors, it’s pretty much agreed that if things progress as they should, Bowan Byram is a #1 d-man in the future. He has it all. And maybe Stan Bowman sees the most surefire heir to Keith’s reign. We know development curves for d-men are longer, and you have to live with some shit for a while, but again, that sets you up for longer. Again, this might be your best and/or only chance to get that player.

So how do you weigh that?

For the Hawks front office, things have gotten easier. Because Seabrook’s and Keith’s play this year, along with Keith’s attitude on the ice, means they have less influence. Or they should. You don’t have to “sell” to them, because if they throw a bitch about a continued rebuild, Seabrook should be bought out anyway and Keith doesn’t really have to be here.

So essentially, on the players side, you’re only selling this to Toews and Kane. Maybe they have enough pull between the two of them to say, “No, we’re not waiting around for another season, and certainly not another fucking two years.” And maybe that puts the brakes on any plans. Should it? I can’t really answer that. Is working in their interests best for the team in five years? 10?

Is there a push from outside the organization? Again, it’s hard to say that. The building is still full, even if they’re eating through their beloved waitlist. It’s hard to know how much longer that will last, and while there were some scatterings of open seats earlier in the year, there wasn’t anything resembling a mass exodus.

There isn’t a press baying for heads and blood. There aren’t column inches being devoted to changes the Hawks must make, riling up an already twitchy fanbase and poisoning the atmosphere in the arena. None of the columnists care. Do columnists even exist anymore? And the fanbase isn’t twitchy.

I’ve been of the opinion that the Hawks were either lying or incompetent. That their proclamations of being a playoff team were either being undercut by a front office actually trying to rebuild the roster on the fly using that as cover, or they really thought this was a playoff team and they have no idea how to build one. Maybe the answer is both? Or none? Maybe they’re trying to thread that needle of doing both? Maybe they don’t have any idea which they’re doing? Maybe they keep making half-measures toward one side or the other, which only leaves them stuck in the middle, moving toward neither?

Which makes this third pick fascinating. Because it’s something definitive either way. It also could be their chance to actually thread this needle and do both. For example: they could take Byram or Turcotte or Cozens, and then none of them would be here next year. A week after that, they could splash some cash for a free agent or two, package a couple of prospects for another, and improve the team for the now while really building it for the later. And this is what feels like is the most likely route.

There are a lot of ways that can go wrong, of course. You could spend on the wrong free agent or two. Make a bad trade, and leave your future depth in rubble. The kid you take at #3 just never makes the leap, or makes it at all and you look at them like the Coyotes looked at Strome, except deservedly.

What’s been so frustrating for some Hawks fans, clearly not all, is that there just didn’t seem to be any direction for the team. They said one thing, did another, and then said something else. But I haven’t Occam Razor’d this until yesterday. The most likely explanation is that they just don’t know.

Well now they have a key. They can do one, they can do the other, or they can attempt both. At least maybe they’ll pick one now. Maybe.

 

Everything Else

Three Is The Magic Number, Except When It’s Two

By Sam Fels 2418 0

The obvious joke, and one I’ve made several times, is that for a second time in recent history the Hawks have landed the third pick in a two-player draft. The thing is, if you go look at history, the 2004 draft where the Hawks were left with the pan-scrapings after Ovechkin and Malkin and chose Cam Barker, there wasn’t much directly after Barker. They ended up with Andrew Ladd anyway, and the only other name in range is Blake Wheeler. And he didn’t even sign in Phoenix.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

The Hawks won the lottery last night, and ended up with the third pick again, as the NHL rigged it to get the New York area to care about hockey again (as they probably should). But whereas the Devils and Rangers are in the midst of total rebuilds, the Hawks are not. What the Hawks do have is a bevy of options, which I find more terrifying than exciting because I’m fairly sure they’ll choose the wrong one.

