Everything Else

“I Have This Crazy GM Who Thinks The Hawks Are Playing Well Lately. Is He Crazy?” “No, Just Ignorant.”

By Sam Fels 1842 0

Had to wait a day on this one due to the Hawks playing last night, but you knew I was going to get to Stan Bowman’s latest oral trash-spillage to The Athletic’s Scott Powers yesterday. There’s some truly great stuff in here, and once again proves that either Stan is straight up lying to you, or doesn’t really know what he’s doing or watching any more, and either way is more than happy to toss his old coach under yet another bus even though at this point he’s flatter than week-old Sprite. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Stan Bowman: Setting the standings aside, we dug ourselves a big hole that way, but the way we’re playing now is much more like a regular team. For a while there, we were sort of underwater where we’ve had some glaring issues and then we’d finally fix those and something else would (go wrong). Now we win and lose games, but we’re like a normal team, right?

First question, so real genuine, top-quality horseshit. At least he didn’t wait around! What in the living fuck does “regular team” mean? Clearly Stan is talking about the Hawks recent record, but as a very charming and handsome blogger recently pointed out, the team’s recent record is empty. The process is flawed. The Hawks recent record is due to Collin Delia playing out of this world, Cam Ward being shockingly competent, and the power play finding its feet for the first time since 1876. And hey, the last part is worth cherishing, and I guess you can go far with a power play and goalies playing well. That’s what the Capitals are. But that’s not what you’re aiming for, it’s not sustainable. Since the Hawks broke that second eight-game losing streak, how many games would you say they’ve clearly been the better team? Certainly Sunday in Pittsburgh. I’d say the Winter Classic too. Maybe last night for two periods but the Hawks were dong-whipped in the third last night by a clearly superior team. The second win in Colorado. Their win over the Predators. And the first win over the Penguins. That’s five of out of 13 games. Sure, you won more than that thanks to one guy mostly. That’s what you’re aiming for? You got killed by the Islanders! You’re giving up 40 shots a night! Your metrics blow! Didn’t you tell us one of the reasons you liked Jeremy Colliton is he would actually pay attention to those? Who cares, you don’t!

I was reading something about the Islanders — it was right around New Year’s Eve I read this story — and they said “now we’re finally getting what Barry (Trotz) wanted us to do.” A new coach came in, so it took them half a year. But they had training camp, so they had all of September, all of October. And then it’s almost like in November is when your schedule gets tougher. You don’t play a lot of games in October, so you have more practices. It was right when the schedule got tougher is when Jeremy came in. He had a few practices. It was a really tough start there. But I think now we’ve played a lot of games, so our second half we’re going to have a little bit more time to practice. The flip side of that is just guys are more wound down, so you probably don’t want to practice as much as you do.

Then maybe you should have fired the coach before the season like you wanted to anyway, y’know, if you had a pair of balls.

But so I think we’ve stabilized our situation to where now I think you can see we’re starting to play more like he wants us to play. Like I said, we don’t win every game, but we’re playing better in all these games. I think the process took a while to play out, but it was sort of understandable given our little time to practice.

Giving up 40 shots a night is where you want to be? I mean I appreciate the flair for dramatic but…

I talked about this the last time we met. You have to try to put players in places you think that your coaches really like or they have attributes that are important to your coach. Similar like, (Carl) Dahlstrom’s played really well, but he played great last year for Jeremy. Yeah once he’s got up here, he played a lot better. He was here last year and he was OK, right? But I think he’s playing much better now. You can say, well, it’s because he’s more mature and he’s used to it or you can say that the style we’re playing now is more conducive to his game.

We’re running out of buses to throw Q under. And while Q’s player evaluation could be weird for sure, I doubt he ever would have thought Brandon Manning or Jan Rutta were anything other than “the suck.” And this also raises the question of why the Hawks farm team is playing a different system than the NHL team and why you’d intentionally confuse any kid who came through both. The only one to be good right off the bat so far have been Top Cat and Jokiharju, who wouldn’t you know it never spent any time in Rockford.

I’m sort of the same way trying to evaluate we’re not where we want to be in terms we’re not at the top of the standings like we had been in previous years. You have to determine which of the players on this year’s team right now can realistically be contributors next year and in the coming years.

I think there’s no question we’re on the rise. We’re a team that’s going to be better a year from now than we are now and two years from now. We should be trending upwards. A lot of our best players are our young players with the exception of a couple guys. We’re not a veteran-laden team like some teams are.

The goal for the remainder of the year is to watch the team and evaluate areas where you’re deficient and then figure out, can some of these guys fill that as we go ahead or we do have to bring new players in? Do we have players coming that can (step in)? Sort of you have to make an assessment of where you’re at and then find out how you can bridge that gap. Really over the next whatever 35 games or whatever we have left, you have to watch our young players and see what role they can play for us next year realistically. Then how does that plot out on a roster and then for the areas that we don’t have that we will need, how do we fill those holes?

That’s not what you said before the season, except any goofus with at least one eye would have seen this roster wasn’t good enough. Are we supposed to trust you on the gear change after you told us this roster was good enough?

To answer your question, I do think we can turn it around quickly. Our goal is not to be in this position a year from now. We’re not trying to not win games. I think even if we brought the exact same roster back next year, which we’re not going to do, but if we did, we would be better because we would not have to go through the adjustment period. We’re playing now like a team that if we played this way from the beginning we’d be in the mix, right? Still not the team we want. We want to be a team at the top. We certainly need to add a couple players to the group we have here. Whether that’s through trade or draft or free agent, there’s no reason to think we can’t look at our team next October and be, like, really excited about where we’re headed next year as well as the year or two after that.

Didn’t you say this last year? And again, you’re not playing that well! You’re getting lucky! A goalie you never planned on being part of this team is playing incredibly well. And we don’t even know if that’s real yet. You don’t have anything here yet. Are you paying any attention at all or are you too busy booking Bobby Hull for another appearance?

Stan goes on to talk about Crawford and the World Juniors, and the one thing I’ll say about Powers and the rest is that when Stan goes off about Beaudin, Boqvist, and Mitchell there’s never any question about how the Hawks are going to crowbar those three onto the roster, even two years down the line, when we know Jokiharju, Keith, Seabrook, and Murphy are going to be here and Dahlstrom and Gustafsson are at least pretending to play themselves into long-term roles. That’s what I’d like to know.

I understand Stan can’t really come out and say, “Yeah the wins are nice but they’re total luck and really we still suck because we have less regulation wins than anyone (they do). And I don’t know how we get out of this because Keith and Seabrook have turned to dust and I can’t get rid of them.” He’s got to sell this somehow.

The fear is he actually believes this shit. Which means the Hawks are pretty much doomed from here on out.

 

Everything Else

There Goes Your Manning

By Sam Fels 2385 0

I’m sure it was only a coincidence that the Hawks completed and announced a trade of perhaps their most bewildering signing in a decade during the last Bears regular season game. Wouldn’t want anyone to notice an admission of a stupefying and yet comedic mistake of this proportion.

The headline is the Hawks traded Brandon Manning and failed prospect Robin Norell to Edmonton for Jason Garrison and Drake “The A.K.” Caggiula.

The Brandon Manning signing sucked when they made it, but we tried to reassure ourselves he was only a bottom-pairing player and really couldn’t do that much damage. And then he played, and somehow the signing looked significantly worse than we thought it would. Then he blamed it on the system Joel Quenneville employed. When the coach and system changed, he still sucked. Then his GM blamed his signing on the coach he just canned. And when Manning finally played himself out of the lineup, he bitched and moaned until he got traded. Perhaps the most infuriating part of this whole thing was that nothing was ever Manning’s or Bowman’s fault for his acquisition or play.

Take a moment to consider all that.

Manning was a continuation in a war between Bowman and Quenneville that went on for far too long, and it looks like both will eventually lose. Michal Kempny was the big battlefront in it, which has caused Bowman to re-sign Jan Rutta and Manning while basically saying to Q, “Fine, you can have your type of player. Good fucking luck.” I wonder if it doesn’t go back to Trevor Daley, who is utterly terrible and always has been but the similarities are there. Bowman desperately wanted anything to show for having to give up Patrick Sharp and also Stephen Johns just to get rid of Sharp’s contract. Daley was also unhappy under Q and his system, and his play showed that. And he wasn’t shy about telling people, even though he was always a cowboy laced on meth when it came to his defensive play. And the Hawks had to give up on him barely halfway into his first season here because it was just that bad.

We’ve seen this before.

In the end, the Hawks were always going to be bad and Manning only cost them some money, and some bleeding eyeballs at his play. Maybe they could have believed in Carl Dahlstrom more and let him just start the year here, but these things aren’t always linear. At least it’s over.

They get back Drake Caggiula, a player they wanted to sign out of college and made a push for. He’s at least not a complete suckbag, though close. He did manage 13 goals last year. You’d probably rather see him take fourth-line shifts than Andreas Martinsen or John Hayden, who gets an abnormal amount of ink spilled about him for someone who can barely do anything. That’s about the ceiling for Caligula. Jason Garrison is on a minimum deal for this season and we’ll never see the light of day and will probably be waived tout suite.

While the Hawks will tell you it clears up their defensive logjam, it really doesn’t. When Henri Jokiharju comes back, they’ll have seven d-men and various arguments about why they all need to play. Certainly Dahlstrom’s play doesn’t warrant him sitting regularly. Jokiharju has to play. Murphy’s been their best d-man by miles. You’re not going to sit Keith, who seems to have found some reasonable understanding with Gustafsson, no matter how little sense it makes. Which leaves Forsling and Seabrook. Forsling is terrible and awful and bad and stupid and sucky, and if never plays again I’lll consider it a brief ray of light in an otherwise ceaselessly dark existence, but the Hawks are still under the impression he needs to develop and at least see what they have. He can’t do that from the pressbox. Which means they’re headed for their Seabrook Nexus Of Death faster than they would like, I’m sure.

All in all it sounds like a really healthy organization we’ve got here.

Everything Else

Game #36 – Predators vs. Hawks Preview/Sadomasochism: What Are We Even Doing?

By Sam Fels 1560 0

 vs. 

RECORDS: Predators 22-10-2   Hawks WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK?

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

PEOPLE WHO WRITE ABOUT A TEAM THAT KNOWS WHAT ITS DOING: On The Forecheck

This probably should get its own rant in its own post, but this is where we are today so we’ll just put it here. The Hawks have no idea what they’re doing, in the front office or behind the bench, and if everyone isn’t fired by the end of the season you have no reason to watch. There, I said it.