Let’s rewind a year. For the second straight offseason, the Hawks were promising you urgency and that nothing that went on during the season was acceptable. They told you they wanted a quick return to being relevant, and having a higher pick than they’d had in basically a decade gave them ways to act on that. They proceeded to take the biggest project in the top-10, and Boqvist might be the only pick in the first 10 who won’t appear in the NHL either this past season or next. And no one seems sure if he’ll be the next, pint-sized Erik Karlsson, Jared Spurgeon (which would be more than fine, honestly), or a Gustav Forsling sequel.

So to me, all I ask is that the Hawks don’t do something that’s not going to do anything for this team next year. And that should be everyone’s ask. If they were an organization you could trust had any idea what it’s doing, and not one still attempting to bask in the fading glow of success they were mostly born on third for, you’d have hope they’ll take the chance.

Let’s get this out of the way. As good as Valeri Podkolzin might be one day, he’s not a choice for the Hawks. If there’s any chance he won’t be coming over from SKA for two years, that does the Hawks no good whatsoever. They might not even have two years. That doesn’t move them forward in any way. They need help now. Maybe you regret that in three years, but that’s not where you are now.

That doesn’t mean the Hawks can’t just use the pick. They definitely can. Bowen Byram can probably step into the NHL next season, and then the Hawks could package two or three of the other defensive prospects they’ve been bleating on about all season and yet have no idea if they’ll work for even more immediate help. That’s one option. Alex Turcotte might be a reach, but he’s also probably ready to step in right away. So could Dylan Cozens, and might have a Garbage Tkachuk Son aspect to him, which we know the Hawks brass will get tumescent over. These are the simplest options.

The more complicated one, but the one that probably that could net the biggest reward, is trading it. It’s hard to gauge what the #3 pick’s value is, though. Most every other team knows it gets them no Kaako or Hughes. But to a team that’s probably trying to get as many lottery tickets as it can, and who don’t terribly mind if it takes a year for that player to get to the NHL, it probably still has a lot of value. Or maybe a team that needs to add cheap talent with cap problems that needs to unload something. Or just a dumb team. Hi there, Oilers.

I don’t know what is available and what isn’t, but the Hawks need to listen to all of it. Perhaps packaging the #3 pick and one of Boqvist or Jokiharju lands you some big game from someone. Maybe the pick alone can pry a Chris Kreider or Brady Skjei or both loose from the Rangers, who can dream about kick-starting their rebuild with both the #2 or #3 pick. Maybe our dreams of HAMPUS! HAMPUS! come alive for a team that needs to start over. We could do this all day.

If the Hawks take another project, then you’ll know they’re trying to plan for the post-Daydream Nation era. Which I guess they can do, I just wouldn’t want to bother with the next three years. And I’d also love to be in that meeting when they lay out that plan to Toews and Kane, and Keith as well if he does actually want to stick around.

The Hawks have spent the last two seasons standing still, and not even in a good area. They have watched the league pass them by and still don’t look like they’ve adjusted. It’s almost as if they don’t know why they suck. They have a chance to propel themselves forward here. If they miss on it, then just maybe, finally, someone or everyone will be held accountable. You’d think if you were trying to save your job, you’d do something pretty big and instant.

Everything Else

Game #82 – Hawks vs. Predators Preview/Trash Pick-Up: One More Special Message To Go…

By Sam Fels 1431 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 36-33-12   Predators 46-29-6

PUCK DROP: 7pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago

THIRD MAN INTERNS: On The Forecheck

When the music’s over, turn out the lights…

The Hawks wrap it all up on 2018-2019 tonight, and as mentioned earlier, it doesn’t come with the relief of last year. This team doesn’t deserve any more than it’s got, and the front office certainly doesn’t, but it sure does seem like the Hawks wasted more than most teams than miss the playoffs did.

And now in most ways, this is the worst possible outcome. They didn’t make the playoffs, and they’re nowhere near the top of the draft to get a franchise-turning player. Drafting 11th is really not going to do anyone any good, at least not for next year. It’s the middle. It’s the muck. It’s purgatory.