I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just going to throw a dart at the wall and start with the decision to loan Henri Jokiharju to the Finnish World Junior team. Let me remind you, in case you forgot, that the Hawks are not a NCAA or CHL team. They’re not an AHL team, though they do a fine impression of one. They’re a NHL TEAM that decided it was better for a player who is supposed to be a cornerstone of whatever comes next to play in a tournament full of children that he’s already played in and succeeded in. This isn’t sending a kid to Triple-A to get more ABs and work on going the opposite way. This is sending a kid back to High-A so he can beat up on confused kids trying to light their own farts fire who can’t throw a curveball. We know Jokiharju can hit a fastball! He needs to work on breaking stuff!

So what’s the rationale? Development? Nope, because he’s already dominated this level. He needs NHL time, and he needs it with a partner who A) cares and B) can play the NHL game. So the first one rules out Duncan Keith. The second basically rules out everyone else save Connor Murphy. So stick Jokiharju with Our Big Irish Son the rest of the year and find out what he can do. And let Keith continue his season-long pout with whoever can stand to do it.

Is it about saving this season? Because you can’t. And Jokiharju would help you do that more than anyone else if that really was the aim.

No, this is about the Hawks clogging their blue line with a bunch of useless stiffs they were somehow under the impression can play. This is so they can cram Gustav Forsling onto the ice more when it’s obvious he sucks. Gustav Forsling will never contribute to a team that means anything. Accept that now. It’s so they don’t have to simply waive Brandon Manning, because signing him to stick it to a coach you hate doesn’t really work anymore after you fire that coach and no team is dumb enough to take him off your hands because, y’know, they actually have pro scouts that don’t have vertigo and can clearly see he’s an abortion. It’s because they don’t really want to send Carl Dahlstrom down because lo and behold, he’s actually been good which they couldn’t scout or anticipate because they’re stupid. So sending HarJu away pushes off their problems for two-three weeks while they fist-fuck themselves even more and have the same problems in January.

So now that’s out of the way, let’s get to tonight’s lineup, which will only infuriate more. While the Hawks did get mullered on Sunday, they had show signs of life in the previous two games. And they had a third line that looked pretty spicy with David Kampf centering Dylan Sikura and Brendan Perlini. And while defensively they were an adventure, Dylan Strome between Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane was producing goals if nothing else. And the fourth line seemed to function. So why not blow all that up to appease Artem Fucking Anisimov! And let’s move Dylan Strome to a wing! Because hey, that’s where his future lies, right?! No? WELL FUCK YOU THEN!

Stick Arty’s overpaid useless ass on a fourth-line wing until it’s time to trade him for the second and third round pick at the deadline you were always going to get anyway. Strome needs reps at center in this league. He’s not going to get better at it playing a wing, where his lack of footspeed is probably even worse for him. We know what Arty is at center, and it’s overrated garbage. The season is lost, and you better find out what you have on the younger portion of the roster.

Oh but we’re not done. I got it, let’s pair Duncan Keith and his refusal to reign in his game combined with his inability to play the one he wants that’s sprinkled with a complete lack of give-a-shit, and pair him with a d-man completely incapable of covering for him in Erik Gustafsson. That sounds good! On his offside no less! Fucking genius if I understand it correctly! Swiss fucking watch! I’ll have that and then a dessert of strychnine please! And we’ll continue to toss Murphy and Carl Dahlstrom at the top lines because there’s simply no one else even though both have been with the Hawks for about seven minutes this season.

Oh, and I’m sure Cam Ward will start because it’s not like we don’t need to find out what Collin Delia is in case Corey Crawford never returns from the land of wind and ghosts.

Jeremy Colliton, at best, is in way over his head with a roster no one can save, especially if you can’t tell any of the veterans to go screw. Or he’s a complete blithering idiot. Guess we’ll find out!

Anyway, they’re playing the Predators. They’re really good and are going to kick the shit out of this outfit while barely breaking a sweat. Even if they did play last night. Pekka Rinne will probably start after getting pulled last night in Ottawa, which is a sentence. So he’ll actually be trying because of that. Which is good when he’s been the league’s best goalie this year against a team that can’t manage a piss-up in a brewery. They’ve lost a bunch of road games of late. It won’t matter.

Fuck this.

 

 

Game #36 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #33 – Penguins vs. Hawks Spotlight: Jim Rutherford And The Unbearable Lightness Of Being

By Sam Fels 1733 0

Perhaps before tonight’s game, or maybe after, or even during given anyone’s urge to actually watch the Hawks these days, Stan Bowman and Jim Rutherford will kick back with a beer and laugh about how similar their situations are. And maybe Stan can prepare Rutherford for what he’s probably in for in a year or two.

Both men took their current posts when everything was already pretty much set for a sustained run. Where Stan took the GM chair with Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith, Seabrook, Crawford et al. in tow, Rutherford arrived in Pittsburgh with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Briam Dumoulin, both Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray, Jake Guentzel already there. So for both men, filling in the edges was the only directive.

And Rutherford did that after a middling first year in charge of ’14-’15. He traded one of the only three NHL regulars he’s taken in the draft as Pittsburgh GM, Kasperi Kapanen, along with others to rid the Maple Leafs of their Phil Kessel headache and cap hit. James Neal was moved along for Patrick Hornqvist, which has worked out more than fine. Carl Hagelin was brought in midseason for the total fraud that David Perron has always been. He was able to clear out Brandon Sutter for Nick Bonino. The Matt Cullen signing worked out better than anyone could have hoped. No, we’re not going to list Trevor Daley here, because Trevor Daley sucks to high heaven and we’ll shout it until our throats literally disintegrate if that’s what it takes.

The following season, the Penguins’ second Cup in a row, saw the flier on Justin Schultz which worked a treat. Other than that, it’s pretty much been the same group. Good work here.

But the problems, much like here, begin when those moves around the edges you make deserve more money and cause more decisions. Nick Bonino got expensive and was left to get it in Nashville. The Penguins tried to replace that with Derick Brassard, who is cheaper. It has not worked. Justin Schultz required more money after his resurrection, and he’s been basically hurt the last two seasons. Patric Hornqvist got a raise, which is part of the reason impending free agent Hagelin had to move along for the unimpressive Tanner Pearson.

Rutherford has not been able to replace any of this through his drafting, as the only pick he’s made in the five drafts he’s had that his playing for the Penguins currently is Derek Simon. Without Schultz, the Penguins really don’t have much behind Dumoulin and Letang. Their bottom-six is basically a mess. Rutherford whiffed on Jack Johnson. Jamie Oleksiak isn’t anything. Fans are not exactly pleased about the moving of Daniel Sprong for Marcus Pettersson. The edges are fraying a bit.

And while you may say the Pens made the playoffs last year and are in a playoff spot this year while the Hawks do a modern dance interpretation of the Hindenburg right now, look closer. The Penguins surrendered kind of meekly to the Caps last year in the second round, and benefitted from being in a terrible division. They’re in an even worse division now, and the only thing that will probably keep them out of the playoffs this year is if basketcase teams like the Flyers or Hurricanes ever put it together. And you know what we’ll predict on that one.

The Hawks too put together a couple castles-on-sand playoff berths after their last championship, but didn’t have the luxury of a god-awful division. They’re in the league’s best, in fact. And it could go that south on the Penguins soon, just in less choppy waters.

Their cap problems are only really what Jake Guentzel wants to sign for in the summer as a restricted free agent, but they need upgrades in both defense and the bottom six and will only have somewhere around $10 million to do it.

Perhaps this is just how it is. You get your five-years in the sun, and then it slowly fades out when you can’t keep batting 1.000 with your moves around the core you have. Miss on more than a few though, and the tumble gets violent.

 

 

Game #33 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

The Truth, That You Can Handle And Are Entitled To

By Sam Fels 2325 0

Sorry, A Few Good Men was on when I got home last night.

To preserve any kind of sanity about the state of the Hawks, I work under the theory that behind closed doors, Stan Bowman told John McDonough and Rocky Wirtz that basically this season was going to be a toss, but they wouldn’t tell the fans that because they’re terrified no one would understand (even though I’m fairly sure they would?), but he would take the bullets about it all. I take him at his word that the team’s future is resting basically upon Adam Boqvist, Henri Jokiharju, and some combination of Ian Mitchell and Nicolas Beaudin. That, and some big free agent signing, which they’re trying real hard to make you believe is Artemi Panarin and I still remain unconvinced that’s a great idea. But unless he goes entirely late-career Patrick Sharp and does more floating than a drunk yuppie in the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day, it won’t end up that badly.

There’s one problem with that theory. Stan Bowman may not have any idea how to scout, develop, or identify a defenseman.

Here’s a list of d-men that Stan Bowman has drafted that have had more than a cameo in the NHL: Stephen Johns, Klas Dahlbeck, Adam Clendening, Henri Jokiharju. That’s in nine years.

Here’s a list of d-men that Bowman has either acquired or signed: Nick Leddy, Nick Boynton, Chris Campoli, Jassen Cullimore, “John Scott” (the quotes because he rarely played defense but he did start there), Johnny Oduya, Sami Lepisto (Sami Lepisto! Sami in the Taco Bell!), Steve Montador, Sean O’Donnell, Sheldon Brookbank, Michal Rozsival (fine the first time, not the next 12), Mike Kostka, David Rundblad, Kyle Cumiskey, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Tim Erixon (you forgot, didn’t you?), Kimmo Timmonen, Trevor Daley (who sucks out loud despite what any writer tells you), Christian Ehrhoff, Erik Gustafsson, Rob Scuderi, Darko Svedberg, brought Brian Campbell back, Gustav Forsling, Michal Kempny, brought Johnny Oduya back, Cody Franson, Connor Murphy, Jordan Oesterle, Jan Rutta, Blay Killman, Brandon Manning, Brandon Davidson.

How many times did you throw up? Eleventy-billion?

Now, let’s throw one note of a qualifier in there. For most of the years Stan has been here, the top four was set. So they really only had to find third-pairing players. Ok, now that’s out of the way…

So in nine drafts, Bowman found all of four d-men that could play at the NHL at all, and only one has any hope of being more than a third-pairing guy, and I’m giving Jokiharju some credit there. And he’s the only one to make any kind of impact on the Hawks.

Add those four, and the 33 that Bowman has signed or acquired in some way. So that’s 37. How many rise above just third-pairing status? Oduya the first time is clearly the pick of the bunch. Nick Leddy didn’t here but is a second-pairing player for sure, so we’ll give him that. Michal Kempny clearly is, but he couldn’t get his coach to agree. Connor Murphy probably, but now he has a back made out of rubber cement. So that’s four. Five out of 37. 13% of the d-men he’s tried have been something more than scenery, and only two here in Chicago where the Hawks could benefit. Two and a half as Leddy was pretty damn good in ’13 and ’14.