We’ve already been over what the storylines were yesterday. It’s some’s definite last game with the Hawks. It might be some more important players’ last as well. Do they know it? Do they care? Won’t get our answers for a while. Last night it looked like they did. Quotes before and after the game suggest they do, but their actions on the ice all season tell a different story.

So for the Hawks, it’s just about crossing the last one off the calendar. For the Preds, there’s way more riding on it. They can clinch the division tonight with any kind of win.  A loss in extra-time would do the job if neither the Jets or Blues win. If both the latter lose in regulation, the Preds don’t have to do shit.

Which means the Preds could play any one of the Jets, Blues, Stars, or Avs in the first round. The first two are probably ickier first-round matchups than you’d want if you plan on being a Cup contender. But then again to complain about playoff matchups makes you a member of the Toronto media. There really isn’t an easy way out of the West, because there isn’t really a standout team.

The Preds also have some form to find. They’ve won four of five, and seven of their last nine, but that was after a month or more of being no more than so-so. Pekka Rinne found form again, going bonkers in March after spending the middle portion of the season making the winds in Tennessee whisper, “Saros.” They still don’t have much of a second-line, but the top unit of Arvidsson-Treat Boy-Forsberg have done enough lifting. Maybe Granlund finds it in the playoffs. First time for everything and all that. Kyle Turris doesn’t appear to be much more than a passenger with a bewildered look on his face.

The Preds would also do well to figure out the power play, which has looked all season like the Hawks’ did for the first third of the season. You’d think with that firepower on the blue line you could accident a power play, but this seems to be Predators tradition.

You sort of wonder what the Preds will do if they run up against a really defensively stout team like St. Louis or Dallas. Maybe their three or four trap-busters are enough to grind out four 2-1 wins. Or maybe their lack of depth scoring really comes to the fore if a team is able to snuff out the top line. The Preds will get their answers soon enough.

One more game, and then assuredly what will be a pretty hilarious press conference Monday when McDonough and Bowman try and walk back everything they said before and during the season in order to not have to fire Bowman. It’ll probably be way more entertaining than this one.

 

Game #82 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

The Natives Are Getting Restless

By Sam Fels 1972 0

We’ve spent a lot of time reading tea leaves with the Hawks and what they say in the press. You don’t have to decode much to get to the heart of what Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were getting at yesterday:

Kane: “Yeah it’s tough. It’s just crazy that our season’s gonna be over in five days and that’s it for another year. Pretty frustrating, especially when I think a lot of us feel like we’re in our prime and be able to contribute, and had good seasons. But that’s the way it is.

— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019

More Toews: “And the guys that have been here for a while learning that no one really cares what you did years ago. We’ve gotta keep pushing ourselves to get better and better. The league’s getting better, our division’s getting better, so it’s tough. It’s a tough league.”

— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 3, 2019

Clearly, the two main vets are not exactly thrilled with the front office or some other veterans in the room. Let’s try to unpack it all.

-You can understand why the players might be upset at no reinforcements at the deadline, because they did scrap and claw their way back into contention. You can also understand why any competent front office is not going to give up any prospect or draft pick for a player to maybe help them get labeled by the Flames in the first round. That’s not how you build a team. Players’ emotions often don’t align with the cold calculation of a front office. And that’s fine.

Still, it’s got to go deeper than this. We know Kane is maniacal in the offseason about working on his game, and it’s clear Toews is transforming the player he is from last year as well. He’s even said it’s a multi-year process. They saw what happened in the summer, and you can be sure that when those signings were made both Toews and Kane were like, “But those guys suck.” Players know, no matter what they say for public consumption.

It’s also clear that both Kane and Toews know the clock is ticking. Kane’s two best seasons individually have resulted in no playoff series wins. Toews heard he was finished, remade his game and body, had a career year, and did it for a pretty puke-tastic team. Where you could apportion some blame for last year to Toews, you can’t this year. They know they don’t have that many times at-bat being able to catch up to a good fastball. It stands to reason they’re not very interested in wasting another one on the likes of Brandon Manning.