It’s like saying the Cubs will eventually develop starting pitching. We have more than 10 years of evidence in two organizations that Theo Epstein can’t really develop a starter. Maybe it’s just not going to happen.

So every time Stan stands in front of the media and tries to sell you on Boqvist, Beaudin, and Mitchell being some kind of savior(s), I would raise an eyebrow or six. Because the track record just isn’t there.

Everything Else

Game #27 – Hawks vs. Predators Spotlight: Ryan Hartman And The Ever-Changing Message

By Sam Fels 1620 0

Whatever the Hawks were selling you about trading Ryan Hartman, it’s proven to be just this side of horseshit. That’s not to say Ryan Hartman would greatly change the fortunes of this Hawks team. But ask yourself who you’d rather watch thrash around on the bottom-six right now, him or Chris Kunitz?

Ryan Hartman sits in the nexus of a lot of Hawks arguments, kind of undoing them all. We’ll see if we can untangle them in no particular order.

The Hawks love to make it known that they are all in favor of compensating their players. It’s part of the reason Bryan Bickell and Brent Seabrook got the contracts they did (from whoever ordered it in the front office). It’s why they made sure to tell everyone who would listen they wanted Artemi Panarin to hit his bonuses when he was going after those in his entry-level deal, no matter the headaches it caused. The Hawks want their players, and others, to know that they will be treated well. You earn what you get with the Hawks, at least that’s the story.

They’re also terrified of paying anyone, with only some of that due to salary cap problems. The rest is poor decisions. Hartman was traded partially because he was coming out of his entry-level deal. Though that didn’t seem to scare the Predators, who just handed him a one-year deal because Hartman hasn’t really proven to be anything yet. Yet another thing the Hawks don’t like to do is play hardball with players, but the Preds didn’t mind taking advantage of Hartman’s zero leverage.

But it’s the same reason, or one of, that Teuvo Teravainen was moved along when he was. Same with Nick Leddy. Same with Panarin, from the contract the Hawks gave him. Brandon Saad before. This list goes on. When you’ve been burned by bad contracts before, you get itchy, even though you want everyone to know how much you love giving contracts to your players. It’s even worse when you’re not prepared to stare anyone down in negotiations, which as callous as it is is pretty necessary in a hard cap league.

Another theme around the Hartman trade was that the Hawks got a first-rounder back for him, along with Victor Ejdsell. Well, Ejdsell is yet to be here, and Hartman himself was a first-rounder taken around the same spot that the pick he netted was. The Hawks got Nicolas Beaudin out of it, and no one can safely say what he’ll be. What the Hawks did was simply kick that down the road a couple years. And yet they were telling you they wanted to compete this season for a playoff spot. Except they didn’t fill the spot Hartman occupied with anything productive or useful. It’s an empty spot right now. Hartman would be more productive in it than nothing. What about that says, “win now?” Because the prize appears to be Beaudin, that puts the return two years in the future, which sure seems like a rebuilding plan.

The third thing was about Joel Quenneville. The whispers after the trade was that Hartman was the most vocal about the problems Q had with the younger players on the roster. Hartman shuffled from wing to center and back, up and down the lineup and sometimes into the pressbox. And he was one of the first to claim he didn’t know why any of it was happening and the coach wasn’t telling him what he needed to do. So instead of letting that fester and spread, the Hawks moved him along.

And then a mere handful of games later, the Hawks fired Quenneville anyway. Partially because they felt he wasn’t getting anything near the most out of their young players, who were getting agitated about their ever-changing roles and little description of them. So…Hartman was right? Was it worth trading him for futures then?

If the front office had cooled on Q by then, why did he get to win on this player? Especially a player who was then moved along for what appears to be nothing more than a lottery ticket to be cashed in a couple years from now. Now the Hawks don’t have either.

Again, Hartman is not the player who swings the fortunes of this team one way or the other. He’s just an exhibit of the confusion and vacancies in the current Hawks ethos.

 

Game #27 Preview Suite

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Ocean Of Confusion

By Sam Fels 2241 0

Note: Yes, I realize I’m mixing my Screaming Trees references but just go with me on this, friend. 

Babies, I like to pretend I know everything. Or at least enough where I can convince you I know what’s up with the Hawks. But I have to say the last few days have left me as bewildered as when they started. My thoughts, and others, were summed up in the podcast (which hey, you can get right here!), but I want to expound on them a touch more.

As I said on that ‘cast (I can abbreviate it cuz I’m cool, yo), I like the trade even though I either don’t approve of the process that got them there, and that’s if I can even discern what that process was. So, much like Patron Saint Inigo Montoya, let’s go back to the beginning.

Let’s start with Stan Bowman’s quote to The Athletic’s Scott Powers during an interview in Florida from last week about the signings of Brandon Manning and Chris Kunitz:

“Part of your job as a manager is to try to work with your coach to try to give them players that can implement the way they want to play,” Bowman said. “So I think we did a good job of that over the years with Joel. When it was obvious players didn’t fit the way even though they were quote-unquote good players, if they weren’t going to work for us, we didn’t just sit on them. We would move them and try to find somebody.

“It’s sort of the same thing. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but they were players that had attributes that Joel thought was important for our team and was lacking. So we have a new coach now, trying to fit in their strengths, but also changing to play in a little bit different way. So it’s hard to make a full assessment on that. I’ll have to see how it all plays out in the next several months. Hopefully they can find a way to contribute with Jeremy as well.”

Let’s start before this. Now, this has only been a working theory of ours for a couple seasons now, but I feel it’s a strong one. And one we can probably back up if we need to, and we went over on the ‘cast (so cool). After the sweep by the Predators in ’17, it was pretty clear that Stan Bowman went to his superiors and told them if they wanted to extend the window of this team, or at least keep it relevant, he needed to have complete control of personnel decisions. It had to be his show. It wasn’t totally his before, and the push-and-pull between him and Q and Q’s soldiers in the front office is well documented.

We know, or have a strong suspicion at least, that Bowman got all of the reins because he booted two of Q’s favorites immediately in Niklas Hjalmarsson and Artemi Panarin. Make no mistake, it was Q’s not-total belief in Bradon Saad, and his allies in the front office, that got Saad traded the first time. The fact that Stan didn’t tell Q about these trades beforehand, and Q made a show of telling the media that, gives you some idea of what the new dynamic was. You could argue it was at this point that Q just checked out of the job mentally, which is definitely the story some of the Hawks players were pushing after the firing.

So let’s add to that it was pretty clear that Stan wanted to fire Q before this season even started. And that Jeremy Colliton was his guy. I think we know this because if you’re pulling that trigger after 15 games, and I’ve said this before, all you’re allowing the incumbent is the chance for EVERYTHING to go perfectly. It didn’t.

So let’s circle back to this quote. And it’s essentially, maybe only partially, Stan throwing the coach he didn’t want to work with anymore under whatever bus was closest. “Well, I signed these guys because they were the types I hated but Joel liked and look what that got us! See why I had to do what I did!”

But if you believe all this, and maybe you don’t, what essentially happened is Stan took some cap space to assuage a coach he didn’t want with players who didn’t really have any hope, but now the coach he did want is stuck with them. And the coach he did want doesn’t have the time to really implement the changes both of them would like to make, nor with a roster either is suited for.

And if you carry this out farther, rightly or wrongly, you get to some uncomfortable questions about Schmatlz’s untouchable status over the summer. Because Elliotte Friedman reported the Canes asked about him in talks over Justin Faulk. Did Stan say no because he really thought Schmaltz was a cornerstone? An opinion he lost just 25 games in? Or did he not make a move for Faulk unless it was complete theft because he thought, gasp, a player like that might improve the Hawks just enough that he couldn’t fire Quenneville? There’s no way to make that connection firmly, but can you totally dismiss it?

Looking forward, I don’t know what Jeremy Colliton is or will be. I will say I like the outside-the-box hire, because a major problem in hockey is the constant retreading at both coach and GM positions everywhere. Everything you hear from people in the know say that Colliton has a chance to be a really good coach.

But he doesn’t have much to work with, certainly on the blue line. He has entrenched veterans who can’t, or won’t, change their game to adjust for what they are. Or he has overmatched players. And one promising rookie who has to cover for above.

We know Colliton is Stan’s guy, because he got a multi-year deal. And I’m at least curious to see what Colliton could do with a real roster. Just curious. And maybe Stan thinks he’s going to be around for all of it.

But here’s the thing. Rocky and McD can bluster all they want about “remodels” and “believing in our guys” all they want. But let’s say December goes completely balls-up, and it so easily could. And the Hawks are done by The Winter Classic, 5-7 games under .500 and on a national stage where all their faults will be laid out for everyone to see.

And then in the spring, those season ticket renewals start not showing up. Or being declined, I guess. And they have to dig in deeper and deeper to that waiting list they used to love to tell you about. And more and more on that waiting list say either, “No thanks,” or “Who are you again?”

There isn’t anything else that would get Rocky and McD’s attention. They would notice that in a heartbeat. And that’s when trigger fingers get itchy (when McD is done bullying his lower level employees of course, because GENIUS). And then the Hawks bring in some crusty hockey man because it’s a name some fans might recognize and that’s the length of the research the Twin Towers Of Born On Third Organizational Method do. And he wants another crusty hockey man behind the bench.

And then it’s totally fucked, and Collition never gets a chance with the blue line that’s kind of been hand-picked for what we think his style will be.

I know I’ve mapped this out like the detective in V For Vendetta, so let’s eschew everything in the future for now.

What I can’t get past is a GM seemingly sandbagging his coach with players who suck to illustrate what the problems with that coach were. And another thing I can’t get past is that if Stan can’t help talking up Adam Boqvist, Ian Mitchell, and Nicolas Beaudin, then maybe it would have helped everyone to say what this year was instead of blathering about winning and playoffs. Because it’s more and more obvious next year is what they were targeting anyway (and quick, show me the last playoff team with at least two rookie d-men logging heavy minutes).

Would the fanbase have been more accepting of being honestly told what was going on? Maybe or maybe not. But it would be better than this.

Everything Else

It Has Worked! You’ve Given Everything Away!

By Sam Fels 3392 0

There are so many layers to this Nick Schmaltz trade. So let’s start on the surface. On the surface, or in a vacuum, or whatever arena you need to evaluate the trade simply on the players involved, it’s not a bad trade. If you go by the “Team That Gets Best Player Wins Trade” model, then the Coyotes probably win it. But they only win it because we don’t know what Dylan Strome is yet.

Strome has played 48 games in the NHL. In his first full season as a pro last year, he was a point per game in the AHL. Now, that doesn’t mean much, even at age 20 which Strome was. Recall Brandon Pirri leading that league in scoring once in his early 20s, and it didn’t get him anything other than the Mike Sillinger Train To Everywhere. Still, it means he’s probably not incompetent. Or has the potential to be not incompetent at the highest level.