-And it wouldn’t be a huge leap to suggest that Toews’s quote there, about no one caring what you did a few years ago, was meant to land right at the feet of the alternate captains. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook can run to friendly, Canadian writers all they want to proclaim how much they want to stay, but their play has clearly been making another statement. Last night was another excellent display of Keith drained of fucks to give, which Hess summed up pretty well last night. As I tweeted, his indifference is bordering on open rebellion.

What’s clear, and Bowman has said as much, is that he and McD will go to THE FOUR and lay out what the plan is to not have them go through a season like this again. But that meeting is going to be a lot more contentious than the Hawks were anticipating. Toews and Kane clearly have expectations, and the cards to act on them. Keith is either going to need a serious come-to-Jesus talk from all parties, or he’s going to have to be launched. If Keith is going to continue to clearly demonstrate he thinks his coach is an idiot, that can fester and grow in a dressing room and become a real problem. You know what that looks like? The pre-Berube Blues.

If the Hawks are married to Jeremy Colliton, and I’m not here to tell you they should be but they are, then you can’t have your most decorated player undermining him at every turn. Hess said as much.

This about as pointed as Toews and Kane have ever gotten in the press, so relatively this is basically them shouting. This is what happens when you biff a second straight season. This is what happens when you make a bunch of noise about how this is a playoff team and then don’t do anything to back that up. This is what happens when your players think you’re either lying or incompetent.

The Hawks’ brass already had a serious selling job to do this summer. Turns out the biggest of it might be to their own players.

Everything Else

A Line Case Study

By Sam Fels 1614 0

John mentioned it in his recap last night, and if you listened to the podcast we did a fairly long segment on how we thought Jeremy Colliton fucked up the lines over the stretch of doom that erased the Hawks playoff hopes. It’s always a little silly to just look at a segment of games, because anything can happen for a week or two. And different opponents provide different challenges. In this stretch, for instance, the Coyotes and Canucks trapped the Hawks hard, so it would be difficult for anyone to produce a large amount of shots and chances against that. Contrast that with the high-flying Sharks and the utterly confused Martin Jones, and you have a very different game. Still, in this section of the schedule the Hawks have played the Avs and Flyers as well, who are at best middling defensive teams.

So what I wanted to do was illustrate the changes in lines over the end of the last winning streak, the slog of dumbassery that was the Hawks after that, and then last night in San Jose and the effects. I have to apologize at the top, as I haven’t been able to find a way to paste the data right in here without it looking like garbage or spilling over the entire page. so it’s going to have to be a link. If anyone has a suggestion on how to better do this, feel free to email me or hit me up on Twitter and I’ll come and make the changes. One last caveat, this also includes the win in Montreal where the Hawks got the win but we’re pretty much pummeled. So this goes from Toronto to last night in San Jose:

Games Lines Study

So you’ll notice that first game in Toronto, the Hawks had two lines that produced 10 shots on goal or more at evens, one line that got over 10 scoring chances and a further two that got over six. Again, it’s the Leafs who play very fast and open and though they eventually brought the world down around the Hawks’ ears, they will give you chances. The next game in Montreal the Hawks only had one line get anywhere close, which was the top of Sikura-Toews-Saad. But still, it had over 10 scoring chances which is something of a benchmark as you’ll see.

The next game is where Beto O’Colliton got cute, and you’ll see that no line produced even five scoring chances. Again, the Canucks set out to do this and keep things tight, but to have everyone’s production cut in half from the previous is a little jarring. And that trend continues…

Against the Flyers, no line cracked 10 scoring chances or shots or anywhere close. Same story in Denver, and the Avs are not setting out to make the game this way. Only in the return at the United Center did the top line of Top Cat-Toews-Kane crack those numbers, and after that there was no line to even create three scoring chances. We have a return to the flaccid against Arizona, where the Hawks essentially did nothing. To repeat, this was Arizona’s plan and the Hawks don’t have the talent to break through, but you can see the discrepancy.

To last night, the Hawks had a return of one line managing more than 10 scoring chances, another one with almost five, and neither of them had Patrick Kane on them. Things got a little goofy with Perlini’s benching, so it might have worked out differently.

Still, I’m all for the Hawks getting 15+ chances from two lines that don’t have Kane on them, because he’s going to find a way to produce even with limited chances and energy levels.

We’ll see how the Hawks finish the season, with what lines and with what interest level from their opponents. Let’s circle back at the end. This isn’t definitive, but you can see some trend lines.

-There was another tidbit on The Athletic today by Craig Custance about the introduction of player tracking. He had a quote from Stan Bowman, which pretty much sums up the Hawks right now:

“I want to see what it is first,” said Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman. “I’m not anticipating hiring a bunch of people. I think you’ve got to figure it out. It’ll be a process of learning – ‘How is this going to help us? What am I going to do with it?’ Until it comes out, I think for me, it’s premature to be jumping in.”

Now, earlier in the piece Custance mentions that the Leafs, Rangers. Lightning, Hurricanes, and Devils have already or are in the process of hiring new staff just to deal with this. They won’t be alone.

Quite simply, if you’re taking a “wait-and-see” approach, you’re already behind. Secondly, what would be the harm, other than a few yearly salaries that probably pale in comparison to the cost of the shiny new scoreboard the Hawks are so eager to boast about, of hiring people now to be ready for this? Essentially, on one day you’ll get Bowman and the Hawks paying lip-service to them using metrics and new analytics, and then you get shit like this where they’re pretty much admitting they don’t care and never will.

Especially as this kind of thing is going to take years to amass enough data to figure out what to do with it. If you sit out a year or two, that’s probably more years you’re behind. Why wouldn’t you get started? Player tracking is already making serious inroads in the NBA and European soccer, as the article notes. It’s coming to the NHL, so why would you be so dismissive?

Don’t worry, in three years or so when this is an accepted method, Stan Bowman (who will still be in the job) will come out and say the Hawks have their own system and are on the forefront of it. It’s their way.

 

Everything Else

Ball Don’t Lie

By Sam Fels 1845 0

There will be lots of post-mortems in just over 10 days time when this season ends now. And that’s when it will end, which we all kind of knew but some of us had deluded ourselves into thinking there was hope it might go on for 10 days more. Which is kind of a silly thing to hope for, because those 10 days in one playoff series really have no more bearing on the future than missing out on them do. But it became official last night.

Even last night’s effort wasn’t a crime against the sport. The Hawks don’t have a trap-buster. They never really have honestly, but they had the forwards and the defensive discipline to grind it out in the past. Gustafsson is too slow, Forsling too dumb and slow, and Keith too manic with the puck. They don’t have forwards to just get it low and get it back other than Saad, especially with Caggiula hurt (and when you’re needing Drake Caggiula, that expresses things I never could through sheer prose). Dominik Kahun can in spurts, but he was on the 4th line for some reason. And they don’t have d-men who can get a shot through traffic. I’m not even convinced Gustafsson is that good at it, as his skill seems to be burying open ones. Seabrook used to, when he could get to any spot to even get a shot off quicker than can be measured with an egg timer.

Still, they didn’t try as much of the dipsy-doodle shit they did against Vancouver against the same tactics. They actively tried to harass the Coyotes d-men early and often to try and create turnovers at the Arizona line or just beyond to avoid that trap, which is what they had to do. Didn’t work, but at least they tried it.

But at the end of the day, the Hawks had seven “big” games that definitely would have had them in the playoff spots or right on them. The spots they’ve told you are the season’s goal. The spots they told you were the minimum for this season.

They took two points out of them.

It’s a second straight year without the playoffs for Team One Goal. Two years after you were told that everyone would be held accountable. So who’s been held accountable?

Brent Seabrook has been healthy scratched twice in two seasons where he’s been AHL-level. Duncan Keith probably can’t be demoted in the lineup, but other than occasionally Murphy and Dahlstrom taking last minute shifts, there’s been no sign of that either. Nick Schmaltz was held accountable, I guess. But that’s easy. Henri Jokiharju was apparently held accountable. That’s even easier.