The Coyotes clearly saw enough to declare the #3 pick overall just three years ago wasn’t for them. The knocks are clear. He’s not very quick. His skating doesn’t pop. And even at his size, 6-3 and 200 pounds, has been reluctant to assert himself physically. And maybe that’s being kind.

If I were you, I would also allow for the fact that Strome has played all his NHL games under Rick Tocchet, who has proven beyond a doubt that he’s a moron. It’s hard to think of any player in Arizona who has reached beyond what you thought he might be in the year and change under Tocchet. Clayton Keller? Whatever. We have no idea if Jeremy Colliton is any better, but right now I’ll take the hope he can clear a low bar than what I already know Tocchet to be. We basically have to cling to that.

It is not requisite to be fast to be good at center in this league, but it’s getting a harder and harder needle to thread. If Strome is going to get by on his vision and instincts and smarts, and everyone still agrees all of those are at a high-level, his learning curve is a lot longer. Which is fine for a team that has time and a fanbase that has patience. I’m not convinced either of those are true here.

Brandon Perlini has already proven to be a useful piece on a bottom six. He has 31 goals over the past two seasons, is big as well but more importantly skates really well. Right now you could plug him in over John Hayden, Chris Kunitz, Andreas Martinsen and that would be an improvement. Maybe even Dominik Kahun. The Hawks need more forwards who can do something, and Perlini can do something. Get Sikura up here and things are at least improved. And tell Chris Kunitz it’s time to retire.

The Hawks turned one useful forward into possibly two. And they need numbers.

We like Nick Schmaltz. Always have. But we thought it was curious that he was always being mentioned as something of a cornerstone. Nick Schmaltz maxes out as a #2 center. A right-handed Michael Nylander if everything goes right? Nylander spasmed a couple huge seasons as a Ranger, and maybe Schmaltz will have one or two as well. That’s a complimentary player, not a foundational one.

The knocks on Schmaltz are clear. This was the year he’s supposed to grab the brass ring. This is when he was supposed to play above a bridge contract. The Hawks wanted to give him that bridge-plus or more contract. They said so. And most players want to do big things in their free agent year. Most do those things. This is when the chips are actually down and you can rake them toward you.

Schmaltz went backward. He was moved to wing, rightly or wrongly. But there’s no getting around the amount of times he begged off any kind of physical battle. It was happening more and more. That’s how you want to go about seizing a big-time contract? That’s who you are when yo have the most to make?

Schmatlz’s pass-first mentality, to an extent, is acceptable because he has the ability to be a plus-playmaker. But this season, it had gotten to pathological. And he was passing out of spots that didn’t suggest pass-first, but a lack of instincts. I don’t know that ever gets fixed.

Schmaltz has the ability to be a good, not great, defensive center. But he isn’t. Every metric bares that out. Yes, he can steal pucks when he gets to sneak up on someone. But he was much more often overpowered down low, when he even bothered, and his positional sense was iffy. Again, I don’t know that gets fixed. Being a good defensive forward is at least half want-to. Schmaltz has proven to not have much of that.

It’s when you dig deeper on this trade that you get worried. Schmaltz was considered important enough to keep the Hawks’ cap space dry for his extension. And then it took 24 games to go from that to expendable? Either Stan Bowman knew this was a possibility and this quarter of a season just confirmed that, or he’s using an awfully small sample size. Neither is encouraging.

To be fair, the window to trade Schmaltz isn’t that big. You only have 40 more games or so before the deadline, and maybe he plays even worse and lowers his value even more. But if trading him was even a possibility, meaning the Hawks weren’t completely sold on him, what deals did they miss out on this summer when his value would have been higher? Either Stan Bowman was lying to you, or he can’t judge the talent on his team anymore. It’s like one of the final scenes in “The Rock.”  “So they know we’re bluffing? Oh great, so we’re incompetent.”

Schmaltz becomes the second “piece” mentioned this summer to make his way to the Valley Of The Sun. Vinnie Hinostroza was another who we were told after last season that Stan wanted to keep around and be the support system for one last push from the Core Five. Only Alex DeBrincat remains.

Which makes you skeptical about what the Hawks are really going to get from whom they’re pushing now. Adam Boqvist, Ian Mitchell, Nicholas Beaudin?. We’re already raising a people’s eyebrow about Sikura and Ejdsell, without giving up. But when was the last time the Hawks developed a real, genuine d-man. Nick Leddy? Jury’s is very much out on Henri Jokiharju.

On this roster now, other than the Core Five this regime had nothing to do with, the only player you build around that has come through the system is Top Cat. Anyone else who might have has been traded for various reasons, but without much in return. What makes you think any of this is going to change?

It appears more and more that here is no plan, and Stan is going to keep throwing things at the wall under his Core Five until something works. Which is usually the last act of a GM on his way out. You have to wonder how many more flings he’s got.

Everything Else

MIldewed And Smoldering, Fundamental Differing: A Timeline Of The Quenneville-Bowman Schism

By Sam Fels 3349 0

Whatever the Hawks say, it’s been an open secret to just about everyone in the league and those following the Hawks that Joel Qunneville and Stan Bowman didn’t see eye to eye. Everyone got past it because the Hawks were so successful. When that stopped, this is what you get. And their disagreements spilled everywhere. You didn’t have to have inside information to know this, because you could see how the team was deployed. I’m going to do this mostly from memory, but this is a rough outline of how things went that led to today.