Joel Quenneville was, though only after his GM was actively spiking his roster. And I don’t know that was the wrong choice. I don’t think it was, and I didn’t then either. But his replacement has done exactly the same (.500, which in the NHL is bad) with an improved roster. Q didn’t have Connor Murphy. Q didn’t have Caggiula. Q didn’t have Sikura. Q didn’t have Strome and Perlini (whatever that counts for). And Q didn’t have a back-to-his-best Crawford, which Colliton has had the past month. Where has that gotten the Hawks? A handful of themselves. Will Colliton be held accountable? When he was hired they told you this was a playoff team. They’ve snuffed it in every game they had that truly mattered. Keep in mind, if they’d just split those seven points from the 14 on offer, not only are they in a wildcard spot, they’re probably comfortably so.

After stealing a win out of Montreal and then struggling against Vancouver’s trap for a period. Coach Cool Youth Pastor switched the lines to whatever this is. Top Cat doesn’t have a point. Kane doesn’t have a goal. Strome doesn’t have a point. Neither does Perlini. Toews has two goals and three points. Brandon Saad has averaged a 65% Corsi over these five games, and the same scoring chance share, and has been on the ice for one goal for because all his work is being done for the benefit of balloon handed clods. Sure, teams go through snakebitten periods as a whole, and maybe this is it. Or is it that a very thin and fragile lineup needs to be perfectly assembled, and Beto O’Colliton did the opposite?

Will Stan Bowman be held accountable? He was the one actively trashing his coach in the offseason with his moves for an excuse to fire him, which he didn’t have the balls to do over the summer. He then installed his guy who is clearly not ready for this after one season coaching in North America. It was a hail mary to save his job. It didn’t work, but he’ll get away with it. While the broadcast spent several minutes discussing the Coyotes overhauling their scouting after having to trade three straight first-round picks, the names of Schmaltz, McNeill, Danault and Hartman certainly ring around the ears of Hawks fans (I’d throw Teuvo on there, but he was a sweetener). Will Stan be held accountable for his pro scouting staff? Because in the past that’s netted him a clinically dead Johnny Oduya, Dale Fucking Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, and an even more clinically dead Andrew Ladd. Sure, he fleeced Edmonton, but that’s filling-your-name-on-the-SAT shit. Strome and Perlini may yet work out, but the record is very spotty. This is the same GM who ruined last year by having no backup plan for Crawford than Anton Forsberg and JF Berube. Has it improved at all?

Will John McDonough be held accountable? It’s his enforced extensions to Bickell, Seabrook, and Anisimov that have hamstrung this team. It’s his message that this is a playoff team is broadcast far and wide, and yet it’s his team that’s not even coming close to that. By what standard is he judged? The building is still full, so I guess that’s what matters.

In a depleted Western Conference that made the hurdle of the playoffs barely knee-height, these Hawks will barely get within hailing distance. Their point-total this year will be the same as it would have been last year if Crawford had remained healthy. Perhaps even worse. They have the same 76 now, and you could easily see them only beating the Kings the rest of the way here (and there’s another thing they barf-belched last time, so who knows?). So how do you make the argument they’re moving forward? And they’re not moving backward, they’re in the same hell they were before. Not near the playoffs and not bad enough to get a true difference maker in the draft. And you have to believe the playoff threshold will return to its 95-point level next year because that’s just how things work. Do you see a 95-point team here without massive additions?

This was a team in need of a lot, and even at the draft they took the biggest project possible. And trading or buying out Keith and Seabrook, respectively, this summer, if that is the plan, is only going to ramp up the pressure even more. Their names still draw a ton more water than Bowman’s or Colliton’s do. Is there any forward in the system anywhere close worth getting excited about? It seems like the Hawks are poised to make the team good again just at the point when Toews and Kane are too old to do that. How many more MVP-worthy seasons do they think Kane has left in his 30s?

Who will be held accountable? The answer is no one, as the front office hides behind the three banners they were pretty much as along for the ride for as you and I were. And they can do that, because the Hawks have returned to their natural place in the Chicago pecking order. The Bears are Super Bowl contenders. The Cubs are still World Series contenders. The Sox are at least in the news and producing players their fans can get excited about. Even the Bulls stupidity knocked the Hawks back even more off the headlines.

So they can keep the status quo, because really, who’s looking?

Everything Else

The Awkwardness Of Duncan Keith

By Sam Fels 2352 0

I suppose this is just going to be a normal thing, especially when the Hawks infiltrate Canada and Toronto specifically. But it was Duncan Keith’s turn to get the puff piece treatment, this time from Pierre LeBrun.

It would be extremely hard to believe, and to convince me, that this was Keith’s idea. Keith hates, hates, hates talking to the media, and pretty much hates everything that goes along with playing hockey except for the playing hockey part. It was LeBrun who first reported that the Hawks would go to Keith around the deadline to gauge whether he wanted to stay or go. So it makes sense the LeBrun would write the follow-up, which appears to be the opposite. Still, it’s hard to square some of what’s in here to what we saw last night, over the past few weeks, and over the whole season.

And some of this is weird:

“Last year it was a little bit hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Keith said Wednesday after the morning skate. “This year there’s been a lot more positives. We’re in a playoff race right now. That’s exciting hockey for us right now. There’s been young guys that have taken steps this year and that’s a good thing. We need that around here.”

I mean, ok, but this is Keith who’s saying this. The same Keith who hasn’t hesitated to point out to the local media just how shit he thinks his team has been at points. That includes last week when he directly countered his coach to oppose the view that the Hawks had played well against Colorado and Dallas, two games they lost that pretty much ended their playoff hopes. So it’s hard to align, and it almost sounds like Keith playing the hits a bit to try ingratiate himself back with the front office. I don’t know that’s what it is, that’s just the feeling I get.

What I did nod my head in agreement with was Stan Bowman’s assertion that they would go to the four-five core players of yore and lay out their plan. I agree with this, and most do. They’ve earned the right, and they’ve all earned the right to opt-in or out. I feel like the conversation will sound different to Brent Seabrook than it will to Patrick Kane, but let’s run that kitten over when we get to it.

Of course, I also snicker when Bowman says, “They have a plan different from other organizations,” because A. his boss just said there’s no plan, but a process, and B. trying to make yourself sound smarter than other teams when you’re still out of the playoffs sounds like you’ve been huffing your own ass for too long. Which is a problem this organization has had for a while now.

“I feel we’ve made some good strides this year,” said Keith. “I still feel like there’s a lot of good things going on in Chicago. At the end of the day, there’s not a lot of teams that you really look at and think, ‘OK, they’re that much better than this team.’ So, I like it in Chicago, I like the group, I know we have to be better, but I’d like to be part of that.”

Again, this is contrary to the things Keith has let slip after games, which he’s either trying to walk back through a national guy or have it both ways. I’m not sure. But at the end of the day, here’s what I can’t get past:

 

That turnover. Yes, it’s incredibly stupid and petty to get worked up about one turnover in a season of 82 games. It’s probably even sillier to attach deeper meaning to it, and yet I can’t help it.

He was under no pressure. He knows better, and it’s not the kind of mistake that Keith has made most of the year. This one reeks of carelessness. This just reeks of someone who couldn’t be bothered. Maybe it was frustration that the Hawks had already given up three of a five-goal lead, and were under the kosh. Maybe he was frustrated it got to this point at all, and just let it out. And even if we grant him that, that’s the kind of thing Duncan Keith isn’t supposed to fall in for. He’s supposed to be above that and show his younger and less heralded teammates the better way.

This isn’t a player who had no choice, like Seabrook’s turnover mere seconds later. He’s slow and simply can’t get away from forecheckers or open up time for himself to make a pass. Keith can, and has, and should have. He just didn’t.