2010-2011: There wasn’t much to be done here. The season before had gone so swimmingly, aside from Quenneville starting the season with John Madden as a Patrick Kane’s center. But that was Tallon’s signing, and it only last two or three games. So we move to this particular season, and after the roster was gutted due to the cap. And there wasn’t much Q could do when half or more of his team spend about seven minutes sober. Duncan Keith admitted he wasn’t totally focused during this season, and I guess if you wanted to you could pin it on Q to have run a tighter ship. But that would have been awfully tough.

If you want to look deeper, the immediate promotion of Nick Leddy to pair with Duncan Keith didn’t make a lot of sense. The acquisition of Michael Frolik was a tad confusing, as he was billed as a center, which came as news to him. Q tried him there but quickly moved him to wing, which is what he was and is. He bounced all over the lineup. Marcus Kruger came over at the end of the season, which is when “The Plan All Along” was born. This season went about as it should.

Oh wait, did I mention John Scott on the power play in the playoffs? Yeah, there was that.

2011-2012: This is where the real trouble starts. The year started with Q moving Patrick Kane to center. You could definitely argue that there were few other options, as this was when Patrick Sharp basically decided he didn’t want to play center anymore, Dave Bolland wasn’t cut out for it, and anyone else they tried was pants. This was the offseason that Stan brought it Andrew Brunette, Steve Montador, and Jamal Mayers. Montador started as a scratch and on the wing. Eventually Toews got hurt and Sharp and Kane basically had to play center, and it was better than you remember. Montador was never a fit and then had his devastating head injuries, which had fatal consequences. Andrew Shaw came up in the middle of the year. Niklas Hjalmarsson was a disaster. Johnny Oduya came in midseason, but he wasn’t much better, especially in the playoffs.

You’ll also recall it was in the spring of this season that Stan sent Barry Smith into practice and onto the staff to fix a dysfunctional power play (sounds familiar) which did not go over well. Nor should it, because this was as clear a nads-cutting as you can get.

It was the summer following this season that Q nearly either was fired and went to Montreal or just left for Montreal. The Hawks were bounced for the second straight year in the 1st round. In exit interviews, the players made it clear to Bowman that they wanted Mike Kitchen out, because they thought he was A. an idiot (he is) B. a mole for Q (possibly) or C. both. Stan wanted to fire Kitchen, but Q was going to take the fall for his guy. Eventually, McDonough came down and made it clear what the lines o the authority where. He hired the GM, the GM hired the coach, the coach hired his assistants. In a “fuck you” to the players, Q fired their guy Mike Haviland and replaced him with his guy, a for-certain moron Jamie Kompon.

2013: And these problems could have really fissured if every single Hawk didn’t have a career year in the lockout season-in-a-can. But they did. The only mark you could find was it taking Daniel Carcillo to blow his knee out again to get Brandon Saad into the lineup, but once he was there he never came out.

Sure, Michal Handzus was over-promoted, but he actually did play pretty well that spring. Bickell had the playoff run that got him that contract. Whatever issues the coach and GM had were washed away in confetti.

2013-2014: Again, there are only little things here. Starting a tradition, a failing tradition mind, of bringing former players back, Kris Versteeg was re-acquired in November. Andrew Shaw and Handzus bounced between taking the #2 center role, because Brandon Pirri never grabbed it even though Stan made it clear he wanted him to. This was also the first season that Brent Seabrook was pretty damn bloated. It was the season that ended when Q tried to steal an overtime shift with Handzus, Bollig, and Versteeg on an offensive zone draw after an icing in overtime. You know the rest.

2014-2015: Brad Richards was signed to finally anchor the #2 center role that had been in darkness for years. But it took ten games or more to get him there because Q insisted on putting Shaw there. Everything went just about swimmingly until Patrick Kane got hurt and missed the last six weeks. Teuvo Teravainen was called up for good in his absence. He bounces between center and wing and various lines. Antoine Vermette was acquired, and he had the same fate. Kimmo Timonen was actually dead. This was the spring that Q scratched Teuvo and Vermette in Game 3 against Anaheim. They went on to score four of the biggest goals the rest of the way to win a Cup.

2015-2016: It was basically over after this. Brandon Saad was traded because he got expensive and the coach was never sold, and this was the height of Q getting personnel say. Johnny Oduya left and proceeded to age 80 years. Kane and Panarin dragged the Hawks to a playoff spot but Toews was starting his decline and the defense never found anyone to replace Oduya. It was the full TVR Experience. Fleischmann and Weise were acquired at the deadline at the cost of Phillip Danault, and both were scratches before the season was out. Hawks bounced in first round.

2016-2017: Hawks finish first but are gassed by the time the playoffs roll around and a terrible matchup with Nashville. Defense is still thin and slowing, and Oduya’s reacquisition didn’t come close to helping with that. Hjalmarsson can’t keep up with the Preds. Toews is still nowhere and is eaten alive by Ryan Johansen (you’ll be shocked to hear Johansen was playing for a contract then). Schmaltz, Hartman, Forsling, and other kids can’t seem to find a home in the lineup.

And of course this led to the trade of Hjalmarsson right from under Q’s nose, as well as Panarin. This was the organization giving control back to Bowman, which is where the trail to today basically really gets going.