But like a lot of times this year, it just looks like Keith wasn’t as engaged. This is lazy, along with stupid. At best it’s totally flustered, which is exactly what Keith isn’t supposed to be. It’s basically what he’s never been until this season, or last season at worst.

So Keith’s claims that he likes what is going on here and wants to be a part of it is belied but what we see on the ice. It’s more than this one turnover. That one turnover just encapsulates everything we’ve seen this year. The two messages don’t square up. More often than not Keith has played like someone who doesn’t believe in what’s going on here, that maybe has thought about his future elsewhere, that either believes the changes made were mistakes, more changes need to be made, or both.

If Keith genuinely does want to be here, he’ll have to do a couple things. He’ll have to accept a new role, which he at least seems open to. He’ll have to accept what he can and can’t do anymore, which he’s been more reluctant to do. And he’ll also have to be focused and engaged for all 82, which he clearly has not been at all times this season.

The words are nice. They just don’t line up with what we see on the ice, which is the more important part.

Everything Else

Game #69 – Coyotes vs. Hawks Spotlight: The Return Of Mjolnir

By Sam Fels 1431 0

This won’t make for easy reading for Hawks fans. We aren’t here to tell you what you want to hear.

We’ve made the case all season that if there were a “Rod Langway” Award, that is if the best defensive defenseman were given an award along with or in place of the Norris–where the d-man who just accumulates the most points wins–, then Niklas Hjalmarsson would probably collect it. In a season where the Hawks have struggled so completely defensively, that can be painful to admit.

Let’s go over the numbers again. Hammer starts the 5th-highest percentage of his shifts in the defensive zone among blue-liners in the league. But whereas most of those d-men are merely trying to build a ditch and just let not disaster strike, Hjalmarsson and his partner Oliver Ekman-Larsson have been able to push the play the other way as well as anyone even though they have the farthest to go. Even with the dungeon shifts, Hjalmarsson has the ninth-best relative xGF% in relation to his team in the league. When it comes to just goals-against, Hammer has the best mark relative to his team in the league. Even though he starts in his own zone as much as anyone, he’s hardly giving up any chances. He’s the ultimate tease.

The temptation is to toss the responsibility onto OEL, as he is one of the better puck-movers in the league. And some of OEL’s numbers do improve away from Hammer’s while the latter’s sink. They collect a 51.3% Corsi-share together, where OEL is at 52.4% without Hammer and 50.4% vice versa. However, it’s the opposite when it comes to actual shots, further showcasing how Hjalmarsson limits chances. OEL’s scoring chance-percentage is actually worse away from Hjalmarsson, and Hjalmarsson’s high-danger chance share is a few points higher away from OEL than it is when they’re together. Hammer is helping OEL just as much as the other way around, which is certainly the big reason the Coyotes made this trade in the first place.

That shouldn’t be an indictment on Connor Murphy, though some will take it as such. Hammer looked as off the pace as anyone in 2017 while the Hawks were getting aerated by the Predators. The thought was after three long playoff runs, the miles on the odometer had taken a toll that was just not going to be undone. Perhaps Duncan Keith‘s wear was having a greater effect on Hammer than could be realized, which has been borne out in subsequent seasons.

It was thought that Hjalmarsson’s style of being more stationary, more physical and taking literally thousands of flung rubber to his body would see him decompose pretty quickly. And it still might. It was thought Connor Murphy could fill the role with greater mobility, and he still might. The signs on the latter are encouraging, as Murphy has had to make do with Carl Dahlstrom and Slater Koekkoek and various other rodeo clowns. But that’s still a very hard sell to a lot of watchers.

As for now, it’s probably just best to marvel at the recovery Hjalmarsson has made and the uniqueness of what he’s accomplishing this season. It’s better to trade a player too early than too late, which is the decision Stan Bowman made. But sometimes when you do that, the payoff doesn’t come for a little longer than you guessed.

 

 

Game #69 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built